La dimensión desconocida

Wow! Where should I start? "The Twilight Zone" is arguably the greatest science fiction television show ever! Almost every single episode is a masterpiece of modern Sci-Fi. I feel "The Twilight Zone" is responsible for the way we view science fiction today...provocative, strangely eerie, and wildly entertaining. The shows creator and writer, Rod Sterling, was a master of creating a show that caused you to stop and think, re-examine reality, consider the impossible, check the closet before going to bed, and sleep with the lights on! I watched this program religiously as a child. Every Saturday night I had to bribe my little brother to stay up and watch "The Twilight Zone" with me because I was afraid to watch it alone. It came on at 11:00 p.m. By 10:45 my little brother was sound asleep with chocolate smeared around his mouth, and I would be alone, curled in a blanket, awaiting the next spine tingling episode. I was never disappointed. By the time it went off, I would usually be sitting there alone...in a comatose-like daze, staring at the static on the television screen, too afraid to turn it off because to do so would ensure that you met with some hideous fate similar to the one you just saw earlier. "The Twilight Zone" was also a spring board for many young and talented actors/actresses during its run from the late 50's well into the 60's.

Thanks to mail order companies, I have ordered and received every single episode of "The Twilight Zone"! It would be impossible for me to say which episode is my absolute favorite because I loved so many. But a couple do stick out in my mind. They are "Time Enough At Last" and "Eye Of The Beholder". If you've never watched this wonderful example of television at it's best, I plead with you to check it out. It can be found on the Sci-Fi channel as well as various other stations via cable T.V. There's no sex, no foul language, and no graphic violence. But you will find a solid plot, famous actors/actresses years before before they became famous, and a story with a very surprising twist at the end that will leave a smile on your face, or, a cringe as you wake up your someone else in the house to turn off the T.V.

This show never gets old. It ages extremely well. The psychological horror of this is SO much better than any CGI horror you'll see these days. Every episode (or at least all the good ones) have a spooky element or something out of the ordinary, a twist ending, and a moral or something to think about. There are so many of these that are just, SO GOOD. Rod serling is a greek god. tres bien.

"The Twilight Zone" brought a complexity and maturity to television that had never existed before and probably hasn't been seen since. The stories were always ironic, briliant, and fascinating, and they often came with a moral lesson. Episodes like "A Kind of a Stopwatch", with Richard Erdmann, "Time Enough At Last", with Burgess Meredith, "Nightmare at 20,00 Feet", with William Shatner, and "Where is Everybody," with Earl Holliman, dove into concepts and situations no other show would have even touched. The entertainment brought on by "The Twilight Zone" was as vast as the Zone itself. Its principal writers, Sterling, Beaumont, and Matheson, were the best of their era. For sheer television entertainment, nothing compares to the brilliant, heavyweight stories of "The Twilight Zone." TO be frank, "The Twilight Zone" was the first show that didn't insult the viewer's intelligence.

There is probably no one who doesn't remember the Twilight Zone and have a favorite episode. I was 11 or 12 and so many of the episodes stick in my mind. Many friends and co-workers are similarly afflicted. When a group of us are discussing the woes of commuting, someone is sure to suggest that they get off at Willoughby. Stuck in a long line for whatever, with the beginning of the line no where in sight - someone might rant "It's a cookbook!". We laugh now but some episodes gave us cause for concern.

Did you ever notice how many 50's, 60's and even 70's tv shows are represented by the guest cast of TZ? Gilligan's Island, Bewitched, Star Trek, Lost In Space, Beverly Hillbillies, The Farmer's Daughter, Dobie Gillis, My Three Sons, Batman, Big Valley, The Bob Cummings Show, My Favorite Doll (or is that My Living Doll - Julie Newmar plays a robot), Honey West, Police Woman, The Odd Couple and who knows how many more!

What a series - serious actresses like Ida Lupino and Agnes Moorehead and clowns like Don Rickles. Big screen names like Mickey Rooney and Charles Bronson. Lost In Space is represented by Johnathan Harris, Billy Mumy (numerous appearances -and its a good thing you did,Anthony) and Angela Cartwright. Batman has Adam West, Julie Newmar and the great Burgess! You have a James Bond villain (Joseph Wiseman) and the first James Bond himself (for the really entrenched trivia fans - I'm not telling you who he is but it ain't Connery).

An earlier commenter put it best - this show bred most of today's horror, suspense and occult films.

I would assume that everyone knows "The Twilight Zone"'s theme song, and recognizes Rod Serling's monotone explanations of how the given character has just crossed over into the Twilight Zone. I'm not sure which episode is my favorite. There's "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet", in which William Shatner sees a monster tearing at an airplane wing, and there's also "Time Enough at Last", where Burgess Meredith plays a bookworm who gets enough time to read as much as he wants...or does he? Or, it might be another episode. But no matter. "The Twilight Zone" never ceases to impress me. Even the 1983 movie was pretty interesting, not something that many movies based on TV shows accomplish. You should try to see the show.