It would have been an oversight if I had not posted about the Twilight Zone during the SyFy channel's annual New Year's marathon. This black-and-white science fiction television show aired from 1959-1964. It had different characters in every episode, with a new plot in every episode, and many stars got their starts here: William Shatner, Bill Mumy, and Martin Landau were all in two or three episodes each. Rod Serling, the creator, would appear in the beginning and end of every episode, having some clever speech about the characters' foreshadowed and unfortunate endings. Each episode has a twist at the end, and Serling always says how the characters' situations can only be explained "...in the Twilight Zone." One of my favorite episodes is "The After Hours." In this episode a woman tries to get back to a certain floor of a department store only to find out that that particular floor does not exist -- and that is not even the big twist at the end. Other must-sees included "Time Enough at Last," "The Four of Us Are Dying," "What You Need," and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." Two components of this show are better than those of most of the other shows that have ever existed: its opening (its version of a theme song) and its music. The music is very chilling and foreshadowing, especially at the unfortunate endings. Plus, anyone who has ever seen at least one episode will always remember the opening narrated by Rod Serling: "You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind...." The words sometimes change a little bit from season to season, but they always set you up for the rest of the show. The writing in this show is just incredible, especially since the writers had to come up with a new storyline every single week. This may have inspired the relatively new show American Horror Story to use some of the same actors for multiple seasons (as the Twilight Zone did) and change the story entirely each season (as the Twilight Zone did each episode). Once you wet your pallete with this classic, enjoy some remakes. My favorites are the ones from the early twenty-first century. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!
1.01.2013
The Twilight Zone
It would have been an oversight if I had not posted about the Twilight Zone during the SyFy channel's annual New Year's marathon. This black-and-white science fiction television show aired from 1959-1964. It had different characters in every episode, with a new plot in every episode, and many stars got their starts here: William Shatner, Bill Mumy, and Martin Landau were all in two or three episodes each. Rod Serling, the creator, would appear in the beginning and end of every episode, having some clever speech about the characters' foreshadowed and unfortunate endings. Each episode has a twist at the end, and Serling always says how the characters' situations can only be explained "...in the Twilight Zone." One of my favorite episodes is "The After Hours." In this episode a woman tries to get back to a certain floor of a department store only to find out that that particular floor does not exist -- and that is not even the big twist at the end. Other must-sees included "Time Enough at Last," "The Four of Us Are Dying," "What You Need," and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." Two components of this show are better than those of most of the other shows that have ever existed: its opening (its version of a theme song) and its music. The music is very chilling and foreshadowing, especially at the unfortunate endings. Plus, anyone who has ever seen at least one episode will always remember the opening narrated by Rod Serling: "You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind...." The words sometimes change a little bit from season to season, but they always set you up for the rest of the show. The writing in this show is just incredible, especially since the writers had to come up with a new storyline every single week. This may have inspired the relatively new show American Horror Story to use some of the same actors for multiple seasons (as the Twilight Zone did) and change the story entirely each season (as the Twilight Zone did each episode). Once you wet your pallete with this classic, enjoy some remakes. My favorites are the ones from the early twenty-first century. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!
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