“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science fiction gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom,” reads a quote attributed to writer Isaac Asimov. While his words might be from decades ago — a whole other century — they’re as prescient as ever. As a genre, science fiction knows what is unknowable to us in the present moment, even if the way it’s manifested might look different from what we imagine it would.
For instance, Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey didn’t exactly hit the nail on the head when it came to what space travel (or life, really) would look like in the eponymous year it takes place, but it certainly predicted the future when it comes to the hallmarks of AI. The same goes for the digital ads of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, along with the use of drones (and surveillance culture) in James Cameron’s The Terminator. Unfortunately, Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror is more relevant today than anyone necessarily intended it to be. However, perhaps no piece of media quite encapsulates Asimov’s wisdom as does one particular show from nearly 70 years ago: The Twilight Zone.
‘The Twilight Zone’ Still Asked Viewers Unanswerable Questions
Created by pioneering producer Rod Serling, the original iteration of The Twilight Zone premiered on CBS in 1959. Arguably, nothing before nor since has had a shattering, meteor-like impact in the world of television. Considered one of the most influential shows of all time, The Twilight Zone hinges on a seemingly preternatural ability to ask us ethical, perennial questions about humanity: who and what we were, are, and could be, depending on the choices we individually make (or collectively, as a society writ large).
Some of the scariest episodes of The Twilight Zone have nothing to do with gore, but everything to do with guts. They have the sheer chutzpah to ask ethical questions its viewers didn’t necessarily expect to be confronted with. Serling, as the show’s creator and producer, found creative ways to circumvent censorship laws of his day, according to Smithsonian Magazine, especially during what was a relatively new age of televised media. As another 2018 academic article on the subject put it, “[The Twilight Zone became] a forum for telling relevant stories while circumventing commercial and bureaucratic interference,” thanks to suppressive laws enacted by the Hays code, and that, “Serling saw drama as a political act and his commitment to social justice often extended to his activities off the page.”
In our current socio-political climate, it’s impossible to watch some of Serling’s best episodes and not embrace the fact that the ethical dilemmas and plights they present us with are ones we’re still grappling with today.
Episodes That Prove ‘The Twilight Zone’ Still Hits Hard
When it comes to The Twilight Zone, the biggest questions, concepts, and motifs tend to hinge on one distinct meditation on a theme: otherness. Considering the era in which these episodes were released — specifically, one steeped in McCarthyism — it’s almost frightening how much the best Twilight Zone episodes still resonate, especially in a landscape of contemporary political strife.
Take the Season 1 episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” for example. Here, a possible UFO sighting or paranormal incident ignites widespread panic, leading to lethal paranoia among a group of suburban denizens and, ultimately, unquestioned acts of violence. In the end, it makes us wonder who, exactly, the real monsters on Maple Street are. Its depiction of fear of otherness and our impulse to cast the idea of “the other” as synonymous with that of “the enemy” can be seen today in American culture wars that put vulnerable, marginalized minority populations (like undocumented and documented immigrants, or members of the LGBTQ community) in the cross-hairs. As the episode concludes: “[Our] world is full of Maple Streets.”
This fear of otherness is also present in much of The Twilight Zone‘s and Serling’s oeuvre, including the iconic “Eye of the Beholder,” in which a woman is mandated to undergo extreme cosmetic surgery to conform to the standards of her (somewhat dystopian) society, with a twist at the end that’s too good to spoil.
The theme of isolation in many of The Twilight Zone‘s standout episodes also goes hand-in-hand with Serling’s contemplation of otherness. In “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” Bob (played by a young William Shatner), who has recently been institutionalized and is traveling home with his wife via airplane, sees a “gremlin” trying to pull apart the wings from his window seat. Everyone ignores his alarm, from his wife to the flight crew, who deem his reality as a paranoid delusion.
​​​The plot makes us question our sense of reality, and takes us into the mind of either a soothsayer warning others of the Ides of March, or a person existing in a world of extreme polarity, pushed to the brink of conspiratorial thinking. In many ways, the story serves as a metaphor for radicalization, red-pilling, and how isolation can push someone to ultimately commit acts of extremism. (And that’s only one of myriad interpretations; stigmas surrounding mental health are also at the forefront.) There’s little wonder it’s considered some of The Twilight Zone‘s scariest fare.
The same goes for the show’s debut episode, “Where Is Everybody?,” in which a man, by all appearances, finds himself to be the last human being on Earth, surrounded by an untouched ghost town. The story invokes a throat-gripping loneliness that’s not unlike what many experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, or even the feeling of dissociation and being cut off, even in the midst of a social media-crazed culture, where likes and follows are chimeric capital.
There’s little wonder why these episodes and many, many more still ring true. That’s the secret to The Twilight Zone: No matter what, it will always have the answers, even if, decades later, we don’t quite recognize them.
- Release Date
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1959 – 1964
- Network
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CBS
