Review: 'The Many Lives of The Twilight Zone: Essays on the Television and Film Franchise'

With so many episodes, so many themes, so many incarnations, and so much continuing influence over the pop-culture zone, Rod Serling's Twilight Zone is ripe for deep analysis, which is why there has been so much of it. Editors Ron Riekki and Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr., are now dragging in even more by compiling eighteen new essays by various writers in their book The Many Lives of The Twilight Zone: Essays on the Television and Film Franchise. 

A 'Twilight Zone' Doodle

Here's a little doodle I did to remind you that if you can't think of what to watch this Halloween season, one of the creepier episodes of The Twilight Zone tends to hit the spot. Consider trying "The Dummy", "Living Doll", "The Grave", "Jess-Belle", "The New Exhibit", "To Serve Man", "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "The Howling Man", "The Hitch-Hiker","Mirror Image", "It's a Good Life", "The Masks", or "Night Call". Hell... try them all!

Review: 'TV Milestones: The Twilight Zone.'

The Twilight Zone haunted TV screens long before the concept of auteur TV, and though Rod Serling was the anthology’s most recognizable face, he did not write every episode. Yet Barry Keith Grant still makes a fairly solid argument for Serling’s role as auteur in the new book TV Milestones: The Twilight Zone. Grant notes how Serling promoted a groundbreaking blend of traditional genres (sci-fi, horror, noir, fantasy, western) and how his center-left politics and Hobbesian “world at war” philosophy (art vs. commerce, individuality vs. conformity, etc.) and willingness to address current events distinguished The Twilight Zone as much as its gremlins, Kanamits, and asymmetrical doctors.

I’m no great proponent of the auteur theory, and such a variety of writing, directing, cinematographic, and acting talent was involved in The Twilight Zone that it would not be my pick for a prime example of auteur TV. Yet Grant makes his case sufficiently convincing by emphasizing how much of its creator went into The Twilight Zone and how unique it was for its time as a result. That kind of focus rather than a more sweeping analysis is also smart considering how slim these TV milestones books are. Barry Keith Grant makes good use of his 100 pages.

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 12

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: Twilight Zone

Episode: “The Night of the Meek”, in which a drunken, skinny department store Santa crosses over into that dimension of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. Rod Serling writes one of his finest episodes, capturing the crushing sadness of a man who cannot deal with society’s endless ills, so he drinks his life away. Art Carney’s performance is raw with emotion, but also very funny and perfectly natural. Sadly, this was one of those Twilight Zones shot on video to save money during the second season, so it looks like crap. But despite the episode’s aesthetic deficiencies, its humanity and humor still manage to fight through the fuzz, and if it doesn’t reduce you to a blubbering blob, you might have a serious dose of Scrooge-itis. Happy holiday!

Review: 'Superman: The Silver Age Sundays 1959 to 1963'

The Superman comic strip ran in newspapers daily from 1939 to 1966, so IDW’s latest collection of them comes close to the end of the run. As early a 1961, you can kind of sense why a good thing had to wrap up as our hero engages in such inanities as an encounter with a telepathic dinosaur from space who can transform into a rock and yet another insulting storyline involving a character who suddenly becomes overweight.

The silliness of such storylines at least hints that Superman was still more about unfettered whimsy than punching bad guys in the face, and that’s a good thing since the strip was always more interesting as a vehicle for wackiness than as a conventional superhero yarn. A storyline in which Supes is rapidly promoted through the army because of his unusual abilities is like a supernatural episode of Sgt. Bilko. One in which he reveals his longstanding love for a mermaid is both bizarre and oddly affecting—an epic, interspecies love story. Another takes what may be the weirdest turn of all when Lois Lane transforms into a bug-eyed alien with superpowers. Daily Planet Chief Perry White develops superpowers too. Oh, there’s also the one where Superman transforms into a thing with a human body and the head of an ant.

Plus we see Superman face a series of bizarre challenges from a colony of Amazon women, and Lois Lane believing that her love’s secret identity is a Rod Serling stand-in! Yet these stories lean on some more tired devices as once again Superman goes to great lengths to avoid marriage and Lois once again falls victim to a slightly malicious prank. She just can’t get a break in these stories.

Superman: The Silver Age Sundays 1959 to 1963 contains a few clunker plotlines, but for the most part it delivers the usual fun. And also as usual, it’s a beautifully designed, full-color package from IDW.

