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* NapoleonDelusion: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E92PersonOrPersonsUnknown Person or Persons Unknown]]", one of David Gurney's fellow patients believes that he is UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill.
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* NapoleonDelusion: NapoleonDelusion:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E92PersonOrPersonsUnknown Person or Persons Unknown]]", one of David Gurney's fellow patients believes that he isUsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill. UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill.
** {{Discussed|Trope}} in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E120TheBard The Bard]]". Julius Moomer tells his agent Gerald Hugo, the network executive Mr. Bramhoff and the sponsor Mr. Shannon that Creator/WilliamShakespeare is a cousin on his mother's side who believes that he is Shakespeare.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E92PersonOrPersonsUnknown Person or Persons Unknown]]", one of David Gurney's fellow patients believes that he is
** {{Discussed|Trope}} in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E120TheBard The Bard]]". Julius Moomer tells his agent Gerald Hugo, the network executive Mr. Bramhoff and the sponsor Mr. Shannon that Creator/WilliamShakespeare is a cousin on his mother's side who believes that he is Shakespeare.
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* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E71TheMirror The Mirror]]", Ramos Clemente is a not-so-subtle {{Expy}} of UsefulNotes/FidelCastro while Tabal's appearance is clearly based on that of UsefulNotes/CheGuevara. The entire episode, which was made between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, is one long TakeThat at Castro. In his closing narration, Rod Serling even says that "any resemblance to tyrants living or dead is hardly coincidental." Funnily enough, General De Cruz mentions both Castro and his predecessor General Fulgencio Batista, the former right-wing dictator of UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}} on whom De Cruz himself is based, in the first scene.
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* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: NoCelebritiesWereHarmed:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E71TheMirror The Mirror]]", Ramos Clemente is a not-so-subtle {{Expy}} of UsefulNotes/FidelCastro while Tabal's appearance is clearly based on that of UsefulNotes/CheGuevara. The entire episode, which was made between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, is one long TakeThat at Castro. In his closing narration, Rod Serling even says that "any resemblance to tyrants living or dead is hardly coincidental." Funnily enough, General De Cruz mentions both Castro and his predecessor General Fulgencio Batista, the former right-wing dictator of UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}} on whom De Cruz himself is based, in the firstscene.scene.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E120TheBard The Bard]]", Rocky Rhodes, a temperamental [[MethodActing Method actor]] who is well known for starring in ''Theatre/AStreetcarNamedDesire'', is a parody of Creator/MarlonBrando. Creator/WilliamShakespeare is disgusted by his manner and appearance and punches him when Rhodes asks him what he has against Stanislavski. In playing the character, Creator/BurtReynolds imitated Brando's distinctive voice and speech patterns.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E71TheMirror The Mirror]]", Ramos Clemente is a not-so-subtle {{Expy}} of UsefulNotes/FidelCastro while Tabal's appearance is clearly based on that of UsefulNotes/CheGuevara. The entire episode, which was made between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, is one long TakeThat at Castro. In his closing narration, Rod Serling even says that "any resemblance to tyrants living or dead is hardly coincidental." Funnily enough, General De Cruz mentions both Castro and his predecessor General Fulgencio Batista, the former right-wing dictator of UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}} on whom De Cruz himself is based, in the first
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E120TheBard The Bard]]", Rocky Rhodes, a temperamental [[MethodActing Method actor]] who is well known for starring in ''Theatre/AStreetcarNamedDesire'', is a parody of Creator/MarlonBrando. Creator/WilliamShakespeare is disgusted by his manner and appearance and punches him when Rhodes asks him what he has against Stanislavski. In playing the character, Creator/BurtReynolds imitated Brando's distinctive voice and speech patterns.
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* InsistentTerminology: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E53TwentyTwo Twenty-Two]]", Liz Powell's agent Barney Kamener says that she is a stripper but she corrects him by saying that she is a dancer.
* InstrumentalThemeTune: There were actually two of them. The first season featured a haunting, string-laden theme composed by Music/BernardHerrmann; this was replaced in Season 2 with a different and much more familiar theme (featuring the iconic high-pitched four-note guitar riff) composed by Marius Constant.
* InstrumentalThemeTune: There were actually two of them. The first season featured a haunting, string-laden theme composed by Music/BernardHerrmann; this was replaced in Season 2 with a different and much more familiar theme (featuring the iconic high-pitched four-note guitar riff) composed by Marius Constant.
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* InsistentTerminology: InsistentTerminology:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E53TwentyTwo Twenty-Two]]", Liz Powell's agent Barney Kamener says that she is a stripper but she corrects him by saying that she is a dancer.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E119PassageOnTheLadyAnne Passage on the Lady Anne]]", whenever Eileen Ransome refers to the ''Lady Anne'' as "it," Toby and Millie [=McKenzie=] tell her that the ship is a "she."
* InstrumentalThemeTune: There wereactually two of them. The first season featured a haunting, string-laden theme composed by Music/BernardHerrmann; this was replaced in Season 2 with a different and much more familiar theme (featuring the iconic high-pitched four-note guitar riff) composed by Marius Constant.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E53TwentyTwo Twenty-Two]]", Liz Powell's agent Barney Kamener says that she is a stripper but she corrects him by saying that she is a dancer.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E119PassageOnTheLadyAnne Passage on the Lady Anne]]", whenever Eileen Ransome refers to the ''Lady Anne'' as "it," Toby and Millie [=McKenzie=] tell her that the ship is a "she."
