You unlock this post with a subscription to my WordPress, and I guess the key of imagination too, sure, why not. Beyond it is a dimension of historical context, a dimension of words on a page, uh, a dimension of images (just one), and… that’s about it for dimensions. You’re moving into a land of both hot takes and ranking lists. You’ve just crossed over into… Winslowisms.
The Twilight Zone is an all-time great TV show, and I would encourage anyone who’s curious to check it out with haste. For those not familiar, allow me a bit of preamble. Its genesis was the infancy stage of television, where the bulk of programming was live variety acts and stage plays adapted for broadcast. The notable genre lanes at this time were crime mysteries, everyday drama/romance, westerns and other period pieces, or contemporary slapstick comedy. It was exclusively seen as a moneymaking business in those days, with even new scripted fare shaped into homogenous mass-production slop, as almost an afterthought to the advertising content. (How far we’ve come! Hahaha..ha…..haa.)
Due to the ever-increasing popularity and availability of television sets by the late 50s, a marketing niche became evident for something different and more boutique. Now, mind you, there were smash-hit highlights such as I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners advancing the artform in other ways during this period, but those hewed to already established story formulas with mainstream appeal. This environment was where showrunner Rod Serling’s imagination would break through to the public, combining the unpredictable premises of variety programming, the stuffy yet refined melodrama of televised theater, and his love of then-disreputable and unheralded literary genres.
Thus, the anthology series was born, as each week offered a completely different and discrete original pre-filmed story. Okay, that’s a bit of an oversimplification– even at the time, shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents were sharing some of the credit for this narrative novelty. But Serling played a huge role in introducing science fiction, magical realism, and horror to the medium of television. And while the anthology show has of late gotten a second wind with direct descendants like Black Mirror, TZ was equally important as a tentative stepping stone toward the modern standard of fully serialized storytelling.
Rod Serling is one of the most significant American writers of all time for these and other reasons. He started in the field working on the aforementioned broadcast plays and revues, getting a foot in the door to write some heralded scripts of his own, then using his accolades to sell a pitch concept, which would get picked up for airtime and become his crowning achievement. (Coincidentally, that pilot was made in conjunction with Lucy and Desi Arnaz’s post-I Love Lucy production house.) Utilizing his industry clout and the blank slate of a weekly format, Serling fought tooth and nail for full control of the show and its creative integrity (unheard of at the time), as well as gathering a crack team of other writers who were willing to experiment. This enterprise attracted all kinds of notorious acting talent, to the point where even today’s viewers will recognize plenty of famous folks giving solid performances.
Not to downplay Rod’s own involvement! The man himself wrote over *half* of the show’s 157 episodes – a staggering amount of effort, applied though it was to an endeavor he later estimated to be 1/3 great, 1/3 okay, and 1/3 terrible. (I basically agree with the episodic ratios of that attributed quote, and appreciate his self-effacing honesty. TV is a tough business that precludes perfection, and this program still gets by on the strength of its best entries!)
After the ending of this cultural touchstone, Serling continued writing for television to diminishing returns, although the relevance and reverence he’d earned got him a lifetime pass regardless. In 1970 he managed to greenlight an ersatz Zone clone called Night Gallery, which he had relatively less power over and involvement with (despite writing a good third of its episodes in some capacity). That series is remembered somewhat fondly, albeit not as much as the first breakthrough. One of his feature-length scripts became the alternate history sci-fi classic Planet of the Apes, but he was unable to capitalize on the success of either venture, as he died tragically young in 1975.
And yet, over a century after his birth, Rod’s legacy lives on. Beyond the inestimable influence of its narrative twists and formal experimentation, the Twilight Zone brand became a cottage industry in Hollywood after the original run, as successors tried their hand at reboots every couple decades. Besides some interesting concepts and detours, however, none were as beloved or successful as the original. Then there was the ultra-cursed, controversial 1983 movie adaptation, wherein then-admired director John Landis’ negligence on set caused the horrible and heavily publicized deaths of three actors. That calamity outlasted any impact the film may have had, featuring though it did segments filmed by Steven Spielberg, George Miller, and Joe Dante.
All that aside, in this space, I want to focus on the flagship series as a complete project. It was a decently popular show while airing, but never quite became the sizable hit the studio was expecting, though it was a big awards player. After three seasons, it was unofficially canceled by the network, then brought back suddenly to fill a scheduling hole in the broadcast year (more on that later). After some further changeups and pleading, it went back to its usual slot for a fifth and final batch of episodes, by the end of which it was clear its best work and biggest impact was behind it. An exhausted Serling realized as much and accepted the ending of his pet project.