Review: 'The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia'

The Twilight Zone ran for 156 episodes written by 40-something different writers and featuring way more actors and actresses than I’m willing to count. You can literally fill an encyclopedia with this stuff, and that’s just what Steven Jay Rubin literally did with The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia.

Running for 424 packed pages, Rubin’s book discusses every episode, every writer, every director, every major theme (aliens, children, time travel, etc.), every significant location or item (Sunnyvale Rest home from “Kick the Can”, Talky Tina from “Living Doll”, etc.), and nearly every actor and actress who appeared in the series’ original run (understandably, people like Phil Arnold, who played “Man” in “Mr. Dingle, the Strong” and Jimmy Baird, who played “Boy” in “The Changing of the Guard” are a bit too much for our valiant author). And the original run is Rubin’s main concern, which he makes very clear in his book’s introduction, although he still manages to slip in a good deal of information about, for example, Twilight Zone: The Movie in his entry on “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”.

Rubin doesn’t make room for potential entries about such original series-related items as all the merchandise The Twilight Zone spawned or The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror” episodes that so wonderfully parody so many classic Zones, but we do get a lot that saves the book from being redundant in light of The Twilight Zone Companion, Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic, IMDB, and Wikipedia. There are quotes from new interviews with a slew of people involved with the original series, odd bits of trivia (example: Russ Meyer was a still photographer for the series! Nina Roman-Rhodes, who played the maid in “Miniature”, was one of the few people who reported seeing a second gunman at the site of JFK’s assassination!), and quite a few unusual photos (my favorite: Gary Crosby of “Come Wander with Me” monkeying with an electric bass). Ten pages of Rod Serling’s final interview is a cool addition too even though the creator barely mentions The Twilight Zone at all.

31 TV Shows for 31 Days of Halloween Season: Day 31

Series: The Simpsons

Episode: “Treehouse of Horror IV”, in which the annual Halloween episode of The Simpsons hits its peak with a scarifying trio of terror tales presented by Bart à la Rod Serling on Night Gallery. First up is a spin on The Devil and Daniel Webster in which corpulent Homer Simpson barters his soul for one doughnut and Satan assumes the form of pious neighborino Ned Flanders. Next is the traditional Twilight Zone parody in which Bart plays a junior Bill Shatner who discovers a gremlin saboteur messing with his school bus. Finally, there’s the lavish “Bart Simpson’s Dracula”, in which Count Mr. Burns keeps an undead army of the undead at the bottom of his Super Happy Fun Slide and neither Francis Ford Coppola nor Stephen King make it out alive. Back when The Simpsons was still funny, nobody did Halloween episodes like they did, and no Halloween is complete without watching one. Happy viewing and happy Halloween!

31 TV Shows for 31 Days of Halloween Season: Day 24

Series: Night Gallery

Episode: “Green Fingers/The Funeral/The Tune in Dan’s Cafe”, in which Cameron Mitchell is a sleazy industrialist who wants to build a factory on the property of gardening-enthusiast Elsa Lanchester. Mitchell would have probably backed off if he’d known just how effective the sweet, old lady’s green fingers are. “Green Fingers” soars with a macabre script by Rod Serling (based on R.C. Cook’s short story), creepy direction by John “Saturday Night Fever” Badham, the star of the greatest monster movie ever made, and an awesome tribute in Siouxsie and the Banshee’s “Green Fingers” (song not included in this episode). Our next painting is a morsel of fun silliness from Richard Matheson in which a vampire plans the funeral he never got a chance to have. The mourners look like the cast of The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t. Yay! The portrait at the end of our museum of miscreants depicts Susan Oliver and Pernell Roberts as a couple incessantly blabbing about their flailing marriage in a bar while the same crappy country song plays over and over on the juke box. Apparently, it was the song that was playing when another doomed couple was swept up in violence at the joint years ago. Despite some groovy psychedelic solarization effects and an elegantly filmed shoot out, this last tale is a whole lot of nothing. The other two are essential Halloween season viewing.

