The Twilight Zone (1959) / YMMV

Accidental Aesop: From "You Drive", eyewitness testimony from one person shouldn't be taken at face value as they could just be remembering wrong in a well-intended effort to help.
Alternative Character Interpretation:
- In "Living Doll":
  - Is Talky Tina really evil or was she just trying to protect Christie?
  - The names "Christie" and "Tina" are both nicknames for Christina. Knowing this, could the doll be the side of Christie that wants to hurt her stepfather? Alternatively, was Tina the self-created guardian of a young girl trying to cope with a cold and distant father-figure?
  - Was Erich a man trying to become a father to a little girl that not only wasn't biologically his but a constant reminder that he couldn't have children of his own? Or was his passive-aggressive behavior to his wife and stepdaughter a sign of emotional abuse?
- In "One for the Angels", was Death really going to take the little girl only to be distracted by Bookman, or was the whole thing a Batman Gambit to let Bookman die on his own terms?
- In "Time Enough At Last" Burgess Meredith's charming performance makes the protagonist sympathetic, and the ending cruel. Read Serling's script without Meredith's performance, and the character comes across as a misanthrope so severe his only reaction to human extinction is happiness that now he'll have time with no one bothering him. His fate looks more like Laser-Guided Karma.
- In "Young Man's Fancy", is Virginia a long-suffering young woman who has finally (and justifiably) reached her limit with her husband's relationship to his mother, or is she only irritated at Henrietta's influence over Alex because she wants to control him herself?
- In "The Invaders", the reveal that the titular characters are actually human space explorers, and the woman whose farmhouse they've landed on is actually a roughly sixty-foot tall giant alien, leads to these questions. Was the alien woman a destructive monster, or simply a frightened soul who was trying to defend herself and her home the best she could? And similarly, were the astronauts correct in attacking her, or did they view her as a threat simply because she was so large? To further muddy the waters, it's clear that the astronauts are the initial antagonizers—they land on the woman's roof, and all she does is go to check it out; she's clearly terrified of their presence, but they start shooting anyway. Who is the real "bad guy?"
  - One could easily Take a Third Option here and conclude that neither side comes off as exactly heroic in this fight. The humans attack the giantess out of pure panic at her size even when she is clearly non-hostile, an action which is as antithetical to morality as to common sense, but on the other hand the giantess DOES chase down and kill the humans as they are attempting to retreat.
- In "Deaths-Head Revisited", is Gunter Lütze really being tortured into insanity by the ghosts of his victims, or is it deeply buried guilt bubbling to the surface that's manifesting in the form of hallucinations of his victims?
- "The Masks": This fanfic, written in Perspective Flip, is about Emily's side of things, based on the heirs' behavior toward Jason and toward each other. While the fanfic invents a lot of things that aren't mentioned or even remotely hinted at in the episode, it does serve to point out that the heirs never get to tell their side of the story, and maybe there's more to them than just selfish money-grubbers; even within the episode, there are hints that the heirs were fully aware of their less-than-ideal character and had more than one gosh-darned valid motive for their "greed". For his part, Jason showed he was fully aware of his own less-than-ideal conduct toward the outside world and sought to make sure his servants didn't suffer for it.
  - For that part, is Jason really a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, dispensing justice on greedy relatives or is the story suffering from Protagonist-Centered Morality? He does spend the last few hours of his life insulting his remaining family members (as unpleasant as they are), forces them to wear horrifically ugly masks under threat of being cut from his will, and doesn't tell them what will happen if they wear them until midnight. Yet in the end, he passes away peacefully, his face unchanged while his family suffers for the rest of their lives with their altered faces.
  - Building on the above, some have suggested that Jason invited his heirs to New Orleans to give them one final chance to redeem themselves—it was only after they spoke to him in his bedroom that he decided to go with the mask plan. And even during the vigil, he responds to their griping and complaints with a genuinely hurt-sounding "Is that really all you have to say to me?," as if he was even then considering letting them off the hook if one of them would show even a twinge of kindness or self-awareness. But they didn't, and so their fates were sealed.
