Three episodes dealing with dreams, with two excellent forays into Zone-ishness and one clunker. Also on the disc are special hidden zones that contain the isolated music score for each program and a few of the show's original ads.

"A Stop at Willoughby"
"A Stop at Willoughby" is Rod Serling in top form, using one of his favorite themes of escaping to a simpler time. James Daly is a businessman frazzled to the breaking point by an insensitive, demanding wife and a blubbery plutocrat of a boss who importunes him to "Push! Push! Push!" On the train ride home, he begins to dream of an idyllic town called Willoughby, not on the map or train schedule, but perhaps more than just the stuff of imaginings. Ah, Willoughby! Still relevant after all these years.

"Twenty-Two"
"Twenty-Two" is one of the show's six episodes shot on videotape, but still achieves a rare degree of eeriness due to its strong concept and acting. Barbara Nichols stars as a stripper who's checked into a hospital with nervous exhaustion, where she begins having precognitive dreams about deadly doings in the hospital's basement, an exotic nurse leading her there with the foreboding phrase, "Room for one more, honey."

Five stars for "stop at willoughby" and "twenty - two"

Although I think that the first installment on this dvd is an absolutely fabulous episode, "twenty-two" is without a doubt my all time favorite episode of twilight zone. The line "room for one more, honey" has become a family catch phrase. This episode really achieves that eerie quality and the suspense that you come to enjoy from the better examples of the twilight zone, rivaled only by such episodes as "the after hours" and "to serve man". And the repetitive actions that the stripper goes through still don't prepare you for the final amazing twist at the end. I recommend that everyone see this, or you're not a real TZ fan!

Five stars for Willoughby alone

Maybe it's because I AM in the advertising business. Maybe it's because I'm a nostalgic romantic who yearns for the "simpler days" of a hundred years ago (which is why I enjoyed Jack Finney's "Time and Again" novel so much). Maybe it's just because I enjoy Rod Serling's writing so much.

Don't know. All I know is that "A Stop at Willoughby" is one of my all-time three favorite TZ episodes ("Time Enough at Last" and "Walking Distance" being the other two).

Sharing a theme similar to "Walking Distance" (another episode about a burned out advertising executive who gets to step back in time), "A Stop at Willoughby" is the story of a harried, "average" man caught up in a lifestyle that pushes him to ulcers and dreams of days gone by. While on board a train returning home one evening, he dozes off only to be awakened by the conductor calling out the stop -- "Willoughby" -- a place not even found on the map. Of course, it's summer in Willoughby. And the townspeople are happy, slow-paced and friendly...a life the ulcerated ad-man wishes he could step into.

Of course, he does. And there's a typical TZ twist at the end.

I bought this DVD just for "A Stop at Willoughby." And it's a good thing, too. Althought the episode "Twenty-Two" is interesting (especially watching Lost in Space's Jonathan Harris in the role of a doctor), it's not even close to Willoughby's finesse.

The third episode -- "I Dream of Genie" -- is interesting only because Andy Griffth Show's Howard Morris stars. Other than that, it's nothing worth remembering.

If you're a middle-aged advertising executive, you need to see "A Stop at Willoughby." Or, then again, maybe not. That first step is a doozy.

The classic "A Stop at Willoughby" and two lesser Zones

People unhappy with their lives look for something better in the three episodes on Volume 34 of "The Twilight Zone" DVD series. First up is Rod Serling's wistful story, "A Stop at Willoughby." James Daly plays ad exuctive Gart Williams, who loses an important account. Riding the train home he has a dream of a restful little town called Willoughby. Williams believes that Willoughby is where he really belongs, but his wife ridicules the idea, forcing him to go back to the job he hates. This is Serling at his lyrical best. "Twenty-Two," was also written by Serling, based on an anecdote in Bennett Cerf's "Famous Ghost Stories." Barbara Nichols plays Liz Powell, a professional dancer who has recurring nightmares that make her associate the number 22 with death. Again, everybody she tells this to thinks she is crazy. This is a below average episode of the Zone. Finally, we have "I Dream of Genie," written by John Furia, Jr. Howard Morris plays bookkeeper George P. Hanley, who buys a tarnished Arabian lamp for Ann (Patricia Barry), the attractive secretary at his office. Too embarrassed to give it to her, he takes the lamp home, rubs it up and a genie appears! The deal, the genie informs George, is that he gets just ONE wish. But every thing George comes up with is not going to give him the happiness he wants. A great idea, especially given all the stories we have scene where the genie's wishes are traps, but the execution suffers somewhat, especially since it gets stretched out to an hour long episode. So what we end up with on this episode is one Twilight Zone classic and a couple of sub-par excursions.