Rod Serling on The Twilight Zone – Image by CBS
The Twilight Zone is making its return to television. Here’s a guide to some of the classics you should watch in anticipation of a new trip to the fifth dimension.
So we’re just under a month out from the return of The Twilight Zone (thanks to Jordan Peele and CBS All Access) and you’re wondering what you should do to prepare. Maybe you’ve seen an episode or two of The Twilight Zone in the past. Or maybe you’re just now getting into it because we all know how brilliant the mind of Jordan Peele is.
Either way, let this be your guide to some essential episodes to watch in anticipation of the return of the classic series.
Some of these are highly regarded as top Twilight Zone episodes, others are personal favorites, and still others are taken from clues dropped in the first trailer released by CBS All Access.
All of these episodes are currently available to watch on Netflix. I haven’t included any season 4 episodes since Netflix hasn’t either. After all, season 4 seems to be the ugly stepchild of the Twilight Zone family that no one talks about. It’s not a bad season, it’s just a different format—hour-long episodes instead of the usual half hour.
We’re only going with old school originals from 1959-1964 when Rod Serling was at his peak. (Nope, not touching any of the previous attempts at remakes.)
Here are 10 episodes (plus some bonus hits) that you can and should watch before the new series drops on April 1. (I’m leaving out Serling’s classic twists unless the twist has so permeated pop culture that you’re bound to have heard of it before. After all, the series is 60 years old and one of the most heralded and referenced science fiction series of all time.)
Twilight Zone ‘Where is Everybody’ – Image by CBS
1. Where is Everybody
Originally aired: October 2, 1959 – Season 1, Episode 1
Written by: Rod Serling
Opening narration: “The place is here. The time is now. And the journey into the shadows that we are about to watch, could be our journey.”
Plot: A man, dressed in a U.S. Air Force flight suit, finds himself in a strange town with no memory of who he is, where he is or how he got there.
There’s no one else around, despite the fact that he keeps finding evidence of people seemingly having been there recently (like a freshly brewed pot of coffee).
As he wanders the town, he becomes increasingly convinced that he’s being watched. He even winds up inside of a movie theatre. A movie begins to play, but when he runs up to the projection room, there’s no one there.
As his panic grows, he pressed a public call button screaming for help, desperate for anyone to explain what is going on.
Why it’s a classic: To start, it’s the first. It’s the original. It kicked off everything we know and love about The Twilight Zone.
Serling chose to introduce his series with a theme that is repeated probably the most frequently throughout the original run of The Twilight Zone: Loneliness.
There’s an all too human fear of being alone and lost and confused at play here. Its abandonment in its purest form and Serling was never afraid to sit and stare at what it means to leave someone truly alone.
(Plus, hey, the star—Earl Holliman—was a Golden Globe award-winning actor kicking off the series.)
Twilight Zone ‘Time Enough At Last’ – Image by CBS
2. Time Enough At Last
Originally aired: November 20, 1959 – Season 1, Episode 8
Written by: Rod Serling, based on a short story by Lynn Venable
Opening narration: “Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. A bookish little man whose passion is the printed page, but who is conspired against by a bank president and a wife and a world full of tongue-cluckers and the unrelenting hands of a clock.
But in just a moment, Mr. Bemis will enter a world without bank presidents or wives or clocks or anything else. He’ll have a world all to himself… without anyone.”
Plot: Henry Bemis, a bank teller with thick glasses, loved to read. He loved it to the point where everyone (including his wife and boss) were annoyed that he was always preoccupied with reading.
Bemis always takes his lunch break reading in the bank’s vault. But one day when he goes down there, there’s an explosion. When he regains consciousness and leaves the vault, he finds the entire world destroyed. A nuclear war demolished everything and everyone.
He wanders alone and gets to the point where, when he finds a revolver laying around, he contemplates suicide. Then he sees the ruins of a public library, with enough books left unharmed to last him a lifetime.
Why it’s a classic: I don’t think I’m overstating when I say the end of this episode (not detailed above) is one of the most widely regarded—and widely parodied—twists in Twilight Zone history.
The Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, Modern Family, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and even Fear the Walking Dead have all referenced or parodied the devastating, emotional ending of this episode.
In 2009, TV Guide listed it as its 11th greatest television episode of all-time. Additionally, it’s grounded by Academy Award-nominated (and Primetime Emmy Award-winning) actor Burgess Meredith as Bemis.
You may remember Meredith as Rocky’s trainer Mickey in the Rocky movie series. Or other things. His IMDB page spans 60 years of consistently working in the industry. Meredith also appeared in three other Twilight Zone episodes.
