“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fear and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call... The Twilight Zone”
On October 2, 1959, Rod Serling spoke these timeless words and changed the television landscape forever. Airing its first episode to rave reviews, The Twilight Zone never really lost its touch to powerfully deliver episodes filled with horror, science, always suspense, sometimes great fear and sometimes great humour. The show truly did stand aside from its contemporaries in regards to pure quality. The relatively simple half hour program (one hour in its fourth season) would take us into the world of The Twilight Zone, a place that inhabits the darkest stories known to man. Stories written largely by three of the greatest writers of the time, in any medium; Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson and the creator and narrator himself, Rod Serling. These three would write 127 of the 156 episodes of the show’s five season run, with Serling penning 92, albeit sometimes adapting others short stories. The series was a true smash with critics, however never found it’s footing with general viewers in its time. We look today at Series 1 of this seminal and iconic series, ranking my top 15 episodes of the season. As with all my lists, it’s a combination of the personal and the general opinion on matters, however when you look at how some of these episodes have held up, there really is no question that this show will remain just as powerful until the end of time. Serling truly has made himself immortal, so let’s celebrate that immortality today.
NOTE: As many fans of
the show, and many passive viewers know, there is a great aspect of the show
that is the endings. Some such endings will be eluded to in these essays. If
this affects you, then re-watch the seasons and then return here. However I do
feel that with so many of these episodes, the endings are already iconic and
never hinder my repeat watching’s in many instances, instead effects them in a
positive manner. Albeit, you have been warned.
15. Third From the Sun (Episode 14 – January
8, 1960)
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Our first episode is this sci-fi thriller adapted by Serling from one of Matheson’s short stories, following two families as they drastically plan to steal a spaceship, with the two father’s (played with great fear and caution by Joe Maross and Fritz Weaver) holding the knowledge that the their world will soon be destroyed. Serling’s only major change from the Matheson short, is the addition of the villainous Carling (played with a firm tongue in his cheek by Edward Andrews), who adds a constant dread and suspense to the episode that really keeps up the tension throughout. The title for the episode is an odd giveaway for the episodes ending, but only I feel if you know the title and know the ending. This is a classic twist and a great build-up to it. A concurrent theme in the series is humanoid aliens and although this may have been down to budgetary restraints, it does add an angle to the proceedings that give us many excellent episodes and give us this episodes’ great twist.
14. The Four
of Us Are Dying (Episode 13 –
January 1, 1960)
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A grifter with an ability to be a shape shifter goes about a night of deviancy using the personas of four recently deceased men. Harry Townes plays the foundation with a creepy nature that makes the juxtaposition of each character all the more perfect, as he becomes actors Phillip Pine, Ross Martin and ultimately Don Gordon. Originally planned to be played by the same actor, with the use of heavy makeup, the decision was eventually made to instead use four different actors; ultimately this leads to a greater authenticity to the concept and a more interesting visual dynamism. The episode really is brought to life with a dynamic visual langue by director John Brahm, utilising multiple different scene-setting inserts of zoomed in neon signs. A disorientating unease is created and leads to an unsettling and very watchable episode about the duality, or in this case quadriality of man. If that is a word.
13. Long Live Walter Jameson (Episode 24 – March 18, 1960)
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Our first Charles Beaumont script on this list follows the realisation of an elderly man played with great scepticism by Edgar Stehli, who comes to understand that his friend and future son-in-law is in actuality immortal and has lived for over 2,000 years. The episode feels a little play-like, with its drawing room sensibility for the middle ten minute stretch, but Beaumont injects endless fascination into the circumstance, leading to the excellently delivered climax, utilising some truly ground-breaking visual and make up effects that still stand up to this day, over 60 years later. This immortal Professor of Walter Jameson is played by Kevin McCarthy, who offers up a marvellous performance imbuing the pain of 2,000 years into an ageless face, all with relative ease. The climax features an elderly Estelle Winwood (Who Producers fans may recognise as “Hold me, touch me”), coming back to Walter Jameson like the most haunting ghost you could imagine. But the ghost here is arrogance and hubris and McCarthy’s immense charm can blind us to this fact, but once the dust has settled there is simply no debate.
