| The Twilight Zone | |
|---|---|
_logo.svg){kind=logo} | |
| Genre | |
| Created by | Rod Serling |
| Presented by | Rod Serling |
| Composers |
|
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 156(list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Rod Serling |
| Producers |
|
| Cinematography | George T. Clemens |
| Running time | 25 minutes (seasons 1–3, 5) 51 minutes (season 4)[1] |
| Production companies | Cayuga Productions CBS Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | October 2, 1959 (1959-10-02) – June 19, 1964 (1964-06-19) |
| Related | |
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The Twilight Zone (marketed asTwilight Zone for its final two seasons) is an American fantasy science fiction horroranthology television series created and presented byRod Serling, which ran for five seasons onCBS from October 2, 1959, to June 19, 1964.[2] Each episode presents a standalone story in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described as entering "the Twilight Zone", often with asurprise ending and amoral. The phrase "twilight zone" has entered the vernacular, used to describe surreal experiences.
The series featured both established stars and younger actors who became much better known later. Serling served asexecutive producer andhead writer; he wrote or co-wrote 92 of the show's 156 episodes. He was also the show'shost andnarrator, delivering monologues at the beginning and end of each episode, and typically appeared on-screen to address the audience directly during the opening scene. Serling's opening and closing narrations usually summarize the episode's events encapsulating how and why the main characters had entered the Twilight Zone.
By the late 1950s, Rod Serling was a prominent name in Americantelevision. His successful television plays included "Patterns" (forKraft Television Theatre) and “Requiem for a Heavyweight” (forPlayhouse 90), but he was frustrated by constantchanges and edits made by the networks and sponsors. In "Requiem", the line "Got a match?" had to be cut because the sponsor sold lighters; other programs had similar striking of words that might remind viewers of competitors to the sponsor, including one case in which the sponsor,Ford Motor Company, had theChrysler Building removed from a picture of theNew York Cityskyline.[3]
According to comments in his 1957 anthologyPatterns, Serling had been trying to delve into material more controversial than his works of the early 1950s. This led toNoon on Doomsday for theUnited States Steel Hour in 1956, a commentary by Serling on the defensiveness and total lack of repentance he saw in theMississippi town where themurder of Emmett Till took place. His original script closely paralleled the Till case, then was moved out of the South and the victim changed to a Jewish pawnbroker, and eventually became just a foreigner in an unnamed town.
Serling thought that a science fiction setting would give him more freedom and less interference in expressing controversial ideas than more realistic settings.[4][5] "The Time Element" was Serling's 1957 pilot pitch for his show, atime travel adventure about a man who goes back toHonolulu in 1941 and unsuccessfully tries to warn everyone about the impendingattack on Pearl Harbor. The script was rejected and shelved untilBert Granet discovered and produced it as an episode ofDesilu Playhouse in 1958.[6] The show was a great success and enabled Serling to begin production onThe Twilight Zone. Per theBFI Film Classics library, "the cruel indifference and implacability of fate and the irony of poetic justice" were motifs for Serling.[7]
| Season | Episodes | Originally released | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | |||
| Concept | November 24, 1958 (1958-11-24) | |||
| 1 | 36 | October 2, 1959 (1959-10-02) | July 1, 1960 (1960-07-01) | |
| 2 | 29 | September 30, 1960 (1960-09-30) | June 2, 1961 (1961-06-02) | |
| 3 | 37 | September 15, 1961 (1961-09-15) | June 1, 1962 (1962-06-01) | |
| 4 | 18 | January 3, 1963 (1963-01-03) | May 23, 1963 (1963-05-23) | |
| 5 | 36 | September 27, 1963 (1963-09-27) | June 19, 1964 (1964-06-19) | |
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 callThe Twilight Zone.
— Rod Serling
The Twilight Zone premiered on October 2, 1959, to rave reviews. "Twilight Zone is about the only show on the air that I actually look forward to seeing. It's the one series that I will let interfere with other plans", said Terry Turner for theChicago Daily News.Daily Variety ranked it with "the best that has ever been accomplished in half-hour filmed television" and theNew York Herald Tribune found the show to be "certainly the best and most original anthology series of the year".
