Among the many DVDs being released today is Suspense – The Lost Episodes, Collection 3. Included are thirty additional episodes from the anthology series that was broadcast from 1949-1954 on CBS.
According to a press release issued by Infinity Entertainment Group/Falcon Picture Group (you can read it here courtesy of TVShowsOnDVD.com) these episodes have not been “seen since they first aired live on TV” and they have been “digitally remastered from the original Kinescope masters.” Two previous collections were released in July and October of 2007. Four of the episodes included in the set were originally broadcast in 1949. Another episode (“Nightmare at Ground Zero”) was written by Rod Serling. Among the actors and actresses featured in the episodes are Jayne Meadows, George Reeves, Eddie Albert Walter Matthau, Lloyd Bridges and more.
Also from Infinity Entertainment Group/Falcon Picture Group is Sergeant Preston of the Yukon: Complete Season 1. Again, the press release notes that the episodes have been “digitally remastered for unparalleled picture and audio quality.” The series, which ran for three seasons, has been released before.
Wasn’t there a filmed version of “Suspense” years later?
I had heard that thirteen episodes were filmed in the fall of 1959, intended to air on CBS-TV as a mid-season replacement beginning in January of 1960.
The story I heard was that newly-hired CBS programming chief Jim Aubrey cancelled the new “Suspense” after thirteen episodes had been shot, buy before any of them aired, and that the shows sat in the CBS vaults for four and a half years before finally airing as a summer replacement in 1964.
When these shows finally did air, actor Sebastian Cabot served as narrator. But I heard an urban legend that Paul Douglas was the original narrator for these shows, but since he had died in the intervening years, a new narrator had to be found, hence, Cabot got the gig.