12. A Passage for Trumpet (Episode 32 – May 20, 1960)
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This touching episode on a second chance following a suicide attempt, feels like a counter-piece in many ways to the earlier episode, A Stop At Willoughby, which we will get to later in this list. Here are depressed individual is Jack Klugman (in the first of four appearances on the show) as a down on his luck trumpet player, granted a second chance by a bearded and suited man who goes by Gabe. Klugman adds a sensibility of pathos that makes the piece ultimately very, very touching and leads the audience down a path of contemplation on moments where they themselves have felt lesser in the world and as if what their dreams and wishes are out of reach. Serling grants us the same second chance that he grants Klugman with, that being a glimpse into The Twilight Zone. Serling concludes the episode describing how Joey Crown (Klugman) “got his clue in the twilight zone”, a rather sentimental and very thought-provoking episode of the show.
11. Where is Everybody? (Episode 1 – October 2, 1959)
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The first ever episode of the show bring us into the world perfectly, giving us in many ways the ideal Twilight Zone episode; a simple tale with great characters and performances, with a wicked sting in the tail. The tale; a man in army uniform finds himself the only man alive in a small town. The characters; Mike Ferris, a simple man who is a little cipher like, but is still given by Serling an abundance of humanity. The role was infact offered to Tony Curtis, who requested too much money for him to be cast. The actor we ended up was fortunately a great choice also; Earl Holliman, whose growing feverish unease is a steady climb and gives the episode the centre that it needs to work. The sting; the horrifying realisation that this experience is a simulation to attempt to quash the loneliness Ferris will feel when he goes on his mission to the moon. Perhaps it says more about my current circumstance, but I noticed on this re-watch, just how many episodes are based around the painful paralysis of immense loneliness. Serling kicks off the series of his creation with a story of his own. A story that’s painful, scary and filled with fear and dread for a future that will always be unknowable. If nothing else it gives you a wonderful tour of the town centre set used in Back to the future.
10. The Purple Testament (Episode 19 – February 12, 1960)
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An episode that has always stuck with me and is one that I feel is vastly underrated in the overall cannon of the show. The episode works on many levels; as a ghost story in war-time, as a profound comment on the fear of the death, but also as the closet thing we got to a written piece from Serling about his expiericne within the second world war, which no doubted affected him as profoundly as it affected every other service man. This episode directed by Richard L. Bare features William Reynolds as a U.S army lieutenant with the haunting ability to see a glowing white light upon the faces of the men in his platoon who will die next. Concepts of faith are brought to the forefront in this episode and lead to a truly affecting climax, based around the acceptance of death of our lead. Two words are spoken later in the episode; “War stinks”, which it of course does, but Serling offers a more haunting commentary throughout the entire episode, with the ability of Reynolds not just being that of a cheap supernatural gimmick, but the albatross of a man already close to breaking.
9. Elegy (Episode
20 – February 20, 1960)
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An episode directed by Douglas Heyes, one of the great return directors for the show, from a Beaumont script, gives us some of the most startlingly haunting images of the shows entire run. As three astronauts land on an asteroid inhabited by an array of people completely frozen in time, in varying settings and set ups. There’s a beauty contest, aswell as a mayor’s inauguration, aswell as talk of a medieval section. Our three intrepid travellers eventually come across Cecil Kellaway, who is the attendant to this mausoleum, who is just the right parts spooky and splendid to completely win over the three men and terrify come the final reveal. Although the final comment from Beaumont may seem a little less subtle than some of Serling’s other commentaries in the episodes, it never loses grip on the economy of the scripts, giving this episode one of the great ad break closing shots. I very much doubt there was a single person that didn’t return after that certain look over the shoulder.
