History Series / TheTwilightZone

There's also been a thrill-ride inspired by the series in WaltDisneyWorld which inspired it's own non-canon film in 1994.

* JerkassFacade: Fitzgerald Fortune from "A Piano in the House" is an arrogant bully because he secretly has the emotional maturity of a child. He is afraid of people, and as a result acts like an insufferable dick to everyone around him.

* Expy: A year before Dennis Weaver played a man afraid to go to sleep in the episode "Shadow Play", he played a man with the opposite problem in the ''AlfredHitchcockPresents'' episode "Insomnia".

* FutureMeScaresMe: [[spoiler:"Spur of the Moment" and "Walking Distance". Inverted in "Nightmare as a Child".]]

* GetAholdOfYourselfMan: Captain Ross to Lieutenant Mason in "Death Ship".

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

* DontFearTheReaper: "Nothing in the Dark", [[spoiler:"The Hitch-hiker".]]

* BalancingDeathsBooks: "One for the Angels", "In Praise of Pip".

An often worthy revival series ran on CBS from 1985-87, and in first-run syndication in 1988. Another revival ran on {{UPN}} in the 2002-2003 season, which reunited Bill Mumy and Cloris Leachman in a sequel to the classic TZ chiller ''ItsAGoodLife.'' A [[LicensedPinballTable licensed]] {{Pinball}} game, ''Pinball/TheTwilightZone'', was released in 1992, filled with references and {{Shout Out}}s to various episodes, and is today one of the most popular pinball games of all time. But it's the daring original series that shows every sign of lasting the ages as the literature that it is.

** [[spoiler:"Judgment Night", "Mr. Dingle the Strong", "Shadow Play", "Dead Man's Shoes", "Person or Persons Unknown", "Death Ship", "Uncle Simon", "From Agnes - With Love", "Spur of the Moment", "Queen of the Nile", "The Time Element".]]
** [[spoiler: Implied in "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," as the aliens state that this will happen again, and again on other streets, much like the first.]]
** [[spoiler: Creator/RodSerling states the oh-so-familiar BigBad of "He's Alive" will continue to "offer advice" again and again indefinitely in his closing speech.]]
* HijackedByGanon: [[spoiler: "He's Alive" has UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler hijacking a neo-Nazi campaign.]]

* OnOneCondition: "The Masks", "Still Valley".

* PowZapWhamCam: Used in episodes such as "Third From The Sun" and "The Howling Man.”

* AdamAndEvePlot: [[spoiler:"Two", and more literally "Probe 7 - Over and Out.”]]
* AdaptationExpansion: Due to being anywhere from 5-10 minutes longer than the episodes they're based on, the radio adaptations of the episodes tended to add in additional material to make up for the length ("Time Enough at Last," for example, added in a character who's pretty much the only person actually nice to the protagonist of the story).

* AllJustADream: [[spoiler:"Where Is Everybody?", "Perchance to Dream," "The Arrival," "The Midnight Sun," "Person or Persons Unknown" (with an added twist), "The Time Element" (also with an added twist,) "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"]]. Also, see DeadAllAlong below.

* AlwaysABiggerFish: "[[spoiler:The Little People.]]"

* AssholeVictim: When a protagonist is driven to murder, it usually involves being pushed over the edge by one of these. Not that this protects them from LaserGuidedKarma, mind you...
** Some of the protagonists also qualify, such as Archibald Beechcroft from ''The Mind and the Matter''. Most of them, though, learn their lesson by the end.
* AuthorAvatar: According to biographies, "A Stop At Willoughby" was Serling's favorite episode, and he identified with the main character. The stops on the Northeast line were the same stops on the commute he made into Manhattan daily.

* BackFromTheDead: "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank," "Mr. Garrity and the Graves"; "Father and Son Game" (1985 revival).

* BalancingDeathsBooks: "One for the Angels," "In Praise of Pip."

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Many. A few examples include "The Chaser," "The Last Night of a Jockey," "A Game of Pool" and "Jess-Belle."

* BettyAndVeronica: In "A World of His Own," Gregory West is married to a Veronica and [[spoiler:has just created]] a Betty.
* BewareOfHitchhikingGhosts: "The Hitch-Hiker."

* BottleEpisode: Several, including "The Whole Truth." A good tell is if the episode is on tape instead of film.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: Rod Serling not only provides narration, frequently on-camera, but he actually becomes part of the story in "A World of His Own." Temporarily, at least.

** In "Number 12 Looks Just Like You," just as Rod Serling mentions being beautiful, Marilyn, who up until this point had been a free spirited young girl and is now a conformist looking exactly like her friend Val, looks directly into the camera when Serling muses if this might be possible in the near future.

