Production: USA, 1959-64
Cast: Rod Serling, Burgess Meredith, William Shatner, Peter Falk, Burt Reynolds.

 Maybe the most “genuine science fiction” serie of ever, and no question for other series fans.
It’s difficult to find other shows so intriguing and so similar to literary science-fiction short stories (except, perhaps, for “The outer limits”, whose concept was more or less the same).
There was no regular cast (but, anyway, many “guest stars” with a brilliant future), no specific subject, except for the introducing speech
at the beginning of each episode: “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.”
By these premises, everything becomes possible: from space travels to nuclear holocaust, from silent alien invasion to pacts with devil, from grotesque to drama.
Absolute creator of the show, writer Rod Serling. An highly appreciated author for radio and television, had already won three Emmy Awards in 1957.  In 1958 was aired athe story “The time element” in the show “Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse”. The story was about a psychanalist, dr. Gillespie (Martin Balsam),

who met a strange patient, Pete Jensen (William Bendix). Jensen kept on dreaming to be in Honolulu the day before Pearl Harbour’ strike, trying to warn people without success. Later Gillespie went in a pub, and saw Jensen’s photograph hung to the wall. And the pub’s owner explained that the man in the photograph previously owned the pub, and was dead in the Pearl Harbour attack.
The story was a notable success, and Serling was asked by CBS to write another script as a pilot for a totally new show. The new story was titled “Where is everybody?” Here a man was in a totally desert city. Any attempt to meet anybody was useless. When he was near to become insane, was rescued by men wearing uniforms: he was subject for an
experiment to simulate a long space travel, but his will for company had taken over, making even a simulation of space solitude absolutely unbearable.
This story was a success too, and was the pilot for a first season of 36 episodes. The success, of public and critics, was very high. By means of fantasy stories (until then science fiction was considered a children product) Serling could afford any topic and take inspiration from his time society without risking to be offensive towards audience (who watched fantasy stories but often similar to existing realities).
Most part of the scripts were his, but since second season two excellent writers were hired, Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont.

But, anyway, from season to season scripts become more and more dull, and, moreover, since the fourth season the number of Serling’ scripts were decreasing. In the fourth season of 1964, there was also the experiment of 60’ episodes instead of 30’, but stories did not gain quality and lose their suspence. During the fifth season Serling ‘s collaboration was really minimum, and it become clear that going on was impossible.
Rod Serling died untimely in 1975. Ten years later an attempt to revive the show was made. Thanks to Steven Spielberg’s interest (he had grown-up with cinema and TV classics) a movie was produced in 1983 (four episodes directed by Spielberg, John Landis, Joe Dante and George Miller).
This led CBS to create a new serie in 1985. The new show was in colour,

with better visual effects, new stories, and played by famous actors as Bruce Willis, Martin Landau, Peter Coyote. But the sole necessary thing was missing, Rod Serling.

156 episodes, b/w, 30’ (except fourth season, 18 episodes, 60’)

First season

1) Where is Everybody?
2) One for the Angels
3) Mr. Denton on Doomsday

4) The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine
5) Walking Distance
6) Escape Clause
7) The Lonely
8) Time Enough at Last
9) Perchance to Dream
10) Judgment Night
11) And When the Sky Was Opened
12) What You Need
13) The Four of Us are Dying
14) Third From the Sun
15) I Shot an Arrow into the Air
16) The Hitch-Hiker
17) The Fever
18) The Last Flight
19) The Purple Testament
20) Elegy
21) Mirror Image
22) The Monsters are Due on Maple Street
23) A World of Difference
24) Long Live Walter Jameson
25) People Are Alike All Over
26) Execution
27) The Big Tall Wish
28) A Nice Place to Visit
29) Nightmare as a Child
30) A Stop at Willoughby
31) The Chaser
32) A Passage for Trumpet
33) Mr. Bevis
34) The After Hours
35) The Mighty Casey
36) A World of His Own
Second season

37) King Nine Will Not Return
38) The Man in the Bottle
39) Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room
40) A Thing About Machines
41) The Howling Man
42) The Eye of the Beholder
43) Nick of Time
44) The Lateness of the Hour
45) The Trouble with Templeton

46) A Most Unusual Camera
47) Night of the Meek
48) Dust
49) Back There
50) The Whole Truth
51) The Invaders
52) A Penny For Your Thoughts
53) Twenty-Two
54) The Odyssey of Flight 33
55) Mr. Dingle, the Strong
56) Static
57) The Prime Mover
58) Long Distance Call
59) A Hundred Yards over the Rim
60) The Rip Van Winkle Caper
61) The Silence
62) Shadow Play
63) The Mind and the Matter
64) Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up
65) The Obsolete Man

Third season


66) Two
67) The Arrival
68) The Shelter
69) The Passersby
70) A Game of Pool
71) The Mirror
72) The Grave
73) It's a Good Life
74) Deaths-Head Revisited
75) The Midnight Sun

76) Still Valley
77) The Jungle
78) Once Upon a Time
79) Five Characters in Search of an Exit
80) A Quality of  Mercy
81) Nothing in the Dark
82) One More Pallbearer
83) Dead Man's Shoes
84) The Hunt
85) Showdown with Rance McGrew
86) Kick the Can
87) A Piano in the House
88) The Last Rites of Jeff  Myrtlebank
89) To Serve Man
90) The Fugitive
91) Little Girl Lost
92) Person or Persons Unknown
93) The Little People
94) Four O'Clock
95) Hocus-Pocus and Frisby
96) The Trade-Ins
97) The Gift
98) The Dummy
99) Young Man's Fancy
100) I Sing the Body Electric
101) Cavender is Coming
102) The Changing of the Guard

Fourth season (60' episodes)

103) In His Image
104) The Thirty-Fathom Grave
105) Valley of the Shadow

106) He's Alive
107) Mute
108) Death Ship
109) Jess-Belle
110) Miniature
111) Printer's Devil
112) No Time Like the Past
113) The Parallel
114) I Dream of Genie
115) The New Exhibit
116) Of Late I Think of Cliffordville
117) The Incredible World of Horace Ford
118) On Thursday We Leave For Home
119) Passage on the Lady Anne
120) The Bard

Fifth season

121) In Praise of Pip
122) Steel
123) Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
124) A Kind of a Stopwatch

125) The Last Night of a Jockey
126) Living Doll
127) The Old Man in the Cave
128) Uncle Simon
129) Probe 7 - Over and Out
130) The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms
131) A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain
132) Ninety Years Without Slumbering
133) Ring-A-Ding Girl
134) You Drive
135) The Long Morrow

136) The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross
137) Number Twelve Looks Just Like You
138) Black Leather Jackets
139) Night Call
140) From Agnes with Love
141) Spur of the Moment
142) An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
143) Queen of the Nile
144) What's in the Box
145) The Masks
146) I Am the Night - Color Me Black
147) Sounds and Silences
148) Caesar and Me
149) The Jeopardy Room
150) Stopover in a Quiet Town
151) The Encounter
152) Mr. Garrity and the Graves
153) The Brain Center at Whipple's
154) Come Wander with Me
155) The Fear
156) The Bewitchin' Pool
 



 



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