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WHAT IS THE TWILIGHT ZONE?

Created by writer Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone was an anthology television series, filmed in black-and-white, with storytelling based in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. Disguised underneath the themes of fantasy and science fiction, the series was known for delving deep into the human condition, and with each episode, delivered morality plays and modern-day parables with a signature ironic twist ending. Since the series was an anthology, there were no recurring characters or stories; each week brought with it new characters, plots and settings. The stories and characters were usually established within a framework of normality; banks and bank-tellers, diners and patrons, and the like. A recurring theme throughout, revolves around comeuppance being dishing out to bad/evil characters, and second chances and redemption rewarded to good characters. In comparison to later shows influenced by the series - such as Outer Limits and Star Trek - the Twilight Zone was neither a total sci-fi show nor a monster of the week fest.

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WHERE DID THE TITLE "TWILIGHT ZONE" COME FROM?

The original phrase "twilight zone," came from the early 1900's, used to describe a distinct condition between fantasy and reality. The phrase then evolved into a term used to define the lowest level of the ocean that light can reach, and then as an aeronautical term used by the U.S. Air Force. When Rod Serling was asked how he came up with the title The Twilight Zone, he replied, "I thought I'd made it up, but I've heard since that there is an Air Force term relating to a moment when a plane is coming down on approach and it cannot see the horizon. It's called the twilight zone, but it's an obscure term which I had not heard before." Our guess is that Serling had likely heard the term before, but had forgotten it; this premise is based on two facts - his experiences as a paratrooper in WWII, and from his brother, Robert Serling, who worked as an aviation editor for United Press International.

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HOW MANY SEASONS WAS THE TWILIGHT ZONE, AND WHEN DID IT ORIGINALLY AIR?

The series lasted for 5 seasons, spanning 156 episodes, and it originally aired between October 2, 1959 and June 19, 1964. During the first three seasons (1959-62), it aired on Friday nights at 10:00pm EST. During the fourth season, it aired on Thursday nights at 9:00pm EST, and for its final season, it aired on Friday nights at 9:30pm EST.

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WHO WERE THE WRITERS FOR THE SERIES?

The majority of the episodes were written by Rod Serling; creator, host and executive producer. Serling wrote 92 of the 156 episodes, a handful of which featured stories by other writers. The other two main writers were Richard Matheson (14 episodes), and Charles Beaumont (18 episodes). Due to Beaumont's busy work schedule, and later, in lue of an affliction with Alzheimer's Disease, Beaumont had a few episodes ghostwritten by other writers; OCee Ritch ghostwrote "Dead Man's Shoes," Jerry Sohl ghostwrote "The New Exhibit," "Living Doll" and "Queen of the Nile" and John Tomerlin ghostwrote "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You." Tragically, Beaumont died at the age of 38 on February 22, 1967. Two other main writers were Earl Hamner Jr. (8 episodes), and George Clayton Johnson (4 episodes, 4 stories), followed by Montgomery Pittman (3 episodes) and single episodes written by other writers such as Ray Bradbury.

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WAS "WHERE IS EVERYBODY?" THE ORIGINAL PILOT?

No, actually, Serling had first written an hour length pilot called "The Happy Place," about a totalitarian society where people were executing at the age of 60. This proved to be way too depressing of a story to sell the series. A few days after presenting the first pilot, Serling then wrote the half-hour pilot "Where is Everybody?", which sold the series; having satisfied the network and sponsor with a somewhat reality based story.

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WASN'T "THE TIME ELEMENT" ANOTHER PILOT BEFORE EVEN THOSE?

Well, some may consider "The Time Element" a sort of predated Twilight Zone pilot, since it was written by Serling and felt like a Twilight Zone. However, "The Time Element" was originally written for The Storm back in 1951, which then was expanded to hour length and submitted to CBS in 1957. CBS did indeed buy the script, intending to have it produced, but it was shelved due to it's time-travel fantasy based theme, which seemed too risky to CBS executives. It wasn't until Westingham Desilu Playhouse producer Bert Granet bought it, with interest to have it produced for his show, that gave it it's start again. However, Granet again fell against the network and sponsor's unwillingness to produce a fantasy show, and it wasn't until owner Desi Arnez backed Granet up, that the script was finally produced. "The Time Element" aired on November 24, 1958, and it soon proved to be the most popular production that year. CBS then realized the mistake they had obviously made with shelving it in the first place, and bought into Serling's project, The Twilight Zone.

