Ordinarily if I received notice that I only had two weeks to watch 145 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, I would panic even if each episode is roughly 25 minutes long. To meet the deadline, a viewer would have to watch around eleven episodes daily, which is almost five hours of television a day, an unrealistic amount of television if you have a day job, need to commute and do anything other than watch television like go to the supermarket, pharmacy, etc. When Hulu decided to notify customers that it was pulling the series, it was during a global pandemic, which not only made such a rigorous viewing schedule plausible, but a welcome escape from constant news coverage of NORAD tracking precisely where the Angel of Death was at each moment. Even in the middle a global pandemic, it was a daunting viewing challenge that tested my powers of concentration, stamina and vision (literally).
For those of you unfamiliar with Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Alfred Hitchcock hosted an anthology crime series—imagine The Twilight Zone with Rod Serling as the host with similar twists, but mostly without any supernatural or sci fi expectations, more like a twisted Gift of the Magi. He did not direct most of the episodes, but his iconic status reached beyond his work behind the camera, and he was a star in his own right. The actual series consisted of two hundred sixty eight episodes, and the way that Hulu classified it was completely different from IMDb. According to Hulu, it had the first four seasons with the exception of Season 1 Episode 17, which was apparently about Lizzie Borden (darn), Season 3 Episodes 28, 33 and 35 and Season 4 Episode 1, 3 and thirty two, but when I compared Hulu’s offerings with IMDB’s episode list, Hulu actually went up to Season 5 Episode 3. The completist in me is twitchy knowing that there probably is not a way to see every episode, but the realist in me is grateful that unknown forces saved me from myself because I really would have watched every single episode regardless of quality. I’m basically the duck that you make foie gras out of except I’m force feeding myself. I am basically reeling from this experience as if I was leaving a buffet. I probably should have stopped sooner. It was a strain on my body, and I should have taken things slower because I was stuffing myself and probably was not truly savoring the great episodes and should have refrained from tasting every dish. Overall I had a good time.
Would I recommend that you embark on such a fool hardy mission of watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents? I would if you enjoy the old school acting style, which is less naturalistic than you are probably used to if you watch contemporary actors, but one of my all time joys. Someone who is not a fan would call it overacting, but I love classic Hollywood acting and a lot of the same players make repeat appearances so it is fun to see them play different roles such as Phyllis Thaxter, Robert Horton, Russell Collins and Hurd Hatfield to name a few. Occasionally actors such as Claude Rains, Bette Davis, Jack Klugman, William Shatner, Joseph Cotton, Jessica Tandy, Dick York, Roger Moore or Vincent Price decide to slum it (at the time, it was probably a gem of a job) and make special guest appearances.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents stories vary widely in quality. When they are bad, they are really bad, and a child could poke holes in the logic of many of the stories or predict the twists from a mile away. Still since I have a predisposed fondness for M. Night Shyamalan (not Glass) movies, I still had a good time. Because there is not a lot of time to develop a story, the characters inexplicably deliver extensive prose as if they were a James Bond villain, which I don’t mind, but is odd. It did get tedious when most of the stories ended up using murder as the central bad act. Other stories would be about insurance fraud or theft, but the series made it seem as if the instinctual default response to any problem was kill, pussycat, kill. The majority of the series’ episodes adhered to the moral that crime would always be punished, but it was a little disturbing when it was clear that the series was secretly amused and rooting for the murderer if that person was elderly, a woman or eccentric, or that the victim had it coming, especially if it was a woman, for dancing on a table. The idea of juvenile delinquency was ridiculous and usually depicted grown men spilling water on someone or messing with a hat. I preferred less sensational twists such as the evil plumber, the auditioning actor or the magician stalker. I can forgive and will willingly sign a waiver on all the aforementioned quibbles, but I do want to go back in time and chastise the people who permitted episodes that strayed from the realistic, earthy premise and started diverging into The Outer Limits’ or The Twilight Zone’s territory with depictions of heaven, ghosts, reanimated corpses, psychics or androids. Still even straying into others’ territory is preferable to a three-episode arc that completely violated the spirit of anthology and worse was not even good—I Killed the Count, which consisted of three episodes.
I am torn about suggesting the best way to watch Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I do think that it is best to give it your complete attention if you plan to savor it and watch one episode at a time, but because of the varying quality, such devotion could be a soporific or make you hate the series. It works as a multitasking, background viewing experience though plan to rewind and give certain episodes your complete attention because so many era specific moments or ways of constructing a narrative may leave you confused if you are not giving it your undivided attention. It is easy to lose the thread of some stories when the point is to give an actor a random soliloquy that actually is not the point of the story, but is a pleasure to watch nevertheless because the viewer gets a chance to see the actor stunt on these fools. Chew that scenery, honey! As with all things, if you decide to embark on this journey, you will have to find your own balance, but it is a shame to miss some really great (think Jon Lovitz) ACTING if you are not watching and only treating the series as if it was a radio program.
It was probably premature to write a review for Alfred Hitchcock Presents considering that once we are permitted to touch our faces in public, I will be able to borrow up to IMDB’s version of Season 5 from the library and catch all the episodes that I missed, not including Season 6 and 7 (shakes fist impotently at copyright powers that be for their random withholding of classics). Whyyyyyyyyyy? I cannot wait to resume my viewing journey.