On Oct. 2, 1959, the TV world changed. The first episode of The Twilight Zone premiered, changing everything anyone knew about sci-fi TV shows.
The Twilight Zone is still considered one of the best TV shows ever made, with IMDb ranking it at No. 20. It’s one of those shows that has tried to be rebooted, but it just wasn’t the same without Rod Serling narrating — although Jordan Peele did a great job.
However, the series didn’t quite have the same impact when it came back the second time. From 1959 and throughout the 1960s, The Twilight Zone seemed like a normal sci-fi anthology show, but it had a not-so-hidden layer of social commentary. Television sponsors and network executives heavily censored realistic dramas throughout this time period. They didn’t want anything that touched on racism, mob mentality, government overreach, and nuclear war. TV was supposed to be entertaining.
Serling even had his own issues with this. In 1956, he wrote a teleplay inspired by the 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi. He wanted to make sure the real story was told, and yet, the TV executives didn’t want to take the risk. They changed everything about Noon on Doomsday, even changing the victim from a Black boy to a white pawnshop owner.
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Frustrated with the way the sponsors and execs ruled the airwaves, Serling found a way to get around it. Sci-fi and fantasy weren’t taken seriously. Aliens were viewed as a thing of fiction, harmless when it came to people watching. The Twilight Zone tackled Cold War paranoia with extraterrestrials moving in. It disguised fascist beauty standards by creating a dystopian world where humans were considered deformed.
Serling was able to address controversial topics without any corporate pushback, and it helped that some of the best fantasy and sci-fi writers of the time were part of the team. I Am Legend’s Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont created sharp and concise stories. Serling also found the way through to keep his stories the way he wanted them to be. He made sure he served as executive producer and head writer, retaining creative control.
Of course, the twists at the end became the talking points of each episode. These twists made viewers re-evaluate their own lives and human nature as a whole, creating something that would stick around.
And even with the timely social commentary, the episodes still hold up today. There are still topics of racism and government overreach that need to be addressed, and while there may not be the same Space Race and Cold War reports in the news, nuclear war, terrorism, and the threat to human existence still stands.
Today, The Twilight Zone is one of the world’s favorite TV shows. It continues to capture hearts through rides like The Tower of Terror at Disney World, and it was thanks to Serling being willing to find a way to get out of the box TV forced him into.
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