* InstrumentalThemeTune: There were
* LockedOutOfTheLoop: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E119PassageOnTheLadyAnne Passage on the Lady Anne]]", Alan and Eileen Ransome are the only people onboard the ''Lady Anne'' who do not know that [[spoiler:she is headed towards the afterlife]].
* MarriedToTheJob: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E119PassageOnTheLadyAnne Passage on the Lady Anne]]", Alan Ransome has paid considerably more attention to his job as a financier than his marriage to Eileen over the course of the last six years. As it had gotten to the point that they barely saw or spoke to each other, Eileen arranged the voyage on the ''Lady Anne'' and the trip to UsefulNotes/{{London}} in order to save their troubled marriage.
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* NoTimeToExplain: "Passage on the ''Lady Anne''". [[spoiler:As it turns out, it's a ship only meant for dying/wanting to die people.]]
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* NoTimeToExplain: "Passage In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E119PassageOnTheLadyAnne Passage on the ''Lady Anne''". [[spoiler:As Lady Anne]]". [[spoiler: it turns out, it's a out that the traveling on the titular ship is only meant for dying/wanting people who are dying or want to die people.die.]]
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* IHaveManyNames: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E24LongLiveWalterJameson Long Live Walter Jameson]]", the 2,000 immortal protagonist has gone by many names during his exceptionally long life, including Hugh Skelton, Tom Bowen and finally Walter Jameson.
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%%* NostalgiaAintLikeItUsedToBe: "The Incredible World of Horace Ford"
* NostalgiaFilter: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E116OfLateIThinkOfCliffordville Of Late I Think of Cliffordville]]", CorruptCorporateExecutive William J. Feathersmith makes a DealWithTheDevil to go back in time and relive his life, in order to enjoy once again the climb from a nobody to a tyrannical titan of industry. However, things in his youth weren't exactly as nice as he remembered. For example, he forgets that vaccines weren't invented at that time, the streets are still unpaved, and the girl he reminisced about was nowhere near as attractive or charming as he remembered. This is on top of all the ''other'' mistakes he makes...
* NostalgiaFilter: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E116OfLateIThinkOfCliffordville Of Late I Think of Cliffordville]]", CorruptCorporateExecutive William J. Feathersmith makes a DealWithTheDevil to go back in time and relive his life, in order to enjoy once again the climb from a nobody to a tyrannical titan of industry. However, things in his youth weren't exactly as nice as he remembered. For example, he forgets that vaccines weren't invented at that time, the streets are still unpaved, and the girl he reminisced about was nowhere near as attractive or charming as he remembered. This is on top of all the ''other'' mistakes he makes...
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E116OfLateIThinkOfCliffordville Of Late I Think of Cliffordville]]", CorruptCorporateExecutive William J. Feathersmith makes a DealWithTheDevil to go back in time and relive his life, in order to enjoy once again the climb from a nobody to a tyrannical titan of industry. However, things in his youth weren't exactly as nice as he remembered. For example, he forgets that vaccines weren't invented at that time, the streets are still unpaved, and the girl he reminisced about was nowhere near as attractive or charming as he remembered. This is on top of all the ''other'' mistakes he
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E117TheIncredibleWorldOfHoraceFord The Incredible World of Horace Ford]]", the title character almost obsessively recalls his seemingly idyllic childhood playing with his friends on Randolph Street. In reality, Randolph Street was a crime-ridden ghetto and [[WithFriendsLikeThese his friends]] beat him up after he didn't invite them to his birthday party.
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E28ANicePlaceToVisit A Nice Place to Visit]]", Rocky Valentine discovers that Pip is not human when he shoots him and the bullets have no effect.
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E116OfLateIThinkOfCliffordville Of Late I Think of Cliffordville]]", Mr. Hecate is named after the [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Greek goddess]] Hecate, who is associated with witches and crossroads. William J. Feathersmith is transported back in time to his home town of Cliffordville, Indiana in 1910 by the Devil and proceeds to alter his personal history, meaning that Cliffordville represents a crossroads in his life.
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* NostalgiaFilter: Happens in "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville". CorruptCorporateExecutive Feathersmith makes a DealWithTheDevil to go back in time and relive his life, in order to enjoy once again the climb from a nobody to a tyrannical titan of industry. However, things in his youth weren't exactly as nice as he remembered. For example, he forgets that vaccines weren't invented at that time, the streets are still unpaved, and the girl he reminisced about was nowhere near as attractive or charming as he remembered. This is on top of all the ''other'' mistakes he makes...
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* NostalgiaFilter: Happens in "Of In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E116OfLateIThinkOfCliffordville Of Late I Think of Cliffordville". Cliffordville]]", CorruptCorporateExecutive William J. Feathersmith makes a DealWithTheDevil to go back in time and relive his life, in order to enjoy once again the climb from a nobody to a tyrannical titan of industry. However, things in his youth weren't exactly as nice as he remembered. For example, he forgets that vaccines weren't invented at that time, the streets are still unpaved, and the girl he reminisced about was nowhere near as attractive or charming as he remembered. This is on top of all the ''other'' mistakes he makes...
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%%* PeggySue: "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville".
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** In "The New Exhibit", a passionate (and slightly unhinged) man named Martin Senescu takes care of wax figures of famous killers in his basement after the wax museum where he works closes down. He firmly believes that they're alive, which disturbs his wife, brother-in-law, and former boss. All three end up being killed, apparently by the figures--but the ending suggests that it was actually ''Senescu'' committing the murders, and simply imagining the figures did it as a coping mechanism. It's not clear which is true.
