twilight zone time travel pilot

THE TWILIGHT ZONE: Dig These 13 Great TIME-TRAVEL EPISODES

Posted By Dan Greenfield on Nov 5, 2023 | 7 comments

Did you remember to turn your clocks back?

By PETER BOSCH

If you woke up this Nov. 5 morning all discombobulated because your digital clock read an hour earlier than it should, you have gone back in time with the end of Daylights Savings. With that in mind, let’s look at 13 GREAT TIME-TRAVEL EPISODES of The Twilight Zone , which will be celebrating its 65th anniversary in 2024:

The Time Element (aired November 24, 1958, on the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse ). Rod Serling had written this script in 1957 as a pilot for The Twilight Zone . CBS bought the script but shelved it. Bert Granet, the producer of Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, a CBS television anthology series from Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, wante a Rod Serling script to increase the prestige of the series and Serling told him of his shelved script, “The Time Element.” The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse production starred William Bendix, Martin Balsam, Darryl Hickman, Carol Kearney, Joe De Rita, and Jesse White.

The story begins in 1958 in New York with Peter Jenson (Bendix) talking to a psychiatrist (Balsam) about a dream he has had for several days in a row: He wakes up every morning and it is December 6, 1941, and he is in a Honolulu hotel. To describe the rest would take a ton of space, so it’d be best for you to view this rare show that led to The Twilight Zone yourself. This is the kind of excellent TV that people during the 1950s would stand around discussing the next day at the water cooler:

Walking Distance (aired October 30, 1959). I have to admit this is my favorite TZ episode. Walking Distance was written by Serling and starred Gig Young as Martin Sloan, a media executive so caught up in his career that he longs for the simpler days of his youth in Homewood. Driving near to it, he leaves his car for service at a garage and walks to the town, where he discovers it is still the way he remembered it. Except, it is the past and he encounters himself as a boy… and his parents are still alive. But it is a past where the adult Martin Sloan is not welcome. Serling’s script touches upon what we all feel at some time, a desire to return to our youth.

The Last Flight (aired February 5, 1960). In Richard Matheson’s first script for the series, British Flight Lieutenant William Terrance Decker (Kenneth Haigh) lands his World War I airplane at a U.S. base in France after passing through a white cloud. He quickly discovers that it is not 1917, as it was when he took off that morning, but 50 years later.

Execution (aired April 1, 1960). Joe Caswell (played with complete cold-bloodedness by Albert Salmi) is about to be hanged in the Old West for murder but when the horse is run out from under him, the noose is the only thing remaining. Caswell then finds himself in the laboratory of a 20th century scientist (Russell Johnson) who has snatched him from the past as an experiment. Script by Serling.

A Stop at Willoughby (aired May 6, 1960). While Serling’s “A Stop at Willoughby” is not legitimately a time-travel story, it does have sections where an advertising executive, Gart Williams (James Daly), worn out by a job he hates and a shrewish wife, dreams about stopping at Willoughby during his train ride home. Looking out his train window, Willoughby is, as the dream train conductor says, “July, summer, it’s 1888. Really a lovely little village. Peaceful, restful, where a man can slow down to a walk and live his life full measure.” Several times, he is about to get off and visit, but the train starts again and he wakes up back in the present. He determines that the next time, he is getting off at Willoughby.

The Trouble with Templeton (aired December 9, 1960). In a most unusual time-travel episode (written by E. Jack Neuman), famous stage actor Booth Templeton (Brian Aherne) is about to begin the first rehearsal of a new play but he is melancholy. His young and current wife is a flirt, playing around on him, but he doesn’t much mind because he never loved her. The only woman he ever loved was his first wife, Laura. Arriving at the theater, he encounters a bullying young director (Sydney Pollack) who wants to keep all his actors, including Booth, subservient to him. Booth flees the theater in a panic, but when he exits the stage door he is cheered by a throng of fans dressed in their finery. He looks about and sees play posters on the theater walls and they all state it is 1927. He is given a message that Laura (Pippa Scott) is waiting for him at a local speakeasy. But the meeting isn’t what he thought it would be. This was a poignant episode that showed that not only can we care about those who have gone on to the great beyond, but they can still care about us.

Back There (aired January 13, 1961). This is the episode that many consider typical of time-traveling shows — trying to save President Lincoln from assassination. Written by Serling, the story focuses on an engineer, Peter Corrigan (Russell Johnson), who discusses time travel theory with his fellow private club members. Leaving the club, he suddenly grows dizzy and finds his clothes altered from modern day to that of 1865 and all the surroundings of that era match it. He quickly realizes it is April 15, 1865, the night Lincoln will be shot. He goes to the police to try to warn them, but they don’t believe him and lock him up. A man claiming to be a government agent arrives and has them transfer him to his custody, then he takes Corrigan back to his room and drugs him. The man is John Wilkes Booth.

The Odyssey of Flight 33 (aired February 24, 1961). An unusual episode from Serling to be sure, “The Odyssey of Flight 33” ends in mid-crisis. The crew and passengers of Flight 33 on a trip from London to New York suddenly feel their jet airplane increasing speed. It keeps doing so until it passes the sound barrier and is headed back in time, ending up flying above a Manhattan Island of the past, with no buildings, no people, no New York. But they do see a dinosaur below looking up at them. The captain (John Anderson) reenters the jet stream and they finally break through the heavy cloud atmosphere to see they are nearing New York City. They believe they are back, but a look below at the buildings of the 1939 World’s Fair tells them they are still two decades away from home.

A Hundred Yards Over the Rim (aired April 7, 1961). A marvelous episode written by Serling in which Cliff Robertson stars as a settler, Chris Horn, in 1847 traveling West with his family and dying son, plus two other wagons with their families. While the others want to go back, Horn implores them to continue on their trek to California and allow him to walk to see what is just over the rim 100 yards ahead. When he gets to the top of the rim, he is dumbfounded — down the sloop in front of him are powerlines and a cement highway.

Once Upon a Time (aired December 15, 1961). This episode, written by Richard Matheson, had silent-film star Buster Keaton playing Woodrow Mulligan, a bad-tempered janitor in 1890, always complaining about everything. (The first section was played like a silent comedy, with title cards filling in the dialogue.) He longs to escape this time, and gets the accidental opportunity to do so when he puts on a time travel helmet invented by his boss. He dials the 1960s on it and is transported — but what he thought would be paradise is a loud, high-priced place of madness to him.

No Time Like the Past (aired March 7, 1963). Of all the time travelers during the five seasons of The Twilight Zone, none faced a more moral dilemma than Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews) in this story written by Serling. Driscoll had attempted three trips to the past — trying to prepare authorities in Hiroshima that they were about to be hit by the atomic bomb, attempting to assassinate Adolf Hitler, and warning the captain of the Lusitania it was about to be torpedoed – but each time he was unable to change the past. Since he couldn’t do that, and didn’t like the state of affairs in the 20th century, he decided to live in a small town in 1881 and never interfere with anything ever again. However, once settled in, he remembers parts of history that will test if he can remain inactive or not, including knowing that a local school will catch fire and a dozen children would be injured.

Of Late I Think of Cliffordville (aired April 11, 1963). Another script written by Serling, the focus this time is on William Feathersmith (Albert Salmi), a tycoon in 1963, who is completely heartless when it comes to business. However, he misses when he was young in Cliffordville, Indiana, and pursuing the deals on his way up. Heading out for the night, the elevator stops on the 13th floor and he sees an office marked “Devlin Travel Agency.” Entering it, he meets Miss Devlin (Julie Newmar), who makes no concealment she is the Devil. They make a deal for him to go back in time to Cliffordville, where he can use his knowledge of inventions and rich properties to make a brand new fortune. When he gets there, though, he learns that he may have known of the deals to be had — but not the resources to make him rich.

The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms (aired December 6, 1963). Written by Serling, the episode features three National Guard tank corpsmen (Ron Foster, Randy Boone and Warren Oates) on maneuvers in 1964 near the Little Bighorn, where Custer’s Last Stand took place in 1876. Little by little, they hear Indian noises, see smoke signals and an Indian village of teepees, and then one of their own is struck in the back by an arrow.

— THE TWILIGHT MAN: 13 THINGS You Might Not Know About ROD SERLING. Click here .

— THE PENGUIN AND BEYOND: 13 Great BURGESS MEREDITH Performances. Click here .

13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page , was published by TwoMorrows. He is currently at work on a sequel, about movie comics. Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.

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"the last flight" - essay #9, an excursion into "the last flight".

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Recap / The Twilight Zone (1959) S1E18: "The Last Flight"

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Rod Serling : Witness Flight Lieutenant William Terrance Decker, Royal Flying Corps, returning from a patrol somewhere over France. The year is 1917. The problem is that the Lieutenant is hopelessly lost. Lieutenant Decker will soon discover that a man can be lost not only in terms of maps and miles, but also in time - and time in this case can be measured in eternities.

Air date: Feb. 5, 1960

After getting lost over France, fighter pilot William Terrance "Terry" Decker lands at the American Lafayette Air Base in Reims, France, where he's met by a pair of soldiers in a jeep. They identify him as British, but is quite taken aback by their advanced aircraft. He's taken into the base and questioned by the commander, Major General Harper, and his provost marshal, Major Wilson. Decker identifies himself and his squadron, which he names as the Royal Flying Corps, and claims that he was intending to land at the 56th Squadron. Recognizing the name, Wilson asks Decker what the date is, to which Decker replies March 5th, 1917. Dumbfounded, Wilson tells him that it's March 5th, 1959.

