In actual fact Serling thought he’d invented the term “The Twilight Zone” himself but then discovered that it was an aviation term used by pilots to describe flying from a day time zone into night.
The twilight zone the fear series#
There is something undeniably creepy about the word “twilight” – it was used in the Twenties to describe anaesthesia and there is a sense from the series that the world is sleepwalking into disaster. This was seen as Serling’s reaction to what he saw as the insularity and selfishness of American society at the time. Victims are suspended in one moment in time, they are aware of something dreadful that no-one else can see and they can’t communicate it or they are unable to connect with anyone else around them. One common fear that The Twilight Zone exploits beautifully is the fear of being trapped. Technology, which was just emerging into US daily life in the Sixties, quite often becomes sentient in The Twilight Zone and aliens are frequent visitors (inspired, it is said, by the fear of the Russians – the Other - during the Cold War). 12 Looks Just Like You”, plastic surgery becomes compulsory until the practice is challenged by a teenage girl. And, as aliens are believed to be outside the editor’s residing cabi. In a particularly horrifying episode, “No. For a State Trooper and Fashion Editor, the only thing they have to fear is fear itself. Many of the stories revolved around technology or modern thinking going too far and beginning to backfire on the citizens of Earth. Serling himself narrated the quirky but chilling opener to each episode, which went along the lines of “this is the fifth dimension, that lies between truth and shadow…you have just entered The Twilight Zone.” Serling was a bit of a firebrand and argued furiously with studio bosses in the Sixties over racism, censorship and the Vietnam war.
Major stars of the time like Buster Keaton, Mickey Rooney and Ida Lupino also appeared. One of the joys of watching The Twilight Zone is for the amount of now A-list actors that appear when they were unknown: William Shatner, Telly Savalas, Burt Reynolds and Robert Redford, to name but four “isn’t that…?” moments. who bullies his way into a deal only to discover that he’s accidentally sold his soul to the devil), children get their revenge on evil or unthinking parents, and vanity is always, always punished. A masterclass of anthology storytelling and pop surrealism, the series ran on CBS. Evil-doers get their just desserts (like the corporate exec. In 1959, legendary writer and producer Rod Serling creates the first stop in the timeline, The Twilight Zone. In the late fifties and early sixties, when the show got its. Twilight Zone stories, mostly written by creator Rod Serling, often involve a surprise ending which fixes a moral imbalance. One of the most common themes tackled in The Twilight Zone is the fear of nuclear weapons. This is not just supernatural intervention for the sake of it.
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