The Obsolete Man

By: Rod Serling

Narrated by: Stacy Keach, Jason Alexander

Length: 40 mins

Publisher's Summary

Experience one of television’s greatest science-fiction series, The Twilight Zone - fully dramatized for audio! Featuring a full cast, music and sound effects, and today’s biggest celebrities in modern radio dramatizations.

In a future state where religion and books have been banned, a librarian is judged obsolete by the Chancellor and sentenced to the execution of his choice.

©2002 CBS and Falcon Picture Group (P)2002 CBS and Falcon Picture Group

Fantastic timeless story...

... and a more than tolerable performance from Jason Alexander. I've heard him in other T Z episodes, and was less than impressed by his voice acting. Here he does a good job as the quiet librarian.

But the star here is the story. Oh man, oh man is it great. Never saw the TV episode so I listened to this without any "spoiler knowledge". One of my favorite episodes.

Jason Alexander is the new Burgess

What did you love best about The Obsolete Man?

Jason Alexander's performance was just amazing. He channeled Burgess Meredith so perfectly. Whoever played the Chancellor did great, too.

What did you like best about this story?

The premise of such a society and how one can stand up to it, even in an utter hopeless situation. Classic Zone.

Which scene was your favorite?

*Spoilers for an over 50 year old story* When Romney traps the Chancellor in his room.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

So many of the Zone radio dramas are hit or miss, (and I've been listening to mostly misses - if you like the original episode of The Little People - DON'T get the radio drama! ) and this was a definite hit with the amazing performance.

Any additional comments?

Like all of the Zone radio dramas I've listened to so far, this one has a few problems in the adaptation.

There is a completely superfluous scene of the cameras getting installed in Romney's room that was only a throw away line of dialogue in the original that did not need to be played out. It was padding for time at its most obvious.

Also, I think it was meant to get new listeners familiar with the world of this story, but in the beginning, Romney acts like he's never heard of the State's doctrines until he was called in that day. While that's fine for getting people unfamiliar with the story up to speed, it feels very out of character or just illogical, in that there's no way Romney could've been living here all this time and not know any of this.

Good but missing some important a parts.

I have been a fan of tge Twilight Zone since it started on TV. Most of the radio shows follow the old stories very well but this one misses a VERY important part when the Chancellor is in the room with Mr Wadsworth where the Chancellor says they, meaning the State, won't just let him be killed. In the TV show this was a very big part of the story. Still the actors on this version did very good and I liked the added material at the beginning.