Twilight Zone \ Rod Serling

While watching "The Odyssey of Flight 33" on The 'Twilight Zone' marathon, I realized once again how cool Rod Serling was\is. He's the Edgar Allen Poe of the 1960s. A bold claim, but I'll submit Serling's stuff is just as good. 'The Odyssey' deals with a jet airliner, flying from London to New York, that travels through a time portal. After some weird turbulence while approaching New York, the crew looks out the windows to see dinosaurs. They increase air speed, and somehow make it back to 1939, which brings them close to where they need to be, time-wise, but they're still 20 years off. 'A strange tail-wind perhaps?'



"So if some moment, any moment, you hear the sound of jet engines flying atop the overcast skies, engines that sound searching and lost; engines that sound hungry for fuel, shoot up a flare or do something. That would be Global 33 trying to get home, from the Twilight Zone."



From 'The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street'

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices - to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill. And suspicion can destroy. And a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own - for the children...and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is...that these things cannot be confined...to the Twilight Zone.


From 'Time Enough At Last'

Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. A bookish little man whose passion is the printed page, but who is conspired against by a bank president and a wife and a world full of tongue-cluckers and the unrelenting hands of a clock. But in just a moment, Mr. Bemis will enter a world without bank presidents or wives or clocks or anything else. He'll have a world all to himself...without anyone.

reply to post by ColeYounger


This and the original Outer Limits were way ahead of their time and I still watch all the repeats.

Also, One Step Beyond was a close runner up to the TZ but not quite as well received.

Love these old scifi's....sooooo atmospheric!

reply to post by ColeYounger


I watched some episodes on youtube and it is a thought provoking series. The film makers back then seemed so much more intelligent and with depth that the clowns we have making TV and movies these days.

reply to post by pandersway


Agreed...the Outer Limits were amazing.

I wish they still had shows as good as the Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits on tv. My all time favorite episode of the Twilight Zone was The Hunt.

reply to post by ColeYounger


I was a young teenager when the series originally hit the little screen. I have been forever scarred and inspired by that series. One of the marvels of the series was that as each week came around, one had no idea exactly what we were going to get that week. Was is supernatural? Was it alien? Was it time travel or twisty psychological. Or just a morality play. The thing though was that there was almost always a moral to each program.

The study of human behavior in The Monsters are Due on Maple street is a classic metaphor of human fears of "the other", whatever or whoever "the other" is. And then, at the very end, whip, wham zippo, it was aliens after all.

There never was before and never since been a program which mirrored or spurred on the burgeoning ability human speculations.
Well, maybe The Matrix.

ColeYounger
reply to post by pandersway

 

Agreed...the Outer Limits were amazing.

Yep!! The Original series of the 60's THE OUTER LIMITS was so good!! Still is

I love The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, but I have to say, I also like Tales From The Dark Side. That creepy music/intro to that show still gets me every time. I don't know why they can't come up with shows like that anymore. Too bad.

reply to post by Fylgje


I totally agree!!

reply to post by ColeYounger



Indeed! Rod Serling's Twilight Zone and the original Outer Limits. Nothing beats those two. I used to watch them religiously. Loved every single episode from both.

One of my all time favorite episodes from TZ - The Midnight Sun. But then, I had so many.
Loved the mind of Serling.

reply to post by research100


Oh yeah, I saw your avatar on an episode last night.
She was creeeeepy