Taking a look through the window, Decker notices a strange cloud that he had passed through earlier. Harper isn't so quick to believe his story, but Decker swears by it, that he was flying with Captain Mackaye. Decker is baffled that he knows the name. Harper identifies the name as Alexander Mackaye, who is now an Air Vice Marshal en route to the base for an inspection. Decker states that this is impossible because Mackaye is dead.

Decker is taken into custody, his belongings apprehended. Harper is quick to write off the whole thing as a hoax and Decker as delusional, but Wilson is willing to hear him out. He asks Decker how he knows Mackaye is dead and the lieutenant tells the whole story. Before he disappeared into the cloud, he and Mackaye had been fighting German aircraft and he didn't see any way Mackaye could've gotten out of it. Wilson states that he must have, since Mackaye was one of the greatest heroes during the Blitz. Decker panics and tries to escape, but is stopped by Wilson. He refuses to see Mackaye and admits that he's a coward, and always has been. On the day when he and Mackaye were attacked by the German planes, Decker abandoned him and flew through the cloud to flee. He has no clue how Mackaye could've survived when there were no other planes for 50 miles. Wilson suggests that he must've gotten help somehow , which leads to Decker speculating that maybe he was the one who saved him. That maybe time brought him here and gave him a second chance. He insists that he needs to get back to 1917.

When Wilson refuses to let him go, Decker knocks him and a nearby guard unconscious before making a break for his plane. Just before he's able to take off, he's stopped by Wilson, who threatens to shoot him. Decker decides he'd rather die like a hero than live like a coward any longer. Wilson can't bring himself to shoot and Decker takes off, disappearing into the cloud once again. Wilson holsters his gun and walks back to the base.

Later, as Wilson is being reprimanded by Harper for his actions, Mackaye arrives. The two introduce themselves and Wilson asks if he ever knew a man named Willam Terrance Decker. Mackaye tells them the story of how Decker saved his life when the two were ambushed by German planes. Mackaye thought Decker had flown away, only for him to come flying in and take down three of the planes before being shot down himself. Harper asks if his personal effects were recovered from the crash, which Mackaye denies. Harper takes out the file containing all of Decker's belongings. Mackaye asks what this is all about and Wilson asks him to sit down before they explain.

The Last Tropes:

An Aesop : Your existence touches countless lives both present and future, whether you realize it or not. What impression you leave is up to you.
Artistic License – History : Decker, who traveled forward in time from March 5, 1917, mentions the disappearance of French flying ace Georges Guynemer — who would not disappear until September of that year, months after Decker's experience.
Bittersweet Ending : Decker dies, but in the process he saves Mackaye's own life and countless other lives over the years.
Chromosome Casting : This episode does not feature any speaking roles for women.
Dirty Coward : Decker, by his own admission. He manages to redeem himself by going back to 1917 and saving Mackaye's life.
Double-Meaning Title : According to the author, the title has two meanings. It refers to Decker, a pilot, flying a plane for the last time, and it also refers to him overcoming his cowardice.
Embarrassing Nickname : Decker gave Mackaye the nickname "Old Leadbottom" after an incident where, while flying over German lines, got hit in "a most embarrassing spot."
"Eureka!" Moment : Decker left Mackaye to die, yet he somehow survived. Wilson believed he must have gotten help, but Decker clarified that there were no other planes around for miles, except himself...
Face Death with Dignity : Wilson: Stop this plane, or I'll shoot! Decker: Then shoot! I'd rather die!
Fish out of Temporal Water : Decker finds himself flung 42 years in the future after flying through that cloud.
For Want Of A Nail : A variation. Decker learns how important and valuable he is to his friend Mackaye. He chooses to go back to his own time to redeem himself through sacrifice.
Heroic Sacrifice : Upon returning to 1917, Decker immediately opens fire on the German planes attacking Mackaye. He was able to bring down three of them before being brought down himself, but he successfully managed to save Mackaye's life.
Negative Space Wedgie : The cloud. Decker described it as being swallowed into a vacuum, one where he couldn't even hear his engines.
Redemption Equals Death : After spending his entire life as a coward, Decker decides that he'd rather die than live as one any longer, especially after hearing all of Mackaye's accomplishments. He returns to 1917 and performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save his friend's life.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here : When Decker and Mackaye were ambushed by a German squadron, Decker abandoned him. The end of the episode reveals he then made an epic return to save Mackaye's life, at the cost of his own.
Shot in the Ass : The "most embarrassing spot" where Mackaye took a bullet back in the Great War, according to Decker.
Stable Time Loop : After escaping from his and Mackaye's battle, Decker flies through a mysterious cloud and ends up in 1959. He learns that Mackaye, who he'd left for dead, not only survived the ambush, but became a highly respected war hero. Decker realizes that he's the only one who could've saved him and, deciding that Mackaye's life is more valuable than his, returns to 1917 and sacrifices himself to save him.
Time Travel Episode : A frequent Twilight Zone trope. A World War I fighter pilot from 1917 flies into a strange cloud, and finds himself in 1959.
Trust Password : Mackaye is already rattled after seeing Decker's personal effects, but the clincher comes when Major Wilson calls him "Old Leadbottom", a private nickname that Decker bestowed on Mackaye 42 years before.
You Better Sit Down : Wilson tells Mckaye to sit down before he hears how they got Decker's belongings.

Alternative Title(s): The Twilight Zone S 1 E 18 The Last Flight

Creator/Richard Matheson
Little Girl Lost
The Twilight Zone (1959) S1E17: "The Fever"
Recap/The Twilight Zone (1959)
The Twilight Zone (1959) S1E19: "The Purple Testament"

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Exploring the Twilight Zone #18: The Last Flight

With the entire original run of The Twilight Zone available to watch instantly , we’re partnering with Twitch Film to cover all 156 episodes. Are you brave enough to watch them all with us?

The Twilight Zone (Episode #18): “The Last Flight” (airdate 2/5/60)

The Plot : A cowardly WWI pilot lands at the right base but at the wrong time – 42 years after he takes off.

The Goods : This episode is a true joy to watch because it’s a sci-fi mystery nested in other mysteries that need to be solved. Lt. William Decker (Kenneth Haigh) brings his Nieuport biplane and British stiff upper lip onto a French base that he believes is controlled by, you know, the French. When he lands, he finds it run by the United States, who wasn’t expecting his presence. Of course, Major General Harper (Alexander Scourby) takes him into custody for questioning.

His story is a fantastic one that involves dogfighting in WWI, magic clouds, being from the past, and watching a colleague’s plane go down. Even though he has identification and personal effects from the time period, the man he claims he abandoned to die back in The Great War (“Leadbottom” McKaye) is actually now an Air Vice Marshall who is coming to the base for an inspection.

So who is Decker? Is he a pilot from the past who flew through a strange time-traveling cloud and ended up in 1959 for what seems like no reason? Is he an assassin with a fabulous story trying to gain access to a high-ranking Royal Air Force member?

There’s little doubt to the answer, but that doesn’t make this episode clear-cut by any means. Since Decker is confused as to why he’s there (and because this was written by Richard Matheson (a known fan of magical time travel clouds)), the audience has to find out what little details there are along the way. Fortunately, the story isn’t a lightweight series of odd events – it’s a soft sci-fi tale that questions whether knowledge of the future can affect our decisions in the present. The intrigue is matched by the simple intensity of seeing a man in custody on a military base. There’s an “How will our hero get himself out of this one?” element to the proceedings that occurs in the immediate while the back of our minds keep trying to figure out what’s really going on.

Of course, what’s really going on creates a time travel paradox. Decker goes back to his own time to save his friend specifically because he sees the future where he saves his friend. It isn’t a parallel universe or an It’s a Wonderful Life style breathing hypothetical; Decker advances in time enough to see the result of what happens when he learns what happens in the future. He knows he can do it because he’s seen that he did it.

However, alongside a science fiction that hopes you won’t think too deeply about the time bending, Rod Serling and company deliver a serious price to pay for doing your duty that’s worth thinking deeply about.

A hell of a story, some strong acting all around, and a plot that continually surprises all the way to a very, very satisfying and bittersweet ending – this episode is definitely a stand out.

What do you think of the episode?

The Trivia : General Harper continually calls Air Marshall MacKaye, “sir,” even though they are equals as officers – a rare error made by a militaristically knowledgeable Rod Serling. Maybe he didn’t double check Matheson’s teleplay script.

On the Next Episode : A man with a special power in a war zone.

Catch-Up: Episodes covered by Twitch / Episodes covered by FSR

We’re running through all 156 of the original Twilight Zone episodes over the next several weeks, and we won’t be doing it alone! Our friends at Twitch will be entering the Zone as well on alternating weeks. So definitely tune in over at Twitch and feel free to also follow along on our Twitter accounts @twitchfilm and @rejectnation.

Related Topics: Exploring The Twilight Zone , The Twilight Zone

The Time Element

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The Time Element was the original pilot of The Twilight Zone .

"The Time Element" was a teleplay that premiered on November 24, 1958. It was Rod Serling's first science fiction story. It's a story that deals with time travel and the concept of illusion vs. reality. This teleplay also gave audiences a first glimpse of what was to become Serling's signature writing style: a plot twist. However, when CBS first looked at the script, they thought little of it and the script was shelved. But when Bert Granet, producer of The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, needed a script, he looked through CBS vaults and found "The Time Element." Desi Arnaz introduced the episode and it starred William Bendix, Martin Balsam, Darryl Hickman and Carol Kearney.