* ButtMonkey: Henry Bemis of "Time Enough At Last." This man cannot catch a break.
** Burgess Meredith was kind of the master at this; see also "Mr. Dingle the Strong."
** Also, the titular "Mr. Bevis."
* BystanderSyndrome: In several stories, warning of the dangers of not taking a more active role or interest in world affairs. One perfect example is "A Little Peace and Quiet," where a harried housewife also refuses to take note of the fact that the Soviet Union and United States are on the brink of war, and that she – thanks to an amulet that can get people to "Shut up!" and "Start talking!" – might just be wearing the thing that can bring world peace. Instead, she uses the amulet selfishly (when her family gets to her or wants to deal with annoying visitors) ... and the United States pays a dear price in the end, thanks to her disinterest in world affairs and her not realizing that she held a gift of world peace – leaving her to finally stop time just an instant before a nuclear bomb detonates and wipes out much of central and southern California.

* CassandraTruth: "Back There," "The Time Element", "No Time like the Past".
* {{Catchphrase}}: ''Submitted for your consideration/approval''. ''.....in [[TitleDrop the Twilight Zone]]''

* ChekhovsArmoury: [[spoiler:"The New Exhibit."]]

* ConvenientlyCoherentThoughts: In the episode "A Penny For Your Thoughts," the protagonist gains the ability to read minds, and hears a disgruntled bank employee planning to rob the bank. After he denounces him, though, it turns out that the man's been idly ''thinking'' about robbing the bank for years, but he'd never actually go through with it.

* CosmicHorrorStory: "And When the Sky was Opened."

* CreepyDoll[=/=]TheDollEpisode: "Living Doll," "Caesar and Me," "The Dummy."
* CripplingTheCompetition: In "Mr. Denton on Doomsday'', the title character, a washed up RetiredGunfighter faces off against a young wannabee in a duel, both using a potion granting quick draw abilities. Both men manage to inflict hand injuries preventing each other from ever using guns again. Denton sees this as a blessing, as it will prevent either from engaging in any more reckless duels.
* CruelTwistEnding: "Time Enough at Last".

* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: [[spoiler:In "Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?", the old man (played by Jack Elam) accuses Mr. Ross of being the "most suspicious of the bunch".]]
** [[spoiler:Jack Elam's character also suggests that they check under Ross's coat for wings. Had they done so, they would have seen his third arm and known he was the real Martian.]]

-->''"I believe you're going my way..."''

* DeadAllAlong: Episodes [[spoiler:"Judgment Night," "The Hitch-Hiker," "The Passersby," (one possible interpretation of) "The Thirty-Fathom Grave," "Deaths-Head Revisited","Death Ship" and "Ring-a-Ding Girl".]]
* DeadToBeginWith: "A Nice Place to Visit", "A Game of Pool", "The Hunt."

** "Escape Clause," "Printer's Devil," "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville."

** In ''Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room'', a cowardly criminal is confronted by his better self, on the other side of a mirror. Eventually the other personality takes over. This is a rare example of this trope being a HappyEnding.
** In ''The Lateness of the Hour'', a woman discovers that she is actually a robot. Unable to cope, she goes mad and her "parents" reprogram her as a maid, effectively destroying her personality.
* DeathTrap: "The Jeopardy Room."

* DisproportionateRetribution: "Time Enough at Last."
* DivideAndConquer[=/=]AHouseDivided: [[spoiler:"The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street."]]

* DontFearTheReaper: "Nothing in the Dark," [[spoiler:"The Hitch-hiker".]]
* {{Doppelganger}}: "Mirror Image," "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room," "In His Image."
* DreamApocalypse: [[spoiler:"Shadow Play."]]

* DroppedGlasses: [[spoiler:"Time Enough at Last."]]
* DumbBlonde: In "Penny For Your Thoughts," the main character hears the thoughts of anyone standing near him. When tries to read the mind of a blonde woman in the bank, [[BrainlessBeauty he can't hear anything.]]
* EarthAllAlong: [[spoiler:"I Shot an Arrow into the Air," "Probe 7 - Over and Out." Inverted in "Third from the Sun" and "The Invaders."]]

* EnfantTerrible: Anthony Fremont in "It's a Good Life," Susan in "Caesar and Me."

* EpisodeOnAPlane: Most famously in "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." Also in "The Odyssey Of Flight 33."

* EvilDetectingDog: In the episode "The Hunt." "A man will walk into hell with both eyes open, but even the Devil can't fool a dog."

* FishOutOfTemporalWater: The lead characters of the TimeTravel episodes, especially "Execution."

