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Posted: 12:32:55 on September 24 2002
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: General Genre/SciFi

Speaking with Prevuew Magazine, former DEEP SPACE NINE executive producer Ira Steven Behr talks with series creator Pen Densham about the labors of writing two original stores for each episode of UPN's new ENTERPRISE companion, the revived TWILIGHT ZONE. The show currently has a thirteen episode committment from UPN, which means 26-hour hour segments that have be produced.

"We only have 21 minutes to tell these stories -- a lot less time than the original series -- which had 26 or 27 minutes in length," Behr explains. "We try to turn it into a virtue. Nothing can be wasted. There are no scenes that can be filler scenes or connect the dot scenes. Every line is precious. Creatively, it’s kind of exciting. There’s no pausing for breath, because we have to make each line count."

The short scripts have attracted several star-level performers, including Jason Alexander. Behr says it's all in the writing.

"I do think the scripts are what have attracted some of the talent we have," Behr explains. "When I sent a script to Jason Alexander, Jason was about to start a TV movie in Toronto. He said, 'Look, I’ll do it for you, but I don’t think I can do one now.' I asked him to read the script and to let me know. He called me up and said, 'You S.O.B., I’ve got to do this one!' Lukas Haas really was into his episode because he’s really into music. They don’t have to do these shows, they want to. It’s a short commitment. They’re up there for four or five days. And they get to play something they wouldn’t ordinarily get to play. Hopefully, if the show does have legs it will build. Both Jason and Lukas have said that they will tell all their actor friends that it’s a blast doing a Twilight Zone."

Densham says the opening night numbers for the series were good but a pick-up for the new series is not yet imminent.

"We heard that our debut numbers were considered good by UPN, but we don’t know if we will get a pick-up or not," Densham told the mag.

He also talked about special effects used in the series, noting that the same company--Stargate--who produces VFX for Michael Piller's hit USA series THE DEAD ZONE is working on TWZ.

"Our goal for the show is that whenever possible the special effects should be almost invisible," he says. "They should look so real within the landscape of the character’s world that they don’t particularly call attention to themselves. We’re not a hardware show. We don’t want to see the effects on the screen for the sake of being there."

Behr uniquely describes TWILIGHT ZONE as outside the realm of science fiction, saying, "One of the directors, when we were discussing this said, 'I get it. Each episode is a dream of loneliness'," he recalls. "I thought that was really well put. In each episode, usually one character goes into the Twilight Zone and has this very profound, very strange experience. And it is like a dream of loneliness. It does free us from the constraints of science fiction. We really get to explore the mind with a kind of supernatural quality that frees us from having to spend a lot of time justifying it."

Check out the full, extensive interview here.

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