31 TV Shows for 31 Days of Halloween Season: Day 1

Series: The Twilight Zone

Episode: “Living Doll”, in which an adorable little girl’s adorable little dolly faces off against rotten stepdad Telly Savales. The final moments are only rivaled by the denouement of “The Dummy” for the series’ most frightening scene. The use of slow motion was most likely a means of stretching out the sequence to fit Rod Serling’s narration, but it really contributes to the queasily unsettling atmosphere of a show in which a talking doll manages to slip in phrases like “You’ll be sorry,” “You better be nice to me,” and “I’m going to kill you” when she isn’t cooing, “My name is Talky Tina, and I love you very much.” Talky Tina: she’ll make you pee your pants like Betsy Wetsy.

366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 93

The Date: January 1

Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

What Is It?: Burgess Meredith takes over for the late Rod Serling as tour guide through a series of four dimension-busting tales. John Landis and Steven Spielberg’s stink, but Joe Dante and George Miller’s are most memorable. Landis’s wrap-around starring Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks is great too…especially if you want to see something really scary…

Why Today?: Since 1995, the Sci-Fi channel (now known as Syfy, which is apparently some sort of sexually transmitted disease) has been hosting a “Twilight Zone” marathon that gets started on New Year’s Eve and keeps rocking into the following day.

The Mother of Sci-Fi Movie Franchises Was Also the Darkest

Warning: The Spoilers will damn you all to hell.

Star Wars gets all the credit for being the first major science-fiction movie franchise, segueing off into a plastic avalanche of every product imaginable from the ubiquitous toys to clothing, house wares, books, hygiene products, food, and so on and so on. First appearing a decade before George Lucas’s juggernaut, Planet of the Apes wasn’t quite as over-commercialized as its successor (what is?), but kids could still get their paws on a plethora of Apey action figures, mugs and bowls, t-shirts, comics, puzzles, piggy banks, Ben Cooper Halloween costumes, and so on. They could also get a healthy dose of harsh reality by actually watching the movies. Forget Darth Vader’s traumatizing revelation in The Empire Strikes Back and even all the skin-charring nastiness and off-screen “youngling” killing of Revenge of the Sith. The Planet of the Apes series is by far the darkest, downright cruelest film franchise ever pitched at kids.

Review: 'Steven Spielberg and Duel: The Making of a Film Career'

By the fourth quarter of the twentieth century, TV had overtaken movies as America’s number one entertainment for good, so it is fitting that the number one moviemaker of that period got his start on the little screen. Steven Spielberg was a TV junkie who’d made his name directing episodes of “Marcus Welby, M.D.”, “Columbo”, and most famously, “Rod Serling’s Night Gallery” when he was still barely old enough to drink. In 1971, he got his first break into feature-length movie making, though Duel was consigned to his usual living room-based medium. Spielberg’s ABC movie-of-the-week adaptation of Richard Matheson’s short story, however, revealed a big screen talent. This brutally minimalistic showdown between a suburban schlub and a literal monster truck was filmed with all the consideration and imagination of a major motion picture. That may not sound like a big deal in the day of “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones”, but it was completely revolutionary in an age when TV movies were low-budget, disposable filler between episodes of “The Brady Bunch” and “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father”. In fact, Duel was so high quality that it earned a critically smashing feature run in Europe. Spielberg’s career as a TV director was coming to an end.

Duel is not generally mentioned among Spielberg’s signature films, but based on this above brief history, I’m sure you’ll understand its significance. If you need any further convincing, check out Steven Awalt’s excellent new book Steven Spielberg and Duel: The Making of a Film Career. Awalt gets deep into this film’s creation, from the inspiration for and publication of Matheson’s story to the film’s eventual American theatrical run in 1983 in the wake of Spielberg’s domination of cinemas with E.T. The history is complete, amusing (the “casting” of the automobiles is documented here, as is the Incredible Hulk’s theft of Duel footage), critical (though mostly of Awalt’s fellow Duel theorists), and often just as thrilling as the film it details. The author relates Matheson’s near-death experience that inspired his tale and Spielberg’s boyhood short movie about a head-on collision between model trains with a master storyteller’s grasp of suspense. He also really emphasizes the importance of master storyteller Richard Matheson in this history. Because Duel is so significant a milestone in Spielberg’s career, Matheson’s major role in its creation is often minimized. Not so in this book, which also contains that writer’s complete teleplay for his and Spielberg’s film. So this book functions as both an informative—and very entertaining—resource for students of Spielberg and a nice tribute to the recently deceased Richard Matheson.

