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Background As a boy,
Rod Serling was a fan of
pulp fiction stories. As an adult, he sought books with themes such as
racism,
government,
war,
society, and human nature in general. Serling decided to combine these interests to broach these subjects on television at a time when they were considered taboo. Throughout the
1950s, Serling established himself as one of the most popular names in television. He was as famous for writing televised drama as he was for criticizing the medium's limitations. His most vocal complaints concerned censorship, which was frequently practiced by sponsors and networks. In a 1957 production for
Studio One called "The Arena," Serling intended to explore contemporary politics. However, Serling said he "was not permitted to have [his] senators discuss any current or pressing problem." He explained that talking about tariffs would align him with Republicans, and talking about labor would associate him with Democrats. According to Serling, "To say a single thing germane to the current political scene was absolutely prohibited."
"The Time Element" (1958) CBS purchased a
teleplay in 1958 that writer Rod Serling hoped to produce as the pilot of a weekly anthology series. "The Time Element" marked Serling's first entry in the field of science fiction.
Plot 13 years after the end of World War II, a man named Peter Jenson (
William Bendix) visits a
psychoanalyst, Dr. Gillespie (
Martin Balsam). Jenson tells him about a recurring dream in which he tries to warn people about the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor before it happens, but the warnings are disregarded. Jenson believes the dream's events are real and he travels back to 1941 each night. Dr. Gillespie insists that time travel is impossible given the nature of
temporal paradoxes. While on the couch, Jenson falls asleep once again, but this time dreams that the Japanese planes shoot and kill him. In Dr. Gillespie's office, the couch on which Jenson was lying is now empty. Dr. Gillespie goes to a bar where he finds Jenson's picture on the wall. The bartender tells him that Jenson had tended bar there, but he was killed during the Pearl Harbor attack. and
Martin Balsam in "The Time Element"
Production With the "Time Element" script, Serling drafted the fundamental elements that defined the subsequent series: a science-fiction/fantasy theme, opening and closing narration, and an ending with a twist. "The Time Element" was purchased immediately but shelved indefinitely. This is where things stood when
Bert Granet, the new producer for
Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, discovered "The Time Element" in CBS' vaults while searching for an original Serling script to add prestige to his show. "The Time Element" (introduced by
Desi Arnaz) debuted on November 24, 1958, to an overwhelmingly delighted audience of television viewers and critics alike. "The humor and sincerity of Mr. Serling's dialogue made 'The Time Element' consistently entertaining," offered
Jack Gould of
The New York Times. More than 6,000 letters of praise flooded Granet's offices. Convinced that a series based on such stories could succeed, CBS again began talks with Serling about the possibilities of producing
The Twilight Zone. "
Where Is Everybody?" was accepted as the
pilot episode and the project was officially announced to the public in early 1959. Other than reruns at the time, "The Time Element" was not aired on television again until it was shown as part of a 1996 all-night sneak preview of the new cable channel
TVLand. It is available in an Italian
DVD boxed set titled
Ai confini della realtà – I tesori perduti. The
Twilight Zone Season 1 Blu-ray boxed set released on September 14, 2010, offers a remastered high-definition version of the original
Desilu Playhouse production as a special feature. The program's supporting cast features
Darryl Hickman,
Jesse White,
Bartlett Robinson and future
Three Stooges member
Joe DeRita.
First series (1959–1964) working on his script with a dictating machine, 1959 The series was produced by Cayuga Productions, Inc., a production company owned and named by Serling. It reflects his background in Central New York State and is named after Cayuga Lake, on which he owned a home, and where Cornell University and Ithaca College are located. Aside from Serling, who wrote or adapted nearly two-thirds of the series' total episodes, writers for
The Twilight Zone included leading authors such as
Charles Beaumont,
Ray Bradbury,
Earl Hamner, Jr.,
George Clayton Johnson,
Richard Matheson,
Reginald Rose, and
Jerry Sohl. Many episodes also featured new adaptations of stories by classic writers such as
Ambrose Bierce and
Lewis Padgett, and by contemporary writers such as
Jerome Bixby,
Damon Knight, and
John Collier.
Twilight Zone writers frequently used science fiction as a vehicle for social comment, as networks and sponsors who censored controversial material from live dramas were less concerned with seemingly innocuous fantasy and sci-fi stories. Frequent themes on
The Twilight Zone included
nuclear war,
McCarthyism, and
mass hysteria, subjects that were avoided on less serious primetime television. Episodes such as "
The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "
I Am the Night—Color Me Black" offered specific commentary on current events and social issues. Other stories, such as "
The Masks", "
I Dream of Genie", or "
Mr. Denton on Doomsday" were
allegories,
parables, or
fables that reflected the moral and philosophical choices of the characters. as
William Shakespeare in "
The Bard" featuring
Burt Reynolds parodying
look-alike Marlon Brando Despite his esteem in the writing community, Serling found the series difficult to sell. Few critics felt that science fiction could transcend empty escapism and enter the realm of adult drama. In a September 22, 1959, interview with Serling,
Mike Wallace asked a question illustrative of the times: "...[Y]ou're going to be, obviously, working so hard on
The Twilight Zone that, in essence, for the time being and for the foreseeable future, you've given up on writing anything important for television, right?" While Serling's appearances on the show became one of its most distinctive features, with his clipped delivery still widely imitated today, he was reportedly nervous about it and had to be persuaded to appear on camera. Serling often appeared
in medias res with the characters remaining oblivious to him, with one notable exception: In "
A World of His Own", a writer (
Keenan Wynn) with the ability to make characters appear and disappear protests Serling's narration and promptly erases Serling from the show. In season two, due to budgetary constraints, the network decided – against Serling's wishes – to cut costs by shooting some episodes on
videotape rather than film. The requisite multicamera setup of the videotape format precluded location shooting, severely limiting the potential scope of the storylines, and the experiment was abandoned after just six episodes ("
Twenty Two", "
Static", "
The Whole Truth", "
The Lateness of the Hour", "
The Night of the Meek", and "
Long Distance Call"). The first series contains 156 episodes. The episodes in seasons one through three are 30 minutes long with commercials (24 or 25 minutes without commercials). Season four (1962–63) consists of one-hour episodes with commercials (51 minutes without commercials). Season five returned to the half-hour format.