Culturally, the Twilight Zone’s airdates accompanied America during a transitional period from the relatively serene and stable summer of 1959 through to an increasingly revolutionary and unpredictable fall of 1964, just in time for a huge leap in cinema with the French New Wave and the youthful musical rebellion of the Beatles. Television was forever changed by TZ, plus the harder sci-fi anthological sister show The Outer Limits following in its wake, and the surreal weekly mystery The Prisoner blazing its own trail in England a few years later.
A somewhat unsung angle of TZ’s ingenuity was in the technical presentation. Even though it was often angling for more attention and stretching its budget, the directorial acumen, special effects, and production design were terrific by the standards of the day. A longer look into the audiovisual crew reveals such respected names as Richard Donner, Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith, Ida Lupino, and Buzz Kulik.
Ultimately, however, the head honcho is indelibly tied to the program, and for good reason. Serling’s writing style is famously florid and lyrical, but at his best it comes across as intelligent and poignant. Despite the downside of puffed-up purple proselytizing, he was cautious in deploying ostentatious monologues, saving them for dramatic effect or expository expedience. From the start of his career, he had a fascination with human psychology and allegorical situations, which had served him well in previous productions.
Though the Twilight Zone was his baby through and through (to the extent that he prominently introduces each story in person with opening narration), it’s worth examining the whole writing team, since they were also candidates for a television Hall of Fame. Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, and George Clayton Johnson had all come from the world of literature, each one a notable figure in the sci-fi and speculative fiction genres. These three were part of a cohort of authors-turned-TV scribes that gave the nascent medium some legitimacy around this period. All would contribute to other related anthological programs as freelancers after TZ, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the Outer Limits, Star Trek (the original series), and even later Zone reboots. Additionally, in the cinema world, Johnson wrote Logan’s Run and the old-school Ocean’s Eleven, while Matheson penned I Am Legend, Duel, and What Dreams May Come.
The three of them are clearly talented, maintaining imaginative and consistent work, with stories sometimes even adapted from their own literary catalogues. Although their respective voices don’t stick out in this context as much as Rod’s, most likely they tried to match their own tones and tempos to the show’s house style, and did so quite well. Rounding out the crew in later seasons when the writers’ room was exhausted and low on inspiration was future Waltons showrunner Earl Hamner Jr., whose efforts tended toward the schmaltzy and whimsical, yet this was an important jumping-off point for his larger career.
In conjunction with Serling’s mind-boggling sum of credits, these five men were responsible in some fashion for all but fifteen scripts of the Twilight Zone. And while the remains are a motley bunch tossed together through freelancing or last-minute rights deals, a few of those shine through as classics, nevertheless. One is even authored by Ray Bradbury, another legendary novelist who dabbled in television. (A different off-format entry is an award-winning short film they straight-up bought the right to broadcast when running low on workable material.)
Though this program has large disparities in story and quality, there are still some recurring themes, ideas, and tropes herein. The Twilight Zone’s central predilections include:
-the dangers of social prejudice and ego, with a bone-deep sense of moral responsibility (count the number of times a flawed or unlikable protagonist is ironically punished by the whims of the universe);
-a fierce anti-authoritarian and humanistic pacifist streak after the horrors of World War II (about which conflict there are many eps, perhaps inspired by Rod’s extensive military experience);
-more psychological depth to characters and premises than had previously been explored on television, with an unusual amount of sympathy and perspective lent even to villains and secondary characters;
-a baseline of intersectional progressivism so radical for its era, the politics and messaging still hold up a good chunk of the time;
-a creative and topical evolution beyond the 50s TV mainstays of mysteries and Westerns (though it has its share of those too), as some entries arguably became the popular introduction of now-common fantasy premises;
-a romanticized fascination with the then-burgeoning space race and what lies beyond Earth;
-a frequent nostalgia for the comforts and predictability of old-timey small-town America, even as Serling railed against cloistered thinking and homogeneity;
-and at times, a sense of slapstick humor alternating with maudlin sentimentality (unfortunately, these entries generally fare poorly, and don’t suit the series’ strengths of paranoid, poetic forewarning).
Speaking of caveats, let’s face it: this is an antiquated show in some respects. There are musty old idioms (take a drink each time someone says “How’s that?” or “What’s the gag?”), some rigid gender roles, the effects and designs haven’t always aged well, and the biggest aesthetic hurdle in 2024 would be that it’s in black and white. I can say from experience that one gets used to the latter, and the amount of visual flair and great performances make up for the sluggish drabness that modern audiences may associate with that restriction.
Viewers may also warm up to some other unavoidable era-specific quirks, perhaps even finding them charming and transportive the way I did. In this case, the surprise of new and uncharted territory every time can ameliorate a different dramatic presentation than we are used to. By the same token, though its quality is uneven, the crapshoot of it all means it’s easy to get excited for what may come next. Whatever aesthetic lapses there were, be they dodgy plotting or stagey tics, I found my imagination filling in the gaps to a certain extent. In much the same way how they say the scariest things are what you conjure in your own imagination, without meaning to sound damning, some of the series’ limitations can paradoxically enhance the power of the stories.