- In "The Lateness of the Hour," how much of a villain is Dr. William Loren? He promises to dismantle the family's robotic servants when Jana threatens to leave, keeps that promise and tells his wife that they'll simply have to get used to not being waited on, and, even after The Reveal that Jana herself is a robot, breaks down begging as he tells her that he genuinely loves her and considers her a daughter regardless of her "parentage." He's treated like a monster for being willing to reprogram Jana into a maid once she knows the truth—and to be fair, that was a horrible thing to do—but given that Maid!Jana is used as a personal servant to her mother, Mrs. Loren comes across as the real villain. It's even possible that Dr. Loren considered reprogramming Jana a kind of Mercy Kill, as he couldn't bear to simply murder someone he truly loved like his own child.
Anvilicious: The show is well-known for its generous use of Aesops, and too many episodes to count feature characters summing up the story's message (not to mention Rod's narration). To cite some examples: "The Brain Center at Whipple's" has a character openly declare why employers should value humans over machines, "Deaths-Head Revisited" features a character repeatedly condemning a former Nazi commandant, and "Stopover in a Quiet Town" turns out to be a PSA against drunk driving. However, see Values Resonance below.
Awesome Music: The famous four-note riff. The classic theme by Marius Constant started with it, just before Rod Serling's voiceover narration; the 1980s revival theme built up to it as the climax, by which time it was so famous that they didn't need narration any more.
- The first season of the original series used a delicate, string-heavy theme by Bernard Herrmann. It doesn't fit the overall tone of the show as well as the well-known theme used in later seasons, but is a stunning piece of music just the same.
Broken Base: Episodes like "The Mighty Casey" or "Mr. Dingle The Strong", which are more light-hearted and comedic in tone, divide the fanbase: the majority of people find Rod Serling's attempts at comedy pretty cheesy and cheap while others appreciate a more sentimental and subtle type of comedy like "Night Of The Meek" with its alcoholic Mall Santa rather than mere slapstick or "A Penny For Your Thoughts" for its tamed humor.
Complete Monster: See here.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Many of the anthology series's episodes are elevated into iconic status not by the plot or the twist (or at least not just by them) but because of certain compelling guest stars who many fans still fondly remember.
- Maya The Cat Girl (Suzanne Lloyd) from "Perchance To Dream", for being creepy but compelling and very attractive, with her sexy cat outfits and alluring dance moves.
- The eponymous Magnificent Bastard Con Man and Angel Unaware from "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" is a joy to watch.
- Without Burgess Meredith as Badass Bookworm William Wordsworth, "The Obsolete Man" would be far less iconic.
- In "Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?", the thoughtful and statuesque dancer and the Cloudcuckoolander played by Jack Elam are just as entertaining as the alien who reveals himself in the iconic final shot.
- Cool Old Guy Mothershed, Friend to All Children Johnny Robb (James Best), and Steinhart The Gambler (Lee Van Cleef) from the western gothic episode "The Grave." It's telling that the best-liked scenes of the episode (and some of the best-liked scenes of the series for some) are just the three of them sitting around in a saloon solemnly talking to either each other or the main character.
- Convict Corry and Ridiculously Human Robot Alicia from "The Lonely," as their chemistry and emotion proves that an episode with no horror elements whatsoever can be a good one.
- While Gunther Lutze unequivocally stole the show in "Death's Head Revisited", Becker is plenty popular himself for his composure in dealing with a monster like Lutze without succumbing to his justified hatred while still refusing to let Gunther Lutze get away with his crimes against humanity.
- The Reverend from "I Am The Night, Color Me Black" is beloved even by non-fans of the show for calling out the town for their virulent hatred while not absolving himself or the man who defended him of any blame.
- Quite a few props and animate objects in the show go on to become staples of the franchise and appear on lots of promotional material. Talky Tina, The Mystic Seer, Willie The Dummy, and the Invader are the most common and prominent ones.
Esoteric Happy Ending:
- "Mute" has a girl conforming to the natural verbal speaking of society and losing her telepathic powers. This is portrayed as good because her parents supposedly saw her as just an experiment (which the beginning implies they did), but she still lost a great power and a potential boon to society just to become normal. Even worse, is how she was practically bullied into it. It's an especially tough watch for autistic viewers, for whom being bullied into an arbitrary definition of "normality" at the cost of losing the things that make one unique is more than just fiction.
