Key Takeaways
- Serling’s scripts for The Twilight Zone cover a wide range of themes, from horror and suspense to poignant and touching tales.
- His influence on other storytellers is evident, with episodes like “The Long Morrow” inspiring future adaptations.
- With iconic episodes like “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” and “Eye Of The Beholder,” Serling’s work in The Twilight Zone remains timeless and influential.
Rod Serling earned writing credits on over 90 episodes of The Twilight Zone, an impressive number that combines stories crafted from scratch and adapting existing fiction into teleplays. Other writers contributed to the show but the ones Serling was purely responsible for are some of the show’s finest installments, and cover themes from fears about communist infiltration and nuclear strikes to the legacy of the Second World War.
Serling aimed to draw attention to the pertinent issues faced by everyday Americans in the post-war era with unique stories, a technique that Gene Roddenberry would use in the next decade. The writer used horror and suspense to communicate his ideas, and even if Serling’s contributions to The Twilight Zone comprise both hits and misses, his work still inspires other storytellers even decades after the show’s initial broadcast.
Updated October 1, 2024 by Kristy Ambrose: The Twilight Zone has stood the test of time, not only inspiring other writers but serving as the basis for revivals, reboots, and spinoff shows. Modern experimental television that gave us dark fantasy like The X-Files and Van Helsing owe something to The Twilight Zone, and there was even a stage play that launched as recently as 2018, perhaps related to the publicity of the re-release of the show in 2019. The art of creative writing and adaptation of literature to the silver screen is Rod Serling’s legacy, and we can relive it with his episodes of The Twilight Zone.
10 The Mighty Casey
IMDb Rating: 6.1
- Directors: Robert Parrish and Alvin Ganzer
- Starring: Jack Warden, Robert Sorrells, Abraham Sofaer
- Air Date: June 17, 1960
- Episode Number: Season 1, Episode 35
Based on the famous American poem, “Casey At The Bat,” but also with considerable inspiration from stories like The Wizard of Oz, this episode takes an experimental turn into a combination of exciting science fiction and mundane daily life. Instead of working on a spaceship or as some kind of malevolent presence among futuristic humans, a robot would also be able to throw a wicked curveball.
Rod Serling asks what would happen to a robot built for baseball that finds himself playing with humans, and even more, what happens when he gains a human heart and starts to empathize with them. Instead of turning evil, which was the usual science fiction trope, Casey decides to retire from baseball and become a social worker, which is one of the most normal career choices anyone can make. It sounds boring, which is part of the point, that maybe robots and AI aren’t as dangerous or even as extraordinary as humans would assume.
9 The Lateness Of The Hour
IMDb Rating: 7.1
- Director: Jack Smight
- Starring: Inger Stevens, John Hoyt, Irene Tedrow
- Air Date: December 2, 1960
- Episode Number: Season 2, Episode 8
A mix of horror and science fiction, with one of the famous Rod Serling twists at the end, “The Lateness Of The Hour” is set in an environment where life with robots is perfectly normal, or at least it appears that way. The main characters of the show, known only as Dr. William Loren and his wife, Mrs. Loren, share a home with several robot servants and their daughter, Jana.
The only thing strange about this arrangement is that Dr. Loren never lets anyone leave the house, and his teenage daughter starts to rebel against his strict rules. The doctor relents, but only long enough for Jana to discover she’s also a robot, but programmed as a daughter instead of a maid or butler. In a harrowing scene that was visceral even for the time, Jana discovers that she can feel neither pain nor love, and the episode ends with the daughter now reprogrammed as just another oblivious servant.
8 The Long Morrow
IMDb Rating: 7.5
- Director: Robert Florey
- Starring: Robert Lansing, Mariette Hartley, George Macready, Edward Binns
- Air Date: January 10, 1964
- Episode Number: Season 5, Episode 15
The night before he leaves for a forty-year journey through space, astronaut Douglas Stansfield, played by Robert Lansing, meets and falls in love with Sandra Horn, played by Mariette Hartley. The lovebirds are heartbroken that their romance is impossible. Stansfield will spend the voyage in a state of suspended animation, but Sandra will be an old woman when he returns to Earth.
Refusing to let this problem stand in the way of their relationship, the pair embark on separate schemes to beat fate, but with disastrous consequences. “The Long Morrow” has a perhaps unexpected legacy in that it inspired an episode of the cult comedy series Gilmore Girls. While Rod Serling would no doubt be surprised to learn of the connection, it only confirms the enduring appeal of both The Twilight Zone and “The Long Morrow.” Forty years may be a long time but Serling’s script still tugs at the heartstrings.
7 In Praise Of Pip
IMDb Rating: 7.5
- Director: Joseph M. Newman
- Starring: Jack Klugman, Connie Gilchrist, Robert Diamond:
- Air Date: September 27, 1963
- Episode Number: Season 5, Episode 1
Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone scripts can be terrifying, such as “Nightmare as a Child” or they can be comedic like “Mr Dingle, the Strong”, but they can also be incredibly poignant. Such is the case with “In Praise of Pip,” which kickstarts the show’s final season with a touching tale about a deadbeat father’s love for his estranged son. After Max Phillips, played by Jack Klugman, learns his son is dying in Vietnam, he reassesses his life and decides to do what he can to protect his son no matter the cost to himself.
Serling’s script may be his own, but he is guilty of committing a degree of self-plagiarism. “In Praise of Pip” reuses aspects of an episode that Serling had written for another anthology series, Kraft Television Theatre, although it swaps the Korean War used in the earlier script for the then-contemporary Vietnam War. Given that Kraft Television Theatre is partially lost media, it’s a good thing that a more readily accessible version of this story exists.
