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The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an anthology series created (and often written) by its narrator and host Rod Serling. Each episode (156 in all in the original series) was an individual fantasy or science fiction story, often concluding with an eerie or unexpected twist. Although advertised as science fiction, the show often (if not always) had a moral lesson that pertained to everyday life. A popular success, it introduced many Americans to serious science fiction ideas while still managing to attract overwhelmingly positive critical attention.

The success of this original series led to the creation of two revival series, a feature film, a radio series, a comic book, and various other spinoffs that would span five decades.

Writers for The Twilight Zone included leading genre authorities such as Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, Jerry Sohl, George Clayton Johnson, Earl Hamner Jr., Reginald Rose, and Ray Bradbury. Many episodes featured adaptations of classic stories by such writers as Ambrose Bierce, Lewis Padgett, Jerome Bixby, and Damon Knight.

Episodes featured some of Hollywood's biggest celebrities, including Charles Bronson, Carol Burnett, Robert Duvall, a very young Ronnie Howard and an even younger Bill Mumy, Buster Keaton, Jack Klugman, Lee Marvin, Burgess Meredith, Elizabeth Montgomery, Agnes Moorehead, Suzy Parker, Robert Redford, Don Rickles, Mickey Rooney, Telly Savalas, William Shatner, Peter Falk and Dick York. Rod Serling himself provided narration as well as on-camera introductions to many episodes.

The Twilight Zone new version

In 2002, a second revival was attempted by UPN, with narration provided by Forest Whitaker and theme music by Jonathan Davis (of the rock group KoЯn). Broadcast in an hour format with two half-hour stories, it was cancelled after one season.

Noteworthy episodes featured Jason Alexander as death wanting to retire from harvesting souls, Lou Diamond Phillips as a swimming pool cleaner being shot repeatedly in his dreams, Susanna Thompson as a woman whose stated wish results in an "upgrading" of her family, Usher as a policeman being bothered by telephone calls from beyond the grave... and a handful of remakes and updates of stories presented in the original Twilight Zone series, including the famous "In the eye of the beholder". One of the updates was "The Monsters Are on Maple Street", a modernized version of the classic episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street". The original show was about the paranoia surrounding a neighbourhood-wide blackout. In the course of the episode, somebody suggests an alien invasion being the cause of the blackouts, and that one of the neighbours may be an alien. Starring Andrew McCarthy, the 2003 version simply replaces the word "monster" or "alien" with "terrorist" to chilling realism. It also contains a follow-up episode to the events of the original episode "It's a Good Life", with characters and actors.

The second revival show featured many popular stars making guest appearances, including Jessica Simpson, Eriq La Salle, Jason Bateman, Method Man, Linda Cardellini, Jaime Pressly, Jeremy Sisto, Molly Sims, Katherine Heigl, Portia de Rossi, Jeremy Piven, Ethan Embry, Shannon Elizabeth, Jonathan Jackson, and Amber Tamblyn, among others.

The original show also airs regularly in the U.S. on the cable channel SciFi Channel, and in HDTV on INHD2. In comparison with the Outer Limits revival, many critics noted how this short lived Twilight Zone revival series was more likely to address contemporary issues head-on; i.e. terrorism, racism, gender roles and sexuality, where as the Outer Limits tended to focus on more general themes.