Rod Serling brought sci-fi into the light with ‘Twilight Zone’
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Susan King, purveyor of many things film and television and beyond, falls into “The Twilight Zone” in her latest Classic Hollywood column as she gets out the word about The American Cinematheque Egyptian Theatre’s tribute to this seminal series on Friday. She also talks a great deal about Rod Serling and the barriers that science fiction had to hurdle. -- Jevon Phillips“You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead -- your next stop, the Twilight Zone.”
With those now-famous words, TV audiences 50 years ago were introduced to Rod Serling’s breakthrough sci-fi series “The Twilight Zone.” The series, essentially morality plays with evocative twists of fantasy, ran for five seasons on CBS -- and endlessly in reruns and the public imagination.
One week, viewers could be on a plane with a troubled young man who insists he sees a monster on a wing; another week, an elderly woman could invite death into her house. Performers included veterans such as Ida Lupino and newcomers like Robert Redford and William Shatner.
“He created a new form of television,” said screenwriter Marc Scott Zicree, author of “The Twilight Zone Companion.”
Science fiction was basically viewed as kids’ stuff,” he says. “There is a great interview that Mike Wallace did with Rod just prior to ‘The Twilight Zone’ where he says to Rod, ‘Now you are doing this kind of kids’ stuff, are you giving up writing anything important?’ ”
Read the entire article HERE.
-- Susan King
And here’s a portion of a great “Twilight Zone” episode featuring a certain Starship Enterprise captain out of uniform.
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Photo: Rod Serling. Credit: Museum of TV and Radio