Sci Fi Bytes: Nuggets, anecdotes, trivia, and more from the worlds of sci fi and fantasy television.
The Twilight Zone premiered in the Fall of 1959 and would go on to have a legendary five-year run on CBS. It was an important early genre entry for science fiction television and it has since become one of the most iconic TV shows of all time (you can read more about it at this link). But even if you have seen every episode it is possible that you have missed some of the details and nuggets about the show so following are ten things you probably never knew about The Twilight Zone.
1. In 1958, Rod Serling wrote the very Twilight Zone-ish script “The Time Element” which he intended as the pilot for a weekly anthology series. CBS bought the script but did nothing with it, nor were they interested in an ongoing series. But the producer of Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse discovered the script and decided to use it for his show. The critics and audience responded very positively (supposedly the network received over 6,000 letters praising the episode) and CBS wisely decided that an anthology series from Serling was a pretty good idea after all.
2. Rod Serling originally had no interest in taking the lead as the narrator of the series and instead wanted Richard Egan for the part because of his rich and deep voice. He went so far as to say “It’s Richard Egan or no one. It’s Richard Egan, or I’ll do the thing myself”. But due to studio contracts, Egan was unavailable and Westbrook Van Voorhis was brought on to narrate the pilot episode “Where Is Everybody?”. Voorhis was not available for further episodes, so Serling stepped in and redubbed the pilot and became the permanent narrator. Just imagine what the show would have been like without Serling’s iconic intros and epilogues!
3. In the 1950s, sci fi television was considered to be mostly for kids as exemplified by kiddie space operas like Captain Video and His Video Rangers, Space Patrol, and Tom Corbitt, Space Cadet. And while The Twilight Zone had plenty of appeal to younger viewers, it is one of the early genre entries that started to target a more adult audience. The same season that TZ premiered, another science fiction entry was also trying to bring in an older demographic, and it also aired on CBS. Men Into Space premiered just a few days before the Rod Serling series, and it presented a realistic look at space exploration based on the science of the time. Sadly, it was cancelled after one season and has since been mostly forgotten, but it is a notable genre entry and helped prove to early audiences that sci fi TV could appeal to adults as well. (Read more about Men Into Space at this link.)
4. “The Twilight Zone” is an actual term used by U.S. Air Force pilots and it existed prior to the television series. It refers to the crossing of the day and night sides above the world. Rod Serling was unaware that the term existed when he used it as the title of the show.
5. Four Star Trek regulars appeared in the original Twilight Zone. William Shatner had the lead in the classic episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” from Season 5 and he also appeared in the Season 2 episode “Nick of Time”. Leonard Nimoy appeared in the Season 3 episode “A Quality of Mercy” which also featured future Quantum Leap star Dean Stockwell. George Takai starred in the Season 5 episode “The Encounter” and would later make an appearance in the 2019 revival in the episode “You Might Also Like”. And James Doohan showed up in the Season 4 episode “Valley of the Shadow”.
6. The series was late in finding a sponsor after its third year and it was replaced on the schedule with the hour-long sitcom Fair Exchange at the beginning of the 1962-63 season. That show was cancelled and TZ was used as a mid-season replacement, but the network insisted that the show extend to an hour in length to fill up the opening on the schedule. Rod Serling was never happy about this as he believed TZ was “the perfect half-hour show”. It went back to thirty-minute episodes in its fifth and final season.
7. The Twilight Zone never counted as a hit series in its original run. Even though its ratings were respectable, it never ended the season in the Top 30 shows, but it still proved popular and would receive several Emmy nominations across its five seasons. And like Star Trek, it would later have a long life in syndication where it drew strong viewership for many years.
8. The short film “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” based on the story by Ambrose Bierce and directed by Robert Enrico was included as the twenty-second episode of the fifth season in the original run of The Twilight Zone. It was not originally produced as an episode of the series, and it is no longer included in the syndication package.
9. The Twilight Zone had a good run on CBS and proved quite popular during its five-year tenure. But after completing its final season, the network execs decided the show had run its course and chose to exclude it from the schedule for the next season, citing budget overruns and declining ratings. Rod Serling did not quite agree with their assessment and he actually claimed that he “decided to cancel the network.” Serling and his agent then looked into selling the show to another network followed by an attempt to create a new anthology series. You can read more about that at this link.
10. The Twilight Zone has had three revival series so far, one in the ’80s that ran three seasons, one in the ’00s that ran for one season, and one that premiered in 2019 and ran for two seasons. If you combine all four incarnations of the show together (which makes sense seeing as it is an anthology series), it is one of the longest-running sci fi/fantasy shows of all time at eleven seasons and 284 episodes. There was also a Twilight Zone movie that preceded all of the television reboots, coming out in 1983.
More Sci Fi Bytes at This Link
Be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates. And for the latest news and discussions on sci fi and fantasy television, follow r/SciFiTV
Follow our Sci Fi TV Schedule for all the currently airing and upcoming sci fi and fantasy television shows, and you can see the premieres for all the upcoming genre entries at this link.
