I was raised on the Universal Monsters and the Anthology Sci-fi/Horror of the Twilight Zone. Rod Serling has jaded me forever, Not just on socially relevant horror, but on television in general.
Rod Serling was the sneakiest man in Television. He decided that the only way to get anything of Social Relevance on Television was to disguise it as fantasy. Some people thingk that his secon series Night Gallery,was scarier, but Serling was not the writer of any of those tales, merely the host. My money has always been on the thinking man's version of scary/creepy/strange or whatever you want to call it. I'm a Twilight Zone guy, and sometimes it really feels like I'm on my own when the bullet hits the bone.
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. It is a series of unrelated stories containing drama,psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, and/or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist. A popular and critical success, it introduced many Americans to common science fiction and fantasy tropes. The program followed in the tradition of earlier shows such as Tales of Tomorrow (1951–53), which also dramatized the short story "What You Need", and Science Fiction Theatre (1955–57), and radio programs such as The Weird Circle, Dimension X, and X Minus One, and the radio work of one of Serling's inspirations, Norman Corwin. The success of the series led to a feature film, a radio series, a comic book, a magazine, and various other spin-offs that spanned five decades, including two "revival" television series. The first ran on CBS and in syndication in the 1980s, the second ran on UPN from 2002 to 2003. In 2013, TV Guide ranked it #4 in its list of the 60 Greatest Dramas of All Time.[
My favorite Twilight Zone is one of the more obscure episodes from the final season. It was not written by Serling but what can I do.
"The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross"
Salvadore Ross is a brash, insensitive, ambitious 26-year-old man who craves a lovely young social worker named Leah Maitland. Leah is attracted to Ross, but could never marry a man so lacking in compassion. Telling him that the relationship is finished, Leah slams her door in his face, and Ross slams his fist into the door, breaking his hand and necessitating a trip to the hospital. Ross' roommate is an elderly man with a respiratory infection. Ross sarcastically suggests that he'd like to trade ailments with the old man, who jokingly accepts the trade. The next morning, as if by magic, the old man has a broken hand, while Ross has a cold.
Ross comes to realize that he has a supernatural power to make magical trades with other people. In exchange for a large amount of cash and a penthouse apartment, Ross sells his youth to an elderly millionaire. As a result, Ross is now very rich but old. He finds an easy way to regain his youth: he offers a large number of young men (beginning with a hotel bellboy) a small amount of cash for just one year of their lives. The boys accept the money, thinking Ross is just crazy (and since none of them feels any different after aging just one year, none thinks anything has really happened). In short order, Ross is young again, and still rich.
With his new-found wealth, he attempts to win Leah's hand again, and again, she refuses. She wants a man with a heart, who is as generous and compassionate as her father. Frustrated, Ross approaches Mr. Maitland, who likes him but does not think he would be a good husband for his daughter. Ross offers to make him financially secure for the rest of his life. When the father skeptically asks how, Ross says hesitantly, "Well, it's kind of hard to explain..."
Sometime later, we see that Ross has become a warm, compassionate fellow who has won Leah's heart. Ross, in consideration of Mr. Maitland's feelings, meets with him in private and asks his assent to the marriage, but Mr. Maitland refuses. He implores the older man, "Don't you have any compassion?" Maitland coldly replies, "I sold that to you yesterday", and shoots Ross dead.
Salvadore Ross is a brash, insensitive, ambitious 26-year-old man who craves a lovely young social worker named Leah Maitland. Leah is attracted to Ross, but could never marry a man so lacking in compassion. Telling him that the relationship is finished, Leah slams her door in his face, and Ross slams his fist into the door, breaking his hand and necessitating a trip to the hospital. Ross' roommate is an elderly man with a respiratory infection. Ross sarcastically suggests that he'd like to trade ailments with the old man, who jokingly accepts the trade. The next morning, as if by magic, the old man has a broken hand, while Ross has a cold.
Ross comes to realize that he has a supernatural power to make magical trades with other people. In exchange for a large amount of cash and a penthouse apartment, Ross sells his youth to an elderly millionaire. As a result, Ross is now very rich but old. He finds an easy way to regain his youth: he offers a large number of young men (beginning with a hotel bellboy) a small amount of cash for just one year of their lives. The boys accept the money, thinking Ross is just crazy (and since none of them feels any different after aging just one year, none thinks anything has really happened). In short order, Ross is young again, and still rich.
With his new-found wealth, he attempts to win Leah's hand again, and again, she refuses. She wants a man with a heart, who is as generous and compassionate as her father. Frustrated, Ross approaches Mr. Maitland, who likes him but does not think he would be a good husband for his daughter. Ross offers to make him financially secure for the rest of his life. When the father skeptically asks how, Ross says hesitantly, "Well, it's kind of hard to explain..."
Sometime later, we see that Ross has become a warm, compassionate fellow who has won Leah's heart. Ross, in consideration of Mr. Maitland's feelings, meets with him in private and asks his assent to the marriage, but Mr. Maitland refuses. He implores the older man, "Don't you have any compassion?" Maitland coldly replies, "I sold that to you yesterday", and shoots Ross dead.
Some of my other favorites are (in no particular order)
What You Need
Five Characters In Search of An Exit
Night of the Meek
A Stop At Willoughby
Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up
To Serve Man
One For the Angels
There have been many Anthology Series that have tried to recapture the flavor of The Twilight Zone, but most of them concentrated either too much on the light and fluffy or relied to much on shock and not enough on Awe. I'm not even going to get into the camp. The Only Successor to the Twilight Zone that was not a direct descendant was the brilliant and short lived (remember my curse, shows I like get canceled early) Darkroom.
Darkroom is an American television thriller anthology produced by Universal Television which aired on ABC from November 27, 1981 to January 15, 1982. As an anthology horror/thriller series it was similar in style to Rod Serling's Night Gallery. Each 60-minute episode featured two or more stories of varying length with a new story and a new cast, but each of the episode wraparound segments was hosted by James Coburn. Among the performers who appeared on the series were Steve Allen, Esther Rolle, Helen Hunt, Claude Akins, Richard Anderson,Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Carole Cook, David Carradine, Billy Crystal, Pat Buttram, Brian Dennehy, Lawrence Pressman, Dub Taylor, Rue McClanahan, Lloyd Bochner, Ronny Cox, R. G. Armstrong, and June Lockhart.
"You're in a house. Maybe your own...maybe one you've never seen before. You feel it. Something evil. You run, but there's no escape...nowhere to turn. You feel something beckoning you...drawing you into the terror that awaits you in the Darkroom!"
my favorite darkroom moment was an episode called "Make Up". Billy Crystal plays a down on his luck actor. He finds an old make up case and it magically transforms him into the character he is made up as.
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