- "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross": Salvadore Ross is killed by the father of his girlfriend after selling him his compassion. As much as he had it coming, he's still left a ton of people in his wake including an old man with a broken hand he claims will never heal, another elderly man who lost his fortune and house while young, and his girlfriend who now has a father with absolutely no compassion whatsoever. Though Tropes Are Not Bad, because this serves as a reminder that regardless of his Heel–Face Turn, he still did a lot of terrible things to achieve this Heel–Face Turn and needed to pay for his actions.
- "A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain": Flora is certainly getting punished for marrying an older man purely for money, but one might wonder whether her husband will get "punished" along with her, given that she's stuck with him for the next 18 years or so and might not be happy about it. Though, it was implied Harmon's brother who despises Flora and cares deeply for Harmon will regularly check up to ensure Flora's maintaining her responsibilities.
Fair for Its Day: While most episodes are timeless in their Aesops, a few that deal with bad marriages have become less resonant with modern values, now that divorce isn't as stigmatized as it was back in the 1960s. While "The Bewitchin' Pool"'s message of putting the children's needs into consideration is still potent, its implication that a divorce will drive children away from their parents forever definitely comes across as short-sighted today (not to mention the implications that the kids are committing suicide by drowning themselves).
First Installment Wins: There have been a few revivals of the series, but the original show is easily the one most people remember and most people do consider the best.
Growing the Beard: While the first few episodes still hold up well compared to the rest of the series, the show really started becoming the icon it is today with "Walking Distance" and "The Lonely"^note when the main characters became more human and the plotlines became more in-depth while maintaining its metaphoristic writing.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- In the episode "The Chaser", Roger Shackleforth uses a Love Potion and turns his Love Interest Leila into a Love Hungry possessive girl. Many people have compared this with "Rick Potion #9" where a man is basically drugging a woman into sleeping with him a.k.a. rape. However, to be fair, Rod Serling doesn't seem to portray the man as justified for using the potion.
- In "The Arrival", it's revealed that the investigator Grant Sheckly's greatest failure was his inability to solve the case of a plane that mysteriously disappeared without a trace. This concept was pure fiction, as no such thing had ever happened... yet.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: The death of Jonathan Winters gives a new layer of meaning to this speech he delivered during his guest spot in "A Game of Pool", as renowned billiards champion "Fats" Brown:
Dead? Not really. As long as people talk about you, you're not really dead. As long as they speak your name, you continue. A legend doesn't die just because the man does.
He Really Can Act: "A Game of Pool" again. Jonathan Winters was best known for comedy at the time but he turns in a compelling, serious performance as the ghost of a pool hall champion.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Set during World War II, "A Quality of Mercy" sees a lieutenant in the American forces sent back in a time by a few years and into the body of a lieutenant on the Japanese side. This main character here was played by Dean Stockwell, who would be on another show with a similar "time travel into other people's bodies" concept about thirty years later.
- In the episode "Kick the Can", the main protagonist, an elderly man says "friendship is a magic thing."
- Watching the future Captain Kirk, the go-to name for Large Ham characters, losing his cool and going completely bonkers in "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is as hysterical as his character.
- During "A Thing About Machines", the phrase "mortal combat" is used repeatedly in odd places.
- In "Death Ship", Captain Paul Ross is a Stubborn Mule who flatly refuses to believe that what looks like a fatal crash is in fact a fatal crash, and he won't stop until he can prove he's right. Wouldn't be the last time Jack Klugman played someone so intensely stubborn about such things...
- In "The New Exhibit", the wax figure◊ of Jack the Ripper is wearing a scarf, has curly hair and prominent cheekbones...
- "The Whole Truth" features a dishonest salesman being incapable of lying (due to buying a magic car). Years later, there's a movie about a man with an occupation synonymous with lying, being incapable of lying as well (this time from a birthday wish).
- "The Masks" has a very minor character Jeffrey, who is an African-American butler who shows abhorrence towards the family (bar Jason). 26 years later, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air had Geoffrey Butler, who pretty much epitomized Servile Snarker.
- The mannequins in "The After Hours" sympathize with "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha".