The story is a time travel fantasy of sorts, involving a man named Peter Jenson ( William Bendix ) visiting a psychoanalyst, Dr. Gillespie (Martin Balsam), with complaints of a recurring dream in which he imagines waking up in Honolulu just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

"I wake up in a hotel room in Honolulu, and it's 1941, but I mean I really wake up and it's really 1941," he explains, concluding that these are not mere dreams; he actually is traveling through time. However, Dr. Gillespie insists that time travel is impossible given the nature of temporal paradoxes. During his dream, taking advantage of the situation, he bets on all the winning horses, all the right teams and, eventually, tries unsuccessfully to warn others — the newspaper, the military, anyone — that the Japanese are planning a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor . His warnings are seen as crazed ravings and are either ignored or met with physical violence, as he is punched out by an engineer who works on the USS Arizona , after insisting that it will be sunk on December 7. Jenson's dream always ends as the Japanese bombers fly overhead on the morning of December 7, prompting him to yell out "I told you! Why wouldn't anybody listen to me?"

Jenson finally discloses to Dr. Gillespie that he was actually in Honolulu on December 7, 1941. While on the couch, Jenson falls asleep once again, only this time, Japanese planes flying overhead shoot inside the windows of his room and he is killed. When the camera cuts back to the doctor's office, the couch Jenson was lying on is now empty, and Dr. Gillespie looks around, confused. Although Jenson had smoked earlier, the ashtray is empty. He looks in his appointment book and finds he had no appointments scheduled for this day. Gillespie goes to a bar and finds Jenson's picture on the wall. The bartender said that Jenson tended bar there, but was killed in Pearl Harbor.

Production [ ]

With this script, Serling drafted the fundamental elements that would distinguish the series still to come: a science-fiction/fantasy theme, opening and closing narration, and an ending with a twist. But what would prove popular with audiences and critics in 1959 did not meet network standards in 1957. "The Time Element" was purchased only to be shelved indefinitely and talks of making The Twilight Zone a television series ended.

This is where things stood when Bert Granet, the new producer for Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse , discovered "The Time Element" in CBS' vaults while searching for an original Serling script to add prestige to his show. "The Time Element" (introduced by Desi Arnaz) debuted on November 24, 1958, to an overwhelmingly delighted audience of television viewers and critics alike. "The humor and sincerity of Mr. Serling's dialogue made 'The Time Element' consistently entertaining," offered Jack Gould of The New York Times . Over six thousand letters of praise flooded Granet's offices. Convinced that a series based on such stories could succeed, CBS again began talks with Serling about the possibilities of producing The Twilight Zone . "Where Is Everybody?" was accepted as the pilot episode and the project was officially announced to the public in early 1959. "The Time Element" is rarely aired on television and it was only available in an Italian DVD box set titled "Ai confini della realtà — I tesori perduti" until it was shown as part of an all night sneak preview of the new cable channel TVLand.

William Bendix - Peter Jenson
Martin Balsman - Gillespie
1 Eve Martin
2 Nightmare at 30,000 Feet
3 Point of Origin

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The Odyssey of Flight 33

Episode aired Feb 24, 1961

John Anderson, Paul Comi, Wayne Heffley, Sandy Kenyon, and Harp McGuire in The Twilight Zone (1959)

Passing through the sound barrier, a commercial airliner inadvertently travels back in time. Passing through the sound barrier, a commercial airliner inadvertently travels back in time. Passing through the sound barrier, a commercial airliner inadvertently travels back in time.

Justus Addiss
Rod Serling
John Anderson
Sandy Kenyon
47 User reviews
3 Critic reviews

John Anderson in The Twilight Zone (1959)

Capt. 'Skipper' Farver

1st Officer John Craig

Navigator Hatch

2nd Officer Wyatt

Flight Engineer Purcell

(uncredited)

All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

Trivia The authentic cockpit dialog was written by Robert J. Serling , the elder brother of Rod Serling . Robert was an airline pilot and aviation writer for United Press International. He is listed in the credits as consultant.
Goofs The tower controller in 1939 identifies the airport the flight is headed to as LaGuardia. Though this airport was dedicated that year, it was called New York Municipal Airport until the following year, when the CAA adopted New York Municipal Airport-LaGuardia Field. Officially shortened to LaGuardia Airport in 1953.

Narrator : [Closing Narration] A Global jet airliner, en route from London to New York on an uneventful afternoon in the year 1961, but now reported overdue and missing, and by now, searched for on land, sea, and air by anguished human beings, fearful of what they'll find. But you and I know where she is. You and I know what's happened. So if some moment, any moment, you hear the sound of jet engines flying atop the overcast - engines that sound searching and lost - engines that sound desperate - shoot up a flare or do something. That would be Global 33 trying to get home - from The Twilight Zone.

Connections Edited into Twilight-Tober-Zone: The Origin of Flight 33 (2021)
Soundtracks Twilight Zone Theme (theme song) Composed by Marius Constant (seasons 2-5)

User reviews 47

elo-equipamentos
Oct 7, 2019
February 24, 1961 (United States)
United States
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA
Cayuga Productions
CBS Television Network
See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

Runtime 25 minutes
Black and White

More to explore

The 50 Best Episodes of The Twilight Zone

“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 fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.” With those words, television changed forever.

When Rod Serling’s masterpiece premiered on CBS in 1959, he couldn’t have known how much it would still be impacting film and TV six decades later. Almost exactly 60 years after that first episode aired, Jordan Peele is rebooting the series , dragging us back into the zone with original stories starring Adam Scott, Kumail Nanjiani, Greg Kinnear, Steven Yeun, and many more.

If you’ve never seen an episode of the original series before, or simply want to revisit the best ones, now’s the time — all of them are on Hulu, and all but season four are on Netflix. But with 156 episodes of the original series (and two reboots), it can be tough to know where to start. Who’s got 74 hours to watch all of them? Probably no one. Start with these great 50 chapters from one of be the best TV shows of all time.

50. “What’s in the Box?” (Season 5, Episode 24)

Rod Serling’s creation arguably became more cynical as the show progressed, and the fifth season is full of bleak examinations of the human capacity for evil. This late-series gem stars William Demarest as an average cab driver in a miserable marriage to Joan Blondell. He complains about her cooking, may be cheating on her, and calls her names. When he mocks a TV repairman (played by Sterling Holloway) for taking too long and ripping him off, the repairmen really fixes his TV. Turned to the nonexistent channel 10, the cabbie sees scenes from his past, present, and then his future. And in that last one, he’s being arrested, tried, and executed for killing his wife. The Twilight Zone often played with the concept of fate, typically coming down on the side that we can’t avoid it. This episode presents us with a man scared that he’s going to kill his wife, but we know by now that this means he probably will anyway. In the Twilight Zone, we can’t avoid our true selves.

49. “The Old Man in the Cave” (Season 5, Episode 7) The first of many Serling-scripted episodes on this list, “The Old Man in the Cave” is based on a short story by Henry Slesar called “The Old Man,” and it’s a fascinating entry in the series history largely because of how many common elements of the show it actually subverts. It’s not only an episode that encourages faith in a higher power but one that arguably is pro-technology in its twist. That’s especially rare for a show that features about five dozen episodes about how technology will be the end of us. James Coburn stars as Major French, the leader of a group of soldiers who comes upon a town of survivors ten years after a nuclear war. These people have been kept alive by “the old man in the cave,” but French questions and confronts the guidance of their unseen leader. He learns a lesson, of course.

48. “Jess-Belle” (Season 4, Episode 7) Season four is the toughest stretch of The Twilight Zone because CBS expanded the show to an hour, which Serling didn’t like and the writing couldn’t quite support. Almost every episode of season four, including even the ones on this list, would have been better at half the running time. And yet there are still some good ones (and three truly great ones you’ll find in the top 25), including this old-fashioned story of jealousy and witchery with some great star value. Forbidden Planet’ s Anne Francis stars as Jess-Belle, who’s in love with Billy-Ben Turner, played by James Best (who would go on to play Rosco P. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazzard ). It’s a classic tale of a woman using witchcraft to get the man she wants and paying the price. Serling’s narration sells the charm: “In the telling, the story gets added to and embroidered on, so that what might have happened in the time of the Druids is told as if it took place yesterday in the Blue Ridge Mountains.”

47. “The Parallel” (Season 4, Episode 11) Steve Forrest plays Major Robert Gaines, an astronaut orbiting Earth when he loses contact with his home planet. He wakes up in bed with no memory of how he got there or what happened between the communication loss, but everything seems fine. Of course, it’s not. The brilliance of this episode is how Serling’s script carefully teases out the sense that something is wrong in Gaines’s world. He first wonders why there’s a picket fence in front of his house, when there wasn’t one when he left. He’s confused by people calling him Colonel when he knows he’s a Major. And then Serling drops the wonderful bomb when Gaines speaks of President John F. Kennedy, a man no one around him has ever heard of. Parallel universes became such a common storytelling device in sci-fi, but this is a clever riff on the concept, and one of the few episodes of this show that has a happy ending.

46. “The Changing of the Guard” (Season 3, Episode 37)

The season finale of the third season of The Twilight Zone has echoes of It’s a Wonderful Life embedded in its surprisingly sweet story. The vast majority of Serling’s scripts could be called misanthropic, often capturing how easily people could be drawn to their worst nature, but he would occasionally reveal a tender, even sentimental side, and arguably never more so than here. The setting is the Rock Spring School for Boys, where Professor Ellis Fowler (Donald Pleasence) is being pushed into retirement after over five decades on the job. Deeply depressed by the decision, he contemplates suicide, wondering if he’s had any impact at all. In a manner that recalls both Capra and Dickens, Fowler is visited by the ghosts of students he taught, all of whom convey how much they learned from their favorite teacher. Heroes from Iwo Jima and Pearl Harbor are among the specters, and Serling captures something graceful and true about how we can have a greater impact on those we teach than we can ever imagine.