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** In "The "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E115TheNewExhibit The New Exhibit", Exhibit]]", a passionate (and slightly unhinged) man named Martin Senescu takes care of wax figures of famous killers in his basement after the wax museum where he works closes down. He firmly believes that they're alive, which disturbs his wife, brother-in-law, and former boss. All three end up being killed, apparently by the figures--but the ending suggests that it was actually ''Senescu'' committing the murders, and simply imagining the figures did it as a coping mechanism. It's not clear which is true.
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* KarmicTransformation: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E114IDreamOfGenie I Dream of Genie]]", the dog Attila accompanies George P. Hanley through all of his fantasies about what he should wish for but with his breed modified to match George's own changed profession, from a tiny purebred to a wolfhound to a black Scottish terrier. In the last of these in which George is President of the United States, Attila is the same breed and color as UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt's dog Fala.
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* OurGeniesAreDifferent: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E114IDreamOfGenie I Dream of Genie]]", the genie is an obnoxious loudmouth who smokes a cigar and dresses in contemporary clothes with the exception of "velveteen mukluks." He also offers George P. Hanley only one wish instead of the usual three.
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* PetsHomageName: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E114IDreamOfGenie I Dream of Genie]]", George P. Hanley's dog Attila is named after UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun.
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* TheMultiverse: The main character of "The Parallel" discovers that he has accidentally stumbled into a [[AlternateDimension parallel world]] with a [[AlternateHistory similar chronology]] to his own.
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* TheMultiverse: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E113TheParallel The main character of "The Parallel" Parallel]]", Major Robert Gaines discovers that he has accidentally stumbled into a [[AlternateDimension parallel world]] with a [[AlternateHistory similar chronology]] to his own.
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* ImmuneToBullets: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E69ThePassersby The Passersby]]", the Union soldier that Lavinia Godwin shoots suffers no ill effects from the bullet [[spoiler:as he is already dead]].
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* ImmuneToBullets: ImmuneToBullets:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E69ThePassersby The Passersby]]", the Union soldier that Lavinia Godwin shoots suffers no ill effects from the bullet [[spoiler:as he is alreadydead]].dead]].
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E111PrintersDevil Printer's Devil]]", Douglas Winter shoots Mr. Smith three times in the chest at point-blank range but he is completely uninjured as he is the Devil.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E69ThePassersby The Passersby]]", the Union soldier that Lavinia Godwin shoots suffers no ill effects from the bullet [[spoiler:as he is already
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E111PrintersDevil Printer's Devil]]", Douglas Winter shoots Mr. Smith three times in the chest at point-blank range but he is completely uninjured as he is the Devil.
* InterruptedSuicide: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E111PrintersDevil Printer's Devil]]", depressed by the impending closure of ''The Dansburg Courier'', Douglas Winter is about to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge until he unwittingly summons the Devil, who offers his services as a reporter and linotype operator under the name Mr. Smith.
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* PlayingWithFire:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E73ItsAGoodLife It's a Good Life]]", it is mentioned that Anthony set Teddy Reynolds on fire for thinking mean thoughts about him.
** In the final scene of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E88TheLastRitesOfJeffMyrtlebank The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank]]", the title character demonstrates this ability when he lights a match without striking it. He tells his fiancée Comfort Gatewood that it was just her imagination.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E73ItsAGoodLife It's a Good Life]]", it is mentioned that Anthony set Teddy Reynolds on fire for thinking mean thoughts about him.
** In the final scene of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E88TheLastRitesOfJeffMyrtlebank The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank]]", the title character demonstrates this ability when he lights a match without striking it. He tells his fiancée Comfort Gatewood that it was just her imagination.
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* PlayingWithFire:
**PlayingWithFire: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E73ItsAGoodLife It's a Good Life]]", it is mentioned that Anthony set Teddy Reynolds on fire for thinking mean thoughts about him.
** In the final scene of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E88TheLastRitesOfJeffMyrtlebank The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank]]", the title character demonstrates this ability when he lights a match without striking it. He tells his fiancée Comfort Gatewood that it was just her imagination.him.
**
** In the final scene of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E88TheLastRitesOfJeffMyrtlebank The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank]]", the title character demonstrates this ability when he lights a match without striking it. He tells his fiancée Comfort Gatewood that it was just her imagination.
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* NoNameGiven: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E42TheEyeOfTheBeholder Eye of the Beholder]]", none of the characters other than Janet Tyler, Doctor Bernardi and Walter Smith are given names.
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* MyBelovedSmother: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E110Miniature Miniature]]", Charley Parkes' overbearing mother treats him as if he were a child, even untying his shoes for him when he prepares to go to bed. His sister Myra Russell tells him that he is living the same way that he did when he was 14 years old even though he is in his 30s. She believes that it is sick and partly blames their mother for the fact that Charley is socially underdeveloped.
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* LovePotion: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E31TheChaser The Chaser]]", Roger Shackleforth is "madly, passionately, illogically, miserably, all-consumingly in love" with Leila, who can just about stand to be around him. Under the belief that he can't live without her, he buys a love potion from Professor Daemon for $1 and slips it into her champagne. Within less than a minute, the potion takes full effect. Six months later, Roger and Leila are married but she is so [[NoSenseOfPersonalSpace exceptionally clingy and suffocating]] that Roger does not have a moment's peace. As Professor Daemon tried to warn him when he bought it, the potion [[GoneHorriblyRight worked too well]].