While the show proved popular with television critics, it struggled to find a receptive audience. CBS was banking on arating of at least 21 or 22, but its initial numbers were much worse. The series' future was jeopardized when its third episode, "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" earned a 16.3 rating. Still, the show attracted a large enough audience to survive a brief hiatus in November, after which it finally surpassed its competition onABC andNBC and persuaded its sponsors (General Foods andKimberly-Clark) to stay on until the end of the season. However, by the end of the first season the show "seemed doomed" by some.[8]
Both sponsors appeared ready to pull out. Even if the show continued, CBS was said to be planning to replace Serling with a more prestigious host and narrator, even offering it toOrson Welles.[8] In the end everything was worked out. Only Kimberly-Clark dropped their sponsorship, andColgate-Palmolive stepped in as the replacement sponsor. Orson Welles turned down the offer to do the show. While this was taking place Serling went to New York, hoping to at least preserve the right to do the closing narration. To his surprise the network did a complete reversal. Instead of dropping him, it expanded his role as host, by having him also do an opening introduction.[8]
With the exception of "The Chaser", the first season featured scripts written by Rod Serling,Charles Beaumont andRichard Matheson. The trio was responsible for 127 of the 156 episodes in the series. With the exception of "A World of His Own", Serling never appeared on camera during any first-season episode, as he would in future seasons, present only as a voice-over narrator. Serling appeared on screen inTwilight Zone promotional spots plugging the following week's episode – just not in the episodes themselves. These promo spots were unseen for several decades after their initial airings. While many have been released in the DVD and Blu-ray releases ofThe Twilight Zone, a few are lost completely and some survive only as audio tracks. Most are available throughParamount+ when watching the full episodes.[9]
Many of the season's episodes proved to be among the series' most celebrated, including "Time Enough at Last", "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", "Walking Distance", and "The After Hours". The first season won Serling an unprecedented fourthEmmy Award for dramatic writing, a Producers Guild Award for Serling's creative partnerBuck Houghton, a Directors Guild Award forJohn Brahm and theHugo Award for best dramatic presentation.[10][11]
Bernard Herrmann's original opening theme music lasted throughout the first season. For the final five episodes of the season, the show's original surrealist "pit and summit" opening montage and narration was replaced by a piece featuring an eye that closed, revealing the setting sun, and shorter narration, and a truncated version of Herrmann's theme.
Some first-season episodes were available for decades only in a version with a pasted-on second-season opening. These "re-themed" episodes were prepared for airing in the summer of 1961 as summer repeats; the producers wanted to have a consistent opening for the show every week. During the original 1959/60 run, Herrmann's theme was used in every first-season episode. The first season openings for these episodes have since been restored to recent DVD and Blu-ray reissues although incorrect openings were restored on two episodes, "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" and "A Passage for Trumpet".[12]
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, theTwilight Zone.
— Rod Serling
The second season premiered on September 30, 1960, with "King Nine Will Not Return," Serling's fresh take on the pilot episode "Where Is Everybody?" The familiarity of this first story stood in stark contrast to the novelty of the show's new packaging: Bernard Herrmann's stately original theme was replaced byMarius Constant's more jarring and dissonant (and now more-familiar) guitar-and-bongo theme.[13] The closing eye was replaced by a more surreal introduction inspired by the new images in Serling's narration (such as "That's the signpost up ahead"), and Serling himself stepped in front of the cameras to present his opening narration, rather than being only a voice-over narrator (as in the first season). The openings of the first three episodes of the season retained the eye opening's narration.
A new sponsor,Colgate-Palmolive, replaced the previous year'sKimberly-Clark (asLiggett & Myers would succeedGeneral Foods, in April 1961), and a new network executive,James Aubrey, took over CBS. "Jim Aubrey was a very, very difficult problem for the show," said associate producer Del Reisman. "He was particularly tough onThe Twilight Zone because for its time it was a particularly costly half-hour show... Aubrey was real tough on [the show's budget] even when it was a small number of dollars." In a push to keep the show's expenses down, Aubrey ordered that seven fewer episodes be produced than last season and that six of those being produced would be shot onvideotape rather than film, a move Serling disliked, calling it "neither fish nor fowl."[14] Two additional episodes filmed in the second season ("The Grave" and "Nothing in the Dark") were held over to the third season.
