Review of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955)
Review applies to the first season.
Crime anthology. Alfred Hitchcock spends a minute on screen before and after a new “teleplay” each week, performing a morbid and dignified skit of some kind. The stories themselves, not usually tied to Hitchcock, are normally about criminals, frequently with a twist end and film noir-ish ironies, but there is some SFF subject matter as well. Whenever the protagonist seems to get away with murder, Hitchcock explains afterwards that he or she was caught under very improbable circumstances, thus fulfilling the minimum requirements of Code self-censorship. He also makes fun of the sponsor at every opportunity, for mutual benefit, and hilariously preempts psychoanalytical interpretation in one episode.
A marketing vehicle, and surprisingly hip in terms of marketing concepts, with a few good stories. Hitchcock did not write his own material.