The Twilight Zone was a groundbreaking science fiction television series created by Rod Serling. An anthology, each episode presented a self-contained story, frequently ending in an eerie or unexpected twist and often envoking a particular philosophy or political message. This article traces the history of the show in its original incarnation from 1959-1964.

Series History

The First Season (1959-1960)

The Twilight Zone premiered the night of October 2, 1959 to nearly unanimous 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 the Chicago Daily News. Others concurred, the Daily Variety ranking it "with the best that has ever been accomplished in half-hour filmed television," the New York Herald Tribune finding it as "certaintly the best and most original anthology series of the year."

And if nothing else, The Twilight Zone sought to earn the title of "original", to separate itself from the types of shows that predominated television in the late fifties. Said Newton Minow in his celebrated "Wasteland Speech": "Of 73 and a half hours of prime evening time, the networks have tentatively scheduled 59 hours to categories of action-adventure, situation comedy, variety, quiz, and movies." Minow's speech singled out The Twilight Zone as one of the few exceptions to the network rule.

Even as the show proved popular to television's critics it struggled to find a receptive audience of television viewers. CBS was banking on a rating 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 an abysmal 16.3 rating. The show would eventually attract a large enough audience to survive a brief hiatus in November, during which the show finally surpassed its competition on both ABC and NBC and convinced its sponsors (General Foods and the Kimberly-Clark Corporation) to stay on until the end of the season.

With one exception (The Chaser), the first season would feature only scripts written by Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson, a team that would eventually be responsible for 127 of the show's 156 episodes. Many of the episodes produced this season would prove the series' most famous and celebrated, including Time Enough at Last, Walking Distance and The After Hours. The first season would win Serling his unprecedented fourth Emmy for dramatic writing, a Producers Guild Award for Serling's creative partner Buck Hougton and the Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation.

The Second Season (1960-1961)

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 Herrman's original theme had been replaced by Marius Contant 's now legendary guitar-and-bongo riff, the Daliesque landscapes of the original opening were replaced by even more surreal introduction inspired by the new images in Serling's narration ("That's the signpost up ahead"), and Serling himself stepped in front of the cameras for the first time to offer his opening narration surrounded by the very scenery he was describing.

New also were several behind-the-scenes elements that affected the way in which the show was produced: a new sponsor, Colgate-Palmolive, replaced last year's Kimberly-Clark Corporation 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 on The Twilight Zone because for its time it was a particularly costly half hour show.... Aubrey was real tough on [the show's budget] even if it was a small number of dollars."

In a push to keep Twilight Zone's expenses down, Aubrey ordered that seven fewer episodes be produced than last season... and that six of those being produced would be shot on videotape rather than film. At the time videotape technology was very limiting: all shots had to be taken on a soundstage, none of the videotaped episodes could be produced on-location. Editing was also limited in much the way that live-TV was, requiring the director to cut between cameras in one continuous take.

Despite these concerns the second season saw the production of many of the series' most celebrated episodes, including The Eye of the Beholder and The Invaders. The traditional trio of Serling, Matheson and Beaumont began to open up to new writers, and this season saw the television debut of George Clayton Johnson. This season would also see Serling win his fifth Emmy for dramatic writing, an additional Emmy awarded to director of photography George T. Clemens and earn, for the second year in a row, the Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation. Other awards include the Unity Award for "Outstanding Contributions to Better Race Relations" and an Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Drama".

The Third Season (1961-1962)

In his third year as executive producer, host, narrator and primary writer for The Twilight Zone, Serling was beginning to feel exhausted. "I've never felt quite so drained of ideas as I do at this moment," said the 37-year old playwright at the time. And indeed, his fatigue was starting to show. In the first two seasons he contributed 48 scripts, or 73% of the show's total output. He contributed only 56% of this season. Unfortunately, his exhaustion had also become apparent to many critics. "The show now seems to be feeding off itself," noted a Variety review. "Twilight Zone seems to be running dry of inspiration."

Despite his weariness Serling again managed to produce several teleplays that are widely regarded as classics, including It's a Good Life, To Serve Man and Five Characters in Search of an Exit. Additionally, the gap left by Serling's relatively small output was filled by a much greater output from a growing staff of guest writers. Scripts by Montgomery Pittman and Earl Hamner Jr. sought to contribute a rural charm in opposition to Matheson and Beaumont's growing cynicism, and George Clayton Johnson submitted three teleplays that investigated such complex moral themes as old age, death and the nature of being number one. One episode proudly boasted: "Written by Ray Bradbury".

Despite these efforts response to the new season was lackluster relative to the accolade the production crew had become familiar with. It received two Emmy nominations (for cinematography and art design), but was awarded neither. It was again awarded the Hugo Award for "Best Dramatic Presentation", making the program the only three-time Hugo-recipient.

In Spring, 1961Twilight Zone was late in finding a sponsor for its fourth season and was replaced on CBS' fall schedule with a new hour-long situation comedy called Fair Exchange. In the atmosphere of confusion and panic that followed this apparent cancellation, producer Buck Houghton left the series for a job with Four Star Productions . Serling himself left to accept a teaching post at Antioch College, his alma mater. Though the series would eventually be renewed, Serling's contributions as executive producer would greatly decrease in its final seasons.

