Submitted for your approval, a project in which I attempt to review all 156 episodes of the original series of The Twilight Zone (stay tuned):

Season 1 (1959-1960)

Introduction To The Twilight Zone: Season 1

1. “Where Is Everybody?” (October 2, 1959)
2. “One For The Angels” (October 9, 1959)
3. “Mr. Denton on Doomsday” (October 16, 1959)
4. “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine” (October 23, 1959)
5. “Walking Distance” (October 30, 1959)
6. “Escape Clause” (November 6, 1959)
7. “The Lonely” (November 13, 1959)
8. “Time Enough At Last” (November 20, 1959)
9. “Perchance To Dream” (November 27, 1959)
10. “Judgment Night” (December 4, 1959)
11. “And When The Sky Was Opened” (December 11, 1959)
12. “What You Need” (December 25, 1959)
13. “The Four Of Us Are Dying” (January 1, 1960)
14. “Third From The Sun” (January 8, 1960)
15. “I Shot An Arrow Into The Air” (January 15, 1960)
16. “The Hitch-Hiker” (January 22, 1960)
17. “The Fever” (January 29, 1960)
18. “The Last Flight” (February 5, 1960)
19. “The Purple Testament” (February 19, 1960)
20. “Elegy” (February 19, 1960)
21. “Mirror Image” (February 26, 1960)
22. “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” (March 4, 1960)
23. “A World Of Difference” (March 11, 1960)
24. “Long Live Walter Jameson” (March 18, 1960)
25. “People Are Alike All Over” (March 25, 1960)
26. “Execution” (April 1, 1960)
27. “The Big Tall Wish” (April 8, 1960)
28. “A Nice Place To Visit” (April 15, 1960)
29. “Nightmare As A Child” (April 29, 1960)
30. “A Stop At Willoughby” (May 6, 1960)
31. “The Chaser” (May 13, 1960)
32. “A Passage For Trumpet” (May 20, 1960)
33. “Mr. Bevis” (June 3, 1960)
34. “The After Hours” (June 10, 1960)
35. “The Mighty Casey” (June 17, 1960)
36. “A World Of His Own” (July 1, 1960)

Season 2 (1960-1961)

Introduction To The Twilight Zone: Season 2

1. “King Nine Will Not Return” (September 30, 1960)
2. “The Man In The Bottle” (October 7, 1960)
3. “Nervous Man In A Four Dollar Room” (October 14, 1960)
4. “A Thing About Machines” (October 28, 1960)
5. “The Howling Man” (November 4, 1960)
6. “Eye of the Beholder” (November 11, 1960)
7. “Nick of Time” (November 18, 1960)
8. “The Lateness of the Hour” (December 2, 1960)
9. “The Trouble With Templeton” (December 9, 1960)
10. “A Most Unusual Camera” (December 16, 1960)
11. “The Night of the Meek” (December 23, 1960)
12. “Dust” (January 6, 1961)
13. “Back There” (January 13, 1961)
14. “The Whole Truth” (January 20, 1961)
15. “The Invaders” (January 27, 1961)
16. “A Penny For Your Thoughts” (February 3, 1961)
17. “Twenty-Two” (February 10, 1961)
18. “The Odyssey of Flight 33” (February 24, 1961)
19. “Mr. Dingle, the Strong” (March 3, 1961)
20. “Static” (March 10, 1961)
21. “The Prime Mover” (March 24, 1961)
22. “Long Distance Call” (March 31, 1961)
23. “A Hundred Yards Over The Rim” (April 7, 1961)
24. “The Rip Van Winkle Caper” (April 21, 1961)
25. “The Silence” (April 28, 1961)
26. “Shadow Play” (May 5, 1961)
27. “The Mind and the Matter” (May 12, 1961)
28. “Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?” (May 26, 1961)
29. “The Obsolete Man” (June 2, 1961)

Season 3 (1961-1962)

