Your Next Stop: “The Twilight Zone”

“You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead – your next stop, the Twilight Zone!”

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of TV. I liked sitcoms and, in particular, I was raised on a whole lot of “I Love Lucy” and “Three’s Company” and “The Love Boat” and more episodes of “Silver Spoons” than anyone should really watch.

My parents had rules about how much TV we could watch in a sitting, though. Probably it was my mom who had these rules, but my dad enforced them too to some extent. We could only watch a few shows a night or a few shows in the afternoon in a row. On weekends, we could watch cartoons in the morning so my parents could sleep in but that was pretty much it.

There was one exception: any major holiday. Why? Because on every major holiday (Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4^th of July), there was a “Twilight Zone” marathon on television, and my brother and I would plant ourselves in front of the TV and not much could tear us away from it.

I feel like I’ve probably seen every “Twilight Zone” episode there is – I’m sure I haven’t, but I have watched a lot. The main gist of the series, as created by Rod Serling, was to present fantastical unbelievable magical and often very surreal portraits of life. For the five years it ran between 1959 and 1964, “The Twilight Zone” was social commentary: the 150+ episodes (over half of which were written by Serling) explored what beauty is, what drives us, what makes us crazy, and – when push comes to shove – what we really think of ourselves and those around us. Take these episodes, for instance:

• Two astronauts are stranded on an alien planet only to find that the planet is inhabited by microscopic people who worship them as gods. In an attempt to be the only god, one kills the other and is in turn killed by those who worship him.
• A group of entertainers – a ballet dancer, a clown, a soldier, a bagpiper, and a hobo (yes, that’s what homeless people were called in the 60s) – are trapped in a metal cylinder. They try desperately to get out but cannot escape. We pull back to reveal they are dolls in a Christmas toy collection barrel. There is no way out.
• A couple wakes up after a night of drinking with no clue where they are. They are in a town with no other people and they can’t figure out how they got there. Turns out they are dolls in an alien’s dollhouse which her father brought her from Earth.
• A stressed-out man on an airplane (William Shatner, no less) is certain he sees a monster on the wing of the plane he is in. No one believes him and he ends up killing himself trying to convince everyone it’s there.

The stories of “The Twilight Zone” are disturbing, but they touch on themes many of us grapple with: Are we really here? Are we the only intelligent life on the planet? What if everything we think we experience is a façade or a dream?

On National “Twilight Zone” day, I tip my hat to the generation of “Twilight Zone” lovers like me who devoured the complexity and creepiness (think Talky Tina!) of the 150+ “Twilight Zone” episodes in existence.

And to those of who have never seen what 1959-1964 looked like through Rod Serling’s eyes, take note of the signpost up ahead. Your next stop should be “The Twilight Zone”!

[Editor’s note: For those of you who would like to mark your calendars, Syfy has an annual “Twilight Zone” marathon every New Year’s Day. If you can’t wait that long, CBS has several episodes available online for free, and provides access to all the episodes if you’re a paid CBS All Access subscriber – details are here. And we also found this Buzzfeed list – their ranking of all “Twilight Zone” episodes – may contain some minor spoilers.)