Second series (1985–1989) It was Serling's decision to sell his share of the series back to the network that eventually allowed for a
Twilight Zone revival. As an in-house production, CBS stood to earn more money producing
The Twilight Zone than it could by purchasing a new series produced by an outside company. Even so, the network was slow to consider a revival, turning down offers from the original production team of Rod Serling and
Buck Houghton and later from American filmmaker
Francis Ford Coppola. CBS gave the new
Twilight Zone a
greenlight in 1984 under the supervision of Carla Singer, then Vice President of Drama Development. While the show did not come close to matching the enduring popularity of the original, some episodes – particularly
Alan Brennert's love story "
Her Pilgrim Soul" and
J. Neil Schulman's "
Profile in Silver" – were critically acclaimed. In a tribute to the first series, the opening credits include a brief image of Rod Serling. Four episodes are remakes of those from the first series: "
Night of the Meek", "
Shadow Play", "
The After Hours" and "
A Game of Pool", while "
Dead Woman's Shoes" is an adaptation of "
Dead Man's Shoes". Unlike the first, third and fourth series, this version does not include the opening monologue during the title sequence. As well, the narration is all strictly voice-over and the narrator never appears on-screen.
''Rod Serling's Lost Classics'' (1994) In the early 1990s,
Richard Matheson and Carol Serling produced an outline for a two-hour made-for-TV movie which would feature Matheson adaptations of three yet-unfilmed Rod Serling short stories. Outlines for such a production were rejected by CBS until early 1994, when Serling's widow discovered a complete shooting script ("Where the Dead Are") authored by her late husband, while rummaging through their garage. She showed the forgotten script to producers Michael O'Hara and Laurence Horowitz, who were significantly impressed by it. "I had a pile of scripts, which I usually procrastinate about reading. But I read this one right away and, after 30 pages, called my partner and said, "I love it," recalled O'Hara. "This is pure imagination, a period piece, literate – some might say wordy. If Rod Serling's name weren't on it, it wouldn't have a chance at getting made." Eager to capitalize on Serling's celebrity status as a writer, CBS packaged "Where the Dead Are" with Matheson's adaptation of "The Theatre", debuting as a two-hour feature on the night of May 19, 1994, under the name ''Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics
. The title represents a misnomer, as both stories were conceived long after Twilight Zone's'' cancellation. Written just months before Serling's death, "Where the Dead Are" starred
Patrick Bergin as a 19th-century doctor who stumbles upon a
mad scientist's medical experiments with immortality. "The Theatre" starred
Amy Irving and
Gary Cole as a couple who visits a cineplex where they discover the feature presentation depicts their own lives.
James Earl Jones provided opening and closing narrations. Critical response was mixed.
Gannett News Service described it as "taut and stylish, a reminder of what can happen when fine actors are given great words."
USA Today was less impressed, even suggesting that Carol Serling "should have left these two unproduced mediocrities in the garage where she found them." Ultimately, ratings proved insufficient to justify a proposed sequel featuring three scripts adapted by Matheson.
Third series (2002–2003) A third series was developed by
UPN in 2002; it was hosted by
Forest Whitaker. It was broadcast in a one-hour format composed of two half-hour stories, it was canceled after one season. "
It's Still a Good Life" is a sequel to "
It's a Good Life", "
The Monsters Are on Maple Street" is an adaptation of "
The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "
Eye of the Beholder" is a remake of
an episode from the first series, with Serling still credited as writer.
Fourth series (2019–2020) In December 2012, it was reported that
Bryan Singer was developing and executive producing a fourth television series for
CBS Television Studios. A writer for the series was not chosen and the program was not pitched to any networks. CBS, which broadcast the first series and second series, was reportedly interested. In February 2013, Singer told
TG Daily that the project was still in development and that he hoped to direct the pilot and have
A-list actors appear on the revival. The following month, he told
IGN that a writer with whom he had previously worked was in negotiations to join the revival and that he felt "passionate" towards the first series and the planned revival. In February 2016, it was reported that
Ken Levine would write and direct the pilot episode of the revival series. It was also reported that the series would be interactive. In November 2017, it was reported that
Jordan Peele was developing a reboot of the series for streaming service
CBS All Access with Marco Ramirez serving as potential showrunner. In December 2017, CBS All Access ordered the fourth
The Twilight Zone series to series. It was announced that the series would be produced by
CBS Television Studios in association with
Monkeypaw Productions and
Genre Films. Jordan Peele, Marco Ramirez, and
Simon Kinberg will serve as executive producers for the series and collaborate on the premiere episode.
Win Rosenfeld and Audrey Chon will also serve as executive producers. Peele was revealed to be the new host and narrator in September 2018, and the new opening sequence was released. The series premiered on April 1, 2019. The season 1 episode "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" is based on the first series' season 5 episode "
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet". The season 2 episode "You Might Also Like" features the Kanamits, who first appeared in the first series' season 3 episode "
To Serve Man". On February 24, 2021, CBS All Access canceled the series after two seasons. ==Other media==