45. “Person or Persons Unknown” (Season 3, Episode 27) The fluid nature of identity reoccurs in some of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone , including this 1962 story of a man named David Gurney (Richard Long) who wakes up to find himself erased from the life he knew. His wife doesn’t recognize him, his co-workers have never seen him before, and — in the most chilling moment — even his mother denies having a son named Richard. It’s even got a clever little twist ending in which Richard wakes up and thinks everything is back to normal, only to find out it really isn’t. Losing one’s identity has been a theme of science-fiction literature and film for years, and this is an underrated, terrifying riff on it in the world of TV. What would you do if every connection in your life was suddenly erased?

44. “Hocus-Pocus and Frisby” (Season 3, Episode 30) The comedy episodes of The Twilight Zone — and there are more of them than you probably remember — haven’t exactly held up like the scary ones. People love to talk about the twists and shocks of The Twilight Zone way more than the jokes, but this one isn’t as dated as the other funny installments because its concept is so resolutely clever: What if someone could stop an alien invasion through the sheer power of their level of annoyance? Frisby (Andy Devine) tells lie after lie to his friends — the kind of blatantly tall tales so high that you can’t see the top of them. He’s told so many lies that alien invaders become convinced that he’s the most important person on Earth, and so they reach out to him and take him to their planet. They regret it.

43. “Dust” (Season 2, Episode 12) Rod Serling’s most popular episodes are often known for their vicious twists, from broken glasses to alien cuisine, but he could also be found rooting for the underdog and the downtrodden. And he often returned to the importance of faith in the human condition. This season-two episode is blissfully simple but powerful. In a small village in the Old West, a man is going to be hanged for accidentally causing the death of a child. A cruel man convinces the accused’s father than he can engender sympathy from the onlookers if he spreads magic dust on them, but we know it’s really just dirt. Of course, Serling has a twist, encouraging viewers to believe that faith can overcome trickery.

42. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (Season 5, Episode 22)

This arguably doesn’t qualify in that it wasn’t produced originally for The Twilight Zone , but it aired on TV under the banner of Serling’s show and he added opening and closing narration, so we’re going for it anyway. Some background info: It was originally a short film from France, and it won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. The story goes that Serling liked it so much that the show paid $25,000 to buy it and air it as one of their episodes (although he’s very up-front about that, saying in the intro, “For the first time in the five years we’ve been presenting The Twilight Zone , we’re offering a film shot in France by others.”) It’s easy to see why Serling liked the nearly dialogue-less short, the story of a man set to be hanged but the rope breaks. As his captors try to catch him, he tries to make it home to his love. Based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce, the ending definitely has that Twilight Zone flavor.

41. “The Obsolete Man” (Season 2, Episode 29) Is Burgess Meredith the MVP of The Twilight Zone ? The man who would be the Penguin appeared in four episodes of the series, including “Mr. Dingle, the Strong,” “Printer’s Devil,” and a famous one much higher on this list. This is his second-best outing, an angry, Serling-scripted chapter about the state of a world that increasingly valued power over art. Meredith plays a librarian named Romney Wordsworth (of course), and librarians have been deemed unnecessary in this future society. The Chancellor (Fritz Weaver) finds Romney guilty of being obsolete and sentences him to death, but the bookworm gets to choose the method of his execution and he has a trick up his sleeve. Serling’s streak of questioning authority and defending things like art and religion is strong here, and Meredith elevates the entire episode.

40. “A Penny for Your Thoughts” (Season 2, Episode 16)

Dick York of Bewitched fame stars as a bank clerk named Hector Poole in an episode that largely succeeds because one of those very Twilight Zone concepts. A man flips a coin into a newspaper box and it lands on its side, which apparently opens some sort of magical portal — this is one of those episodes that doesn’t feel a need to explain a whole lot — that allows Hector to hear other people’s thoughts. A visit to his job at the bank reveals a great number of unspoken secrets, including a mistress and a plan to embezzle money. It’s all a little goofy, but York sells it and the final scenes really work as Hector becomes a less insecure man through his adventure, learning that everyone around him has issues too.

39. “A Hundred Yards Over the Rim” (Season 2, Episode 23) Time travel is a recurring motif of The Twilight Zone , but the way it’s used here is so refreshingly simple and charming that it works better than when it becomes a heavy-handed device in other episodes. Chris Horn (Cliff Robertson, who has two episodes on this list) is the leader of a dying group of settlers trying to get from Ohio to California in 1847. He crosses a hill and he’s suddenly transported more than a century into the future, where he receives the medication to save his boy’s life and the directions to his destination that saves his people back in the 19th century. There are fewer “messages” in this episode than others, but it’s clever in its simplicity, and Robertson does a good job conveying the confusion and wonder of a man who literally walks over a rim into the future.

38. “The Encounter” (Season 5, Episode 31) The last great episode of The Twilight Zone is also one of its most politically fascinating. Serling’s show often worked most effectively as a two-hander, but rarely did it explore national issues like race and divisiveness as explicitly as it did here. The plot is wonderfully simple — an American WWII vet (Neville Brand) and a Japanese-American (George Takei) end up in an attic together, an old samurai sword serving as the Chekhov’s gun of the setup. The vet is a little racist, and the Japanese-American looks at the sword and vows to kill the man who took it from his culture. Is the sword itself bringing out buried animosities in both men? Dialogue-heavy in a way this show often wasn’t, this is a daring episode of TV, challenging preconceptions of veterans and opening wounds of a people who were, relative to the airing of this show, considered the enemy and interned. Fenton expresses regret over his actions in World War II, something else that seems shocking for national television in 1964, and the episode ends with what some deemed culturally insensitive violence. It typically wasn’t included in rerun packages, only airing on TV as a part of SyFy’s annual marathon on New Year’s Eve, but it feels like an essential episode now, a chapter that interrogates the violence and hatred simmering in attics across the country.

37. “A Nice Place to Visit” (Season 1, Episode 28) Like The Good Place ? You should check out this show that feels like it probably inspired it at least a little. “Rocky” Valentine (Larry Blyden) is a petty criminal who is shot after trying to rob a police officer. He wakes up in the company of a man named Pip (Sebastian Cabot), who tells Rocky that he’s now his guide, and can give him whatever he wants. He takes him to a luxurious apartment, and lavishes food, women, and even luck in a casino upon him. When Rocky tries to shoot Pip and it doesn’t work, he assumes that this magic man is his guardian angel and he’s in heaven. If you’ve seen the NBC hit, you can see the twist here coming, but it’s still effective and fun to watch it play out. After all, what’s more hellish than the predictability of always having everything you want and knowing how everything is going to turn out?

36. “The Howling Man” (Season 2, Episode 5) A rough start to season two turns around with this creepy period piece starring H.M. Wynant and John Carradine. A man in the 1920s gets lost and finds his way to a European castle that houses a religious order known as the Brothers. As a storm rages, the man seeks shelter but is turned away. He pleads for help and hears a howl emanating from somewhere in the ancient structure. The traveler collapses, and the Brothers show mercy and take him in, but he hears the howling again. He investigates and finds a prisoner who has been mistreated and abused by the Brothers. That’s when a man named Brother Jerome tells the wanderer the truth: This is no ordinary man, it’s the Devil himself. The idea that Satan is being kept from destroying the world by a religious group in a creepy castle somewhere in Europe is a great concept for fiction, and this one is well-executed and honestly eerie.

35. “A Quality of Mercy” (Season 3, Episode 15)

You always know that Serling is getting serious when he quotes Shakespeare (and Serling does credit the Bard’s The Merchant of Venice for the title in his closing narration.) The Twilight Zone often stumbled when it tackled history — some of those episodes have not aged well — but this journey into the closing days of World War II still has power. The great Dean Stockwell stars as Lieutenant Katell, a soldier who basically wants to fight until he can fight no more. It may be August 1945 and the war may be ending, but he still orders his men to attack a group of infirm Japanese soldiers seeking shelter in a cave. As they try to talk him out of it, Katell is suddenly transformed into Lieutenant Yamuri in the Imperial Japanese Army, three years earlier in the war. The orders are the same — massacre a group of people who pose no real threat — but now the officer is on the other side. Serling was arguing that we are more like our enemies than not, less than two decades after the end of World War II, and it’s a message that’s still powerful today.

34. “Little Girl Lost” (Season 3, Episode 26) Some episodes of The Twilight Zone are deeply philosophical or socially relevant; some are just creepy mindf**ks. This chapter by the great Richard Matheson ( I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man ) from his own short story falls into the latter category. Imagine being able to hear your child but not find her. This is what happens to Ruth (Sarah Marshall) and Chris Miller (Robert Sampson) when their daughter Bettina simply disappears. They can hear Bettina crying, but they can’t get to her as she appears to have basically fallen into a parallel dimension. It’s reportedly based on a real incident in which Matheson’s daughter fell off her bed and rolled underneath it, leading to confusion about where she could be. A clear inspiration for Poltergeist (as well as a great Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” episode), “Little Girl Lost” is simple but effective.