8. Perchance
to Dream (Episode 9 – November 27, 1959)
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The first episode aired not written by Serling, but by Beaumont, highlighted the depth of the well of stories that audiences we’re about to witness without the show. This episode for instance is a nightmare brought to life, told by a completely neurotic man on the edge of a breakdown, played exceptionally by Richard Conte, in one of the best performances in the show’s long line of incredible work. The set up is once again simple; a man has a series of nightmares, each ending where the last one stopped. In his next nightmare he will die, hence he hasn’t slept in many days and is self-medicating with multiple pills that are severely effecting his already weak heart. Beaumont takes great pleasure in weaving this nightmare yarn, creating a cat-like minx horror to be our haunting monster of the week. This is all punctuated by Robert Florey’s wonderfully conniving direction, perverting the audience’s view of things so that they are never comfortable with where they are sat. A truly unsettling and truly brilliant episode, with a serious flair for the surreal, taking us deep inside the deepest nightmare imaginable.
7. People Are Alike All Over (Episode 25 – March 25, 1960)
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Serling’s main reason for making the show was that due to the censorship of the time in TV, he was not allowed to make the material that he so wanted. Such an example would be our episode here, where Roddy McDowell’s stranded astronaut finds himself ultimately caught in a zoo like attraction, in a cage mimicking an Earth living room, all for the amusement of the on looking alien population. Such a fate is strikingly and hauntingly similar to Ota Benga, a 4 foot African man who was put on display in the Bronz zoo in New York in 1906. Serling here again is adapting the work of a short story, here by Paul W. Fairman, adapting certain elements to make the transition to the television medium a little easier, but never not losing sight on the clarity of the story that he is telling. McDowell is superb as the wide-eyed Sam Conrad, who accepts his fate without too many great screams, just a few pained glances to his new surroundings, to his new home. Such is the stuff that nightmares are made of. But such is the stuff that we have come to know resides in The Twilight Zone.
6. Time Enough At Last (Episode 8 –
November 20, 1959)
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Or as many know it; the one with the broken glasses, but like so many episodes of the show, it is about so much more. From the short story by Lynn Venable, Serling takes into what begins as a rather sophomoric light comedy piece about Henry Bemis, played by Burgess Meredith, a man who simply wants to spend time with a good book, but finds hurdle's at every turn. But Meredith and Serling are interested in an entirely different genre in the second half, as they make Bemis the last survivor of a complete nuclear holocaust. Here the piece becomes a episode about great human loss and, once more, loneliness. Serling has commented before on how this may just be his personal favourite episode of the one’s that he penned, and the majority of fans would agree, with it topping many lists and even having it’s unforgettable final moments ranking #25 on TV guide’s “100 most memorable moments in Television”. The work of director John Brahm was even awarded here, with him being given in 1960 a director’s guild award for his work on the episode. I guess in summation I am trying to comment that all of this acclaim is certainly worthy, and the episode still proves it on every viewing. It simply can’t help but get a gasp when that final drop occurs.
5. The lonely (Episode 7 – November 13,
1959)
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I guess the most obvious entry into our prevailing loneliness theory is this 7th episode of the show, placing Jack Warden as a convict in the future on an asteroid, during a new realm of prison tactics, placing all criminals on desolate existences beyond our planet. John Dehner is the captain who delivers to Warden a realistic robot woman, to keep him some company. Jack Smight directs the episode and really brings home the effect the desperate loneliness has taken on Warden’s Corry, with a very simple but effective scene where Warden begs Dehner and his two other crew members to stay (Including an uncredited Ted Knight for you Caddyshack fans who noted that that man in the uniform sounded an awful lot like Judge Smails). But Warden is the MVP here, bringing home in every line and action, the immense effect that the whole endeavour has had on him. Jean Marsh, however, does give us just the right amount of warmth in her performance as the robot Alicia, to make the eventual romance wholly believable. But by that time, Warden’s performance has led us to believe that absolutely any company would be company that he would take with open arms. A truly effecting and painful episode, in the great lineage in the show of sci-fi episodes focussing on the human result of the grand sci-fi concept. In many ways this would be the most apt way to describe the show in its entirety; exploring the human drama resulting from stories of great horror, sci-fi and terror. There’s just nothing like this incredible show.