21 Underrated Episodes of “The Twilight Zone” You Need to Watch Now!

“Time Enough at Last”… “The Eye of the Beholder” … “To Serve Man” … “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” … “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”…

You don’t have to be a “Twilight Zone” freak to be familiar with every twist and turn these episodes take. They are among the 35 or 40 shows that have found a place in Rod Serling’s canon of classics. But what of the other 120-something episodes? Surely there are a few should-have-been-classics in that bunch.

There are, and the following episodes may be good next steps to take after watching “The Howling Man,” “The After Hours,” “Walking Distance,” and the others that have found permanent places in annual “Twilight Zone” marathons or have been parodied on “The Simpsons.” So I now submit for your approval 21 Underrated Episodes of “The Twilight Zone” You Need to Watch Now! 

(Read cautiously... here there be spoilers)

Twilight Zone A - Z

“The Twilight Zone” was often directed with great artistry, but like most fine television series, it was a writer’s show. Struggling in a medium still regarded as lowbrow, head writer Rod Serling did much to bring credibility to T.V. writing. In the brief teasers he’d film to set up the following week’s show, Serling often gave featured credit to the writer. His very appearance in these pieces and his famed introductions at the head of most episodes highlighted the starring roles writers played in “The Twilight Zone”. Serling chose some of the very best sci-fi and fantasy authors to assist him in realizing his series.

From the series’ very beginning, Richard Matheson was among the most prolific “Twilight Zone” contributors. His involvement was a true coup considering the impressive bibliography he’d been building since the start of the ‘50s: the tremendously influential apocalyptic horror novel I Am Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man, the short stories “Death Ship”, “Little Girl Lost”, “Long Distance Call” and “Steel”, all of which he’d adapt for “The Twilight Zone”. Matheson’s “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” was a rare moment of greatness in the series’ uneven final season. Charles Beaumont would do the same for his short classics such as “The Man Who Made Himself” (adapted as “In His Image”), “Perchance to Dream”, “The Howling Man”, and “The Devil, You Say?” (adapted as “Printer’s Devil”), while also contributing such first-rate original scripts as “Long Live Walter Jameson” and “Miniature”. Having also devised the story that would become “Living Doll”, Beaumont was responsible for some of the series’ most frightening pieces. George Clayton Johnson’s scripts and stories were fewer, but the humanity of “A Penny for Your Thoughts”, “Nothing in the Dark”, “Kick the Can”, “The Prime Mover”, and “A Game of Pool” has earned him a place among the most memorable authors who’ve passed through “The Twilight Zone”.

Serling’s work with one of his favorite genre writers didn’t go quite as smoothly as his collaborations with Matheson, Beaumont, and Johnson. He admired Ray Bradbury enough to pay tribute to the author with sly references in “Walking Distance”, “A Stop at Willoughby”, and “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up”, but the men’s working relationship was troubled. Serling wanted Bradbury to contribute scripts from the show’s conception. Bradbury was excited by that prospect. Once the series went into production, Bradbury began accusing Serling of plagiarism in private, citing “Walking Distance” among those he found a bit too Bradbury-esque. Serling later rejected Bradbury’s elaborate first script, “Here There Be Tygers”, for budgetary reasons. “A Miracle of Rare Device” met a similar fate. In the end, only the author’s “I Sing the Body Electric” made it to “The Twilight Zone”, only achieving that after two years of revisions and polite criticisms from Serling. Bradbury’s tale of a robotic grandmother was sweet enough, but failed to capture the heart or awe of the series’ classics. The writer’s stay in the Zone ended there.

Serling and his gang also adapted several stories by outside writers that achieved their greatest renown as locations in “The Twilight Zone”: Lynn Venable’s “Time Enough at Last”, Jerome Bixby’s “It’s a Good Life”, Damon Knight’s “To Serve Man”. Ironically, Serling’s love of prose and talent for screenwriting never translated to success as a writer of short stories or novels outside the television universe he created.