33. “Twenty Two” (Season 2, Episode 17) Who doesn’t love a good prophetic vision? A likely inspiration for Final Destination , “Twenty Two” stars Barbara Nichols as Liz Powell, a dancer who has been hospitalized for exhaustion. While in her hospital bed, she keeps having a nightmare with the same beats. It always ends with Powell following a nurse to the basement of the hospital and the morgue, which is in room 22. It’s a vivid, terrifying dream, made all the stranger by the fact that Liz’s doctors can’t figure out how she knows that the morgue is in room 22. In the brilliant final scenes, Powell has finally been released but elements of the dream start to resurface at the airport as she boards a plane; of course, Flight 22. Effectively creepy, this might not be one to watch on your next long-distance flight. (There are several episodes of this show probably banned from in-flight entertainment.)

32. “A Stop at Willoughby” (Season 1, Episode 30) Nostalgia was a common theme of The Twilight Zone , often presented in a manner that encouraged people to stop living in the past. After all, you really can never go home again. And yet that doesn’t stop people from trying. Take the story of Gart Williams (James Daly), a miserable New York ad executive who works too hard and hates his modern life. He falls asleep on the commuter train he takes to and from work, dreaming of a stop on the route that doesn’t exist anymore, the peaceful town of Willoughby back in July 1888. Every time he falls asleep he returns to this idyllic place, tempted more and more to get off the train of modern life and stay in the past he has so thoroughly idealized. In the end, he does get off the train at Willoughby, and we learn that he jumped off the rails in 1960 and died instantly. The funeral home that takes him away? Willoughby & Son.

31. “Nothing in the Dark” (Season 3, Episode 16) Will we know when death is at our door? Wanda Dunn (silent film star Gladys Cooper) is convinced that she will. And she has basically staved off death by becoming an agoraphobe, refusing to go outside or even answer the occasional knock. After all, that could be the grim reaper rapping. When a young police officer, played with a perfect blend of mystery and kindness by Robert Redford, comes to her door and asks for help, she breaks her own rule and lets him in. As she tends to the injured officer, she tells him of her fear that death is stalking her doorstep. Of course, she’s not wrong. Death was and still is such a terrifying concept for people, but this episode finds a way to present it with nuance and grace.

30. “Nick of Time” (Season 2, Episode 7)

Everyone talks about the episode in which William Shatner had the worst flight in TV history , but it wasn’t his only great episode of The Twilight Zone . He actually made his first appearance on the show three seasons earlier in this clever mind game. Some of the best episodes work beautifully because they offer little explanation — something that could be learned by the way too many over-explaining shows and films influenced by Serling. Could a fortune-teller machine on a diner table in Ohio actually be able to tell the future? Why not? Shatner’s newlywed and his bride find that machine on a random stop, but they learn that knowing all the answers can be a curse as much as a blessing.

29. “The Last Flight” (Season 1, Episode 18) Richard Matheson adapts his own short story in this clever time-travel narrative that uses the classic sci-fi structure for a commentary on heroism. Terry Decker (Kenneth Haigh) has never considered himself a hero, especially as he flies away from an aerial dogfight in 1917. He pilots his plane through a strange cloud and lands at an American airbase in France, totally confused about where he is … and when. It turns out that it’s 1959, but that’s not the biggest twist. One of the soldiers he left behind in 1917, Alexander Mackaye, is scheduled to visit the base that day. Mackaye is world famous for having saved hundreds of lives in World War II, which seems impossible to Decker given how he left his fellow soldier. Realizing the importance that Mackaye will have to history, Decker decides to find his courage. It’s a clever, moving commentary on how saving one life can impact hundreds more.

28. “Long Distance Call” (Season 2, Episode 22) To save money in season two when the show’s budget started to balloon, CBS ordered that six episodes be produced and shot on videotape instead of film. They have not aged well visually, looking stale and flat compared to the underrated visual brilliance of the show overall. The one episode that stands out is this March 1961 entry about a 5-year-old boy with a connection to his grandmother that’s so close, they can communicate after she passes away. A child who might be talking to his dead relative on a toy phone is creepy enough, but this one takes it a step further by insinuating that grandma might be trying to talk her grandson into joining her in the great beyond. It’s hard not to think that hit films about kids venturing to the other side like Insidious and Poltergeist were at least a little influenced by “Long Distance Call.”

27. “People Are Alike All Over” (Season 1, Episode 25) What would we do if we ever met an alien species? Would we trust them or fight them? It’s a theme of science fiction since it began, and one that worked its way into The Twilight Zone a few times — arguably never better than in this season-one episode about two Mars-destined astronauts who disagree about their approach. Warren Marcusson (Paul Comi) believes that needs are common, even across planets. Sam Conrad (Roddy McDowall) disagrees. They crash onto the red planet and Marcusson is injured, dying before he can even see the crimson ground. Conrad exits and finds Martians who look like humans and can read his mind. They reassure him, and he becomes convinced that he can trust them. Of course, he can’t, but the twist actually does confirm Marcusson’s stance too if you think about it; as Conrad expresses in his final words: Every species tries to find a way to dominate the others.

26. “One for the Angels” (Season 1, Episode 2) One of the masterstrokes of The Twilight Zone was how well the producers and Serling knew how to use their guest stars, writing roles for them that instantly felt like they couldn’t have been filled by anyone else. The show’s second episode starts this trend with a part that fits the wonderful Ed Wynn to a T. The great actor leans into his charming desperation as Lou Bookman, a sidewalk salesman who thinks he has a gift for gab. On a relatively average day, he discovers that his newest mark is Death himself, and Lou convinces the Grim Reaper to make a deal: Let him live until he has made the greatest sales pitch of his life. Death goes along with it, and then Lou retires, announcing he will sell no more, but Death has a trick too, revealing that he’ll have to take a neighborhood girl in his place. Lou will have to sell once more. It’s not as famous as some of the other early episodes because it’s less reliant on a twist, but it’s a great episode in terms of the humanity of this show — one that could be deeply cynical about human nature but often took a chance to see its willingness to sacrifice as well.

25. “The Grave” (Season 3, Episode 7)

There’s a reason that the bare bones of this story have been passed down around campfires and in ghost-story anthologies for generations: It just works. The basic story is always the same: A boy or man is pressured into facing his fears and visiting a graveyard at night, from which he never returns, often being revealed as having scared himself to death. Writer/director Montgomery Pittman takes the classic story to the Old West, turning it into a commentary on masculinity, with a town of men pressuring a tracker named Sykes into visiting the grave of the outlaw he was supposed to catch. With a great cast that includes Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef, and Strother Martin, “The Grave” often doesn’t make lists like this because it’s such a known story (and thus less surprising in its twist), but one shouldn’t ignore how incredibly well-made this episode is. Visually, it’s one of the strongest, full of shadows and light and the wind blowing through the trees.

24. “The Thirty-Fathom Grave” (Season 4, Episode 2) If this episode had been in any other season of the show, it would have been a top-ten classic. It’s got such a great setup and payoff, but it suffers only because it had to be dragged out to an hour as a part of the fourth season. It’s essentially a riff on Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” with the beating of a human heart replaced by the banging of a hammer in the middle of the ocean. A Navy destroyer comes upon that inexplicable sound and tracks it to a sunken submarine on the ocean floor. Presuming someone needs their help, they send a crew down to find out who’s banging that hammer, only to discover the hull of a sub sunk two decades earlier. There was only one survivor, and that survivor just happens to be on the destroyer, and it was his error that caused the sub to sink. Have his fellow shipmates come to take him to the watery grave he deserves? It’s the creepiest episode of season four.

23. “Miniature” (Season 4, Episode 8) The Twilight Zone is widely regarded as the Rosetta Stone of films and TV that hinge on twists, but that has left it to be underrated in several other departments, especially performance. One of the best in the history of the show comes in this season-four chapter that stars a young Robert Duvall, already displaying the acting skills that would make him an Oscar-winning, all-time great. Duvall plays Charley Parkes, an average man who becomes obsessed with a dollhouse in a museum, convinced that the dolls within it are alive. He returns to the dollhouse regularly to see what’s happening with its residents, even as the guard tries to convince him that they couldn’t possibly be moving. Is Charley witnessing a supernatural phenomenon or is he just going crazy? Duvall is fantastic at playing that gray area of a man who may be the only one who knows the truth or may have just completely lost his mind.

22. “The Dummy” (Season 3, Episode 33) Ventriloquist dummies are creepy. There’s just no way around it. The idea of a man-controlled object suddenly becoming sentient is inherently terrifying. “The Dummy” stars Cliff Robertson as a ventriloquist who becomes convinced that his stage partner is more than just a hunk of wood. No one believes him, even after Willie the dummy bites his master’s hand. Most of “The Dummy” consists of our hapless hero trying to convince people in his life that he’s in danger, and the whole episode is amplified by the chill-inducing sound of Willie’s laugh.

21. “Five Characters in Search of an Exit” (Season 3, Episode 14) From here on out, we’re pretty much getting to the A-rated, four-star classic episodes of television. This one is a fan favorite largely because of the gorgeous simplicity of its setup and twist. A clown, a hobo, a ballet dancer, a bagpipe, and an army major find themselves in a windowless, doorless room. Winner of multiple Emmy Awards, director Lamont Johnson paces this one perfectly, especially when one considers how little he has to work with, just bouncing five confused souls off one another until the classic twist of the truth of their predicament is revealed.

