The year is 1959, and CBS offers to pick up Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone to air as a weekly television series. 156 episodes and multiple Academy Awards later, the original series continues to reside in the hearts of many, despite the fact that it aired more than 60 years ago. 

Its stand-alone stories and inconsistent cast for each episode left the rest of Hollywood’s producers scrambling for ways to keep the attention of viewers. Why? At the start of each episode, Serling himself would introduce the setting, allowing his audience to become familiar with each character and sink into the story, and out of nowhere include a sudden twist. Though the course of each episode was unpredictable and oftentimes abstract, Serling wanted his audience to understand that mankind will consistently resort to rash and selfish behavior once the layer of normalcy has been forcefully removed. 

Out of all five seasons, the first season includes many staple episodes such as the pilot “Where is Everybody,” as well as “The Lonely,” “Time Enough at Last,” “The Hitchhiker,” and “Mirror Image.”  Some honorable from seasons 2-5 include “Eye of the Beholder,” “Twenty Two,” “To Serve Man,” and “The New Exhibit.”

The show’s popularity continued to grow with its revival in the 80s and pushed itself into 2020 with another remake, including cast members such as Jordan Peele, David Epstein, and Amanda Burke.

Fans of the show have even gone as far as creating speculations centered around the current condition of today’s world, claiming that somehow the Coronavirus pandemic has transitioned us into a real-world paradox. Perhaps we really are living in… The Twilight Zone. 

-I had to put a reference in somewhere.-