To Serve Man (Season 3, Episode 24)
When it aired in 1959, The Twilight Zone captivated audiences with its phenomenal, yet simple, storytelling and truly memorable twists. The short, eerie vignettes about ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances were remarkably original, setting a high bar for science fiction writing.
The storylines that stemmed from the brain of creator Rod Serling were unsettling, haunting, occasionally controversial, but always thought-provoking. Six decades later, the tension raised in this classic series is still palpable, and the issues touched upon are still as relevant today. Let’s take a look at the most chilling episodes as you make your way into The Twilight Zone…
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (Season 5, Episode 3)
If a stranger arrives on your doorstep from out of town and assures you that they’re here to help, you might be skeptical. When aliens land on Earth promising to end war, famine and misery, the humans welcome them with open arms since the newcomers already created a paradise on their own planet.
But the towering aliens leave out one very crucial detail. While “To Serve Man” has been parodied many times on shows such as The Simpsons, the twist ending is still one that may leave viewers stunned.
Eye Of The Beholder (Season 2, Episode 6)
Perhaps one of the most well-known episodes of the series, “Nightmare At 20,000 Feet” touches upon our darkest fears (a passenger terrified of air travel), along with the worry that no one might believe us when we struggle with emotional health.
A troubled man, recently discharged from a mental health treatment facility, isn’t sure whether the hideous creature outside his flight’s window is real or a terrifying hallucination. This episode marks William Shatner’s second appearance in an episode and one that has had pop culture references galore.
Time Enough At Last (Season 1, Episode 8)
A woman who’s endured the maximum number of allowable surgeries to reverse a disfiguring condition must now live out the rest of her life, isolated from society along with others like her. The story in “The Eye of The Beholder” provides an apt metaphor for beauty standards that is even more true today.
If you’ve only ever seen Donna Douglas as Ellie May on The Beverly Hillbillies, you owe it to yourself to see her here. With only her voice, she conveys emotions that other actors haven’t achieved through their expressions or mannerisms.
The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street (Season 1, Episode 22)
Henry Bemis’s only escape from his cruel wife and the drudgery of his bank-teller job is inside of his books, though he has no time to read. But a day comes when he’ll have no other obligations to keep him from reading.
Burgess Meredith is unrecognizable here from his portrayal of in Rocky as the crusty trainer Mickey, or The Penguin in the original Batman TV series. A believable stand-in for Everyman, and making this one truly an iconic episode of the show, it’s easy to see why he was brought in for multiple episodes.
The Obsolete Man (Season 2, Episode 29)
A suburban neighborhood loses electricity and phone service, as well as total mechanical failure to automobiles and generators. A child talks about a possible alien landing, referencing a meteor shower that happened earlier that day.
As the mysterious outage continues, the neighborhood slowly turns to paranoia and fear-mongering, soon adopting a full-blown mob mentality and resorting to violence. “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” is a timeless and chilling examination of human nature and how fear brings out the worst in people.
Five Characters In Search Of An Exit (Season 3, Episode 14)
“The Obsolete Man” is an Orwellian tale about a time when independent thought and outside knowledge – specifically, books – have been banned. Fans of Kafka will see parallels to his work The Trial here. Burgess Meredith shines again, as a librarian who is no longer needed, but instead of having him find a new vocation, a court orders his execution.
The court does allow this former librarian the option of choosing his own method to meet his end. The twist ending shows that being well-read has its advantages, as well as the price of authoritarianism.
Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up? (Season 2, Episode 28)
Five strangers wake up in a small room without doors or windows. No one remembers how they got there, or why. A movie version of this classic episode would be billed as “the original escape-room nightmare.” They fail to determine what would tie them all together, not just in this place, but any place in existence.
Teamwork to crack the puzzle of escape is fruitless as well. The twist ending is ingenious and the characters were well-acted. Viewers either loved this episode or hated it; there was seemingly no middle ground.
Living Doll (Season 5, Episode 6)
Police stop in to talk to a diner owner and some bus passengers about a spaceship crashing in the woods nearby, with one member of the spacecraft being unaccounted for. The bus driver then realizes that he’s got seven passengers with him in the diner, rather than the six with whom he started the trip.
This coupled with the claustrophobic feel of the diner leads to arguing and accusations. Though not comedic in tone, the episode is laced with humor. With its double twist at the end, this episode is another one that longtime fans cite as a favorite.