* FortuneTeller: A little coin-operated fortune-telling machine in a diner, that answers yes-or-no questions, in "Nick of Time". A superstitious WilliamShatner starts to think it's giving out accurate answers and gets obsessed, and his wife tries to talk sense into him.
** This is a definite case of MaybeMagicMaybeMundane, and a lot of questions if it is magic. All of the following are possible: the machine accurately predicted the future as it was meant to, it was designed for/attempted to trap people (which would be a lot of trouble for a few pennies), its only ability was to make you ''think'' it made accurate predictions, or it was in fact an ordinary machine and the seemingly accurate predictions were a series of improbable coincidences.

* TheGrimReaper: "One for the Angels," "Nothing in the Dark" (played by Creator/RobertRedford!), "[[spoiler:The Hitch-Hiker]]".

* GuardianAngel: J. Hardy Hempstead in "Mr. Bevis."

* HairTriggerTemper: Simon and Barbara in "Uncle Simon," especially to each other.
* HauntedTechnology: "The Fever," "A Thing About Machines," "Living Doll".
* HaveAGayOldTime: In "Caesar and Me," unsuccessful ventriloquist Jonathan West breaks into a nightclub at the insistence of his evil dummy, Caesar. While there, they are found by the night watchman, who starts asking them questions. Caesar's response: "Who are you, the house dick?" At the time, "dick" was slang for a detective, but today, the idea of a "house dick" in a nightclub might bring something else to mind.
* HeadsTailsEdge: "Penny for Your Thoughts."

* HenpeckedHusband: Henry Bemis, in "Time Enough at Last."
* HereWeGoAgain: [[spoiler:"Judgment Night," "Mr. Dingle the Strong," "Shadow Play," "Dead Man's Shoes," "Person or Persons Unknown," "Death Ship," "Uncle Simon," "From Agnes - With Love," "Spur of the Moment," "Queen of the Nile," "The Time Element."]]

* HopeSpot: "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" ends with one.

* HumanAliens: Part of the plot of "People Are Alike All Over." [[spoiler: The protagonists of "Third from the Sun."]]

* InteractiveNarrator: At the end of "A World of His Own," Rod Serling appears to give his closing speech, only to be interrupted and then erased by Gregory's RealityWarper powers (complete with a ThisIsGonnaSuck remark from Rod before he vanishes). This was actually his very first onscreen appearance: it proved so popular that it set the tradition of him appearing onscreen to give the episode narration.
* IronicDeath: "A Most Unusual Camera". After the [[spoiler:main characters]] die, the waiter smugly counts the number of bodies: [[spoiler:"One... two... three... ''FOUR?!'']] Cue screaming.

* IronicEcho: Wordsworth does this to the Chancellor a couple of times in the penultimate scene of "The Obsolete Man:"
-->'''Wordsworth:''' You're cheating the audience. Face the camera.\\

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

* KarmaHoudini: This trope is {{averted}} through most of the series, but shows up in some fifth season episodes (such as [[spoiler:"What's in the Box?" and "Ceasar and Me"]]). In his book ''The Twilight Zone Companion'', Marc Scott Zicree identifies this as a symptom of SeasonalRot.

* LaughTrack: The PoorlyDisguisedPilot "Cavender is Coming" featured a laugh track during its original showing and early syndication. It was removed from the syndication prints in the mid eighties.

** The titular character in "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" found that he could obtain abstract or otherwise normally non-transferable attributes from other people by simply making the deal with them. Among other attributes, he restored his youth by "buying" it from younger men who thought him to be a kook giving them money for nothing. He only took a year from each man, but was able to become young again. Incidentally, he was only an old man because he had previously sold his own youth to an elderly millionaire (he came out financially ahead after the exchanges were complete).

* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler:"The Time Element." Especially heartbreaking because the main character not only is unable to prevent the death of a young couple (oh, and prevent the mass death and disaster at Pearl Harbor), he also gets ''himself'' killed and part of his life erased from existence as well.]] This episode not only shot the shaggy dog, it skinned and made it into a floor rug.

* SlidingScaleOfBeauty: The show [[PlayingWithATrope plays with this]] in the famous episode "Eye of the Beholder", where a woman undergoes plastic surgery to become beautiful because she falls into the Most Horrible Ever category (there's a village made just for ugly people so nobody would be forced to look at them). Of course being ''The Twilight Zone'' there's a twist: [[spoiler:it's reversed. Being ugly is beautiful and vice versa.]]

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: "Cavender Is Coming", a PoorlyDisguisedPilot for a prospective comedy series starring Jesse White as the title character, an apprentice [[GuardianEntity guardian angel]] who assists a klutzy mortal played by Carol Burnett.

* StockFootage: The countdown and launch footage from "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" was reused in "People Are Alike All Over".