- "Living Doll'' revolves around a sentient and malevolent doll and the mother's name is Annabelle.
- Much of "Static" centers around a radio that plays programs from The Golden Age Of Radio, but only when the man who owns the radio is in the same room. Over fifty years later, many radio programs from decades past are readily available for listening pleasure through streaming and on-demand audio services.
- "He's Alive" focuses on Dennis Hopper learning how to influence and mislead people from the ghost of a ruthless dictator. Dennis Hopper would later go on to play one in Super Mario Bros. (1993).
Hollywood Homely: Paula from "The Masks". While the mask does leave her somewhat homely looking, with eyebags, a slightly large nose and lips, and no eyebrows, compared to her parents and brother she got off fairly easy. Which is ironic, given that her grandfather punished her for her vanity.
Hollywood Pudgy: Justified with Marge Moore in "A Piano in the House". She really is obese, and this makes her determination to be a good sport about her weight and her secret fantasy of being as tiny and graceful as a snowflake all the more poignant.
Jerkass Woobie:
- Erich Streator in "Living Doll". Even the writer of that episode stated that he's not a good guy and yet you can't help but feel for him in this situation. He wants to improve himself, but the evil talking doll keeps screwing up his chances.
- Virginia Walker in "Young Man's Fancy" was fussy and made some shots at her late mother-in-law that might have been uncalled for, but she was just a woman who wanted to start a life with the man she loved who had been leading her on for 12 years with the promise of that life only for him to turn back on it the moment it was only natural to fulfill it.
Magnificent Bastard: See here.
Mainstream Obscurity: In spite of its legendary status and influence on western media at large, this show is really old, and few people in younger generations have seen it. They're mostly come into contact with it in the context of a review of something else, comparing it to The Twilight Zone.
Narm: The episode "The Fever", which focuses on gambling addiction. It mixes the anti-gambling message and supernatural elements really badly and ends up looking like a hilariously over-the-top PSA that literally ends with a slot machine causing a middle-aged man to fall through a window to his death.
Narm Charm: Even at its campiest, the show can still land a Gut Punch, provoke thought, and make the strange feel oddly relatable. Shatner's hammy Freak Out in "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", for instance, expresses out loud the feelings of many who find air travel nerve-wracking even without mysterious figures on the wing, while the necessarily minimalistic special effects give episodes like "It's a Good Life" a certain paradoxical realism.
Once Original, Now Common: Perhaps the Ur-Example. Every single episode has had its plot reused, redone, or parodied by some sci-fi/horror show, movie, or book. Most modern viewers watching the series for the first time will often find themselves scratching their heads and asking, "How did people think this was scary? The story's been done to death." It's been done to death because Twilight Zone did it first (and because other shows — most notably The Simpsons and Futurama — have parodied the stories, specifically "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "It's a Good Life", "To Serve Man", among others). It really can't be overstated how explosively original (and at the time, controversial) a lot of the plots were, and the fact that they've since been repeated and redone is a testament to The Twilight Zone's success as a show.
Paranoia Fuel:
- Quite a few episodes, but "Person or Persons Unknown" stands out as it's completely free of any sci-fi or supernatural elements. You could wake up one morning and find that all memory and record of your existence has been completely erased and you have no idea how or why. On the flip side, you could also wake up and find that you no longer recognize anyone else.
- "The Jeopardy Room" also lacks any supernatural elements. It plays on the idea that just about anything could be turned into a deadly booby trap within your living quarters without your knowledge. Even something as simple as a telephone could be a deadly bomb.
Retroactive Recognition: Because the show's anthology format required a new cast every week, a large number of actors appeared on The Twilight Zone before they truly became famous.
- A few Star Trek alumni
  - A young George Takei appears in the Season 5 episode "The Encounter", two years before the debut of his Star-Making Role as Hikaru Sulu.
  - Leonard Nimoy appears as a radio operator in the Season 3 episode "A Quality of Mercy".
  - Of course, William Shatner in the episodes "Nick of Time" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".
- Cliff Robertson a.k.a. "Uncle Ben Parker" in the episodes "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" and "The Dummy".