Twilight Zone ‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet’ – Image by CBS
3. Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
Originally aired: October 11, 1963 – Season 5, Episode 3
Written by: Richard Matheson
Opening narration: “Portrait of a frightened man: Mr. Robert Wilson, thirty-seven, husband, father, and salesman on sick leave.
Mr. Wilson has just been discharged from a sanitarium where he spent the last six months recovering from a nervous breakdown, the onset of which took place on an evening not dissimilar to this one, on an airliner very much like the one in which Mr. Wilson is about to be flown home—the difference being that, on that evening half a year ago, Mr. Wilson’s flight was terminated by the onslaught of his mental breakdown.
Tonight, he’s traveling all the way to his appointed destination, which, contrary to Mr. Wilson’s plan, happens to be in the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone.”
Plot: A terrified man is on a flight when he sees a gremlin on the wing of the plane. But, when he tries to convince his wife and the flight attendant that there was something on the wing, no one sees anything.
Thus, no one believes him. It also doesn’t help that this happens to be his first flight since he had a nervous breakdown on a flight six months prior. But he’s convinced, he sees a gremlin on the wing, prying up the metal on the plane and messing with the electrics.
He eventually steals a sleeping police officer’s gun, straps himself in and opens the emergency door to shoot the gremlin. The plane has to make an emergency landing.
Why it’s a classic: Since we were talking about legendary actors, Wilson is played by the one and only William Shatner. It’s also an episode that has been remade multiple times including in the 1983 Twilight Zone: The Movie, where John Lithgow stepped into the role.
Peele and CBS All Access have already announced that Peele will be taking his own swing at this classic story of paranoia in “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet” where Adam Scott will join the lists of actors tackling this story.
This is also one of 16 episodes written by Richard Matheson, the novelist perhaps best known for writing I Am Legend (1954). Stephen Spielberg placed Matheson among literary legends Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov.
What I’m saying is, even when Serling wasn’t writing, he had people like Matheson churning out some of their best work for The Twilight Zone. (Or, in this case, adapting some of their work for a great Twilight Zone episode.)
This episode has also seen its fair share of pop culture fame. Some notables include: The Simpsons, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Futurama, Saturday Night Live and, of course, Peele himself referencing the episode in a sketch on Key & Peele.
In the grand scheme, this isn’t the scariest or deepest of The Twilight Zone’s episodes, but Shatner is memorable. And, you may think twice before opening your shade on a plane if you’re flying at night. You never know what’ll be out there.
Twilight Zone ‘Eye of the Beholder’ – Image by CBS
4. Eye of the Beholder
Originally aired: November 11, 1960 – Season 2, Episode 6
Written by: Rod Serling
Opening narration: “Suspended in time and space for a moment, your introduction to Miss Janet Tyler, who lives in a very private world of darkness.
A universe whose dimensions are the size, thickness, length of the swath of bandages that cover her face. In a moment we will go back into this room, and also in a moment, we will look under those bandages.
Keeping in mind of course that we are not to be surprised by what we see, for this isn’t just a hospital, and this patient 307 is not just a woman. This happens to be the Twilight Zone, and Miss Janet Tyler, with you, is about to enter it.”
Plot: A woman has undergone the legal maximum of 11 surgeries to attempt to make her look normal. This is a society where even questioning beauty standards can be considered treasonous. Conformity is the way of the world and this is Janet Tyler’s last chance to conform. Unfortunately for her, the attempt doesn’t go as planned.
Why it’s a classic: What makes this episode so great is the insane difficulty in producing it. The entire episode is built around not being able to see the faces of anyone. Marc Scott Zicree, in his book The Twilight Zone Companion, even says the director Douglas Heyes cast this episode with his back to the actors because he needed actors with sympathetic voices.
In fact, Tyler was actually played by two different actors. One was the voice while Tyler had bandages on (Maxine Stuart) and one was the actual actress who was revealed when the bandages were removed (Donna Douglas).
Just imagine having to direct an entire episode where you’re not allowed to show any of your characters faces because, if you do, you’d give away the twist of the episode. It’s a great use of shadow and clever camera angles.
This is also one of the episodes that steps away from the idea that the classic Twilight Zone twist has to happen to the character in the episode. This twist is purely for the audience. This story could be told in a straightforward manner and without the Twilight Zone aura.
In reality, Serling gives the audience a simple story of a woman’s life. Then he just lets the audience’s preconceived notions and assumptions do a lot of the heavy lifting for him before revealing the truth and forcing viewers to confront why they made the assumptions they made.
(This is also something Peele did well in Get Out and something he will hopefully continue to do in his Twilight Zone episodes.)