20. “Third From the Sun” (Season 1, Episode 14)

Richard Matheson, who would become one of the best writers of The Twilight Zone , wrote the source material for this classic but not the actual episode script. Serling scripted this chapter, which is a perfect distillation of his show’s interest in space exploration, commentary on the state of the human race, and brilliance, with a twist. Aired in an era in which children were being told to hide under their desks in nuclear bomb drills, the story of a scientist who becomes convinced that his planet is literally on the eve of nuclear war must have been all the more harrowing. The scientist gets his co-worker and their families and decides it’s time to leave before there’s nothing left to escape from. They supply and basically steal a spaceship, heading off into the reaches of space in search of a planet they’ve heard of that will be more peaceful and safer. Of course, the twist is that the planet they’re heading to is Earth, having left one that looked like our home but secretly was not. The twist allows Serling to confront the prospect of nuclear annihilation and ask viewers if they’re willing to change or be forced to leave altogether.

19. “Living Doll” (Season 5, Episode 6) “I’m Talky Tina and I’m going to kill you.” The ancestor of Chucky, Talky Tina was one of this show’s most terrifying creations, a child’s toy turned murderous. Voiced by the great June Foray (of Rocky & Bullwinkle and Looney Tunes fame), Tina finds her way into the home of the brutish Erich Streator, played by the-man-who-would-be-Kojak Telly Savalas. Erich is a jerk, the mean stepfather to his new wife’s daughter Christie. He openly resents his stepdaughter and derides his wife Annabelle, in part because they are incapable of having a child of his own. In other words, one of the greatest twists of this episode is that there’s a small part of us that starts to root for Talky Tina. Think about how differently this plays if Erich is just an ordinary guy beset upon by a homicidal doll as opposed to an irredeemable jerk who arguably gets what he deserves … in the Twilight Zone.

18. “The Masks” (Season 5, Episode 25) The brilliant Ida Lupino directs what is Serling’s last great script, a late series masterpiece that feels more like a piece of theater than television. It certainly borrows from Shakespeare in its deeply dysfunctional family dynamics and a patriarch seeking his revenge before shuffling off this mortal coil. The episode takes place during Mardi Gras, as a wealthy old man faces impending death. Ostensibly to say goodbye, the old codger brings everyone who hopes to get a part of his fortune to his mansion, including his daughter, son-in-law, grandson, and granddaughter. They’re all awful people, and if they want a dime from the old man then they’re going to have to externalize their worst internal traits. Forced to wear hideous masks until midnight to get their inheritance, the family starts to crack, and eventually learns that when one reveals their true self, they can no longer hide it.

17. “Eye of the Beholder” (Season 2, Episode 6) If this list was purely about the best twists in the history of The Twilight Zone , this would be even higher. It’s one of the most famous in the history of television, often pointed to as an example of how to use a twist not just to shock but as a form of commentary. A woman is terrified that she’ll never look “normal,” having eleven (the max legally allowed) treatments to fix her face. As doctors and nurses lament the fate of their poor patient, she wonders if this will finally be the day she assimilates to perceptions of normalcy. Of course, the fact that we never see the faces of anyone until the twist kind of telegraphs it, especially for modern audiences, but there’s still power in the idea that words like “normal” and “beautiful” aren’t the same for everyone.

16. “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” (Season 2, Episode 28) Agatha Christie probably loved this episode. It feels like a setup pulled straight from the Queen of Suspense in the way it locks a finite number of people in a room and accuses one of them of not being completely honest. Two state troopers investigate a report of a UFO and find evidence of a crash, following footprints from the scene to a diner called the Hi-Way in the middle of nowhere. A bus has stopped there, its travelers taking a break for a meal. The driver doesn’t have a manifest and didn’t get a good look at his passengers on this snowy night, but says he counted six of them. There are seven in the diner. Which one is the interstellar traveler? Like so many great episodes of this show, the brilliant setup is half the battle, and this is one of the best. It’s a fun episode that gets at the show’s recurring theme of paranoia as even the couples among the passengers start to question one another.

15. “Where Is Everybody?” (Season 1, Episode 1)

There have been dozens of lists of the best pilots of all time, but the series premiere of The Twilight Zone is too often missing from those lists. Earl Holliman became the first confused resident of the Twilight Zone, an Air Force pilot who finds himself alone on a dirt road with no memory of how he got there or where exactly there even is. He walks to a nearby town and finds it empty, populated by mannequins instead of people, even though there are signs of recent inhabitance, like coffee at the diner and a still-burning cigarette. Did something happen to the man or to everyone else? Immediately, Serling was playing games with perception and revelation, keeping viewers off-kilter and uncertain of even the basic elements of storytelling like who and where. It was brilliant right from the very beginning.

14. “To Serve Man” (Season 3, Episode 24) Rod Serling loved to play with language, and this adaptation of the Damon Knight short story may be his most famous case of doing so. It’s arguably the best twist in the history of TV, becoming a part of pop culture that can still be referenced over half a century later. The only reason it’s not higher on this list is because it’s so reliant on its twist — it’s really kind of a mediocre episode until then — even if it’s an unforgettable one. An alien race has landed on Earth, bringing with them a book with a title that is translated as “To Serve Man.” While this translation seems to allay human fears, the closing scenes reveal its true, dark, culinary meaning. It’s a phenomenal twist that’s also a nice bit of commentary on human nature if you think about it — perhaps if our species questioned why another race would volunteer to be its servants they’d be less likely to be turned into their dinner.

13. “And When the Sky Was Opened” (Season 1, Episode 11) Once again, we have an episode in which Serling adapted a short story by Matheson, and the result is one of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone . This one has so many of the show’s best themes — space travel, paranoia, government conspiracies, the one man who knows the truth — and incorporates them into what becomes an increasingly terrifying narrative. Three Air Force pilots return from a test flight of an experimental spaceplane. Or do they? When one of the men, Forbes, goes to visit his co-pilot Gart in the hospital, Forbes insists that there was a third man named Harrington, even if no one seems to remember he exists. He’s been erased from headlines and Gart’s memory. Was he never supposed to return? Is some higher power trying to correct the oversight? And how can Forbes convince the world that his friend of 15 years ever existed?

12. “Perchance to Dream” (Season 1, Episode 9)

Based on a Charles Beaumont short story, this is one of the most visually striking episodes of The Twilight Zone , and a possible inspiration for Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street . There’s something so relatably terrifying about turning the safe haven of sleep into a place of danger, and that’s what this episode does to Edward Hall (Richard Conte), a man who is convinced that if he sleeps, he will dream, and if he dreams, he will die. A heart condition means if he stays awake much longer, he’ll die anyway, but he tells his doctor that his dreams have become a consistent series of serial chapters involving a fun house and a carnival dancer whom he’s convinced is going to kill him. It’s one of the most visually hypnotic, almost Lynchian episodes of the show, and it contains one of Serling’s best closing narrations: “They say a dream takes only a second or so, and yet in that second a man can live a lifetime. He can suffer and die. And who’s to say which is the greater reality: the one we know or the one in dreams, between heaven, the sky, the earth — in the Twilight Zone.”

11. “The After Hours” (Season 1, Episode 34) It’s impossible to look at old-fashioned mannequins in department stores and not think of this chilling episode of television from nearly six decades ago. Anne Francis plays Marsha White, an average shopper looking for a gold thimble in a department store. She takes the elevator to the ninth floor, finding nothing there at first. After the doors close, a saleswoman takes her to the item for which she’s been searching, although she learns on the way down that the thimble is damaged. When she goes to the complaints department, they tell her what viewers already suspected: There is no ninth floor. The payoff/twist of “The After Hours” isn’t one of the show’s best, but the eerie atmosphere that leads up to it is palpable. What if you were told you went somewhere that didn’t exist? Would you think you were going crazy? Or would you know you were in the Twilight Zone?

10. “On Thursday We Leave for Home” (Season 4, Episode 16) This was reportedly Rod Serling’s favorite episode from the maligned fourth season, and the reasons are clear. It’s the smartest, and arguably the only, one that justifies that season’s hour-long structure in terms of running time. James Whitmore stars as Captain William Benteen, the leader of a group of survivors on a distant planet with two suns. It is never night and it is never cool, but Benteen keeps his colony as happy as possible, telling them stories of the Earth. For three decades, they’ve relatively thrived, turning into a community of settlers on this desert planet. And then travelers come to take them home, but Benteen isn’t sure he wants to give up the power he’s created for himself. A razor-sharp dissection of how hard it can be to give up control, anchored by a great performance from Whitmore, this is probably the best episode that’s not widely known, chiefly because it doesn’t have an unforgettable twist.

9. “The Invaders” (Season 2, Episode 15)

A masterpiece of nearly silent television, this classic episode stars Agnes Moorehead as a cabin-bound woman who has the most unforgettable night of her life. A spaceship lands on her roof, and what look like tiny robots emerge, attacking the woman in confusing, terrifying ways. Not only was it daring for the show to produce an episode that is mostly just silent grunts, but this one has one of the show’s best surprises, revealing that the woman is not the victim we presumed her to be for the entire episode. The Twilight Zone was the best when it came to playing with perception and assumption. Serling knew how to subvert what people thought they were seeing and reveal a greater, more challenging truth in the end.

8. “Mirror Image” (Season 1, Episode 21) Everyone is talking about Jordan Peele’s Us before the reboot of his The Twilight Zone on CBS All Access. This episode is the most essential to connecting the two. Peele has come out and said that it was one of his favorite episodes as a kid and influenced the creation of Us . The concept is beautiful and elegant in its simplicity. A woman at an isolated bus station waits for a late bus, which seems to never arrive. She asks the attendant for an update, only to be told that she’s already asked three times. She knows she hasn’t. And then just after a cleaning lady tells her she was just in the bathroom, she spies something terrifying in the mirror: herself. Sitting in the station is her doppelganger. Brilliantly, it’s an easily identifiable fear that allows for audience participation. What would you do if you spotted someone who looked exactly like you? This classic episode — not to mention Peele’s Us — offers some hints.