The Masks (Season 5, Episode 25)
Stepfather Erich (Telly Savalas) disapproves of a talking doll his wife bought for her daughter. But it seems that Erich’s animosity for the toy is mutual. It’s not happy the way Erich’s been acting toward it, but neither his wife nor stepdaughter know anything is wrong.
The episode’s ability to infuse an inanimate object with terror is par for the course for the show. “Living Doll’s” simple premise is once again proof that gore isn’t needed to provoke terror for an audience.
The Hitch-Hiker (Season 1, Episode 16)
A wealthy man’s fading health brings his opportunist family members to his bedside to wait like jackals to inherit his fortune to pass. Knowing their motivation, he tells them they must wear Mardi Gras masks, each meant to represent an ugly aspect of their personalities, until after he takes his final breath.
While he misses the end result, his family members did not. When you’re as ugly on outside as you are inside, there is no hiding that from the world.
Nick Of Time (Season 2, Episode 7)
A young woman driving alone from New York to California sees a man hitchhiking after she leaves a service center. Further down the road, she sees him again. No matter how long or how far she drives, the same man keeps appearing in front of her on the road with his thumb out.
Something is dreadfully wrong, but she can’t put her finger on it. Unnerved and scared, she stops to call home to hear a familiar voice. Instead, she receives the shock of her life.
Night Call (Season 5, Episode 19)
When their car breaks down, newlyweds wait out the time in a diner where their table has a miniature fortune-telling machine with a Satan bobblehead on top. Drop in a penny, then and ask a yes-or-no question. The husband is mesmerized when the machine seems to predict immediate happenings.
William Shatner as the newlywed groom appears to be ready to let the machine decide his future as his new wife pleads for him to walk away from it. The story is a cautionary tale about allowing superstition to rule your life.
Death’s Head Revisited (Season 3, Episode 9)
Elderly, wheelchair-bound Elva is annoyed that she is getting phone calls overnight, from someone whose voice she doesn’t recognize or understand through the crackling static. Her housekeeper is no help in getting to the bottom of it.
Since she can’t stop the calls, she begins making demands of the caller. When the phone company finds what’s causing the problem, Elva loses any chance she had to heal and forgive a youthful mistake.
Shadow Play (Season 2, Episode 26)
A former Nazi revisits a closed concentration camp, reminiscing fondly about his time there. But he soon realizes he’s not alone there and paid a visit by a familiar face.
In a perfect world, this episode would have been pure fiction. The conclusion is satisfying, but touches upon Rod Serling’s personal connection to World War II as an army paratrooper.
The Silence (Season 2, Episode 25)
Gunsmoke star Dennis Weaver plays a death-row inmate plagued by a recurring dream about his trial and execution. His latest outburst in court draws the attention of a reporter, who tries to prove or disprove what the prisoner claims: That his fate is tied in with everyone else’s.
After several attempts, it still isn’t working, and tomorrow, it begins all over again. This episode is what life might be like if we realized that we live in a simulation because the same day repeats itself. It’s similar to Groundhog Day but without the frothy, adorable ending.
It’s A Good Life (Season 3, Episode 8)
To discourage a motor-mouth who gets on his nerves at a private men’s club, Colonel Archie Taylor offers Jamie Tennyson $500,000 (over $4.4 million today) if he can remain silent for an entire year. Details are hammered out to have him live in a glass-walled cell in the basement of the club, under constant observation.
There are no monsters nor any supernatural elements in this episode, but the plot is about two men who will stop at nothing for victory. Once again, a brilliant twist ending stays with the viewer long after the episode is finished.
The Howling Man (Season 2, Episode 5)
A freckly six-year-old boy is holding his community hostage, and they’re the only ones left to terrorize since he’s destroyed the rest of the world. If anyone disobeys or annoys him, he has the power to make them vanish.
Bill Mumy, who went on to play Will Robinson in Lost in Space, played the role of the terrifying child. He would also reprise the Anthony Fremont role, still a bully in adulthood, in the 2003 reboot of the series, when he learns that his daughter has the power as well.
A Stop At Willoughby (Season 1, Episode 30)
A traveler on foot seeks refuge at a monastery during a powerful storm. Originally turned away, the monks eventually take the man in after he collapses outside. The head monk assures him they are holding the Devil himself captive there.
