History Series / TheTwilightZone

* RecycledSoundtrack: If you think the soundtrack from the 2002 series sounds oddly familiar, it's because the series' composer was Mark Snow and he reused some of his music from ''TheXFiles''.

* AdaptationExpansion: Due to being anywhere from 5-10 minutes longer than they 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).

* UnPaused: Among others, "A Little Peace and Quiet" in the 1985 premiere. Penny, a typical 80's henpecked housewife, finds an amulet that allows her to stop and re-start time with the commands "Shut up!" and "Start talking!"); she abuses this privilege until the next night, when nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union breaks out. [[labelnote:*]]It's never explicitly stated, but it's at this point Penny realizes the true purpose of her amulet: Freezing time to get the government officials together and forcing them to "start talking" about nuclear disarmament.[[/labelnote]] Penny is able to freeze time just seconds before [[NightmareFuel her hometown is destroyed by a nuclear bomb]].

* UnPaused: Among others, "A Little Peace and Quiet" in the 1985 premiere. Penny, a typical 80's henpecked housewife, finds an amulet that allows her to stop and re-start time with the commands "Shut up!" and "Start talking!"); she abuses this privilege until the next night, when nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union breaks out. [[labelnote:It's never explicitly stated, but it's at this point Penny realizes the true purpose of her amulet: Freezing time to get the government officials together and forcing them to "start talking" about nuclear disarmament.]]*[[/labelnote]] Penny is able to freeze time just seconds before [[NightmareFuel her hometown is destroyed by a nuclear bomb]].

* UnPaused: Among others, "A Little Peace and Quiet" in the 1985 premiere. There, a typical 80's henpecked housewife (Penny) found an golden amulet that allowed her to stop and re-start time at her own beck and call (through the commands "Shut up!" and "Start talking!"); she abuses this privilege- until the very next night, when nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union now breaks out. (It is never ''explicitly'' stated, but it was at this point, too late, where Penny now realizes the ''true'' purposes of her gold amulet... Freezing time to get two rivals- [[spoiler: the government-officials ''together'']] and ''force'' them to "start talking" about [[spoiler: nuclear-weapon disarmament]]. Still, Penny is still able to freeze time split ''seconds'' before her whole [[NightmareFuel hometown is destroyed by a nuclear bomb]]. DownerEnding indeed...)

* 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 after shooting was completed). His scenes in the episode were reshot, with Jack Warden playing [=McGarry=], at Serling's expense.

* OutOfTheFryingPan: In the revived series episode "Crazy as a Soup Sandwhich". A loser sells his soul to a demon in exchange for winning at the horse races, only to get cheated. He goes to the mobster he borrowed his betting money from, begging for protection [[spoiler:and the mobster does--because he's an arch-demon in human form, and now the loser owes his soul to a ''worse'' demon]].

* 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 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.
* AnAesop: With some exceptions.

* {{Lilliputians}}: "The Little People",[[spoiler: "The Fear".]]

** Lesser known examples include "Young Man's Fancy", "Caesar and Me", "What's in the Box?", "The Purple Testament" and "Number 12 Looks Just Like You".

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

* {{Lilliputians}}: "The Little People."

* FantasticAnthropologist: "Mr. Dingle the Strong", [[spoiler: "The Fear".]]

* FantasticAnthropologist: "Mr. Dingle the Strong."

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: "The Jeopardy Room".]]

** 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.

* UrbanLegends - The basis of many episodes.

* {{Catchphrase}}: ''Submitted for your consideration/approval''.

* RoomFullOfCrazy: Rod Serling said that when he first called for scripts, ""I got 15,000 manuscripts in the first five days. Of those 15,000, I and members of my staff read about 140. And 137 of those 140 were wasted paper; hand-scrawled, laboriously written, therapeutic unholy grotesqueries from sick, troubled, deeply disturbed people." The rest were well-written, but unsuitable for the show.