That said, for a 65-year-old artifact, plenty of TZ still holds up to scrutiny. The standout entries do have a sense of daring, stylishness and narrative momentum that roughly corresponds to today’s programming. Over the course of the series, audiences felt its influence to such a degree that the creative team sometimes expanded on premises in more effortless and ambitious ways. Less bold episodes may hand-hold with exposition, stall the plot out of formulaic stodginess, or hamstring protagonists with bullheaded resistance of the story, but there are many which thankfully avoid those tropes.
As previously mentioned, Serling’s wordsmithing is memorable and unique, and there are lots of famous mid-century actors to be found here, in a similar vein to the X-Files (a semi-anthological show that was influenced by this series). The score is moody at times, and stirring at others without being overbearing, and the direction is minimalist yet effective, an inherited trait from its stagey origins. (Not to mention the beyond-iconic theme song and title sequence!) Now and then, they had the resources for impressive sets or lavish location shooting, and those instances come off quite nicely. The Twilight Zone is good enough that it doesn’t need any handicaps for enjoyment, but it is remarkable that for all the material that holds up, in many cases the creative team was only just figuring out how all this worked, standardizing the industry practices and technical setups we take for granted now.
The true elephant in the room is the show’s most enduring legacy, as well as its curse: twist endings. Centering on these ironic reversals and surreal revelations became TZ’s calling card to a larger extent than almost any other creative work of the 20th century. As such, the reverberations and outright copying of these reveals has become part of our cultural DNA, meaning that an average viewer may very well guess or already know where some of the tales wind up. However, I would put it to you that that isn’t as big of a turn-off as you’d think.
A brief digression – over the years, I have taken the stance on spoilers that, while perhaps it’s not absolutely ideal to know them beforehand, it’s also not disastrous or anything. It’s impossible to completely avoid all spoilers these days, and finding a cool synopsis could potentially incite interest in watching or reading something one might have otherwise skipped over. Most importantly, knowing some things about a work beforehand doesn’t necessarily ruin the experience. Why is that? Without full context and emotional investment, merely having the facts or circumstances of a plot surprise doesn’t have the same power as seeing it in real time.
In my experience, reading ahead on far too many shows only to watch through them later, more often than not things unfolded far differently than I had anticipated in my mind’s eye. Cultural osmosis isn’t a perfect reflection: there were plenty of times I had misunderstood what I heard through the grapevine or made my own false assumptions about how events came to pass, and my wrongness made the twists surprising again regarding what really occurred. In some cases where I had foreknowledge, I had forgotten or failed to put together things I had surely once been aware of, which made those developments seem like new. So the degree and specifics of spoilage may not change the experience all that much. Story is so multivalent that the “what” of something doesn’t take into account the who, the when, the how, etc., and that’s true of any such formulation of those variables. Only when the picture is complete and in sequence could the twist be said to take full effect.
In fact, to the contrary, knowing the thematic thrusts or other things external to the narrative of a work has at times turned me off or made me feel “spoiled” just as much as knowing the mere sequence of events, so the plot isn’t the only thing at play here. All the above could apply to premises, character motivation, or any action beats. After all, a twist is ultimately one small data point in a tangled web of story progression; there’s plenty more to explore, much of it equally exciting. There could even be other reveals! Really, all I want to convey with this tangent is that one shouldn’t write something off or be disappointed just because they learned something about it ahead of time. Especially in the case of the Twilight Zone, because it’s holistically great, even as many of its vaunted last-minute reversals are famous. Which, to my point, only proves their timeless strength, as lots of them are impactful even if you already know them. That’s good storytelling!
Alright then: after all that table setting, let’s get down to specifics, shall we? Here are my subjective findings about the series. Season 1 gets the advantage as the best outing for its sheer novelty, primacy, and influence. The show finds its voice remarkably quickly, making several all-timers the first go around. It slows down a bit toward the end, which is no great sin considering the enormous 36-episode seasons the creative team made. Only a few clunkers mar this otherwise astonishing first act.
Season 2 struggles to distinguish itself and experiment as compared to the debut’s burst of energy, with evident budgetary and creative restrictions and a smaller number of entries, but sometimes turns those drawbacks into gold. It’s very inconsistent, ranging from classics to disasters, yet is still worth checking out. Even considering the series’ penchant for bottle episodes with lots of internal action and minimal casts, there are a notable number of pared-down installments this year.
Despite facing down a semi-settled formula and seeming dearth of fresh ideas, season 3 is a strong rebound, and while it swings between great and merely okay episodes, it establishes a good creative baseline with hardly any awful entries. It manages to broaden the kinds of stories the show can tell, without breaking its tone.