However, the traveler is not so sure after talking with the captive man through the barred window on his door. And, as the old adage goes, you can’t stuff the genie back into the bottle once you’ve let it out.
The After Hours (Season 1, Episode 34)
A businessman is breaking under the weight of a soul-crushing job and dissatisfied wife, until he falls asleep on a train. Upon waking, he gets off in a town called Willoughby that’s frozen in the late 1800s, where life is simple and carefree – a life he’s always longed to live.
He finds that he can return to this place and time whenever he chooses on that same train. But he does learn that nothing is as it seems. The rich symbolism in this episode can’t be fully appreciated until you’ve seen the ending.
Nothing In The Dark (Season 3, Episode 16)
A woman is sent to an empty ninth floor of an upscale department store to buy a gold thimble for her mother’s birthday. Later, she finds a scratch on the thimble and tries to return it, but finds that the store only has eight floors.
Anne Francis plays the shopper in a naive, almost childlike fashion. This only adds to the viewer’s sense of dread as she’s surrounded by lifeless mannequins after being accidentally locked in overnight.
The Midnight Sun (Season 3, Episode 10)
A frail, elderly woman hides from Death in her tiny apartment. Having cheated death already on multiple occasions, she knows that as long as he can’t get to her, he can’t take her. Tonight, she must decide whether to rescue a young patrolman with a gunshot wound who collapsed outside her door or keep herself safely holed up until someone else comes along to save him.
Robert Redford plays the fresh-faced cop in this episode, which was filmed before he became a breakout star in Hollywood. His interaction with the old woman makes your heart hurt for them both.
The Changing Of the Guard (Season 3, Episode 37)
The sun has gone off its axis, putting Earth perilously close to it, and getting closer all the time. Two women stay behind in their building after everyone else flees for the countryside, as conditions become brutal enough to shatter a thermometer.
The plot seems to have an eerie foreshadowing to climate change. Inescapable doom seems to be the only outcome, but in true series style, there’s an incredible twist at the end – one of the most clever in the series.
The Shelter (Season 3, Episode 3)
Evaluating his career after a forced retirement, an elderly professor painfully concludes that he failed to bring any value to his students’ lives. This assessment leaves him distraught enough to plan ending his life.
When he returns to the university one final time, he doesn’t expect that anyone will try to change his mind. Donald Pleasance’s poignant, understated performance, made this an outstanding entry in the series. It serves to remind us that, a single kind act might be all it takes to change the world for someone.
The Invaders (Season 2, Episode 15)
At a dinner party hosting his neighbors, Dr. Bill Stockton listens to jabs about his ridiculous bomb shelter. However, when news of an imminent attack comes through the Emergency Broadcast System, the guests all race back to their homes to prepare, while Stockton’s family is already grateful they planned for such an occasion.
Before long, the dinner party guests show up again at Stockton’s house under an assumption that they’ll be permitted in the shelter’s limited space. And they are prepared to tear each other apart to be the ones who get in. Another lesson in what humans will do in dire circumstances.
A Hundred Yards Over The Rim (Season 2, Episode 23)
A country woman comes under attack from tiny robots, released by a spaceship that landed on the roof of her tobacco-road shack. With limited access to defense weapons, she fights the tiny intruders off as best she can.
Agnes Moorehead, perhaps best known for playing the disapproving mother-in-law in “Bewitched,” portrays this isolated, terrified country dweller under siege magnificently. The twist at the end of this one is a gut punch.
Printer’s Devil (Season 4, Episode 9)
The familiar treatment of the time-warp plot is elevated to excellence with performances by Cliff Robertson and John Astin of The Addams Family fame. Robertson is unquestionably believable as a wagon train traveler from the mid-1800’s who’s just stumbled upon a 1960’s diner.
To prepare for the role, Robertson meticulously researched period apparel and weapons, and decided that a stovepipe hat would be appropriate. When the episode’s director insisted he should wear a Stetson-type hat instead, Robertson reportedly took the dispute directly to Rod Serling, who agreed with Robertson’s take on the character’s hat.
On Thursday We Leave For Home (Season 4, Episode 16)
Once again, Burgess Meredith has another prominent role as someone who offers to save an ailing newspaper after talking its publisher down off a bridge. And true to his promise, brilliant things start happening in the local newspaper business immediately.