Season two saw the production of many of the series' most acclaimed episodes, including "Eye of the Beholder", "Nick of Time", "The Invaders", "The Trouble With Templeton" and "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?". The trio of Serling, Matheson and Beaumont began to admit new writers, and this season saw the television debut ofGeorge Clayton Johnson. Emmys were won by Serling (his fifth) for dramatic writing and by director of photographyGeorge T. Clemens and, for the second year in a row, the series won theHugo Award for best dramatic presentation. It also earned the Unity Award for "Outstanding Contributions to Better Race Relations" and an Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Drama."The Twilight Zone was mentioned inNewton Minow's landmark 1961 speech "Television and the Public Interest" as one of the fewquality television series on the air at the time in a "vast wasteland" of mass-produced junk, with Minow praising the series as "dramatic and moving."[15]
Five weeks into season two, the show's budget was showing a deficit. The total number of new episodes was projected at twenty-nine, more than half of which, sixteen, had already been filmed by November 1960.[citation needed] As a cost-cutting measure, six episodes ("The Lateness of The Hour", " The Night of the Meek", "The Whole Truth", "Twenty Two", "Static" and "Long Distance Call") were produced in the cheaper videotape format, which also required fewer camera movements. In addition, videotape was a relatively primitive medium in the early 1960s; the editing of tape was next to impossible. Each of the episodes was, therefore "camera-cut" as in live TV—on a studio sound stage, using a total of four cameras. The requisite multi-camera setup of the videotape experiment made location shooting difficult, severely limiting the potential scope of the story-lines. Even with those artistic sacrifices, the eventual savings amounted to only $6,000 per episode,[16] far less than the cost of a single episode. The experiment was not attempted again.Kinescope versions of the videotaped episodes were rerun in syndication.
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. Your next stop... theTwilight Zone.
— Rod Serling
In his third year as executive producer, host, narrator and primary writer forThe Twilight Zone, Serling was beginning to feel exhausted: "I've never felt quite so drained of ideas as I do at this moment".[17] In the first two seasons he contributed 48 scripts, or 73% of the show's total output; he contributed 56% of this season's output. "The show now seems to be feeding off itself", said aVariety reviewer of the season's episode two. Sponsors for this season included Chesterfield, Bufferin tablets, and Pepsi-Cola.
Despite his avowed weariness, Serling again managed to produce several teleplays that are widely regarded as classics, including"It's a Good Life","To Serve Man","Little Girl Lost" and "Five Characters in Search of an Exit". Scripts byMontgomery Pittman andEarl Hamner, Jr. supplemented Matheson and Beaumont's output, and George Clayton Johnson submitted three teleplays that examined complex themes. The episode "I Sing the Body Electric" was written byRay Bradbury. By the end of the season, the series had reached over 100 episodes.
The Twilight Zone received two Emmy nominations (for cinematography and art design), but was awarded neither. It again received theHugo Award for "Best Dramatic Presentation", making it the only three-time recipient until it was tied byDoctor Who in 2008.
In spring 1962,The Twilight Zone was late in finding a sponsor for its fourth season and was replaced on CBS's fall schedule with a new hour-long situation comedy calledFair Exchange. In the confusion that followed this apparent cancellation, producer Buck Houghton left the series for a position atFour Star Productions. Serling meanwhile accepted a teaching post atAntioch College, his alma mater. Though the series was eventually renewed, Serling's contribution as executive producer decreased in its final seasons.
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas; you've just crossed over into theTwilight Zone.[18]
— Rod Serling
In November 1962, CBS contractedTwilight Zone (now sansThe) as amid-season January replacement forFair Exchange, the very show that replaced it in the September 1962 schedule. In order to fill theFair Exchange time slot,[citation needed] each episode had to be expanded to an hour, an idea which did not sit well with Serling,[19] nor the production crew. "Ours is the perfect half-hour show... If we went to an hour, we'd have to fleshen our stories, soap opera style. Viewers could watch fifteen minutes without knowing whether they were in aTwilight Zone orDesilu Playhouse," Serling responded.Herbert Hirschman was hired to replace long-time producer Buck Houghton. One of Hirschman's first decisions was to direct a new opening sequence, this one illustrating a door, eye, window and other objects suspended in space. His second task was to find and produce quality scripts. Sponsors includedJohnson & Johnson.
