Ray Bradbury sprinkles in tributes to those he admires throughout The Ray Bradbury Theater. The Long Years airs some 30+ years after Rod Serling's poignant tale The Lonely, a tale of a prisoner (the great talent Jack Warden) "jailed" alone on an asteroid, with only a very brief supply ship crew that comes a few times a year as human contact. Bradbury even names the lead female "Cora", in The Long Years, just like The Lonely. The stories differ in most every other respect. (Trying hard not to contain a spoiler) Two tales of man's primal need for human company. I wish The Ray Bradbury Theater had remained with Home Box Office, it's original home. They seemed to value the strength of the actor to bring the story to life above expensive sets. Bradbury's tales simply don't need them. The show bounced around a good bit, even having Granada (a very fine production company who did the entire fantastic Jeremy Brett led Sherlock Holmes series) for a time as one of the producers. Each transition in sponsor seemed to place the value of the story as a distant second to fancier sets. They are all well worth watching all the same!! At least every episode remained a Bradbury story, unlike The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (it too is still worthy of watching). As we approach leaving Earth to live on other planets in reality, these early science fiction writers genius truly do serve as cautionary tales to be taken, and planned for, seriously.
Review of The Long Years