Simmering beneath this gentleman’s kind exterior is something deeper. Meredith finishes strong when he sheds that affable exterior to collect on his side of that publishing deal.
Walking Distance (Season 1, Episode 5)
A colony on the moon, inhabited by Earthlings for thirty years, is being dismantled as a failed experiment. As the group prepares to return to their home planet, their acting leader, who’s kept the group mentally grounded and physically safe, now grapples with the fact that he will lord over no one when they return home.
It’s a chilling episode about a theoretical dictatorship. We’re shown that, once again, a desperate man in danger of being dethroned will have no qualms about burning it all down before that happens.
An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge (Season 5, Episode 22)
For his only appearance in the series, actor Gig Young is a stressed-out ad executive who literally walks back into his past. He even encounters himself as a child with his own parents.
We join him for a short-lived return to his childhood. And ultimately, we join him for the bittersweet realization that, while you can revisit your youth, you can never go back for good.
Night Gallery
If you’ve ever read the short story by Ambrose Bierce, you already know how this one ends (with a memorable twist, naturally). What makes this episode notable is that Rod Serling did not write it; he saw it as an award-winning short film at 1962’s Cannes Film Festival in France.
Serling reportedly contracted with the film’s creators to pay $20,000 for a single US showing on the series. This deal saved his studio $100,000 in production costs on this ready-made episode.
While The Twilight Zone certainly was the most memorable production of his, it was not the only creative work for Rod Serling. He went on to produce another series and write one of the most iconic sci-fi films of all time..
Tough To Follow
Rod Serling didn’t sit back and ease into retirement after The Twilight Zone ceased production in 1964. He immediately began developing another thriller/suspense series, which albeit was hard to live up to given the success of his original creation.
Night Gallery debuted in 1970. A terror series with stories gleaned from paintings, it was also narrated in Serling’s familiar suit-and-tie persona. Serling was the host and wrote most of the first-season episodes.
Planet Of The Apes
Serling did less writing for the series the longer it went on, because the studios began bringing in less experienced writers as a cost savings. Ratings began to suffer in the second year, and declined a little more with each passing season.
Critics of the show faulted it for not being more like its beloved predecessor, and for inconsistencies in the scripts. Episodes aired that were obviously written as humor, and they fit poorly in a horror-themed series. Not even big-named talent like Cloris Leachman or story narrators like Orson Wells could drag it past a fourth season.
The Film’s Dark Cloud In Production
Aside for Serling’s success as a master storyteller on the small screen, he also had a hand in writing the screenplay for the iconic hit Planet of the Apes. Given the nature of the film being an alternate world in the future, the movie naturally feels like a longer episode of The Twilight Zone.
Rumor has it, that Serling went through about 40 drafts of the script for the film. While it’s not been corroborated who came up with the classic twist ending of the film, Serling recalled being the one to think of the specific Statue of Liberty that is now a Hollywood classic moment.
Revivals Of The Series
In 1983, a full-length film, The Twilight Zone: The Movie, was released. The film was four revamped stories from the original series, each segment directed by luminary directors, such as John Landis, Steven Spielberg, George Miller and Joe Dante.
The film’s moderate success at the box-office was overshadowed by an on-set tragedy, where actor Vic Morrow and two child actors were killed in helicopter scene gone wrong.
Narrator Extraordinaire
The Twilight Zone has seen a few newer iterations since the original series, with mostly newer storylines. The 1985 reboot lasted three seasons, while the 2002 version starring Forest Whitaker as the narrator lasted one.
In 2019, comedian and recent critically-acclaimed horror director Jordan Peele took over Serling’s mantle, serving as narrator and executive producer. This newer version went for a modern take on racism, xenophobia, and other themes of the show. It was canceled in 2021 after two seasons.
Rod Serling’s clever pacing of the storylines kept viewers guessing until the end. Because Serling’s only choice (actor Richard Egan) to narrate the series was under contract elsewhere, he stubbornly insisted on voicing the episodes personally after writing them.
Serling wore a black suit and tie, as well as a partial smirk, while holding a cigarette in the usual openings. His deep, resonant voice edged with wisdom led the viewer down the path of what obstacle, terror, or twist the characters were about to face. Serling left an indelible mark on the sci-fi genre to this day.