Twilight Zone ‘It’s a Good Life’ – Image by CBS
5. It’s a Good Life
Originally aired: November 3, 1961 – Season 3, Episode 8
Written by: Rod Serling, from the story “It’s a Good Life” by Jerome Bixby
Opening narration: “Tonight’s story on The Twilight Zone is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. This, as you may recognize, is a map of the United States, and there’s a little town there called Peaksville.
On a given morning not too long ago, the rest of the world disappeared and Peaksville was left all alone. Its inhabitants were never sure whether the world was destroyed and only Peaksville left untouched or whether the village had somehow been taken away.
They were, on the other hand, sure of one thing: the cause. A monster had arrived in the village. Just by using his mind, he took away the automobiles, the electricity, the machines—because they displeased him—and he moved an entire community back into the dark ages—just by using his mind. Now I’d like to introduce you to some of the people in Peaksville, Ohio.
This is Mr. Fremont. It’s in his farmhouse that the monster resides. This is Mrs. Fremont. And this is Aunt Amy, who probably had more control over the monster in the beginning than almost anyone. But one day she forgot.
She began to sing aloud. Now, the monster doesn’t like singing, so his mind snapped at her, turned her into the smiling, vacant thing you’re looking at now. She sings no more. And you’ll note that the people in Peaksville, Ohio have to smile. They have to think happy thoughts and say happy things because, once displeased, the monster can wish them into a cornfield or change them into a grotesque, walking horror.
This particular monster can read minds, you see. He knows every thought, he can feel every emotion. Oh yes, I did forget something, didn’t I? I forgot to introduce you to the monster. This is the monster.
His name is Anthony Fremont. He’s six years old, with a cute little-boy face and blue, guileless eyes. But when those eyes look at you, you’d better start thinking happy thoughts, because the mind behind them is absolutely in charge. This is the Twilight Zone.”
Plot: No need for a plot from me. Serling’s intro is all you need to know.
Why it’s a classic: In the world of creepy, terrifying children, Anthony Fremont is near the top of the list, if you ask me. The idea of being at the whim of anyone who is all-powerful is scary enough. Add to it the fact that he’s a child with no sense of fairness or empathy? It’s one of the most disturbing villains/supernatural beings in Twilight Zone history.
I admit, this episode still gives me the creeps. Serling always had an ability to find stories that tapped into the core of human fears and paranoia. The fear of being powerless is all too human. And there’s no feeling more powerless than what the people of this small town feel.
TIME named it one of the top 10 Twilight Zone episodes. It’s been referenced and parodied in The Simpsons (of course) and American Dad and it inspired the Black Mirror episode “USS Callister.” Even Michael Jackson sampled some of the opening narration in his song “Threatened.”
Twilight Zone ‘The Monsters are Due on Maple Street’ – Image by CBS
6. The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street
Originally aired: March 4, 1960 – Season 1, Episode 22
Written by: Rod Serling
Opening narration: “Maple Street, U.S.A., late summer. A tree-lined little world of front porch gliders, barbecues, the laughter of children, and the bell of an ice cream vendor.
At the sound of the roar and the flash of light, it will be precisely 6:43 P.M. on Maple Street…This is Maple Street on a late Saturday afternoon. Maple Street in the last calm and reflective moment – before the monsters came.”
Plot: A quiet suburban street is thrust into chaos after a meteor passes over the town and the street starts to experience strange events, including power outages and cars starting on their own.
Some residents start to believe this means that aliens are living among them, the aliens just look human. Panic ensues as residents rush to find reasons to blame each other and find something—anything—on which to blame the unexplainable events.
The panic reaches such a fervor that it results in the unfortunate death of one of the residents.
Why it’s a classic: While the residents never learn what’s really going on, Serling does explain, don’t worry. And it’s the perfect metaphor to examine the red scare of the 1950s.
But what really makes this episode great (and what makes this episode a favorite of mine) is the fact that its message never seems to lessen. It’s an examination of crowd mentality and how even the slightest bit of fear and quickly spiral into hatred.
Then the fact that that hatred can be used to incite violence between people who are friends and neighbors with very little effort from outsiders. Irrational fear, this episode shows, is just as dangerous as any physical enemy.
The episode also makes sure to remind the audience that we live in a world full of Maple Street.
According to Hollywood Reporter, Frank Darabont, the director of the 2007 movie The Mist, said he wanted to evoke this episode with his adaptation of Stephen King’s novel.