Much of the “Twilight Zone” magic radiates from the deep sense of nostalgia in so many of Rod Serling’s scripts. Rarely was this feeling more palpable than in the series’ fifth episode. In “Walking Distance”, a harried ad man steps through a time portal and returns to his childhood hometown where band concerts are still a summertime staple and the neighborhood carousel still spins. The fictional town of Homewood in “Walking Distance” is a thinly veiled stand-in for Serling’s own hometown of Binghamton. No doubt the hectic schedule of running and writing “The Twilight Zone” left him longing for the laziness of that burg in Broome County, New York. Further inspiration struck when he noticed how similar the back lot at MGM was to his boyhood stomping ground. The carousel is a particularly telling touch as Broome County’s signature landmarks are its six antique merry-go-rounds.

Richard Matheson On Screen: 10 Essential Works

Throughout 20th century horror’s Pre-K era (i.e.: pre-King), Richard Matheson dominated. Matheson is a tough, clean writer who has composed some of our most unforgettable works of terror and imagination. Without the ornateness of plot and/or language that distinguished his major horror peers—Poe and Lovecraft, Bradbury and King—Matheson writes tales with the punchy immediacy of campfire ghost stories. A scant phrase can instantly conjure one of the many indelible images he created: a man shrinks toward oblivion, a gremlin terrorizes a man from the wing of a plane, a murderous fetish doll stalks a woman through her apartment, a monstrous big-rig hunts a motorist, the last man on Earth fights to survive a plague of vampires.

Matheson’s lean, pointed stories were absolutely ripe for adaptation. His short stories resulted in several of the most beloved episodes of “Twilight Zone”, although oddly enough, there has never been a truly great version of what may be his definitive work, the apocalyptic vampire novel I Am Legend. Be that as it may, there are still plenty of wonderful examples of Matheson on-screen. Here are ten essentials.

(For the purposes of this article, I steered away from Matheson's adaptations of other writers' work, but his scripts for Poe's Fall of the House of Usher and Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out are pretty essential viewing, too)

1. The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

October 6, 2009: Things That Scare Me: Case Study #9

In spite of (or, perhaps, because of) my adult infatuation with all things horrifying and horrific, I was scared of absolutely everything when I was a kid. A television commercial for a horror movie was enough to send me racing from the den in a sweaty-palm panic. In this ongoing series here on Psychobabble, I've been reviewing some of the things that most traumatized me as a child and evaluating whether or not I was rightfully frightened or just a wiener.

Case Study #9: The prologue of Twilight Zone: The Movie

In keeping with the ongoing Twilight Zone 50th Anniversary festivities here at Psychobabble, I’m going to delve into one of the more embarrassing installments of “Things That Scare Me.” “Embarrassing?” you ask. “But I too found the opening sequence of Twilight Zone: The Movie terrifying when I was five-years old!” OK. Mistake number one: I was not five-years old when I saw Twilight Zone: The Movie. I was nine or ten, which is well out of the range of acceptability. I mean, this sequence is surely one of the better things in the very hit-and-miss big screen adaptation of Rod Serling’s great series (George Miller’s remake of “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”? Hit! Steven Spielberg’s remake of “Kick the Can”? Great big stinking miss!). But scary? I don’t know. Judge for yourself with your jaded, 21st century eyes.

The scariest thing about this is the build up: Dan Aykroyd asking Albert Brooks if he wants to “see something reeeeally scary.” Nice establishment of suspense, director John Landis! Too bad you didn’t bring a similarly deft hand to your lame full-length segment in the film, which finds racist Vic Morrow trotting through history as the victim of various violent bigots (I’m not getting into the whole death controversy thing here, though). The problem is that the pay-off is weak: Aykroyd turns into a demon, growls like a cougar, and strangles Brooks. Thud. Still, many people profess to having been scared by this scene as kids, so perhaps I shouldn’t flagellate myself too much.

But then again, maybe I should. And this brings us to mistake number two: I wasn’t actually scared by watching this scene. You see, my mother was the one who watched it. I asked her what happened in the movie, and she began to explain this opening sequence in intricate detail. Once she got to the “You wanna see something really scary” part, my terror had apparently become so palpable that she halted the story, perhaps out of concern that I might piss the bed that night. But that was a bad move on her part, as my overactive nine-year old imagination commenced completing this scene with every horrible horror it could conjure. Had she simply said “Akyroyd turns into a cougar monster and throttles Albert Brooks,” I think I would have slept quite soundly that night. Instead, I had the fear something awful.