7. “The Hitch-Hiker” (Season 1, Episode 16) Based on a 1941 radio play by Lucille Fletcher, this season-one chiller is again an episode that works because we can relate. If you’ve been on a cross-country trip, and ever felt something unsettling about being alone in the vast expanse of the middle of America, you’ll recognize this episode’s mood. On a trip from New York to Los Angeles, a woman named Nan Adams keeps seeing the same mysterious man thumbing for a ride. Is she going crazy? She first presumes, as everyone would, that she’s just happening upon the same lonely traveler, but then he starts bending space and time, appearing in locations he couldn’t possibly get to that quickly. It’s a truly scary episode that recalls one of the best indie horror films of all time, which would come out two years later, Carnival of Souls . In fact, watch ‘em both.

6. “It’s a Good Life” (Season 3, Episode 8)

You may know the version of this episode remade for Twilight Zone: The Movie, but there’s something more sinister and scarier about the 1961 original. Perhaps it’s because this version of the 6-year-old with godlike powers feels more vengeful and creepier in black and white as he punishes those who even think negative thoughts about him. And God help anyone who dares to sing. Any parent can tell you that we’re often at the whims of our tantrum-prone children, but the idea that a kid could turn the mood swings inherent to childhood into destructive power makes for riveting fiction. It’s such a great episode that it speaks for itself; as Serling says at the start of his closing narration: “No comment here, no comment at all.” He’s too scared to do so.

5. “Time Enough at Last” (Season 1, Episode 8) Fiction has a long history of stories that could fall under the banner of “be careful what you wish for.” This episode is one of the most famous of that subcategory, a brutally cynical tale of a man getting the solitude he so desires, and then basically being punished by bad luck in the end. Based on a short story by Lynn Venable, it stars Burgess Meredith as Henry Bemis, a man who only wants time to read his beloved books. It’s no wonder he retreats to the comfort of literature: He hates his marriage and his job at a bank. His awful spouse even tricks him by inking over the pages of a book she asks him to read. As a result, Henry likes to read in the bank vault, the only place he can find solitude — and that’s where he’s at when a nuclear bomb goes off, leaving him as the last man on Earth. As despair leads him to contemplate suicide, he notices that a library’s worth of books is intact. Misery turns to glee, but not for long. The final lines are iconic: “That’s not fair. That’s fair at all. There was time now. There was — was all the time I needed! It’s not fair! It’s not fair!” Nope, Henry, it’s definitely not. Such is life in the Twilight Zone.

4. “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (Season 5, Episode 3) One of the most famous episodes of all time has been remade twice — first, relatively faithfully in the movie (starring John Lithgow), and now twisted into something gloriously new in the upcoming reboot (this time with Adam Scott). And yet it will always be hard to top the original, a master class in suspense and action, something that the relatively talky Twilight Zone isn’t exactly known for if you think about it. The major beats of this William Shatner masterpiece have become a part of pop-culture history, but there are other elements of “Nightmare” that don’t get enough credit, particularly how deftly the episode plays with trauma and the relatable fear of flying. Shatner is one of the show’s best surrogates, someone into whose terrified shoes we can easily step. Who after watching this hasn’t been on a plane on a stormy night, looking carefully at the wing, just waiting to see a gremlin playing with the wires?

3. “A Game of Pool” (Season 3, Episode 5)

Two phenomenal performances elevate one of the best episodes of television history in this examination of what it means to be the best at something — both how we seek it and feel forced to defend it. Jesse Cardiff (Jack Klugman) is one of the best pool players in the world, but he feels the only thing holding him back from the title of being the best of all time is the legendary status of the now-deceased “Fats” Brown (Jonathan Winters). As if he’s answering the challenge, Fats comes down from heaven and plays a game with the heir to his throne. Smart, funny, and so insightful about the idea of being a legend, this is fantastic TV that hasn’t aged in the slightest.

2. “Walking Distance” (Season 1, Episode 5) The concept that the Twilight Zone is a physical place, maybe a universe parallel to our own, where a lesson is waiting to be learned, is never better captured than in this perfect episode of television. Martin Sloan (Gig Young) stops to get his car looked at and realizes he’s close enough to walk into his hometown. As he does so, he discovers he’s walked directly into the past, even seeing himself as a young boy. He’s not exactly welcome, scaring the young version of himself and confusing his parents. It’s a mesmerizing episode technically, with gorgeous canted angles of a carousel and a beautiful original score by Bernard Herrmann.

It’s also clearly very personal, a piece that feels like it was reflecting Serling’s inability to “go home again” as much as anything else. You can hear that in what’s arguably his most poetic and beautiful closing narration: “And also like all men, perhaps there’ll be an occasion, maybe a summer night sometime, when he’ll look up from what he’s doing and listen to the distant music of a calliope, and hear the voices and the laughter of the people and the places of his past. And perhaps across his mind there’ll flit a little errant wish, that a man might not have to become old, never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth. And he’ll smile then too because he’ll know it is just an errant wish, some wisp of memory not too important really, some laughing ghosts that cross a man’s mind, that are a part of the Twilight Zone.”

1. “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” (Season 1, Episode 22)

A lot of us grew up on a Maple Street. It could be anywhere. And the parable that Rod Serling unfolded on Maple Street in 1960 has just as much resonance today as it did then. It’s a masterful examination of how easily we will turn on our neighbors to protect ourselves, and how paranoia can destroy us. Our greatest threat is not from a foreign invader but from the fear and divisiveness created from within. That matters just as much today as it did then. At 6:43 p.m., the lights went out on Maple Street. Just before then, some residents thought they saw a meteor on the horizon, which leads a boy to suggest that this could be like something he recently read in one of his storybooks: an alien invasion. And guess what? In that story, the aliens sent down a scout in the form of a human. Before long, the residents of Maple Street have turned on each other, pointing fingers and accusing people they’ve known for years of being traitors. You can read into it dozens of parallels to the real world — especially the Red Scare — but it’s also just a taut, brilliant, thrilling episode of television that remains, almost sadly, timeless.

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The Twilight Zone : “The Time Element”

“The Time Element” (pilot presentation; originally aired 11/24/1958)

In which one man goes back to make it all better

Imagine, for a second, that you’ve never heard of The Twilight Zone . That’s really the only way to properly appreciate “The Time Element,” a somewhat lugubrious hour of television that’s mostly notable when you imagine the viewers of 1958 stumbling upon it and being fascinated by something that wasn’t quite like anything else on the dial at the time. Originally aired as part of the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse , Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball’s attempt to crack the “serious” drama market after I Love Lucy went off the air, the episode was a curiosity, even for that program. It’s a time travel story, and it’s one that takes its best stab at revisiting a national wound that had mostly healed by the time of its broadcast. There’s little here to distinguish the show from a typical episode of The Twilight Zone , outside of Arnaz’s introduction (and closing commercial for refrigerators) and a longer running time, which contributes to the laggy feel of the episode.

Why 'The Twilight Zone' Pilot Is the Most Influential in TV History

"Where Is Everybody?" is 25 minutes of pure genius.

The year is 1959. The wars were cold; the families nuclear. The Earth found itself in a state of cultural change and scientific curiosity in what would be the final decade before man grazed the surface of the moon. It was during this time that our eyes were lifted toward the spheres of gas we know as stars. Screenwriter Rod Serling introduced a television program to this pale blue dot, the likes of which would influence the televised mediums for decades to come. The signpost is up ahead. Look out! Our next stop, The Twilight Zone .

With CBS rebooting the Twilight Zone (with Jordan Peele set to host), maybe soon we will experience another renaissance of original ideas like the one in the influential original pilot. Every piece of genre fiction that appeared on screen in the six decades after The Twilight Zone debuted was influenced by one or more of Serling’s stories.

Each of the 156 episodes of the original series introduced a number of important science-fiction, horror, and fantasy tropes that the world would come to know, love, and even hate in due time.

The pilot episode of the Twilight Zone is a prime example of a classic TV trope. In “Where Is Everybody?”, the audience follows an amnesiac who finds himself wandering through a deserted town. He begins to lose his mind from loneliness — and the feeling he’s being watched — before he ultimately cracks. It’s later revealed that all of the events of the episode were actually just hallucinations in a test to see how long an astronaut could survive alone in a small vessel. A simple enough story, but its effects are still felt today.

The most obvious trope this episode introduced to the world is the last man on Earth: any piece of fiction that involves a sole hero who finds themselves alone in a place where there should be a lot of people. Often, there are external dangers the protagonist is fighting, but ultimately, the most dangerous enemies are isolation and loneliness.

One of the most recognizable devices of this trope is the protagonist’s inevitable dialogue with an inanimate object. This is due, in part, to the visual medium. In a book, for example, the audience is exposed to the lonely hero’s internal thoughts. On screen, there needs to be a strategic way to get the character to talk out loud without cheesily monologuing to an empty room. Serling knew this, and though he himself is prone to monologues, he knew he had to give his character something better. In this episode, for instance, our hero approaches who he believes to be a woman and verbalizes all of the thoughts in his head before realizing that she is, in fact, a store mannequin. This one scene inspired countless films to follow suit.

I Am Legend , a post-apocalyptic film based on the novel of the same name, follows a similar model. Scientist Robert Neville (played by Will Smith) tries to survive alone in a vampire-plagued New York City while also attempting to preserve his sanity. He famously talks to mannequins that he’s set up around town in order to communicate.

