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The Twilight Zone <span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>  The Twilight Zone, created and narrated by Rod Serling, was an anthology series that ran from 1959—1964. Each episode was a self-contained fantasy or science-fiction story, many of which ended with a dramatic (and often creepy) twist. In addition to telling clever and chilling tales, Serling and talented writers such as Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury used their stories to make political and social commentaries that reflected the issues of the time. In “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”, Rod Serling told the story of a tight-knit suburban neighborhood that tears itself apart when a UFO appears overhead and the neighbors believe an alien invader is hiding in their midst. The ugly paranoia and hysteria that ensued mirrored the very real effect that communist witch hunts were having on American society at the time.  Another episode, “The Eye of the Beholder”, told the story of a woman who was undergoing her eleventh state-funded operation to alter her horrific appearance. At the end of the tale when the bandages are removed the audience sees that the character is a beautiful woman – but the doctors and nurses around her react in shock and pity. She is still hideous and disfigured by the standards of their world, whose denizens are revealed to be nightmarishly deformed. The twist on the tale is a comment on the subjectivity of beauty and society’s obsession with appearance, both themes that are as resonant now as they were in 1960. Other episodes dealt with issues of youth and innocence (“Kick the Can”), nuclear war (“The Shelter”), and the nature of love (“The Lonely”). Other tales, like the cautionary “To Serve Man” are allegories in the tradition of the best of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. After the original show’s cancellation in 1964, several attempts were made to revive the show. Twilight Zone: The Movie, produced by Steven Spielberg and released in 1983, was marred by a tragic helicopter accident that took the life of star Vic Morrow and two child actors, and was a box-office failure. In 1984, CBS greenlit The New Twilight Zone, an attempt to return to the show’s roots as an anthology series. With talented writers such as Harlan Ellison, George R. R. Martin (known for his work on Beauty and the Beast), and J. Michael Straczynski (later of Babylon 5 fame), the show enjoyed moderate success, but ran for only two seasons. A second revival of the show, produced by UPN and narrated by Forest Whitaker, lasted only a single season, from 2002–2003. Popular Culture
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