Perhaps the most subversive change lay in the series's really sneaky treatment of wrong-doers. Yet that's exactly what the Hitchcock half-hours did. Who could suspect that what followed such a slow-talking Humpty-Dumpty would subtly undermine some of TV's most entrenched conventions. That's probably because each episode was introduced by a funny-looking fat guy with a British accent, who came out to crack a few bad jokes and abuse the sponsors. Instead, in true stealthy fashion, it snuck past the guardians of Good Taste and Morality, otherwise known as the department of Standards and Practices.
#Alfred hitchhock series#
However, the other ground-breaking series did not attack frontally. It was, and remains, a classic appreciated by young and old alike.
The Twilight Zone, at decade's end, attacked frontally with huge doses of imagination and exotic story-lines that often overwhelmed viewers, thereby opening American living-rooms to the expanding world of unthought-of possibilities. Two series, however, did come along to challenge convention. After all, no matter how good some of the episodes, bringing law and order to the Old West or following the humorous escapades of a zany housewife were not exactly novel concepts in TV programming. However the governing concepts were unadventurous at best, or just plain dull, at worst. Or that the early I Love Lucy did not have its hilarious moments. That's not to say that certain series, such as the early Gunsmoke, were not daring and edgy in their own way. 1950's television was pretty bland by almost any yardstick.
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