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* LovePotion: LovePotion:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E31TheChaser The Chaser]]", Roger Shackleforth is "madly, passionately, illogically, miserably, all-consumingly in love" with Leila, who can just about stand to be around him. Under the belief that he can't live without her, he buys a love potion from Professor Daemon for $1 and slips it into her champagne. Within less than a minute, the potion takes full effect. Six months later, Roger and Leila are married but she is so [[NoSenseOfPersonalSpace exceptionally clingy and suffocating]] that Roger does not have a moment's peace. As Professor Daemon tried to warn him when he bought it, the potion [[GoneHorriblyRight worked toowell]].well]].
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E109JessBelle Jess-Belle]]", after her ex-boyfriend Billy-Ben Turner proposes to Ellwyn Glover, Jess-Belle Stone goes to Granny Hart, who is rumored to be a witch, in order to obtain a love potion and prevent the wedding from taking place. However, she has no money and Granny Hart recoils when she tries to offer her a pearl hairpin with a [[SilverHasMysticPowers silver stick]]. As such, the price that Jess-Belle is forced to pay is a supernatural one: she will [[BalefulPolymorph transform with a leopard]] [[WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve every night at the stroke of twelve]]. She later discovers that [[DealWithTheDevil she has sold her soul to Granny Hart and has turned into a witch herself]].
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E31TheChaser The Chaser]]", Roger Shackleforth is "madly, passionately, illogically, miserably, all-consumingly in love" with Leila, who can just about stand to be around him. Under the belief that he can't live without her, he buys a love potion from Professor Daemon for $1 and slips it into her champagne. Within less than a minute, the potion takes full effect. Six months later, Roger and Leila are married but she is so [[NoSenseOfPersonalSpace exceptionally clingy and suffocating]] that Roger does not have a moment's peace. As Professor Daemon tried to warn him when he bought it, the potion [[GoneHorriblyRight worked too
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E109JessBelle Jess-Belle]]", after her ex-boyfriend Billy-Ben Turner proposes to Ellwyn Glover, Jess-Belle Stone goes to Granny Hart, who is rumored to be a witch, in order to obtain a love potion and prevent the wedding from taking place. However, she has no money and Granny Hart recoils when she tries to offer her a pearl hairpin with a [[SilverHasMysticPowers silver stick]]. As such, the price that Jess-Belle is forced to pay is a supernatural one: she will [[BalefulPolymorph transform with a leopard]] [[WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve every night at the stroke of twelve]]. She later discovers that [[DealWithTheDevil she has sold her soul to Granny Hart and has turned into a witch herself]].
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E109JessBelle Jess-Belle]]", the title character Jess-Belle Stone is named after Jezebel from the Literature/BooksOfKings.
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E109JessBelle Jess-Belle]]", the title character Jess-Belle Stone is named after Jezebel from the Literature/BooksOfKings. Furthermore, Jess-Belle obtains a LovePotion from Granny Hart.
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E108DeathShip Death Ship]]", the respective first names of Captain Ross and Lt. Mason are Paul and Ted. In the short story by Creator/RichardMatheson, their first names are not given.
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* OutlivingOnesOffspring: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E58LongDistanceCall Long Distance Call]]", Grandma Bayles lost two children before her son Chris was born. She never forgave Chris for marrying Sylvia and leaving her. Part of the reason that she was so attached to her grandson Billy was that he [[FreudianExcuse reminded her of her first two children]].
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* OutlivingOnesOffspring: OutlivingOnesOffspring:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E58LongDistanceCall Long Distance Call]]", Grandma Bayles lost two children before her son Chris was born. She never forgave Chris for marrying Sylvia and leaving her. Part of the reason that she was so attached to her grandson Billy was that he [[FreudianExcuse reminded her of her first twochildren]].children]].
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E107Mute Mute]]", Harry and Cora Wheeler's daughter Sally drowned at some point before Ilsa Nielsen came to live with them.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E108DeathShip Death Ship]]", Lt. Ted Mason's daughter Jeannie was killed in a car accident, as was his wife Ruth.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E58LongDistanceCall Long Distance Call]]", Grandma Bayles lost two children before her son Chris was born. She never forgave Chris for marrying Sylvia and leaving her. Part of the reason that she was so attached to her grandson Billy was that he [[FreudianExcuse reminded her of her first two
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E107Mute Mute]]", Harry and Cora Wheeler's daughter Sally drowned at some point before Ilsa Nielsen came to live with them.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E108DeathShip Death Ship]]", Lt. Ted Mason's daughter Jeannie was killed in a car accident, as was his wife Ruth.
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* PsychicPowers: {{Discussed|Trope}} in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E108DeathShip Death Ship]]". Captain Paul Ross believes that the duplicate of the E-89 [[DiscoveringYourOwnDeadBody containing his dead body and those of Lieutenants Ted Mason and Mike Carter]] is an illusion created by aliens who don't want humans to colonize their planet.
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** The main character of "He's Alive" is an American Nazi who becomes increasingly popular thanks to guidance from a mysterious advisor. Since said advice includes murdering one of his own followers to create a martyr, justice catches up with him too.
** TheReveal of "Judgment Night" is that the main character was one of these [[EvilAllAlong all along]].
** TheReveal of "Judgment Night" is that the main character was one of these [[EvilAllAlong all along]].
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** The main character of "He's Alive" In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E106HesAlive He's Alive]]", the protagonist Peter Vollmer is an American Nazi who becomes increasingly popular thanks to guidance from a mysterious advisor. Since said advice includes murdering one of his own followers to create a martyr, justice catches up with him too.