4. The
After Hours (Episode 34 – June 10, 1960)
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This iconic episode based around the concept of living mannequins finds Anne Francis as Marsha White, a woman desperately confused but still compelled to return to a department store to purchase a single gold thimble. Francis gives us the bewilderment needed, but so many times also gives us a touch of a woman with her head firmly on her shoulders, in many scenes willing herself to rationalise the completely unrationable. The episode re-uses music from the earlier Where is Everybody? and in many ways it shares a lot more with the episode than a few leit-motifs, with a second act all but silent sequence with Anne wandering around the empty department store, not unlike in the slightest the man caught in that episode. Ultimately this has gained a reputation as one of the creepier episodes of the show, but for me it is again more so in the haunting and touching variety, with the scares hitting brilliantly, but the camera and plot remaining to note what happens after those scares. Those human moments. Those painfully silent moments, where the deafening silence is all but enough to drive any person mad. Simply tremendous work.
3. A Stop at Willoughby (Episode 30 – May 16,
1960)
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One of the most upsetting episode of the show and perhaps one of the most ghostly poignant. This Serling penned and Robert Parrish directed tale follows James Daly as Gart Williams, a businessmen who simply cannot go on in the life that he is currently leading. On his train rides home, he gets a glimpse in his brief dreams of a simple town, going by the name of Willoughby, a perfect and idyllic place, literally and conceptually the place of Williams dreams. Another one of Serling’s all-time favourites, this episode has an overall sense of pain about it, but also ultimately it’s an episode about finding peace. Although the message of the episode could be construded as giving the exceptionally wrong ideal, it’s a beautiful and elegiac exploration into a man’s loss of faith in a world and where a man goes where he has nothing else in life. Gart Williams finds peace, Serling gives him it. Giving him it in the only place that he truly can, in The twilight zone.
2. The Monsters Are Due On Maple street (Episode
22 – March 4, 1960)
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From so many points of view this is one of the most perfect episodes ever created for the show. With a truly flawless script by Serling used, studied and adapted over and over again across the years. It really is an undisputed gem in the show’s cannon, telling the story of paranoia on a suburban street, with an alien force revealed to be the ultimate source by the end. But it is of course the human drama that leads to the ultimate destruction of Maple street on the fateful night we view as an enraptured audience. What begins as a simple back and forth between friends and neighbours, swiftly grows at a rapid pace to a dilemma of indescribable battling. Ron Winston directs the episode, slowly building the tension and also the visual language of the episode, until the final five minutes is a true onslaught of dynamic and vital imagery shot at the viewer with them unable to turn away. The ensemble cast for the episode is one the greatest in the show’s run, with each member adding a different perspective and another slant to an already divided debate. Claude Atkins is the perilous do-gooder attempting at all times to quell the swelling panic. Jack Weston is ferocious as the loud-mouth who’s taking most everything at face value. Barry Atwater is just the right amount of sinister to add suspicion into the neighbours and the audience’s minds. All this ultimately leads to an absolute barn-stormer of an episode, that will remain timeless forever more, and will no doubt remain in the consciousness for another 60 years, and another 60 after that.
1. Well... My favourite episode of series one is Walking Distance (Episode 5 – October 30, 1959)
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However Walking Distance is also my favourite episode of the show ever made, and is in my opinion the finest thing that Serling has ever written. Hence, I believe it deserves its own article and its own Tuesday in the sun. Hence, next week we will pause our retrospectives of complete series, for a complete deep-dive into perhaps the finest 25 minutes of television of the past hundred years. I’ll see you then.
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And so with the revelation of anticipation that comes from the announcement I leave you to await next week’s article, leaving you to ponder your own reflections on perhaps the greatest show ever made. A show that is titled The Twilight Zone.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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