The Verdict: Obviously, I lose considerable points for being frightened of something I hadn’t actually seen. But let’s not underestimate the power of oral-storytelling, which utilizes the listener’s imagination in a way that no film could (The Blair Witch Project excluded). The fact that my mother didn’t finish telling me what happened at the beginning of Twilight Zone: The Movie left even more room for my imagination to go nutty. When I finally watched the movie, I was pretty unaffected by it, so I think I score some points for that. Perhaps the bottom line is that I was nine, though. That’s too old to get spooked by an unfinished story told by my fucking mommy. What a wiener.

September 28, 2009: 50 Years of “The Twilight Zone”

On this coming Friday in 1959, at 10:00 PM Eastern Time, on the CBS network, “The Twilight Zone” debuted, and television was changed forever. By far the smartest series to enjoy a successful run on American television at that point in the medium’s brief history, “The Twilight Zone” sharpened the suspense anthology series already introduced by “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “One Step Beyond” immeasurably. Episodes of those two pioneering programs tended to be heavy on the flab, light on the satisfying conclusions, and weak in the directorial department (except, of course, when Hitchcock was at the helm). “The Twilight Zone” certainly had its share of weak episodes, but the great ones were dazzling unions of cinematic direction, masterful acting, and well-paced, pointed scripts (with the occasional mind-blowing resolution).


Although Rod Serling constantly protested that he never intended to use “The Twilight Zone” as a platform for social commentary, I find it hard to believe that this very smart fellow didn’t realize that a supernatural program could be a cagey Trojan Horse in which he could smuggle storylines about racism, the insanity of war, the shallowness of consumerism and capitalism, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, nuclear war, and Fascism onto conservative, late ‘50s/early ‘60s network TV. The political progressiveness of “The Twilight Zone” is just as much of a factor in its deathlessness as the way it could chill one’s bones. I greatly believe that terror is difficult to maintain in lengthy doses, which is why a pithy ghost story is infinitely more frightening than any 900-page Stephen King novel. The creepiest episodes of “The Twilight Zone” had the same concise power to terrorize, and as crude as the show could be in comparison to what can be achieved in modern cinema, I find certain episodes of “The Twilight Zone” to be among the most frightening “movies” I’ve ever seen (just thinking about the denouements of “The Dummy” and “Living Doll” are still enough to send me running for the nightlight). “The Twilight Zone” could also be deeply moving, and while it didn’t always do humor well, there are some neat exceptions, such as “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up”, “The Mind and the Matter”, and “A Penny for Your Thoughts”. None of these episodes are laugh-out-loud hilarious, but they’re all fine installments for their witty plots and twists.


Whether “The Twilight Zone” intended to be funny or frightening, heart rendering or socially critical, it was almost always innovative, intellectually electrifying entertainment. Very few shows from its era hold up, making the 50th anniversary of “The Twilight Zone” a true landmark to celebrate. I recommend you do so by watching some of your most-loved episodes. If you’re a “Zone” novice, here are my ten personal favorites (in chronological order) to get you started:

1. “Time Enough at Last” (original air date: November 20, 1959)

No matter how many times I see this tragic tale of bookworm Henry Beamish, my heart still breaks for the poor schmuck. This has as much to do with an extraordinary performance by Burgess Meredith as it does with Serling’s outstanding adaptation of Lynn Venable’s story.

2. “The After Hours” (original air date: June 10, 1960)

Sweet and sad, but also really unsettling. That “Marsha! Marsha! Come off it, Marsha!” scene is nightmare material. Anne Francis also has the distinction of being the most compelling actress ever to appear on “The Twilight Zone”.

3. “The Howling Man” (original air date: November 4, 1960)

A wonderful blend of the absurd (those insane brethren with their Moses beards!) and the horrific (Look out! You’ve unleashed Satan!) by Charles Beaumont, one of the Zone’s most prolific and skilled writers.

4. “Eye of the Beholder” (original air date: November 11, 1960)

“Eye of the Beholder” has lost a little power due to its over-reliance on a twist ending, but it will always rate as one of “The Twilight Zone’s” finest moments because of a great co-performance from Maxine Stuart and Donna Douglas, the arresting make-up, and the brilliant way director Douglas Heyes misdirects the viewer.