Twilight Zone ‘The Odyssey of Flight 33’ – Image by CBS
7. The Odyssey of Flight 33
Originally aired: February 24, 1961 – Season 2, Episode 18
Written by: Rod Serling
Opening narration: “You’re riding on a jet airliner en route from London to New York. You’re at 35,000 feet atop an overcast and roughly fifty-five minutes from Idlewild Airport. But what you’ve seen occur inside the cockpit of this plane is no reflection on the aircraft or the crew.
It’s a safe, well-engineered, perfectly designed machine. And the men you’ve just met are a trained, cool, highly efficient team. The problem is simply that the plane is going too fast, and there is nothing within the realm of knowledge or at least logic to explain it.
Unbeknownst to passenger and crew, this airplane is heading into an uncharted region well off the beaten track of commercial travelers—it’s moving into The Twilight Zone. What you’re about to see we call “The Odyssey of Flight 33.”
Plot: A plane hits an unexpected jet stream and breaks through a barrier that sends them back in time. Their only hope of getting home is to try to break through that same barrier and hope it puts them back in the correct era. But things don’t quite work out for them.
Why it’s a classic: This is one of those that is a personal favorite more than anything else. Many of Serling’s episodes centered around the idea that these events could happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Twilight Zone always has believable episodes, that’s part of the joy of the series—the fact that the Twilight Zone is anywhere and everywhere.
But, according to AV Club, Serling worked with his brother, an aviation reporter, and an actual pilot to make sure the dialogue in the cockpit of the plane was authentic. It’s an impeccably written episode that shows just how simply Serling could unsettle his audience.
Watching this as a child, it changed the way I looked up at planes when I went outside. After all, you never know which one is stuck trying to find its way home from another time. It’s the Flying Dutchman for the late 20th century.
Twilight Zone ‘Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?’ – Image by CBS
8. Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?
Originally aired: May 26, 1961 – Season 2, Episode 28
Written by: Rod Serling
Opening narration: “Wintry February night, the present. Order of events: a phone call from a frightened woman notating the arrival of an unidentified flying object, then the checkout you’ve just witnessed, with two state troopers verifying the event – but with nothing more enlightening to add beyond evidence of some tracks leading across the highway to a diner. You’ve heard of trying to find a needle in a haystack?
Well, stay with us now, and you’ll be part of an investigating team whose mission is not to find that proverbial needle, no, their task is even harder. They’ve got to find a Martian in a diner, and in just a moment you’ll search with them because you’ve just landed – in The Twilight Zone.”
Plot: Again, Serling’s setup gives you all you need to know.
Why it’s a classic: This is probably as close to “murder mystery” territory that Serling gets. A room full of people. One alien. Can you tell who the outsider is?
It’s honestly a borderline perfectly written episode. Serling again toys with the idea that people are prone to anger and distrust when there’s a possibility of an unknown in their midst. In this case, there are even two couples who begin to question just how well they know their spouses.
Maybe it’s possible that their love had been replaced by an alien and they hadn’t noticed until right now.
This episode also comes just over a year after “Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” Serling takes this opportunity to toy with an audience that has, presumably, come away from that preceding episode with the thought that they’d be better than the residents of Maple Street.
There’s no way they’d succumb to panic and paranoia. Then he drops this episode and actively invites viewers to guess who the outsider is. It’s a game. But it’s also harmful to single out people as others. And he knows that.
Twilight Zone “I am the Night Color Me Black.” Image credit: CBS
9. I Am the Night—Color Me Black
Originally aired: March 27, 1964 – Season 5, Episode 26
Written by: Rod Serling
Opening narration: “Sheriff Charlie Koch on the morning of an execution. As a matter of fact, it’s seven-thirty in the morning. Logic and natural laws dictate that at this hour there should be daylight. It is a simple rule of physical science that the sun should rise at a certain moment and supersede the darkness.
But at this given moment, Sheriff Charlie Koch, a deputy named Pierce, a condemned man named Jagger, and a small, inconsequential village will shortly find out that there are causes and effects that have no precedent.
Such is usually the case—in the Twilight Zone.”
Plot: Jagger is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to be hanged for killing a bigot in self-defense. The morning he is to die, the sun doesn’t rise. It’s the only place around where this is true.
There’s conflict in the town as to whether or not killing this man is the right thing to do. in the end, Jagger is hanged and the sky becomes even darker because of the hatred surrounding Jagger execution.
Why it’s a classic: It’s not. To be frank. There’s not even a twist, really, just a sermon on hatred. It’s a very unique frame for The Twilight Zone.
Why it’s on this list is to prepare you for when Peele inevitably has an incredibly political episode in his new Twilight Zone series. This episode should serve as a reminder that Serling always looked for big statements on society and wrote to things close to his heart.