** TheReveal of "Judgment Night" is that themain character protagonist Carl Lanser was one of these [[EvilAllAlong all along]].
** TheReveal of "Judgment Night" is that the
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E106HesAlive He's Alive]]", the ghost of UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler appears to Peter Vollmer in order to help his small, ineffectual neo-Nazi group to grow and gain influence.
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* IntrepidReporter: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E105ValleyOfTheShadow Valley of the Shadow]]", a journalist named Philip Redfield discovers a small town named Peaceful Valley while driving through UsefulNotes/NewMexico. He notices strange occurrences around town and realizes that there's something unusual going on, leading him to investigate. Once he discovers that the town's citizens have access to various extremely advanced forms of AppliedPhlebotinum, he is determined to reveal the truth to the world, even risking death to do so.
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* InvisibleWall: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E105ValleyOfTheShadow Valley of the Shadow]]", after Philip Redfield learns that there is something unusual about the town of Peaceful Valley, UsefulNotes/NewMexico, its mayor Dorn activates an invisible wall to prevent him from leaving. His car crashes into it and his dog Rollie is killed, though he [[BackFromTheDead brought back to life]]. Later, Philip very reluctantly agrees to remain in town and another invisible wall is erected around his house.
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* LaserGuidedAmnesia: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E105ValleyOfTheShadow Valley of the Shadow]]", Dorn, the mayor of Peaceful Valley, UsefulNotes/NewMexico, studies the town's laws and discovers that there is [[TakeAThirdOption an alternative]] to executing Philip Redfield or forcing him to remain in Peaceful Valley. His memory of everything that happened to him during his visit is wiped. He is left with nothing more than a sense of ''deja vu''.
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* MatterReplicator: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E105ValleyOfTheShadow Valley of the Shadow]]", the citizens of Peaceful Valley, UsefulNotes/NewMexico can replicate any object provided that they have its atomic structure on file. Dorn demonstrates this to Philip Redfield by replicating a ham sandwich on white bread with mustard. Philip later uses it to create a .38 special.
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E77TheJungle The Jungle]]", Mr. Sinclair, the president of Alan Richards' company, wears a rabbit's foot on his watch chain. Richards use this to point out that he is almost as superstitious as the Kekouyu.
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E77TheJungle The Jungle]]", Mr. Sinclair, the president of Alan Richards' company, wears a rabbit's foot on his watch chain. Richards use uses this to point out that he is almost as superstitious as the Kekouyu.
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E14ThirdFromTheSun Third from the Sun]]", the people who escape their planet before a nuclear war begins are named William, Eve and Jody Sturka and Jerry and Ann Riden. The short story by Creator/RichardMatheson is a NamelessNarrative.
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* LouisCypher: "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E31TheChaser The Chaser]]" features a character named Professor A. Daemon. His name is suspicious enough to make the viewer wonder about his true nature, albeit that doesn't seem the case [[spoiler:at least until the end of the episode.]]
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* LouisCypher: LouisCypher:
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E31TheChaser The Chaser]]" features a character named Professor A. Daemon. His name is suspicious enough to make the viewer wonder about his true nature, albeit that doesn't seem the case [[spoiler:at least until the end of the episode.]]]]
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E116OfLateIThinkOfCliffordville Of Late I Think of Cliffordville]]", William J. Feathersmith meets a beautiful young woman named Miss Devlin on the thirteenth floor of his building. He soon realizes that she is the Devil.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E31TheChaser The Chaser]]" features a character named Professor A. Daemon. His name is suspicious enough to make the viewer wonder about his true nature, albeit that doesn't seem the case [[spoiler:at least until the end of the episode.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E116OfLateIThinkOfCliffordville Of Late I Think of Cliffordville]]", William J. Feathersmith meets a beautiful young woman named Miss Devlin on the thirteenth floor of his building. He soon realizes that she is the Devil.
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E13TheFourOfUsAreDying The Four of Us Are Dying]]", the con man who can [[VoluntaryShapeshifting voluntary shapeshift]] is named Arch Hammer. In the short story "All of Us Are Dying" by George Clayton Johnson, his name is not given. He has spent so much of his life imitating other people that he has forgotten his real name.
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E102TheChangingOfTheGuard The Changing of the Guard]]", the ghosts of seven of Professor Ellis Fowler's former students, Artie Beechcroft, Bartlett, Dickie Weiss, Thompson, Rice, Hudson and Whiting, appear to him in order to prevent him from committing suicide. They tell him that his teachings inspired them as he taught them about patriotism, courage, loyalty, ethics and honesty.
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!!''The Twilight Zone (1995)'' provides examples of:
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!!''The Twilight Zone (1995)'' (1959)'' provides examples of:
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** 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 1980s.
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** The PoorlyDisguisedPilot "Cavender "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E101CavenderIsComing Cavender is Coming" Coming]]" featured a laugh track during its original showing and early syndication. It was removed from the syndication prints in the mid 1980s.
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* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: "Mr. Bevis" and "Cavender is Coming" were both intended as possible pilot episodes for a spinoff show, but this never materialized.
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* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: "Mr. Bevis" "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E33MrBevis Mr. Bevis]]" and "Cavender "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E101CavenderIsComing Cavender is Coming" Coming]]" were both intended as possible pilot episodes for a spinoff show, spin-off series about a GuardianAngel but this it was never materialized.made.
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* NoEnding: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E54TheOdysseyOfFlight33 The Odyssey of Flight 33]]", we never whether the titular plane is able to return to 1961.