Season 4 is like an even more dire iteration of the second year; brought back from early cancellation with a staff shakeup, and adding the daunting task of filling out hour-long rather than 30 minute time slots, the Twilight Zone hugely suffers as a result. It’s not totally devoid of cool concepts or even a couple good episodes, but it’s a slog due to severe bloating (within a program whose weaker efforts thus far seemed stretched thin even in the other format). It gets minor points for the deviation from the norm. There are some real stinkers in here, though in every successive year, the visual presentation did seem to improve. As consolation, this batch does have the quintessential introductory segment, which was slightly different for each of the first four years.
Season 5 is well-calibrated enough to notch plenty of competent scripts, while being too predictable and derivative to score many true classics. Going back to normal installment length does wonders for this collection of pleasantly average episodes, giving the series a watchable, yet degraded, soft landing. Most entries don’t have the same tone as the first three years, nor do they kick into an equivalent level of plotting rigor or feverish pacing. The writers leaned more heavily on the fantastical and sentimental rather than poetic sci-fi/horror, which may just be different and not necessarily worse. However, doing those types of stories well wasn’t as innovative or exciting by this point. This final batch is mostly inessential but has its charms, and I’m glad the show ended here.
If pressed, I’d rank the debut year as the best one, closely followed by the expansive season 3. Season 2 would come after those, and then I’d put the passable season 5 next, with the mediocre season 4 bringing up the rear. By my count, there are about 65 episodes of the series worth watching, followed by the typical downward bell curve of “interesting but very flawed”, then “acceptable, for fans only”, then “failures without much redeeming quality”, and so on. I watched 125 episodes in total, but considering the unequal formatting I’ll give myself credit for the fourth season being a bunch of two-parters. That way, I’ve seen 140, and don’t expect I missed any truly worthy ones in all my research. I made sure to view every Matheson, Beaumont, and G.C.J. installment, and ended up catching a great number of Serling ones too, naturally. To get a useful cross-section, I also saw the large majority of each season, and skipped less than one season’s worth total.
Not only that, but after the main series, I sampled the three reboots to date, for completion’s sake, beginning with the mid-80s revival. By definition, it’s more visually colorful than the original, with some garish production design and cinematography. Ironically, these more contemporary touches are so slapdash and low-rent that they somehow come across as more dated than the staid flagship series, possibly due to less quality control and acting talent. Despite featuring a few notable scribes and a couple famous directors, none of this is among their best work. With its more inherent B-movie/fairy tale vibe, it handles silly stories more capably than the original, which is good because some of these are very goofy. The structural format allowed for some interstitial-length linking segments, which is more interesting in theory than execution, resulting in half-ideas with no substance.
The worst sin is that this revivification loses every bit of the original’s messaging, poetry, & thematic concerns in favor of plain old spooks and mysticism. It doesn’t have as strong a handle on trying out various other genres, either. Not to mention that these barely if ever have twist endings. All-around, the 1980s TZ is a significant step down, a half-assed recreation that eschews or forgets what made the original special, having only a tentative watchability owed somewhat to its cheesy retro aesthetic.
2000s TZ, from the small amount I explored, suffers in similar ways. Its technical aspects are more accomplished in theory, but the whole affair is such a sloppy, campy basic cable afterthought that it’s no wonder the second revival only lasted a year, despite limp attempts to recapture the offbeat moralizing of the original.
Finally, I tried Jordan Peele’s most recent and already-forgotten crack at the “franchise” from 2019, and yet again found it lacking in its own way. It is certainly more watchable and visually polished than the other two, with a renewed interest for incisive sociopolitical commentary, but unfortunately still whiffs too often with the scripting and execution.
I’ll include all those reboot episodes in my ranking, as well as the biggest calling card Serling had in his pre-TZ scripting days: Requiem For A Heavyweight, one of the first TV movies as we now know them. The selections from the 80s version are marked with an asterisk, the modern incarnation with ^, and the 2000s iteration with #.
The final twist here is that, in my opinion, the legendary eponymous episode of this post (while good!) isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But pretty much every other famous one is certainly worth the hype, not to mention some less-heralded standouts. As usual, I would recommend anything at a B+ or above for an ideal full watch-through, and just the A+/As if you merely want a sample. Likewise, the B grade installments are enjoyable to a mild extent, though no great shakes, and below that, I wouldn’t bother. That said, I myself am fond of throwing in a prototypically ”bad” episode while investigating an anthological show (Static would be a suitable mediocre pick, for one) to see how green the grass is on this side, so to speak. I truly valued getting to explore this series, and if I were you, I would attempt to check it out before it inevitably falls off of streaming and gets memory-holed. Such a sad, futuristic turn of fate would suit Rod Serling’s storytelling, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
In just a moment, you’ll encounter my full episode ranking, free of tortured metaphors, adverbial abuse, or predictable lists of three things, neatly ordered and located on a forgotten server bank, somewhere deep within… the Twilight Zone. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