In this case, this episode comes from his reaction to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy four months prior.
Unlike many of his other episodes, Serling’s story flattens out here in favor of laying a clear, direct message against racism and hatred out for the audience. It’s not his most effective storytelling, but it is some of his most important.
Twilight Zone “To Serve Man” – Image by CBS
10. To Serve Man
Originally aired: March 2, 1962 – Season 3, episode 24
Written by: Rod Serling, based on the story “To Serve Man” by Damon Knight
Opening narration: “Respectfully submitted for your perusal – a Kanamit. Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin: unknown.
Motives? Therein hangs the tale, for in just a moment, we’re going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively, with a Christopher Columbus from another galaxy and another time. This is the Twilight Zone.”
Plot: An alien race arrives on earth and, despite initial wariness from humans, wins the planet over by using its advanced technology to end hunger and energy shortages. After all, they’re just here to help humans out.
This leads to humans volunteering to go the alien planet to check out the alien homeworld. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has gotten its hands on a book in the alien language. Translating the book leads to a troubling discovery.
Why it’s a classic: It’s hard to not like this episode, despite its logical fallacies. (If you think about it too much, many of the key plot points don’t make sense). But man that twist feels satisfying none the less. If you don’t leave the episode wanting to scream that twist, I don’t know what to tell you.
TIME has it among their Top 10 Twilight Zone episodes. The episode is referenced or parodied in The Simpsons, Futurama, Madagascar and The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear.
Anyway, sit back and enjoy this episode about how quick to trust humans can be when someone comes along who makes their lives easier.
Twilight Zone “The Invaders” – Image by CBS
Additional episodes you should watch, too:
The Invaders – Arguably should have made the main list. The main character doesn’t speak a word of dialogue as she’s taunted by tiny beings from another planet. The pure terror that comes across, plus that twist that comes at the end of it, makes this an essential episode.
The Little People – A fun take on the intoxicating (yet fleeting) feeling of power over others. If you’re a fan of jerks getting their comeuppance, this is an episode for you. Referenced in The Simpsons, South Park, Futurama and Rick and Morty.
People Are Alike All Over – An optimist and a cynic are on a mission to Mars and they encounter Martians, and one of them is very right about how they’ll be treated by these aliens. The twist is referenced in an episode of The Orville.
A Kind of Stopwatch – Personal favorite. A man is given a stopwatch that can stop time. It’s all fun and games until he meets a fate that lands him in a boat that Henry Bemis (of “Time Enough At Last”) would completely understand.
Number 12 Looks Just Like You – Serling’s brutal take on unreasonable and unfair beauty standards. After all, how would you feel if you were forced to go through a full-body transformation? Sure you get an extended lifespan, but there are only a few options of which beautiful person you will be surgically altered to look like. So many people look the same that everyone has to wear name-tags to avoid confusion. It’s also the inspiration for the Black Mirror episode, “Fifteen Million Merits.”
A Most Unusual Camera – It’s speculated that Peele may have referenced this episode in his trailer. Two thieves steal a strange camera that produces self-developing pictures of the future. (Yes, your Polaroid camera can now tell the future.) Things take a turn when they stop liking what they see.
Nick of Time – Definitely a reference dropped in the trailer for Peele’s Twilight Zone. A couple starts listening to a fortune telling machine with a devil on top. But it’s possible to rely too much on machines that claim to know your future. William Shatner makes another Twilight Zone appearance here.
They Shot an Arrow Into the Air – Astronauts crash land on a mysterious asteroid. They’re barely alive and struggling. Serling’s story looks at what desperate people will do to survive and the consequences of not being patient and staying calm.
The Obsolete Man – Burgess Meredith is back in a story about a totalitarian state where people are put on trial if their occupation has been deemed obsolete by the State. It’s an infraction that is punishable by death. Meredith’s character chooses to have his execution televised and turns the State on its head in the process.
The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms – Another personal favorite where a group of soldiers from 1964 wind up going back in time and fighting at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.
Five Characters in Search of an Exit – Some would argue this should have made the initial 10. A group of people sits in a cylindrical room with walls so high that there’s very little hope of climbing out. They have no idea where they are or how they got there. There’s just an occasional loud bell that sounds and knocks them all to the ground. Is this purgatory? Or just the Twilight Zone?
The Lonely – A man is sentenced to solitary confinement on an asteroid for murder. A supply ship visits him occasionally and one day drops off an A.I. robot, Alicia, to keep him company. Things come to a head when the prisoner has to decide what to do after falling in love with the robot—he’s granted a pardon, but can’t take her with him. Here’s a predecessor to the 2013 movie, Her.