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* NoEnding: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E54TheOdysseyOfFlight33 The Odyssey of Flight 33]]", we never learn whether the titular plane is able to return to 1961.
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* MommasBoy: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E99YoungMansFancy Young Man's Fancy]]", Alex Walker had an incredibly close relationship with his mother Henrietta growing up, seemingly because his father abandoned them only two months after he was born. He was so completely devoted to her that Virginia Lane had to wait twelve years, including a year after Henrietta's death, before they could marry. [[spoiler: Alex's love for his mother is so strong that he becomes a young boy again and Henrietta's ghost returns to mother him once again.]]
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E99YoungMansFancy Young Man's Fancy]]", [[spoiler:Henrietta Walker's ghost is summoned by her son Alex's strong desire to return to his supposedly idyllic childhood instead of having to face life as a grown man.]]
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* PosthumousCharacter: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E99YoungMansFancy Young Man's Fancy]]", Henrietta Walker died one year before her son Alex's marriage to Virginia Lane wedding but her presence pervades both her house and their lives. [[spoiler:She eventually returns as a ghost.]]
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* InnocenceLost: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E86KickTheCan Kick the Can]]", Charles Whitley regrets that growing up means having to let go of childhood games and beliefs, recalling that Ben Conroy once believed in magic. He thinks that people start to grow old as soon as they stop playing these games.
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* InnocenceLost: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E86KickTheCan Kick the Can]]", Charles Whitley regrets that growing up means having to let go of childhood games and beliefs, recalling that Ben Conroy once believed in magic. He thinks that people start to grow old as soon as they stop playing these games.
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** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E62ShadowPlay Shadow Play]]", the dreamer's name is Adam Grant. In the short story "Traumerei" by Charles Beaumont, he is not given a name.
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This page covers tropes found in ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959''. Tropes beginning with letters A-H can be found at TheTwilightZone1959/TropesAToH and tropes beginning with letters Q-Z can be found at TheTwilightZone1959/TropesQToZ.
----
!!''The Twilight Zone (1995)'' provides examples of:
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: I-K]]
* IJustWantToBeNormal: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E42TheEyeOfTheBeholder Eye of the Beholder]]", Janet Tyler has had ten previous reconstructive surgeries to correct her deformity over the years and is awaiting the results of her eleventh. She tells the nurse that she never wanted to be beautiful, only for people not to scream when they looked at her.
* IllegalReligion: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", the State claims to have determined that Main/{{God}} does not exist and therefore has banned any form of religion. Possessing a [[Literature/TheBible Bible]] is punishable by death.
* ImAHumanitarian: The twist ending of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E89ToServeMan To Serve Man]]" reveals that [[spoiler:the title book is a cookbook; the seemingly benevolent aliens are harvesting humans for food]].
%%* ImmortalityImmorality: "Love Live Walter Jameson", "Queen of the Nile".
* ImmuneToBullets: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E69ThePassersby The Passersby]]", the Union soldier that Lavinia Godwin shoots suffers no ill effects from the bullet [[spoiler:as he is already dead]].
%%* ImportedAlienPhlebotinum
* IncredibleShrinkingMan: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E94FourOClock Four O'Clock]]", the fanatical ConspiracyTheorist Oliver Crangle plans to shrink all of the so-called evil people whom he believes are trying to destroy the United States at four o'clock. [[spoiler:When the time comes, Crangle is shrunk himself.]]
* InnocenceLost: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E86KickTheCan Kick the Can]]", Charles Whitley regrets that growing up means having to let go of childhood games and beliefs, recalling that Ben Conroy once believed in magic. He thinks that people start to grow old as soon as they stop playing these games.
* InjunCountry: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E59AHundredYardsOverTheRim A Hundred Yards over the Rim]]", Charlie, a member of Chris Horn's wagon train in 1847, is worried about being attacked by the Apache as the expedition is approaching their territory.
* InnerMonologue:
** Nan Adams' inner monologue, in which she tries to make sense of the hitchhiker's repeated appearances, is heard throughout "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E16TheHitchHiker The Hitch-Hiker]]".
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E37KingNineWillNotReturn King Nine Will Not Return]]" features Captain James Embry's panicked thoughts when he finds that he is alone in the [[UsefulNotes/{{Africa}} African desert]] with his B-25 Mitchell bomber ''King Nine'' in 1943.
** Michael Chambers' inner monologue is heard at various points throughout "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E89ToServeMan To Serve Man]]" as he relates the story of the Kanamits' arrival on Earth and its aftermath.
* InnocentAliens: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E97TheGift The Gift]]", Williams' goal in coming to Earth, giving humanity a CureForCancer, was entirely selfless and honorable.
* InsistentTerminology: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E53TwentyTwo Twenty-Two]]", Liz Powell's agent Barney Kamener says that she is a stripper but she corrects him by saying that she is a dancer.
* InstrumentalThemeTune: There were actually two of them. The first season featured a haunting, string-laden theme composed by Music/BernardHerrmann; this was replaced in Season 2 with a different and much more familiar theme (featuring the iconic high-pitched four-note guitar riff) composed by Marius Constant.
* 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.
* InTheDoldrums: "Time Enough at Last" has a man who only wants to read be the sole survivor when everyone else on Earth is killed off. He finally has all the time in the world to read! [[spoiler:And then he breaks his glasses.]]