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WAS THE TWILIGHT ZONE VERY POPULAR WHEN IT FIRST AIRED?

The series did attract a loyal audience - over time - mostly made up of professional people, college students and teenagers. But interestingly enough, it never saw high or typical ratings. Numbers-wise, it remained at about midstream; never having made it above the top thirty-five shows, and never having dived down to the bottom of the scale.

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WHO WAS BUCK HOUGHTON?

Buck Houghton was the producer of the first three seasons of The Twilight Zone. Houghton was the perfect balance to Serling, and performed many of the behind-the-scenes tasks that went into the series; including casting actors, hiring directors, scoring, editing, and everything else that made the series work so well.

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WHAT INVOLVEMENT DID CBS HAVE?

In the first season, involvement from the CBS executives seemed to allow things to run rather well, even though the series was under constant budget issues. But in between the first and second season, CBS was taken over by a somewhat bottom-line kind of guy, Jim Aubrey. Apparently, as the story goes, Aubrey was known for cancelling several of CBS's prominent shows and replacing them with run-of-the-mill situation comedies. He was also known for constantly trying to cut The Twilight Zone's budget. Evidence of this is the fact that the second season is less seven episodes than the first season. In the earlier seasons, episodes came close to a production cost of $65,000 each, and by having trimmed down the second season, Aubrey saved the network close to half a million dollars. But he was always at Serling's throat - budget-wise - always wanting to cancel the series because it never reached top rating status.

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WHY WERE SOME OF THE EPISODES SHOT IN VIDEOTAPE?

Well, you can chalk that up to another of Aubrey's schemes at cutting the budget. Again, to save the network money, Aubrey persuaded Serling to videotape six episodes instead of filming them. This videotape idea proved to be a disadvantage to production, because they could only shoot on sound stages (no exterior locations), and the camera setups and angles were limited due to video-editing problems. Also, in the end, the quality of the videotaped episodes proves to be of much lesser quality than the high quality of the filmed episodes. It is reported that afterwards, when production had returned to filming the episodes, Serling was quoted as labeling the entire videotape decision "disastrous."

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WHY DID BUCK HOUGHTON LEAVE THE SHOW?

At the end of the third season, The Twilight Zone had yet to secure a sponsor for an upcoming fourth season, and thusly was not included on CBS's fall schedule. At that point, Buck Houghton was offered a very good job with Four Star Productions, and decided to accept the job as producer for The Richard Boone Show.

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WHAT DID SERLING DO AFTER THE THIRD SEASON?

Well, in lue of the sponsor-less situation after the third season, when The Twilight Zone was basically put on hiatus, Serling accepted an offer to teach at Antioch College in the fall of 1962. Once The Twilight Zone was then picked up by CBS as a mid-season replacement in January 1963, Serling continued to teach, but his involvement during the fourth season would greatly diminish.

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WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THE SERIES COMING BACK AFTER A HALF-SEASON HIATUS?

Due to a lack of sponsorship, and the fact that The Twilight Zone was not scheduled for a fourth season, it was replaced with the hour-long situation comedy "Fair Exchange." This replacement didn't fair very well, and was cancelled mid-season, in which The Twilight Zone was brought back for a fourth season in January 1963. Since it was starting mid-season and only had slots for 18 episodes, a choice was made to produce the fourth season at hour-length episodes. With Houghton elsewhere, the job for of production went to experienced producer Herbert Hirschman.

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WHY ARE SERLING'S NARRATION'S FOR THE FOURTH SEASON FILMED AGAINST A GRAY BACKGROUND, INSTEAD OF BEING ON STAGE LIKE BEFORE?

At the time, as Serling had been teaching at Antioch College, he was not readily available to be on stage in Los Angeles. So, unlike the previous two seasons, where his on-screen narrations would be integrated into the action, Hirschman instead, filmed several of the gray background narrations whenever Serling flew into Los Angeles for other business. Unfortunately, because of this boring gray background, the fourth season narrations just don't have the right flare.