This season ofTwilight Zone once again turned to the reliable trio of Serling, Matheson and Beaumont. However, Serling's input was limited this season; he still provided the majority of the teleplays, but as executive producer, he was virtually absent and as host, his artful narrations had to be shot back-to-back against a gray background during his infrequent trips to Los Angeles. Due to complications from a developing brain disease, Beaumont's input also began to diminish significantly. Additional scripts were commissioned fromEarl Hamner, Jr. andReginald Rose to fill in the gap.
With five episodes left in the season, Hirschman received an offer to work on a newNBC series calledEspionage and was replaced byBert Granet, who had previously produced "The Time Element". Among Granet's first assignments was "On Thursday We Leave for Home", which Serling considered the season's most effective episode. There was an Emmy nomination for cinematography and a nomination for theHugo Award.
Serling later claimed, "I was writing so much, I felt I had begun to lose my perspective on what was good and what was bad". By the end of this final season, he had contributed 92 scripts in five years. This season, the new alternate sponsors wereAmerican Tobacco andProcter & Gamble. The show returned to its half-hour format.
Beaumont was now out of the picture almost entirely, contributing scripts only through the ghostwritersJerry Sohl and John Tomerlin, and after producing only 13 episodes, Bert Granet left and was replaced byWilliam Froug—with whom Serling had worked onPlayhouse 90.
Froug made a number of unpopular decisions; first by shelving several scripts purchased under Granet's term (including Matheson's "The Doll," which was nominated for a Writer's Guild Award when finally produced in 1986 onAmazing Stories); secondly, Froug alienated George Clayton Johnson when he hired Richard deRoy to completely rewrite Johnson's teleplayTick of Time, eventually produced as "Ninety Years Without Slumbering." "It makes the plot trivial," complained Johnson of the resulting script, insisting he be given screen credit for the final version of the episode as "Johnson Smith."Tick of Time became Johnson's final submission toThe Twilight Zone.
Even under these conditions, several episodes were produced that are well remembered, including "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "A Kind of a Stopwatch", "The Masks" and "Living Doll." Although this season received noEmmy recognition,An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge—a 1962 French short film which was modified slightly for broadcast—received theAcademy Award forbest short film in 1963. It was based on theshort story of the same name byAmbrose Bierce; Serling introduces it as "a haunting study of the incredible from the past master of the incredible."[20]
In late January 1964, CBS announced the show's cancellation. "For one reason or other, Jim Aubrey decided he was sick of the show… [H]e claimed that it was too far over budget and that the ratings weren't good enough", explained Froug. But Serling countered by telling theDaily Variety that he had "decided to cancel the network".ABC showed interest in bringing Serling over to their network to write a more explicitly horror-themed series,Witches, Warlocks and Werewolves, but Serling was not impressed. "The network executives seem to prefer weekly ghouls, and we have what appears to be a considerable difference in opinion. I don't mind my show being supernatural, but I don't want to be booked into a graveyard every week." Shortly afterwards, Serling sold his 40% share inThe Twilight Zone to CBS, leaving the show and all projects involving the supernatural behind him until 1969, whenNight Gallery debuted.
Being an anthology series with no recurring characters,The Twilight Zone featured an array of guest stars, some of whom appeared in multiple episodes. The show features early performances from actors who became famous, among themTheodore Bikel,Bill Bixby,Lloyd Bochner,Morgan Brittany,Charles Bronson,Carol Burnett,Donna Douglas,Robert Duvall,Buddy Ebsen,Peter Falk,Constance Ford,Joan Hackett,Dennis Hopper,Ron Howard,Jim Hutton,Jack Klugman,Martin Landau,Cloris Leachman,Jean Marsh,Elizabeth Montgomery,Billy Mumy,Julie Newmar,Barbara Nichols,Leonard Nimoy,Robert Redford,Burt Reynolds,Janice Rule,Telly Savalas,William Shatner,Dean Stockwell,George Takei,Joyce Van Patten,Jack Warden,Jonathan Winters, andDick York.