Introduction to The Twilight Zone: Season 3

1. “Two” (September 15, 1961)
2. “The Arrival” (September 22, 1961)
3. “The Shelter” (September 29, 1961)
4. “The Passerby” (October 6, 1961)
5. “A Game of Pool” (October 13, 1961)
6. “The Mirror” (October 20, 1961)
7. “The Grave” (October 27, 1961)
8. “It’s A Good Life” (November 3, 1961)
9. “Deaths-Head Revisited” (November 10, 1961)
10. “The Midnight Sun” (November 17, 1961)
11. “Still Valley” (November 24, 1961)
12. “The Jungle” (December 1, 1961)
13. “Once Upon A Time” (December 15, 1961)
14. “Five Characters In Search Of An Exit” (December 22, 1961)
15. “A Quality of Mercy” (December 29, 1961)
16. “Nothing In The Dark” (January 5, 1962)
17. “One More Pallbearer” (January 12, 1962)
18. “Dead Man’s Shoes” (January 19, 1962)
19. “The Hunt” (January 26, 1962)
20. “Showdown with Rance McGrew” (February 2, 1962)
21. “Kick The Can” (February 9, 1962)
22. “A Piano in the House” (February 16, 1962)
23. “The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank” (February 23, 1962)
24. “To Serve Man” (March 2, 1962)
25. “The Fugitive” (March 9, 1962)
26. “Little Girl Lost” (March 16, 1962)
27. “Person or Persons Unknown” (March 23, 1962)
28. “The Little People” (March 30, 1962)
29. “Four O’Clock” (April 6, 1962)
30. “Hocus-Pocus and Frisby” (April 13, 1962)
31. “The Trade-Ins” (April 20, 1962)
32. “The Gift” (April 27, 1962)
33. “The Dummy” (May 4, 1962)
34. “Young Man’s Fancy” (May 11, 1962)
35. “I Sing the Body Electric” (May 18, 1962)
36. “Cavender Is Coming” (May 25, 1962)
37. “Changing of the Guard” (June 1, 1962)

Season 4 (1963)

Introduction to The Twilight Zone: Season 4

1. “In His Image” (January 3, 1963)
2. “The Thirty-Fathom Grave” (January 10, 1963)
3. “Valley of the Shadow” (January 17, 1963)
4. “He’s Alive” (January 24, 1963)
5. “Mute” (January 31, 1963)
6. “Death Ship” (February 7, 1963)
7. “Jess-Belle” (February 14, 1963)
8. “Miniature” (February 21, 1963)
9. “Printer’s Devil” (February 28, 1963)
10. “No Time Like The Past” (March 7, 1963)
11. “The Parallel” (March 14, 1963)
12. “I Dream of Genie” (March 21, 1963)
13. “The New Exhibit” (April 4, 1963)
14. “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville” (April 11, 1963)
15. “The Incredible World of Horace Ford” (April 18, 1963)
16. “On Thursday We Leave for Home” (May 2, 1963)
17. “Passage of the Lady Anne” (May 9, 1963)
18. “The Bard” (May 23, 1963)

Season 5 (1963-1964)

Introduction to The Twilight Zone: Season 5

1. “In Praise of Pip” (September 27, 1963)
2. “Steel” (October 4, 1963)
3. “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (October 11, 1963)
4. “A Kind of Stopwatch” (October 18, 1963)
5. “The Last Night of a Jockey” (October 25, 1963)
6. “Living Doll” (November 1, 1963)
7. “The Old Man in the Cave” (November 8, 1963)
8. “Uncle Simon” (November 15, 1963)
9. “Probe 7, Over and Out” (November 29, 1963)
10. “The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms” (December 6, 1963)
11. “A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain” (December 13, 1963)
12. “Ninety Years Without Slumbering” (December 20, 1963)
13. “Ring-a-ding Girl” (December 27, 1963)
14. “You Drive” (January 3, 1964)
15. “The Long Morrow” (January 10, 1964)
16. “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross” (January 17, 1964)
17. “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” (January 24, 1964)
18. “Black Leather Jackets” (January 31, 1964)
19. “Night Call” (February 7, 1964)
20. “From Agnes – With Love” (February 14, 1964)
21. “Spur of the Moment” (February 21, 1964)
22. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (February 28, 1964)
23. “Queen of the Nile” (March 6, 1964)
24. “What’s In The Box” (March 13, 1964)
25. “The Masks” (March 20, 1964)
26. “I Am the Night – Color Me Black” (March 27, 1964)
27. “Sounds and Silences” (April 3, 1964)
28. “Caesar and Me” (April 10, 1964)
29. “Jeopardy Room” (April 17, 1964)
30. “Stopover in a Quiet Town” (April 24, 1964)
31. “The Encounter” (May 1, 1964)
32. “Mr. Garrity and the Graves” (May 8, 1964)
33. “The Brain Center at Whipple’s” (May 15, 1964)
34. “Come Wander with Me” (May 22, 1964)
35. “The Fear” (May 29, 1964)
36. “The Bewitchin’ Pool” (June 19, 1964)

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Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following:

• Marc Scott Zicree’s The Twilight Zone Companion (1982)
• Martin Grams Jr.’s The Twilight Zone: Unlocking The Door To A Television Classic (2008)
• The wonderful research and blogging efforts of Jordan Prejean & Brian Durant at The Twilight Zone Vortex

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Main Twilight Zone Writers

Rod Serling (1924-1975)
Wrote: 92 Episodes

Raised in Binghamton, New York, Rod Serling was talkative, inquisitive kid who loved pulp magazines, sports, and radio. Immediately after his high school graduation, he enlisted in the army. He served as a Technician in the 11th Airborne Division and then in the 511th’s bomb squad in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Mr. Serling personally witnessed hundreds of his fellow servicemen killed in action and he won a variety of awards including the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. After the war, he attended Antioch College in Yellow Spring, Ohio with plans to become a physical education teacher but soon switched course and graduated with a degree in English literature. During his college years he worked as a risky “parachute tester” for a bit of extra cash. He married fellow Antioch student Carol and they had two daughters together.