Similarly, the 1971 sci-fi adaptation, Omega Man , has Neville (Charlton Heston) do most of his dialoguing with a bust of Caesar. Even the survival film Cast Away relied on the volleyball Wilson to give Tom Hank’s character someone to talk to.

Another famous plot device of this episode is that the protagonist is a forgetful hero with no idea how he arrived at this empty hamlet. This trope has been used many times since in sci-fi/fantasy TV series to create an empathetic protagonist, because the audience learns about them at the same time as they do in the story. A few examples are Victoria Skillane in the Black Mirror episode “White Bear,” John Murdoch from Dark City , and the main character in The Outer Limits episode “Demon With a Glass Hand.”

It would be a stretch to claim this Twilight Zone episode coined “the dream sequence,” but TV shows or films that are presented as the truth, only to find out later it was the visual representation of a brain gone haywire — that idea originated in the Twilight Zone .

The psychotic hallucinations in American Psycho ; the video game realities in the “Playtest” episode of Black Mirror Season 3; the entire plot of the psychological horror film Jacob’s Ladder ; Adam Sandler’s masterpiece Click ; several episodes of Star Trek , including “The Inner Light,” “Frame of Mind,” and “Barge of the Dead” — all of these spawned from plot devices used in the Twilight Zone .

It also bears mentioning that the pilot episode is very unusual. By the end, it turns out to not be science fiction at all. All of the previous events of the episode are easily explained in the final four minutes: It wasn’t real. It was just his imagination.

There are 156 episodes of the original Twilight Zone , but the pilot is one of only four that doesn’t contain any supernatural elements. Looking back at it now, we can see how this episode breaks from the standard episodic structure of the Twilight Zone , which almost always contains some level of fantasy. But the pilot set up the expectation that every episode of the series was going to be like this: set in reality with sci-fi storylines that can always be explained away by the final reveal.

But the Twilight Zone isn’t the origin of all science fiction. Most cite Mary Shelley’s work, notably Frankenstein , as the first piece of science fiction, and plenty of films and TV shows portrayed similar ideas. For example, Tales of Tomorrow , another sci-fi anthology series, first premiered in 1951, eight years before Twilight Zone ever hit the air. Though it shared many similarities, there is one key difference: Tales of Tomorrow ’s episodes are adaptations and dramatizations of classic sci-fi stories like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea .

Unlike its contemporaries, The Twilight Zone premiered original stories, written specifically to be viewed on screen, which is ultimately what led Rod Serling to become the most influential writer of the 20th century.

Science Fiction

IMAGES

Woodrow Mulligan goes ahead in time when he puts on the time travel
The Twilight Zone Episode 18: The Last Flight
Watch The Twilight Zone's Pilot Episode, Pitched by Rod Serling Himself
The Twilight Zone Episode 18: The Last Flight
Sixty Years Ago, "The Twilight Zone" Pilot Became One of the Most
The Twilight Zone Episode 67: The Arrival

VIDEO

Twilight Zone: Time Travel
Into the Twilight Zone from the Pilot Seat
'Twilight Zone' 'Time of my Life' Pink Windmill Kids
The Twilight Zone: Time at Last

COMMENTS

The Last Flight (The Twilight Zone)
Simon Scott and Kenneth Haigh. "The Last Flight" is the eighteenth episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.Part of the production was filmed on location at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, California.The vintage 1918 Nieuport 28 biplane was both owned and flown by Frank Gifford Tallman, and had previously appeared in many World War I motion pictures.
"The Twilight Zone" The Last Flight (TV Episode 1960)
The Last Flight: Directed by William F. Claxton. With Kenneth Haigh, Alexander Scourby, Simon Scott, Robert Warwick. A World War I British fighter pilot lands at an American air base in 1959 France.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE: Dig These 13 Great TIME-TRAVEL EPISODES
With that in mind, let's look at 13 GREAT TIME-TRAVEL EPISODES of The Twilight Zone, which will be celebrating its 65th anniversary in 2024: — The Time Element (aired November 24, 1958, on the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse). Rod Serling had written this script in 1957 as a pilot for The Twilight Zone. CBS bought the script but shelved it.
The Last Flight
"The Last Flight" is the 18th episode of The Twilight Zone. "Witness Flight Lieutenant William Terrance Decker, Royal Flying Corps, returning from a patrol somewhere over France. The year is 1917. The problem is that the Lieutenant is hopelessly lost. Lieutenant Decker will soon discover that a man can be lost not only in terms of maps and miles, but also in time - and time in this case can be ...
The Last Flight
"The Last Flight" is a really well made episode that puts the focus on story, premise, and characters while drawing you in with a time bending situation that...
The Twilight Zone: The Last Flight
Witness Flight Lieutenant William Terrance Decker, Royal Flying Corps, returning from a patrol somewhere over France. The year is 1917. The problem is that t...
Twilight Zone
The pilot, thanks to the machinations of the Twilight Zone, is given a chance to go back to 1917 and save the comrade, sacrificing his own life in the process. Thus the flight in question is literally the last flight of his life as well as his last "flight" from responsibility—the point at which he overcomes his fear and cowardice.
Recap / The Twilight Zone (1959) S1E18: "The Last Flight"
The Twilight Zone (1959) S1E18: "The Last Flight". Decker is greeted warmly. Rod Serling: Witness Flight Lieutenant William Terrance Decker, Royal Flying Corps, returning from a patrol somewhere over France. The year is 1917. The problem is that the Lieutenant is hopelessly lost.
Exploring the Twilight Zone #18: The Last Flight
The Twilight Zone (Episode #18): "The Last Flight" (airdate 2/5/60) The Plot: A cowardly WWI pilot lands at the right base but at the wrong time - 42 years after he takes off. The Goods ...
"The Twilight Zone" The Last Flight (TV Episode 1960)
A combination time travel as well as making things right and changing history "Twilight Zone" episode, one of the few not written by the show's creator Rod Sterling, which has Let. Decker given a second chance to rectify a mistake, a deadly mistake,that he made in WWI. That's when Let. Decker abandoned his fellow British combat flayer Let.
The Time Element
The Time Element was the original pilot of The Twilight Zone. "The Time Element" was a teleplay that premiered on November 24, 1958. It was Rod Serling's first science fiction story. It's a story that deals with time travel and the concept of illusion vs. reality. This teleplay also gave audiences a first glimpse of what was to become Serling's signature writing style: a plot twist. However ...
"The Twilight Zone" The Odyssey of Flight 33 (TV Episode 1961)
The Odyssey of Flight 33: Directed by Justus Addiss. With John Anderson, Paul Comi, Sandy Kenyon, Wayne Heffley. Passing through the sound barrier, a commercial airliner inadvertently travels back in time.
Time Travel supercut: The Twilight Zone
A supercut of time-travel moments from Rod Serling's original Twilight Zone.Subscribe to @atomicabe Follow Atomic Abe: https://twitter.com/Atomic_Abehttps://...
The Odyssey of Flight 33
The Odyssey of Flight 33. " The Odyssey of Flight 33 " is episode 54 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, the 18th episode of the second season. An unlikely break of the time barrier finds a commercial airliner sent back into the prehistoric age and then to New York City of 1939. The tale is a modern telling of the ...
The 50 Best Episodes of The Twilight Zone
Such is life in the Twilight Zone. 4. "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (Season 5, Episode 3) One of the most famous episodes of all time has been remade twice — first, relatively faithfully in the ...
Time Enough at Last
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series, season 1) List of episodes. " Time Enough at Last " is the eighth episode of the American anthology series The Twilight Zone, first airing on November 20, 1959. [1] The episode was adapted from a short story by Lynn Venable, [2] which appeared in the January 1953 edition of If: Worlds of Science Fiction.
The Twilight Zone: "The Time Element"
"The Time Element" (pilot presentation; originally aired 11/24/1958) In which one man goes back to make it all better. Imagine, for a second, that you've never heard of The Twilight Zone ...
'The Time Element' (1957) by Rod Serling. The original pilot for 'The
'The Time Element' was Rod Serling's first science fiction story. It is a story that deals with time travel involving a man named Peter Jenson (William Bendix) visiting a psychoanalyst Dr Gillespie (Martin Balsam) on October 4th, 1958 with complaints of a recurring dream in which he imagines waking up in Honolulu just prior to the infamous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941.
Watch The Twilight Zone Classic Season 1 Episode 18: The Twilight Zone
A World War I flying ace flies through a mysterious cloud - and lands at a modern U.S. air base in the year 1959!
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
The Twilight Zone (marketed as Twilight Zone for its final two seasons) is an American fantasy science fiction horror anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from October 2, 1959, to June 19, 1964. Each episode presents a standalone story in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an ...
Why 'The Twilight Zone' Pilot Is the Most Influential in TV History
by Justin Dodd. Oct. 30, 2018. The year is 1959. The wars were cold; the families nuclear. The Earth found itself in a state of cultural change and scientific curiosity in what would be the final ...
THE TWILIGHT ZONE The Time Element 1958 Pilot Episode
The Time Element was intended to serve as a pilot for the series Rod Serling was planning, the series which would become The Twilight Zone. Thirteen years after the end of World War II, a man named Peter Jenson (William Bendix) visits a psychoanalyst, Dr. Gillespie (Martin Balsam). Jenson tells him about a recurring dream in which he tries to warn people about the "sneak attack" on Pearl ...
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described as entering "the Twilight Zone". The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, absurdism, dystopian fiction, suspense, horror, supernatural drama ...