- Donald Pleasence in the Season 3 finale "The Changing of the Guard", albeit under heavy makeup.
- A pre-Bewitched Elizabeth Montgomery appears in the episode "Two", while her Bewitched hubby Dick York shows up in "A Penny for Your Thoughts".
- Martin Landau in the Season 1 episode "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" and Season 5's "The Jeopardy Room" a couple of years before Mission: Impossible.
- A year or so before the start of The Beverly Hillbillies, Buddy Ebsen appears as the telekinitic Jimbo Cobb in "The Prime Mover", and Donna Douglas appears at the end of "Eye of the Beholder" as the unmasked Janet Tyler.
- A young Kevin McCarthy (noted Joe Dante regular) in the episode "Long Live Walter Jameson". He would later appear in the "It's a Good Life" remake segment in Twilight Zone: The Movie.
- Sterling Holloway, the original voice of Winnie-the-Pooh, appears as a TV repairman in "What's in the Box".
Sci Fi Ghetto: Ever wonder how a prime-time series on a major television network could get away with frank (and absurdly edgy for the time) examinations of controversial social issues, while being sponsored by some of the very groups it was most critical of? On paper, it was just a silly science fiction show.
Signature Scene:
- One scene highly associated with the series is the gremlin being spotted on the plane's wing in Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", which has been referenced and spoofed by several other works.
- Other signature scenes include the twist endings of "Eye of the Beholder" (where the "deformed" Janet Tyler turns out to be a beauty in a world of monstrous-looking people) and "Time Enough at Last" (where Henry Bemis's glasses break just when he finally has all the time in the world to read).
Sweet Dreams Fuel: "The Night of the Meek", "One for the Angels", "I Sing the Body Electric", "A Penny for Your Thoughts". The twists are happy (or quirky), not cruel, and everyone gets what they wanted.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: In "The Lateness of the Hour," Dr. William Loren (and, to a lesser extent, his wife) is condemned as a horrific monster because he creates Ridiculously Human Robots as servants for his family—and, as it turns out, his daughter Jana is also a robot, although she doesn't know that until The Reveal. The apparent Moral Event Horizon comes when Dr. Loren reprograms Jana to become Mrs. Loren's personal maid, suggesting that the two never really cared about her... but the evidence doesn't support that, as Dr. Loren showed her nothing but love (he even dismantled the other robots to make her happy) and practically breaks into tears when he's trying to tell her that, human or machine, she's still his daughter — especially because either he or Mrs. Loren was infertile and couldn't have children any other way. Even after the reprogramming, he looks at Maid!Jana sadly, as if he regrets what he had to do. With What Measure Is a Non-Human? becoming a seriously considered topic of discussion as the twenty-first century continues, Dr. Loren comes across as a lot more sympathetic to contemporary viewers.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Phyllis from "What's in the Box". Her husband Joe is a philandering jerk who sees himself killing her on their TV and eventually being executed for the crime then ends up killing her in real life (and who isn't immune to this trope himself), but she is an embittered and unsupportive wife who keeps mocking and goading him when he tries to tell her what he saw, even calling him crazy. And her laugh is annoying.
Values Dissonance: While most episodes have aged like a good scotch, a select few haven’t.
- "The Encounter" perpetuates the myth that Japanese collaborators assisted at Pearl Harbor. As a result, it was withheld from syndication for many years and not repeated in the United States until 2016.
- A few episodes featuring an Intergenerational Friendship, as the trope has fallen out of favor due to an entirely different one rising to prominence.
  - Averted with "One for the Angels", as the friendly salesman of the episode is implied to have a good relationship with the children's parents in the neighborhood, and they seem to know him pretty well.
  - The title character in the episode "The Fugitive", who hangs around children, is particularly close to a young girl, seems a bit too happy to get a kiss from her in one scene and basically has to keep his bond with her secret from her aunt. Doesn't help that the narration at the end of the episode reveals that she eventually becomes the queen to his king. Some may think that the girl's aunt telling him "You so much as talk to her and I'll call the cops on you" was ahead of her time.
- An ambiguous example in "Nightmare as a Child" may trump the previous example by having Peter Selden admitting to having been attracted to Helen Foley (a woman at least 20 years his junior) when she was 11 without her even batting an eye at the comment. While this might've been intentional given his creepy undertones and true nature at the end, the fact she didn't fazed by the remark is definitely a product of the time.