5. “It’s a Good Life” (original air date: November 3, 1961)

Like anyone needed another reason to find children totally creepy. “It’s a Good Life” is the story of Anthony Fremont, a freckle-faced cutie pie with more power than any child—or adult—should possess. I always wondered why we don’t get a good look at the two-headed gopher Anthony conjures in the beginning of the episode. According to Bill Mumy (who played Anthony) in Martin Grams Jr.’s indispensable book The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic, we may have only gotten to see the gopher’s tale because the creature “was too disgusting and they probably feared repercussion from viewers.” Man oh man, I’ve never wanted to see that gopher as much as I do now.

6. “To Serve Man” (original air date: March 2, 1962)

While its brilliant twist is the greatest legacy of “To Serve Man”, it’s not nearly as disturbing as the image of Richard Kiel with his mouth hanging open as an incongruously amiable voice speaks his dialogue.

7. “The Dummy” (original air date: May 4, 1962)

Nothing is scarier than breaking the fourth wall (i.e.: when a character in a film looks directly into the camera, creating an unexpectedly personal connection with the viewer). This happens in a terrifying way at the conclusion of “The Dummy”, making for one of the most unforgettable moments in “The Twilight Zone”. You may want to forget it, but you won’t.

8. “Jess-Belle” (original air date: February 14, 1963)

One of the few great episodes from the “The Twilight Zone’s” hit-or-miss fourth season in which the show was stretched to an hour-long. There is no shocking twist, socio/political message, or cavalcade of chills in “Jess-Belle”; it’s simply a wonderfully spun yarn with impeccable performances from Anne Francis as the titular heartsick witch, Jeanette Nolan as the self-delighted Granny who bewitched her, and James Best as the object of Jess’s obsession. For its flawless acting, atmosphere, imagination, and pathos, “Jess-Belle” is my favorite episode of “The Twilight Zone”, even though it is so atypical of the series that it’s the only one that does not end with a parting monologue from Serling.

9. “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (original air date: October 11, 1963)

The gremlin looks like a giant teddy bear with a harelip, so why is that reveal when Bill Shatner pulls aside the curtain still so horrifying? Probably because of the relentless white-knuckle tension that precedes (and follows) the scene.

10. “Living Doll” (original air date: November 1, 1963)

Tell Savalas goes toe-to-toe with Talky Tina. The final moments of this episode are among the most frightening in the “Twilight Zone” canon. I’m sure the decision to use slow motion was a means of stretching out the sequence to fit Serling’s narration, but it really contributes to the queasily disturbing atmosphere. “Living Doll” is “The Twilight Zone” at its most terrifying, which means it’s TV at its most terrifying.

For those who are a bit more “Twilight Zone” savvy, here are 5 of the most underrated episodes.

1. “The Lateness of the Hour” (original air date: December 12, 1960)


During the second season, the Powers That Be at CBS tried to save cash by having the TZ crew film six episodes on inexpensive video rather than film. Serling was adamantly opposed, but he relented. The experiment was an absolute failure. Grainy, flat video did nothing to convey the rich, shadowy atmosphere that made “The Twilight Zone” an aesthetic triumph as well as a triumph of storytelling. This was particularly unfortunate considering that a few truly fine stories were captured in this subpar format, including “The Lateness of the Hour”, a creepy story about a wealthy inventor who populates his home with robot servants. The ending is a bit predictable (especially if you’re familiar with the standard “Twilight Zone” 9th-inning twist), but it is handled in a way that still makes it shocking with each subsequent viewing.

2. “The Prime Mover” (original air date: March, 24 1961)

One of the better humorous episodes, “The Prime Mover” stars Buddy Ebsen of “The Beverly Hillbillies” as a barback who develops telekinetic powers after getting zapped by a fallen power line. His asshole boss then schemes to exploit Ebsen’s newfound abilities by taking him to Vegas to ace the craps tables. The piece is terrific because Ebsen brings a nice mixture of selfless agreeability and conscience to his performance, so it’s a real pleasure when he gets the last laugh.

3. “Long Distance Call” (original air date: March 31, 1961)


The crew seemed to be getting a better handle on their video equipment by the time they shot “Long Distance Call”, because it looks better than the other episodes shot on tape. But this is yet another show that derives its power more from story than presentation. On his way to being typecast as a creepy kid, Billy Mumy plays a little boy whose grandmother gives him a toy telephone for his birthday. After Grandma croaks, she and her grandson start chatting on the phony phone. The premise and Mumy’s performance would make this one of the more unsettling “Twilight Zone” episodes on their own, but when coupled with the truly fucked-up things Granny says during their conversations, you have one of the most demented 30 minutes of television ever aired.