Other episodes feature performances by actors later in their careers, such asDana Andrews,Joan Blondell,Ann Blyth,Art Carney,Jack Carson,Gladys Cooper,William Demarest,Andy Devine,Cedric Hardwicke,Josephine Hutchinson,Buster Keaton,Ida Lupino,Lee Marvin,Kevin McCarthy,Burgess Meredith,Agnes Moorehead,Alan Napier,Franchot Tone,Mickey Rooney, andEd Wynn. Klugman, Meredith, andJohn Anderson are tied for the most starring roles, with a record of four episodes.
Character actors who appeared (some more than once) includeJohn Dehner,Cyril Delevanti,Betty Garde,Sandra Gould,Nancy Kulp,Celia Lovsky,Eve McVeagh,Nehemiah Persoff,Albert Salmi,Vito Scotti,Olan Soule,Harold J. Stone, andEstelle Winwood. Actor Robert McCord appeared in 32 episodes, though almost all of them in uncredited roles.[21]
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BesidesBernard Herrmann andJerry Goldsmith, other contributors to the music wereNathan Van Cleave,Leonard Rosenman,Fred Steiner, andFranz Waxman. The first season featured an orchestral title theme by Herrmann, who also wrote original scores for seven of the episodes, including the premiere, "Where Is Everybody?". The guitar theme most associated with the show was written by the French avant-garde composerMarius Constant as part of a series of short cues commissioned by CBS as"work made for hire" library music for the series. The guitar player wasHoward Roberts. Used from season two onward, the theme as aired was a splicing together of two of these library cues: "Etrange 3 (Strange No. 3)" and "Milieu 2 (Middle No. 2)".Varèse Sarabande released several albums of music from the series, focusing on the episodes that received original scores.
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Many of the above were included on a four-disc set released by Silva America. Varese also released a two-disc set of re-recordings of Herrmann's seven scores for the series ("Where Is Everybody?", "Walking Distance", "The Lonely", "Eye of the Beholder", "Little Girl Lost", "Living Doll", and "Ninety Years Without Slumbering"), conducted byJoel McNeely. Alongside this release, Bernard Herrmann's score for the episode "Walking Distance" received another re-recording accompanying a new recording of his score forFrançois Truffaut'sFahrenheit 451 performed by theMoscow Symphony Orchestra, conducted byWilliam T. Stromberg and released by Tribute Film Classics.[22]
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| Season | Time slot |
|---|---|
| 1 (1959–1960) | Friday at 10:00-10:30 pm E.T. |
| 2 (1960–1961) | |
| 3 (1961–1962) | |
| 4 (1963) | Thursday at 9:00-10:00 pm E.T. |
| 5 (1963–1964) | Friday at 9:30-10:00 pm E.T. |
The Twilight Zone is widely regarded as one of thegreatest television series of all time.[23] In 2002, the series was rankedNo. 26 onTV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.[24] In 2004, it was ranked No. 8 onTV Guide's Top Cult Shows Ever,[25] moving to No. 9 three years later.[26] In 2013, theWriters Guild of America ranked it as the third-best-written TV series ever[27] andTV Guide ranked it the fourth greatest drama,[28] the second greatest sci-fi show[29] and the fifth greatest show of all time.[30]
In 2016, it was ranked No. 7 onRolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest shows of all time[31] and was ranked No. 12 in 2022.[32] In 2023,Variety rankedThe Twilight Zone #14 on its list of the 100 greatest TV shows of all time.[33] In 2024,Boston Globe television critic Matthew Gilbert stated that the show "is still TV’s most influential series six decades after it ended".[34]
In 1997, "To Serve Man" and "It's a Good Life" were ranked at 11 and 31 onTV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.[35][36] Serling himself named "The Invaders" and "Time Enough at Last" as his favorites.[35][37]
The Twilight Zone was nominated for fourPrimetime Emmy Awards, winning twice forOutstanding Writing Achievement in Drama.[38]
| Year | Association | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama | Rod Serling | Won |
| 1961[39] | Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Drama | The Twilight Zone | Nominated | |
| Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama | Rod Serling | Won | ||
| 1962[40] | Nominated | |||
| 1963[41] | Golden Globe Awards | Best TV Producer/Director | Won |
In that year,Marty Manning and His Orchestra released anLP recordThe Twilight Zone: A Sound Adventure in Space onColumbia Records.[42]It was recorded with top New York City session musicians, includingMundell Lowe (guitar),Jerry Murad (harmonica), Harry Breuer (vibraphone), and Phil Kraus (percussion).Lyric sopranoLois Hunt provided the wordless vocals, andTeo Macero was credited with special effects. Manning himself was credited with playing theserpent,Ondioline, andOndes Martenot.