The Fourth Season (1963)

In 1963 CBS contracted The Twilight Zone as a mid-season replacement for Fair Exchange, the very show that replaced it in the fall schedule. In order to fill Fair Exchange’s timeslot each episode had to be expanded to an hour-long, an idea which did not sit well with the production crew. “Ours is the perfect half-hour show,” said Serling just a few years earlier. “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 a Twilight Zone or Desilu Playhouse”.

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 Magritte-like in space. At this he was successful, the new sequence became a pop-culture icon and the only such opening to be used on two consecutive seasons. His second task was to find and produce quality scripts.

For this Twilight Zone once again turned to the reliable trio of Serling, Matheson and Beaumont… with mixed results. Serling’s input was limited this season: he still provided the lion’s-share 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 grey background during his infrequent trips to Los Angeles. Beaumont’s input diminished significantly: suffering from the early onsets of Alzheimer's disease, he frequently had to rely on Jerry Sohl and other writer friends to ghostwrite for him. Additional scripts were commissioned from Earl Hamner Jr. and Reginald Rose to fill in the gap.

With five episodes left in the season, Hirschman received an offer to work on a new NBC series called Espionage and was replaced by Bert Granet , who had previously produced “The Time Element”. Among Granet’s first assignments was On Thursday We leave For Home, the most celebrated entry of the season. Despite this and a handful of other critical successes, the new hour-long Twilight Zone was ill-received. Awards were limited to an Emmy nomination for cinematography and another for the Hugo Award, neither of which it won. Ratings and reviews were generally unfavorable, and CBS’ fall schedule promised a return to the familiar half-hour format.

The Fifth Season (1963-1964)

A return to the half-hour format did not necessarily mean a return to form, as in its final season The Twilight Zone became increasingly reliant on gimmickry to compensate for a perceived decline in substance. The diminishing artistic credibility of the series was due primarily to the growing exhaustion of its chief contributor and creative originator, Rod Serling. “Toward the end,” Serling later recalled, “I was writing so much the I felt I had begun to lose my perspective on what was good and what was bad.” His fatigue was not without cause; at the end of this season Serling had contributed a staggering 92 scripts in five short years.

So while 19 year-old UCLA astrophysics major Virginia Trimble toured the country as “Miss Twilight Zone,” the production crew tried desperately to reclaim the show’s fading prestige. This proved to be no easy task. Beaumont was now out of the picture entirely, contributing scripts only through the ghostwriters Jerry Sohl and John Tomerlin , and after producing only thirteen episodes Bert Granet left and was replaced by William Froug, with whom Serling had worked on Playhouse 90.

Froug made a number of unpopular decisions, first by shelving several scripts purchased under Granet’s term (including Matheson’s “The Doll”, which would be nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award when finally produced in 1986 on Amazing Stories) and replacing them with teleplays by newcomers like Anthony Wilson, Bernard C. Schoenfeld and even Froug’s own secretary A. T. Strassfield… people who often had no experience in science-fiction and little-to-no experience in writing for television. Secondly, Froug alienated George Clayton Johnson when he hired Richard deRoy to completely rewrite Johnson’s teleplay “Tick of Time”, eventually produced as Ninety Years Without Slumbering . “It makes the plot trivial,” complained Johnson of the resulting script. “Tick of Time” would be Johnson’s final submission to The Twilight Zone.

Even under these conditions, several episodes were produced that would be remembered long after Twilight Zone’s cancellation, including Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, A Kind of a Stopwatch and Living Doll. This season received no Emmy recognition, but did not go entirely unrewarded. Episode number 142, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge –in actuality a French-produced short film that Froug syndicated as a Twilight Zone in order to keep the show under budget- received the Academy Award for best short film, making Twilight Zone the only television show in history to win both an Emmy and an Oscar.

In late January, 1964 CBS announced Twilight Zone's cancellation. "For one reason or other, Jim Aubrey decided he was sick of the show," explained Froug. "He claimed that it was too far over budget and that the ratings weren't good enough." Serling countered by telling the Daily Variety that he had "decided to cancel the network." ABC showed interest in bringing the show over to their network under the new name Witches, Warlocks and Werewolves, but Serling wasn't 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 would sell his 40% share in The Twilight Zone to CBS, leaving the show and indeed all projects involving the supernatural behind him until 1969 and the debut of Night Gallery.

Trivia

• Rod Serling was not the original choice for narrator. Orson Welles was considered but the producers felt he asked for too much money. The original version of the Twilight Zone pilot, Where Is Everybody? featured Westbrook Van Voorhis as the narrator.
• During the first season, Serling's narrations were off-camera voiceovers -- he only appeared on-camera at the end of each show to introduce previews of the next episode.
• When Serling appeared on-camera during the second and third seasons, directors would usually employ novel, surprising ways of introducing Serling into the scene.

See also

• The Twilight Zone
• List of The Twilight Zone episodes
• Night Gallery
• The Outer Limits

References

• Sander, Gordon F.:Serling: The Rise And Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man. New York: Penguin Books, 1992.
• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)