4. “Printer’s Devil” (original air date: February 28, 1963)

Burgess Meredith was an actor so integral to “The Twilight Zone” (he starred in a record four episodes) that when Steven Spielberg produced Twilight Zone: The Movie in 1983, he was chosen to succeed the late Rod Serling as narrator. Hardly as well-remembered as “Time Enough at Last”, “Printer’s Devil” is a hidden treat for Meredith fans, who had come to love him for his good-natured, everyman characters. But here he is as cast as the villain—in fact, he is cast as the ultimate villain: Satan. Shades of his future work as The Penguin on the “Batman” series peep through as Meredith helps a flailing newspaper owner get back in business by creating sensational headlines (“HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL EXPOSED AS BIGAMIST!”). Another great episode from the 60-minute “Twilight Zone”.

5. “On Thursday We Leave for Home” (original air date: March 2, 1963)

Here’s another hour-long “Zone”, and it’s the one that Serling said was the only “really effective show” in the extended format. He was being more than a bit unfair to other excellent episodes, such as the aforementioned “Jess-Belle” and “Printer’s Devil”, as well as “Miniature”, and “The Incredible World of Horace Ford”, but there’s no mystery about why he singled out “On Thursday We Leave for Home” (aside from the fact that he wrote it). Thirty years before the show begins, a spaceship crashed on a barren planet with two suns and the ship’s captain is tasked with maintaining order among the survivors, none of whom remember Earth. As the throng grows mutinous, the Captain fears his control over them may be in jeopardy. “On Thursday We Leave for Home” is classic “Twilight Zone” in its delivery of a moral message, its slow-mounting tension, and its chilling conclusion. A forgotten episode that deserves to be remembered among the classics.

June 16, 2009: Psychobabble recommends The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic

I’d been meaning to dive into The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic ever since OTR Publishing put it out last September. Having finally got my clutches on a copy of this potentially daunting, nearly 800-page tome, I was further daunted by Martin Grams, Jr.'s introduction to the book. He promises that it will not be a platform for personal opinion about all of those weird, wondrous, (and sometimes weak) episodes of “The Twilight Zone”. Rather he wrote it as a definitive reference guide full of carefully researched facts and figures, clearly irritated by the numerous “Zone” books that apparently got the details wrong. 800 pages of facts and figures? Sounds like a blast.

Fortunately, The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic actually is a blast. While I can’t (and wouldn’t want to) fathom the kind of fan who needs to know the brand of typewriter ribbon Rod Serling used, I can’t imagine one who won’t find much of this information fresh and fascinating. In keeping with his neutral approach, Grams’s text is generally pretty dry and academic, but there is plenty of color to be found. Serling’s heated correspondences with writers Charles Beaumont (who accuses the man of plagiarism) and Ray Bradbury (who bitches about rewrites of his script for “I Sing the Body Electric”) are more dramatic than a thousand reality show slap fights and they really draw attention to how underappreciated Serling was in his own camp.

The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic is divided into two parts, the first being a linear history of the program, the second being an exhaustively detailed episode guide (although I was disappointed by the cursory treatment a couple of my favorite episodes received, most notably the fantastic “Jess-Belle” from season four). Along the way, readers are treated to such goodies as synopses of episodes that never came to be, letters from people like Steven Allen and Jack “Book ‘em, Danno” Lord explaining how they longed to work on the show, and some truly illuminating trivia (Bill Mumy’s theory about why we don’t get a good look at his two-headed gopher in the “It’s a Good Life” episode comes close enough to answering a question I’ve had for decades).

It’s doubtful that anyone is going to read this book without doing a fair share of skipping around; there is too much tedious minutia about how much sets cost or how much actors were paid. Lack of critiques and details about Serling’s life means you shouldn’t throw away your copies of The Twilight Zone Companion (which Grams accuses of inaccuracy in his introduction) or Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television’s Last Angry Man, but The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic is an invaluable book to sit on the shelf next to them… assuming you have the space to store this behemoth.