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WHY WAS THE TITLE CHANGED FROM "THE TWILIGHT ZONE" TO JUST "TWILIGHT ZONE"?

Since the series was already well established by its fourth season, the change seemed appropriate, as the word "The" seemed a bit redundant.

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WHY DID THE FOURTH AND FIFTH SEASONS HAVE SO MANY PRODUCER CHANGES?

Hirschman's contract was up at the beginning of 1963, and instead of re-signing with CBS to continue producing the series, he accepted another offer for a series filmed in England called "Espionage." Hirschman was then replaced by producer Bert Granet, who interestingly enough, was the producer of "The Time Element." Halfway through the fifth season, Granet was also offered a project he couldn't refuse, "The Great Adventure" (a flop), and since Serling couldn't match the offer, Granet left. This move ended Serling's friendship with him. Granet was then replaced by producer William Froug, who then stayed for the rest of the series.

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WHY DID THE FIFTH SEASON RETURN TO THE ORIGINAL HALF-HOUR FORMAT?

The decision to change the fourth season to hour-long episodes in fact created stories that slowly drag along. They indeed fail to carry that same punch of the half-hour two-act episodes of the previous three seasons. With the impact of the series now starting to fade, CBS decided to bring the half-hour format back in the fifth season.

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WHY WAS THE SERIES CANCELLED AFTER THE FIFTH SEASON?

Looking at the big picture, even by the beginning of the fifth season, Twilight Zone had already lost several of its most essential talents. Houghton was gone, some of the directors were gone, and at this point, Rod Serling was exhausted from writing for the series. He admitted he was burned-out and knew he was not only repeating earlier stories, but that he just couldn't tell bad from good anymore. And even though the show's final fifth season features some of the most memorable episodes, it's clear that CBS president Jim Aubrey was tired of the show. Actually, by the end of the second season, Aubrey had already admitted he was bored with it (some people clearly have little imagination). However, cancellation at that early stage would have been improbable. But by the end of the fifth season, even though the show's ratings were fairly good, they weren't high enough to justify renewing it for a sixth season, and the CBS fall schedule did not include Twilight Zone. At the time, in the February issue of Daily Variety, Rod Serling was quoted as saying, "I decided to cancel the network."

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ARE THERE ANY UNAIRED LOST EPISODES?

Well, none that were actually filmed, but there were a number of scripts sold into the series that never saw fruition. Two in particular were written by George Clayton Johnson. The first one was called "Sea Change," a story treatment sold to the series which then had to be bought back because it contained the cutting off of a man's hand. The second one was a script Johnson wrote together with William F. Nolan, turned in just days before the series closed down, called "Dream Flight." Dream Flight told the story of a woman flying on airplane, who wakes up from a nightmare she's having where she's flying on an airplane that's crashing. She confides in a fellow passenger, and together they form a rapport and a bit of a love story, and thusly are able to break the spell of the dream from happening. Another factor of the script never going before the cameras was because the fifth season already had a few other airplane episodes in place (including the well remembered "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet). Also, during the fifth and final season, due to a few producer changes, there were several other scripts in development that were scratched and replaced with new material. So, in all, one can surmise that there was something like a dozen scripts that were never filmed.

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ARE THERE ANY BLOOPERS BESIDES THE ONE OF ROD SERLING FROM "HE'S ALIVE?"

Unfortunately, no. That is the only blooper known to exist. However, if you look through the Production-Photos section of TZA, you will find a few other bloopers caught by the still-camera photographer on the set.

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DID ROD SERLING REALLY HAVE A FASCINATION WITH THE SUPERNATURAL?

To quote Carol Serling from her interview in the book DIMENSIONS BEHIND THE TWILIGHT ZONE , she states, "Well, it was like a willing suspension of disbelief. He really, really wanted to believe that aliens had crashed in Arizona. And he really, really wanted to believe some of the things Duke University was doing with ESP, and so on and so forth, but he really didn't."

WHAT DID ROD SERLING WORK ON AFTER TWILIGHT ZONE WAS CANCELLED?