* InvisibleToNormals:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E2OneForTheAngels One for the Angels]]", only the person who is about to die, initially Lou Bookman, can see Mr. Death. After Maggie Polanski is hit by a truck, she can see him as well.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E16TheHitchHiker The Hitch-Hiker]]", Nan Adams is the only one who can see the title character.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E33MrBevis Mr. Bevis]]", Mr. James B.W. Bevis is the only person who can see his GuardianAngel J. Hardy Hempstead.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E55MrDingleTheStrong Mr. Dingle, the Strong]]", neither the two-headed Martian nor the two Venusians can be seen by humans. However, they can see each other.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E81NothingInTheDark Nothing in the Dark]]", [[spoiler:the revelation that the contractor can't see Harold Beldon leads Wanda Dunn to realize that he is Death.]]
* 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.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", the [[spoiler:Chancellor]], having sentenced librarian Romney Wordsworth to death for being obsolete, is lured into a trap wherein [[spoiler:Wordsworth locks him in his apartment with the time bomb he has chosen as his method of execution. The state will not rescue the Chancellor for fear of losing face, and eventually, in front of the television audience Wordsworth has requested be witness to his execution, the panicked Chancellor begs to be set free in the name of the God the state denies even exists. His cowardice causes him to be sentenced to death as obsolete]].
* IronicEcho:
** Wordsworth does this to the Chancellor a couple of times in the penultimate scene of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]":
--->'''Wordsworth:''' You're cheating the audience. Face the camera.\\
''((later))''\\
'''Wordsworth:''' You must face the camera. It's very important. [[LampshadeHanging You said so yourself.]]
** The semi-TitleDrop of "People Are Alike All Over".
--->'''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''...
* IronicHell:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E28ANicePlaceToVisit A Nice Place to Visit]]", Rocky Valentine is a small-time crook shot dead by a policeman after a robbery, but in the afterlife, he finds his every desire catered to with no effort whatever, and he wins every game he plays, and assumes he has gone to Heaven. However, he soon grows bored of endless effortless victory, and asks Pip, the spirit guide who greeted him in the afterlife, if he can go to "the other place" for a while. Pip menacingly informs him that he's ''in'' "the other place", and will spend eternity being driven insane by getting everything he wants without trying.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E70AGameOfPool A Game of Pool]]", Jesse Cardiff laments that he will never be regarded as the greatest pool player as long as people compare him to the deceased "Fats" Brown, and wishes he could play a game against him to settle the question once and for all. When Brown's ghost appears and Cardiff defeats him, his "reward" is to spend the afterlife as Brown had previously done, defending his "greatest" title against people who wish they could play a game against him to settle the question of whether or not they really are better than he was.
* {{Irony}}: Besides its frequent use on the show, there's a meta example. A year before Dennis Weaver played a man afraid to go to sleep in the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E62ShadowPlay Shadow Play]]", he played a man with the opposite problem in the ''Series/AlfredHitchcockPresents'' episode "Insomnia".
* IsThisAJoke: Standard explanation for anything unusual and unexplainable.
* ItsAlwaysMardiGrasInNewOrleans: "The Masks" tells the story of wealthy but terminally ill New Orleans resident Jason Foster, who is visited by his useless daughter and her even more useless husband and children. The day of this visit happens to be Mardi Gras.
* JackassGenie: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E38TheManInTheBottle The Man in the Bottle]]", a genie grants Arthur Castle four wishes. His third wish is to become the head of a contemporary foreign country who can't be voted out of office. The genie turns him into UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler at the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, in a bunker under attack. Castle has to use his fourth wish to escape this fate.
* JerkassFacade: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E87APianoIntheHouse A Piano in the House]]", Fitzgerald Fortune 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. He's even shown to be a LovingBully (of the emotional variety) towards his wife because of it. In the end, the piano makes him reveal this to everybody in the room.
* JunglesSoundLikeKookaburras: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E77TheJungle The Jungle]]", Alan Richards hears sounds of the African jungle over the telephone due to the curse placed on him by the Kekouyu, yet the kookaburra sound pops up.
* JobStealingRobot: "The Brain Center at Whipple's" has a CorruptCorporateExecutive replacing factory workers with robots, a plot that was still science fiction in 1964.
* JustFollowingOrders: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E74DeathsHeadRevisited Deaths-Head Revisited]]", Gunter Lütze claims that he simply functioned as he was told in abusing and torturing the prisoners at Dachau but his flashbacks indicate that he [[PsychoForHire revelled in carrying out his orders]]. Becker describes this defense as "the Nazi theme music at Nuremberg."
%%* KafkaKomedy: "Time Enough At Last".
* 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 "Caesar and Me"]]). In his book ''The Twilight Zone Companion'', Marc Scott Zicree identifies this as a symptom of SeasonalRot.
%%* KarmicTwistEnding: Former {{Trope Namer|s}} as ''Twilight Zone Twist''.
* KlingonsLoveShakespeare: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E64WillTheRealMartianPleaseStandUp Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?]]", [[spoiler:Ross]] finds the taste of cigarettes wonderful and says that they have nothing like them on UsefulNotes/{{Mars}}. [[spoiler:He and the Venusian Haley both have a taste for human music.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: L]]
* LanguageBarrier:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E66Two Two]]", two soldiers who survived an apocalyptic war, a man and a woman, are wandering in a deserted city. They don't speak the same language. After they meet, they have to learn how to communicate.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E129Probe7OverAndOut Probe 7, Over and Out]]", two humanoid space travelers from different races, a man and a woman, are stranded on a planet. After they meet, they have to learn how to communicate with each other.
* LargeHam: More often than not, an episode will have at ''least'' one.