The first track was the title theme. Thereafter, the other tracks, and their writers, were:
Most episodes continue to be broadcast in syndication. After the cancellation of the series, Serling sold his rights to CBS, unaware of what the future would hold in syndication, and the royalties he would have gained.[43]
Episodes are broadcast nationally on theSyfy channel in the United States. They are regularly shown in late-night slots and in marathons aired typically every year onNew Year's Eveand Day andthe Fourth of July. Syfy broadcasts are often re-cut to feature more commercials during the time slot, in order to meet the 22 or 44-minute maximum episode runtime.
The Twilight Zone airs Sundays at 12:30 am and Monday-Friday at 11 pm on MeTV.
Originally, there were five episodes not included in the syndication package. Three of those ("Sounds and Silences", "Miniature", and "A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain") were involved incopyright infringementlawsuits. The other two, which have never been in syndication (both from season five), are "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (a French short film, aired twice per agreement with the filmmakers) and "The Encounter" (which was pulled after its initial showing, due to the racial overtones).[44] "The Encounter" has since aired on Syfy for the first time in 2016.
The Twilight Zone was released onRegion 1 DVD for the first time byImage Entertainment. All of the releases feature uncut episodes. The season releases (The Definitive Collection and Blu-rays) also include the radio dramas and the "Next Week" promos (some of the promos on the season DVDs are audio only). The various releases include:
Compilations
Limited set
Blu-ray
Note: all of the Blu-ray releases are Region A
The 1958Desilu Playhouse episode, "The Time Element," considered to be a "first" pilot forThe Twilight Zone (see above) is included as a bonus feature on the Blu-ray release (with Season 1), but not on any of the earlier DVD releases.
UK release
Fremantle Media released a box set for each season ofThe Twilight Zone on both DVD and Blu-ray over 2011 and early 2012. These sets received high praise and won an award fromThe Guardian for Best Special Features of 2011. These Blu-rays and DVDs are multi-region and so can be played around the world.
In 2002, theBBC[58] engaged producer Carl Amari to license the rights from the Rod Serling Estate to turn the TV series into a weekly radio dramaseries forBBC Radio 4 Extra which in turn was purchased and distributed byCBS Enterprises in the US. The series featuresStacy Keach in Rod Serling's role as narrator and each 40-minute audio drama includes a Hollywood celebrity in the starring role. Some of the stars includeJim Caviezel,Blair Underwood,Jason Alexander,Jane Seymour,Lou Diamond Phillips,Luke Perry,Michael York,Sean Astin, andErnie Hudson. The episodes air nationally on hundreds of radio stations and Sirius/XM, and are available for download.[59]
All five seasons of the series are available onHulu,Amazon Video, andiTunes.[60]
All seasons as aired, including promotional spots recorded by Serling, are available onParamount+.[61]
The series has seen three revivals:
In particular, "The Comedian" feels like an entry from TZ's fourth season, when network executives pressured series creator Rod Serling into stretching the show into a 60-minute timeslot against his wishes.
Due to complaints from Japanese-Americans about the subject matter of this episode (specifically, Arthur's confession about what his father really did at Pearl Harbor), "The Encounter" was kept out of American syndication deals.
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