6 Mirror Image
IMDb Rating: 7.9
- Director: John Brahm
- Starring: Vera Miles, Martin Milner, Joe Hamilton, Naomi Stevens
- Air Date: February 26, 1960
- Episode Number: Season 1, Episode 21
Nefarious doppelgängers are a classic genre fiction trope, from Albert Finney’s The Body Snatchers, adapted as Invasion of the Bodysnatchers in 1956 and 1978, to Star Trek‘s shape-shifting Founders. Serling’s take on the concept tests the sanity of Millicent Barnes, played by Vera Miles, a young woman stranded at a bus station in a storm. Despite her denials, the staff claims to have seen her before, while her luggage appears to shift around at random.
Serling’s script deftly treads the thin line between the supernatural and normal delusions, forcing the audience to keep guessing about Millicent’s true condition. This atmospheric story is supported by strong visuals, making it a worthwhile trip into The Twilight Zone.
5 Where Is Everybody?
IMDb Rating: 7.9
- Director: Robert Stevens
- Starring: Earl Holliman, James Gregory, Garry Walberg, Paul Logan
- Air Date: October 2, 1959
- Episode Number: Season 1, Episode 1
Although Serling had tested out The Twilight Zone concept with 1958’s “The Time Element,” it’s still impressive how polished the show’s first episode is. While other science fiction franchises are notorious for their weak starts, “Where Is Everybody?” strikes gold from day one. A man, played by Earl Holliman, wakes up in an unfamiliar town with no idea where or who he is. His efforts to find answers are further complicated by the fact that the town is completely lifeless.
The Twilight Zone‘s debut effort makes for an eerie and often unnerving episode, thanks to an inventive script that relies on mirrors and store mannequins to produce the illusion of there being others in the town. By definition, the installment also features the show’s first twist ending, a trope that would come to define the series and many of its best imitators.
4 The After Hours
IMDb Rating: 8.4
- Director: Douglas Heyes
- Starring: Anne Francis, Elizabeth Allen, James Millhollin
- Air Date: June 10, 1960
- Episode Number: Season 1, Episode 34
“The After Hours” represents the Platonic ideal of a Twilight Zone story: a seemingly normal person finds themselves trapped in an unusual situation that will challenge everything that they think they know. It also represents one of the show’s most terrifying installments, particularly for sufferers of automatonophobia, which is the fear of human-like figures such as dummies.
When Marsha White, played by Anne Francis, visits a department store to purchase a gift, an encounter with a strange saleswoman results in Marsha being trapped in the store overnight and perhaps for far longer. Serling’s premise was strong enough to be revisited when The Twilight Zone returned to screens in the 1980s. However, despite the remake’s interesting take on some of the episode’s more horrific aspects, the original remains the definitive take on the concept.
3 The Masks
IMDb Rating: 8.6
- Director: Ida Lupino
- Starring: Robert Keith, Milton Selzer, Virginia Gregg
- Air Date: March 20, 1964
- Episode Number: Season 5, Episode 25
When the wealthy Jason Foster, played by Robert Keith, learns of his impending death, he decides to settle some old scores by taking his ungrateful relatives on a one-way trip into The Twilight Zone. His daughter is neurotic and married to a ruthless businessman, and his grandchildren are self-obsessed and psychopathic.
There is no love lost between Foster and his family. He tells them that to inherit his fortune, they must spend Mardi Gras night wearing horrific masks that reflect their gruesome personalities.
While “The Masks” is Serling’s script, another member of the production team is also worthy of recognition.
The episode was directed by Ida Lupino, an actress who had previously appeared in The Twilight Zone‘s first season. As such, it is unique among the original Twilight Zone installments in that it was the only one to be directed by a woman. It also features some of the franchise’s most memorably grisly visuals, making it a standout for fans of horror.
2 The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street
IMDb Rating: 8.9
- Director: Ronald Winston
- Starring: Claude Akins, Barry Atwater, Jack Weston
- Air Date: March 4, 1960
- Episode Number: Season 1, Episode 22
Serling’s desire to interrogate as well as entertain inevitably resulted in many scripts focused on life in America during the Cold War. “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” is the archetypal example of the subgenre, effectively capturing the creeping suburban paranoia that caused normal American citizens to turn on one another.
Following a series of bizarre events, the inhabitants of the normally pleasant Maple Street quickly begin to denounce one another as they search for enemy aliens. Witch-hunts are a common trope, from viral games like Among Us to classic theater like Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
Rod Serling’s take on the concept is widely regarded as one of The Twilight Zone‘s most iconic stories and was influential enough to spawn an updated remake in the early noughties Twilight Zone revival. While the remake uses the War on Terror as its backdrop rather than the Cold War, the social tensions and human flaws captured by Serling are timeless.
1 Eye Of The Beholder
IMDb Rating: 9.1
- Director: Douglas Heyes
- Starring: Maxine Stuart, Donna Douglas, William D. Gordon
- Air Date: November 11, 1960
- Episode Number: Season 2, Episode 6
Due to its reliance on unusual camera angles, “Eye of the Beholder” was considered the hardest episode of The Twilight Zone to produce. Luckily, Serling’s script is more than worth the additional effort, as this iconic tale of an apparently hideous woman’s attempts to fix herself through surgery is well-known even outside of fan circles.
All is not as it seems, and the final twist relays a timeless lesson about what it means to be beautiful. Serling himself recognized the quality of the basic premise, choosing to reuse it, with some alterations, in Night Gallery, a 1970s successor to The Twilight Zone. Despite writing the episode, Serling found himself in legal hot water when a rival television producer threatened to sue for copyright infringement.
The producer claimed that Serling’s episode stole the title of an existing educational film. To prevent further issues the script was renamed “The Private World of Darkness” in many syndicated versions.