- "The 7th Is Made Up Of Phantoms" was made at a time when the legacy of George Armstrong Custer was much more positive and far less controversial, which makes the protagonist's decision to join in the Battle of the Little Bighorn on Custer's side likely look decidedly more awkward to modern viewers.
  - Similarly, "The Passersby" and "Still Valley" could be seen as being sympathetic towards the Confederacy.
- While the moral of "Eye of the Beholder" still holds up, a few scenes show the doctors and nurses smoking while in the hospital. Over time smoking indoors, especially in medical facilities has become prohibited due to the damage smoke can cause patients.
- Likewise "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" could only be made in a pre 9/11 world given our protagonist was able to sneak a GUN onboard an airplane.
- "Once Upon A Time" has Woodrow Mulligan being pursued by a cop after chasing a young boy across a street in his underwear, because he's committing indecent exposure. Nowadays he would without question be Mistaken for Pedophile.
- "A Quality of Mercy" features an American Lieutenant suddenly becoming a Japanese soldier in the opposing army at an earlier point in time. While the moral of empathizing with your supposed enemy is well-intentioned, this is portrayed with white actor Dean Stockwell wearing makeup that sure looks like Yellow Face and sporting a cringingly bad attempt at a Japanese accent.
Values Resonance:
- A majority of episodes transcend their time and place in a philosophical and evenhanded manner that still manages to land frequent Gut Punches or bluntly address Hard Truth Aesops through the lens of the fantastic.
- The evergreen episode, The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, shows us that while the tools of human suffering may be bombs, guns, knives, or tanks; the actual weapons are always fear, suspicion, blame, contempt, and mistrust. Also, outside agents don't need to lift a finger to destroy us. They just need to give us a little nudge, and we'll quickly do it to ourselves. Now who are the real monsters...?
- In "Long Live Walter Jameson", Walter is scolded by his future father-in-law for trying to make his daughter a housewife even though she's getting her Ph. D. which is not only impressive given the time period, but his age too.
- The aesop of "Deaths-Head Revisited" is that we need to remember The Holocaust because if we don't, we risk it happening again. This has become more and more relevant over time with all the Holocaust denials and rise of antisemitism, especially in Europe.
- The main character of "Four O' Clock", Crangle, is a Conspiracy Theorist who harasses those he deems "communist" or otherwise "evil". There are simply too many modern examples of persecuting those somebody considers 'evil' to list here.
- "Miniature" has received a lot more praise in recent years for having a main character with a very accurate portrayal of Asperger's Syndrome, a neurological condition that was virtually unknown when the episode first aired, and, for its time, wasn't nearly as accepted as it was today, an interesting contrast with the somewhat ableist undertones of "Mute".
- In "Living Doll", the fact that Erich is infertile is actually (albeit subtly) mentioned. Even today, male infertility is often stigmatized.
- "I Am the Night-Color Me Black" is downright chilling in a modern context. A stark and scathing portrait of systemic racism and inequality with eerie resonance to modern events, both in America and worldwide, the deepest cut is a damning focus on passive participation and profit. The sheriff who bowed to public pressure to keep his office and the newspaper owner who spun the reporting to appeal to the town's prejudices and sell papers are as guilty in the unjust execution as the bigoted deputy who perjured his testimony and stoked the crowd for attention and political gain.
- "The Midnight Sun" takes place in New York City on an Earth that's shifted closer to the sun. Given the increasing impact of climate change, this can feel scarily relevant to a modern viewer, especially as we see people fleeing the city and society breaking down over a lack of resources.
- "The Brain Center at Whipple's" has arguably only become more applicable in the 21st century, as the development of AI has led to renewed debates over automation and labor rights.
- Episodes like "Judgement Night," "Deaths-Head Revisited," and "He's Alive" have become depressingly relevant again with the resurgence of white supremacist groups in the U.S., especially post-2016.
The Woobie: Many, many characters, usually the protagonist of any given episode unless they're an Asshole Victim.

YMMV / The Twilight Zone (1959)

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