Mr. Serling began his career working for various radio stations in Cincinnati before moving into television where he wrote advertisement scripts. In 1955, Mr. Serling wrote an Emmy award-winning script “Patterns” for the Kraft Television Theatre program. He then moved his family out to California and focused on writing quality television scripts while battling censorship and corporate demands along the way. By 1959, he was set to air his own variety show, a critically lauded weekly program entitled The Twilight Zone, featuring a heavyweight science fiction creative team including Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson. While it was an award winning show, The Twilight Zone was never a true ratings booster and it was officially canceled after its fifth season in 1964. Mr. Serling continued to produce televisions programs, including a celebrated variety show called Night Gallery (1970-1973). Tragically, a life-long chain-smoker, Mr. Serling died of heart complications in 1975.

Charles Beaumont (1929-1967)
Wrote: 22 Episodes

Raised in Chicago, Charles Beaumont dropped out of high school to join the military. Upon his return to civilian life, Mr. Beaumont became a celebrated writer of pulp fiction and science fiction. He was praised by his colleagues and soon became one of the chief creative visionaries behind The Twilight Zone, however at the height of his success at age 34, Mr. Beaumont contracted a rapid neural degenerative disease that sadly ended his life too soon. Mr. Beaumont’s friends William F. Nolan and Jerry Sohl helped him by ghost-writing his scripts, particularly for the fifth season of The Twilight Zone. Mr. Beaumont died a couple years later in 1967.

Richard Matheson (1926-1913)
Wrote: 14 Episodes

Born in New Jersey and raised in Brooklyn, Richard Matheson was an early lover of science and tales of mystery and intrigue. He studied at the University of Missouri before moving westward to California. He became a member of the “Southern California Sorcerers” (or Southern California School of Writers) in the 1950s which also included Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, George Clayton Johnson, William F. Nolan, Jerry Sohl, and others. He wrote for a variety of films and television shows (most famously Star Trek and The Twilight Zone) and his works have become remarkably influential on the likes of Stephen King. One of his more famous novels is I Am Legend. Mr. Matheson died at his home in California at the age of 87 in 2013.

Earl Hamner, Jr. (1923-2016)
Wrote: 8 Episodes

Earl Hamner Jr. was a celebrated television writer and the brains behind several programs including The Waltons. He died in 2006 at the age of 92.

George Clayton Johnson (1929-2015)
Wrote: 5 Episodes

From childhood, George Clayton Johnson was something of an eccentric. He floated in and out of schools and jobs for years while traveling around the United States before he settled down in Los Angeles and became a television writer for a number of shows including Alfred Hitchcock Presents as well as Star Trek and The Twilight Zone. Mr. Clayton joined his fellow Twilight Zone writers in the Southern California group and he famously co-wrote Logan’s Run with William F. Nolan. He was a life-long Vegetarian and advocate for legalizing marijuana. Mr. Clayton Johnson died on Christmas Day 2015.

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)
Wrote: 1 Episode

According to various accounts, Ray Bradbury initially introduced Rod Serling to the core group of Twilight Zone writers listed above. He was instrumental in the creation of the show, yet only one of his stories was ever made into an episode (officially). He was disappointed with the final product, and sadly Mr. Bradbury and Rod Serling had a bit of a falling out. Mr. Bradbury was unquestionably the most accomplished writer involved in the project, he represented an elder statesman for key writers like Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson. Mr. Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 is broadly celebrated today as are his wide array of short stories. He died at the age of 91 in 2012.

Short Stories

On Rod Serling’s “The Mighty Casey”

On Rod Serling’s “Escape Clause”

On Rod Serling’s “Walking Distance”

On Rod Serling’s “The Fever”

On Rod Serling’s “Where Is Everybody?”

On Rod Serling’s “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street”

On Rod Serling’s “The Lonely”

On Rod Serling’s “Mr. Dingle, The Strong”

On Rod Serling’s “A Thing About Machines”

On Rod Serling’s “The Big, Tall Wish”

On Rod Serling’s “A Stop At Willoughby”

On Rod Serling’s “The Odyssey of Flight 33”

On Rod Serling’s “Dust”

On Rod Serling’s “The Whole Truth”