Up next for Serling's television work was the short-lived black-and-white western called "The Loner", starring Lloyd Bridges as William Colton, a Civil War veteran tarnished by the idea of killing. The series, which ran for only a single season of 26 episodes during the 1965-66 season (15 penned by Serling), aired on CBS, the same network home of Twilight Zone. Since this was a thinking-man's western, and thusly lacked the barroom brawls and gunfights normally associated with the western craze of the day, it led to fairly low ratings and was cancelled. And guess who was at the reins of cancelling the series? None other than, yep, you guessed it... CBS president, Jim Aubrey. Following The Loner, Serling offered his go at made-for TV movies, including "The Doomsday Flight," and an adaptation of Irving Wallace's novel, "The Man." Then came his screenplay for the big box-office hit, "Planet of the Apes," and in 1969, the TV pilot movie, "Night Gallery," a similar fantasy format to Twilight Zone. However, when Night Gallery was picked up the following year, Serling passed on heading up the project as producer, and control went over to Jack Laird. The series, which lasted for one short intro season and two full seasons, soon turned from a serious terror-driven show, to a somewhat spooky goofy horror-fest, far from what Serling had established with the Night Gallery TV pilot movie. Regardless, all of Serling's scripts are solid, and pack with them that same twist-ending punch that fans had come to enjoy. Unfortunately, Rod Serling's days as one of Hollywood's heavyweight writers soon came to an end. For he passed away on June 28, 1975, from complications during open heart surgery.

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WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH ALL THESE TWILIGHT ZONE REMAKES AND REVIVALS?

Since Rod Serling's departure from this dimension, Hollywood has tried to remake and revive Twilight Zone four times. These imitations naturally pale in comparison to the original series. The first attempt, Twilight Zone: The Movie, played in theaters in the summer of 1983. It featured narration by Burgess Meredith of TZ alumni fame, an opening intro story, one new story, and three remakes of original episodes. The film does have a few moments that feel sort of Twilight Zone-ish, but overall, it's a disappointment. The second attempt at revising the fifth dimension came about when CBS decided to return to their Twilight Zone license by creating a new series, unofficially referred as The New Twilight Zone. This Twilight Zone ran for two seasons, from 1985 to 1987, with a third direct-to-syndication season in 1988. Again, the series had a few good moments, but overall, it proved to be another disappointment. A third attempt, CBS'S Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics, was actually more directly related to Serling's original creation. This television special, which aired in 1994, featured the half-hour "The Theatre," a Richard Matheson script based on a Serling story treatment, and the 90-minute "Where the Dead Are," an unproduced Serling script. Both stories play as lost treats, but again, cannot quite create the past. The most recent attempt to revisit the Twilight Zone was UPN's single season series, which aired in the fall of 2002. It attempted to pay homage to the original series, but unfortunately, production fell under marketing demographics and limitations set by the network. Despite the producers good intensions, this new and yet still unimproved Twilight Zone fell into the same ballpark as it's predecessors; a remake in the format of an anthology, with The Twilight Zone title affixed to it. Up next is a Hollywood Twilight Zone movie headed up by actor/producer Leonardo DiCaprio. I have no opinion, other than, isn't it better to leave well enough alone. As we've come to find from all of the remakes and revivals, the answer is quite clear. A ctually, I find it only fitting to simply ask the Mystic Seer sitting atop my glass cabinet full of Zone memorabilia. Picture this, while it happens - tzoneman inserts a penny into the machine and asks the Mystic Seer, "Will this upcoming Twilight Zone movie be worthy of Rod Serling's dimension?" tzoneman then pulls down on the lever, takes the fortune from out of the slot, and reads it aloud, "Chances are slim that it could happen." HA! There you have it folks, straight from the Mystic Seer's mouth!!!

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WHEN DOES THE TWILIGHT ZONE MARATHON PLAY ON THE SYFY CHANNEL?

The Twilight Zone marathon schedule runs during the New Years Holiday: Dec 31st at 8:00am thru Jan 2nd at 6:00am, and also during the Fourth of July Holiday: July 3rd at 9:00am thru July 5th at 4:00am.