* SurvivorGuilt: Suffered by James Embry in "King Nine Will Not Return".
** Happens again in "The Thirty-Fathom Grave"
* TakeThat: The entirety of "Showdown with Rance [=McGrew=]" against [[TheWestern the TV westerns]] of the time. It also serves as a deconstruction of sorts. Serling hated the Westerns of the time, deeming them too unrealistic and predictable, and later went on to make a [=Western=] series (''The Loner'') himself.
** The hour long episode "The Bard" features a hack writer who, while reseaching a book of black magic, inadvertently brings Creator/WilliamShakespeare back from the dead, and uses him as a literal ghost writer. Serling uses this setup to parody everything about television at the time including sponsers making inane changes, and the concept of taking a half hour show and making an hour show of it, such as CBS did to ''Zone'' that season, much to Serling's dismay.

* ShoutOut/ToShakespeare: Three of the episode titles are "[[Theatre/{{Hamlet}} Perchance to Dream]]," "[[Theatre/RichardIII The Purple Testament]]" and "[[Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice A Quality of Mercy]]"; Rod Serling even quotes Portia's words to Shylock at the end of the latter episode ("The quality of mercy is not strained, / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath: it is thrice blessed, / It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes"; ''The Merchant of Venice'', IV.i).

* {{Troll}}: Oliver Crangle in "Four O'Clock".
** FridgeLogic on this topic: Did he shrink because what he was trying to do went wrong, was the whole thing a hallucination...or did every single evil person on Earth actually shrink, including him because he was evil?! The last possibility would have had very interesting results (some reminiscent of Steve Martin on "getting small").

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Some episodes could get pretty bad about this. Pity that by the 1990's we hadn't even traveled to the nearest galaxy yet.
** [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale And we never will.]]

* UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar: "In Praise of Pip" mentions it.

-->Paradine: Now you stay here. If you hear a shot, you get back to the lieutenant at a fast gallop...If you haven't heard from me in 15 minutes, you get back there anyway.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: According to Billy Mumy (who played him), Anthony from "It's A Good Life" is honestly trying to make the world a better place, he simply doesn't grasp that what makes ''him'' happy isn't best for everyone. In short, his immaturity prevents him from taking other's views into consideration.
*** This is explored further in the short story on which the episode is based. A notable example excluded from the episode is his reanimating a man's corpse after hearing his widow mourn his death, much to her (and everybody else's) horror. The town folk mostly try to avoid any negative thoughts at all after that, because Anthony might make things so much worse by trying to make them better.

* AdultFear: The show was full of this in addition to more supernatural threats. The episode "In Praise of Pip" shows a bookie receiving news that his son Pip has been seriously wounded in UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar and is possibly dying. The rest of the episode revolves around the man hallucinating(?) that Pip is a ten year old boy again while he is dying of a gunshot wound. In what is a massively sad scene, he begs his son not to die and apologizes for not being a better father and role model to him while promising to do better even though he realizes it may be too late for both of them.

An often worthy revival series ran on CBS from 1985-87, and in first-run syndication in 1988. Another revival ran on {{UPN}} in the 2002-2003 season, which reunited Bill Mumy and Cloris Leachman in a sequel to the classic TZ chiller ''ItsAGoodLife.'' A [[LicensedPinballTable licensed]] {{Pinball}} game, ''Pinball/TheTwilightZone'', was released in 1992, filled with references and {{Shout Out}}s to various episodes. But it's the daring original series that shows every sign of lasting the ages as the literature that it is.

* DescendedCreator: Rod Serling as the Narrator.

** Footage of the ''C-57-D'' from ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'' appears in some episodes. At the end of "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" the footage is disguised by being shown upside down and backwards - this was achieved by simply turning the clip upside down before splicing it in. In "To Serve Man", however, although the full-size ''C-57-D'' landing ramp is used, the Kanamit spaceship's takeoff is represented by one of the eponymous ''Film/EarthVersusTheFlyingSaucers'', animated by RayHarryhausen.

** Footage of the ''C-57-D'' from ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'' appears in some episodes. At the end of "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" the footage is disguised by being shown upside down and backwards - this was achieved by simply turning the clip upside down before splicing it in.

* Troll: Oliver Crangle in "Four O'Clock".

* UnbuiltTrope: The episode "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" milked the concept of [[spoiler: sentient toys]] for all its inherent horror and existential angst about three decades before [[spoiler: ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'']] made the idea famous. The ending, where we find out that [[spoiler: the titular five characters are actually dolls dumped in a Salvation Army bin by their owner,]] is absolutely ''terrifying''.

* PhoneCallFromTheDead:''