History Series / TheTwilightZone

''The Twilight Zone'' had a rather remarkable ability to take silly story concepts, combine them with [[{{Anvilicious}} preachy, moralistic writing]], and produce some truly outstanding episodes. (Seriously, you think ''TheWestWing'' was heavy-handed? Take a gander at one of the original TZ episodes.) The ghost of AdolfHitler travels to the United States and teaches Dennis Hopper to become an effective demagogue ("He's Alive")? It works. A former concentration camp commander travels back to Dachau after WorldWarTwo and is put on trial by the ghosts of his victims ("Death's Head Revisited")? It works. WilliamShatner hams it up and yells about the monster on the wing of the plane ("Nightmare at 20,000 Feet")? It works.

* HijackedByGanon: [[spoiler: "He's Alive" has AdolfHitler hijacking a neo-Nazi campaign.]]

** AbrahamLincoln appears briefly in "Back There" and "The Passersby".
** AdolfHitler is used as a character in [[spoiler:"The Man in the Bottle" and "He's Alive"]].

* LighterAndSofter: "The Star", an adaptation of the short story of the same title. The ending in the original had a priest in despair after finding out an advanced and peaceful civilization perished, but the adaptation reverses the originally nihilist ending when the astrophysicist with him shows him a poem that this civilization should not be grieved for, as they were peaceful and joyful, but to grieve for those still in the dark.

* RealitySubtext: In "The Encounter", where a racist WWII veteran and a young Japanese man (played by Creator/GeorgeTakei) are trapped in an attic: Takei spent three years of his childhood in U.S. Japanese-American relocation centers, during the war. His impassioned performance is definitely informed by that experience.

* TheEndingChangesEverything: Pretty much every episode.

* TheGrimReaper: "One for the Angels," "Nothing in the Dark", "[[spoiler:The Hitch-Hiker]]".

* ActorAllusion : Creator/BusterKeaton in "Once Upon a Time".

* CreatorBacklash: Richard Matheson didn't like how some of his episodes turned out (like "Young Man's Fancy" and, surprisingly given how highly regarded it is, "The Invaders").

* TheOtherMarty: A tragic example in "The Mighty Casey" - Paul Douglas was originally cast as manager Mouth [=McGarry=], but in the rushes he looked like he was drunk. It turned out he looked like he was dying... because he was (he passed away from heart disease after shooting was completed). His scenes in the episode were reshot, with Jack Warden playing [=McGarry=], at Serling's expense.

* MirrorUniverse: "Mirror Image", "The Parallel".

* MotorMouth: [=McNulty=], the main character of the episode "A Kind of Stop Watch.”

* BreakHisHeartToSaveHim: "The Trouble With Templeton", focusing on a washed-up old actor who still clings to the memory of his dead wife while the present and future seem horrendously bleak. [[spoiler:He seems to have finally reunited with his wife, but she acts strange and old, before telling him to leave a party they're attending, filled with actors he used to know. It turned out it was part of a play staged by the dead to get him to move on and focus on the present. It works: he demands a bigger role and tells off a jerk co-actor.]]

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Not "crap" per se, but let's just say that Mr. Serling was often a bit more progressive than TV censors felt comfortable with. Wrapping what he wanted to say up in sci-fi allowed him to get more powerful messages on public television.

Creator Creator/RodSerling wrote the majority of the scripts, and produced those of such now-legendary writers as Creator/RichardMatheson and Charles Beaumont. The series featured such soon-to-be-famous actors as Creator/RobertRedford, Creator/WilliamShatner, Creator/BurtReynolds, Creator/RobertDuvall, Creator/DennisHopper, Carol Burnett, James Coburn, Creator/CharlesBronson, Lee Marvin, Peter Falk, Creator/DonaldPleasence and Bill Mumy, as well as such established stars as silent-film giant BusterKeaton, Art Carney, Mickey Rooney, Ida Lupino, and Creator/JohnCarradine.

''Film/TwilightZoneTheMovie'', a big-screen adaptation that featured individual segments produced by Creator/StevenSpielberg, Creator/JoeDante, Creator/JohnLandis and George Miller was released in 1983. Tragically, the movie is [[NeverLiveItDown better remembered]] for a [[GoneHorriblyWrong horrible accident]] in which three actors (two of them children) were killed during shooting of an action scene in Landis' segment.

* ReroutedFromHeaven: In the episode "Dead Run", a truck driver takes a job delivering dead souls to Hell. However, the people he's delivering there seem way too nice to deserve damnation. It turns out the new CelestialBureaucracy that has taken over is using an overly-literal fundamentalist interpretation of TheBible, mainly due to them being paper-pushing {{Obstructive Bureaucrat}}s, rather than actual malevolence.
* {{Revival}}: There have been four ''[[Series/TheTwilightZone Twilight Zone]]'' revivals in total: The two latter-day TV versions noted above, the film also mentioned above, and a {{radio}} version that's still in production.

* ReroutedFromHeaven: In the episode "Dead Run" from TheEighties revival, a truck driver takes a job delivering dead souls to Hell. However, the people he's delivering there seem way too nice to deserve damnation. It turns out the new CelestialBureaucracy that has taken over is using an overly-literal fundamentalist interpretation of TheBible, mainly due to them being paper-pushing {{Obstructive Bureaucrat}}s, rather than actual malevolence.

* NoEnding: We never learn what happens at the end of "The Odyssey of Flight 33".

* {{Irony}}: "To See The Invisible Man". The main character is sentenced to a year of invisibility(where others are to shun him or face being shunned themselves) for the crime of 'coldness', yet he and others are forced to be 'cold' towards the 'invisibles'.

* ItsAllAboutMe: In "To See The Invisible Man", a character is sentenced to one year of invisibility. He manages to chat with a blind man for awhile, before the man is told that the stranger talking to him is 'invisible' and he shouldn't be talking to him or even acknowledging his presence. When alerted to this, the blind man mutters something in the vein of "Damn you!"

--->'''Sam''' (inside [[spoiler:a Martian zoo]]): Marcusson! Marcusson, you were right! People are alike... ''people are alike everywhere''...\\

-->''Wordsworth:'' You're cheating the audience. Face the camera.\\

''Wordsworth:'' You must face the camera. It's very important. [[LampshadeHanging You said so yourself.]]

--->'''Sam''': Marcusson! Marcusson, you were right! People are alike... ''people are alike everywhere''...[[note]]Marcusson originally said this as part of this opinion of the Martians: "Don't be afraid Sam! I've got a hunch... if there's anyone out there, they'll help you... As long as they have hearts and minds, they have souls! That makes them people! And... people are alike... [-[[FamousLastWords they're]] ''[[{{Foreshadowing bound]]'' [[{{Irony}} to be a-like...]]-]"[[/note]]