** Creator/RodSerling himself is a pretty big ham almost constantly in his narrations.
** Creator/WilliamShatner stars up in two episodes. (Although to be fair to Mr Shatner, he is quite reserved in his acting in "Nick Of Time". Which is ironically likely the reason most people only remember his other ''Zone'' episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".)
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]" is filled to the brim with ham...and some interpretative dance towards the end.
* LaserGuidedKarma:
** In "Judgement Night", German U-Boat captain Karl Lanser is forced to relive the sinking of a British passenger liner by a torpedo fired by his submarine over and over - [[spoiler:but as a passenger on the liner, unable to convince anyone aboard of the impending disaster]].
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E74DeathsHeadRevisited Deaths-Head Revisited]]" features SS captain Gunter Lutze, former commandant at the Dachau concentration camp, returning to the camp to reminisce. [[spoiler:The ghosts of the Jewish inmates whose deaths he ordered appear and force him to mentally experience the torture and agony to which he subjected them, and he is driven insane in a matter of hours and is taken away to an asylum.]]
* LatexPerfection: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E95HocusPocusAndFrisby Hocus-Pocus and Frisby]]", the aliens use masks which perfectly hide their true appearance. Somerset Frisby shatters their leader's mask when he punches him in the face.
* LaughTrack:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E98TheDummy The Dummy]]", one is used for the scenes in which Jerry Etherson is performing his ventriloquism act.
** 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 1980s.
* LifeDrinker:
** The title 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).
** "Queen of the Nile". A woman uses a scarab beetle to drain the life force of men so she can maintain her eternal youth. It's implied that she's the actual Cleopatra of Egypt.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle:
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E11AndWhenTheSkyWasOpened And When the Sky Was Opened]]" refers to the line "When the pie was opened" from the NurseryRhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence".
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E15IShotAnArrowIntoTheAir I Shot an Arrow into the Air]]" refers to the line "I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to Earth, I knew not where" from the 1845 poem "The Arrow and the Song" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In the episode itself, the line is misquoted as "I shot an arrow into the air, it landed, I know not where."
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E35TheMightyCasey The Mighty Casey]]" refers to the 1888 poem "Literature/CaseyAtTheBat" by Ernest Thayer.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E42TheEyeOfTheBeholder The Eye of the Beholder]]" refers to the line "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" from the 1878 novel ''Molly Bawn'' by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E60TheRipVanWinkleCaper The Rip Van Winkle Caper]]" refers to the 1819 short story "Literature/RipVanWinkle" by Washington Irving.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E74DeathsHeadRevisited Deaths-Head Revisited]]" refers to the 1945 novel ''Literature/BridesheadRevisited'' by Creator/EvelynWaugh.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E79FiveCharactersInSearchOfAnExit Five Characters in Search of an Exit]]" refers to the 1921 play ''Theatre/SixCharactersInSearchOfAnAuthor'' by Luigi Pirandello.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E100ISingTheBodyElectric I Sing the Body Electric]]" refers to the 1855 poem of the same name by Creator/WaltWhitman.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E140FromAgnesWithLove From Agnes - With Love]]" refers to the 1957 ''Literature/JamesBond'' novel ''Literature/FromRussiaWithLove'' by Creator/IanFleming.
* {{Lilliputians}}:
** {{Subverted|Trope}} in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E51TheInvaders The Invaders]]". [[spoiler:It appears for most of the episode that the invaders belong to a race of tiny aliens but it turns out that they are actually normal sized humans in a world of giants.]]
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E93TheLittlePeople The Little People]]", the astronaut Peter Craig discovers a race of tiny people no bigger than ants on another planet and [[AGodAmI immediately sets himself up as their god]]. [[LampshadeHanging Craig even compares them to the Lilliputians]]. [[spoiler:He is later killed by a giant spaceman who picked him up and accidentally crushed him in his hand.]]
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E155TheFear The Fear]]", Charlotte Scott and a highway patrolman named Robert Franklin are harassed by a 50 foot tall alien monster. [[spoiler:It turns out that the monster is in fact a giant balloon being controlled by two very small aliens. They soon leave Earth to avoid being crushed by the "giant" humans.]]
* LongingForFictionland:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E23AWorldOfDifference A World of Difference]]", Brinkley thinks that Gerald Raigan has [[LostInCharacter convinced himself that he is Arthur Curtis]], whom he is playing in ''The Private World of Arthur Curtis'', as he is attracted by the character's happy life with his loving wife Marian and daughter Tina.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E30AStopAtWilloughby A Stop at Willoughby]]", the extremely stressed advertising executive Gart Williams keeps dreaming of Willoughby, an idyllic 1888 town straight out of Creator/MarkTwain's work.
%%* LookMaNoPlane: "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".
* LouisCypher: "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E31TheChaser The Chaser]]" features a character named Professor A. Daemon. His name is suspicious enough to make the viewer wonder about his true nature, albeit that doesn't seem the case [[spoiler:at least until the end of the episode.]]
* LovePotion: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E31TheChaser The Chaser]]", Roger Shackleforth is "madly, passionately, illogically, miserably, all-consumingly in love" with Leila, who can just about stand to be around him. Under the belief that he can't live without her, he buys a love potion from Professor Daemon for $1 and slips it into her champagne. Within less than a minute, the potion takes full effect. Six months later, Roger and Leila are married but she is so [[NoSenseOfPersonalSpace exceptionally clingy and suffocating]] that Roger does not have a moment's peace. As Professor Daemon tried to warn him when he bought it, the potion [[GoneHorriblyRight worked too well]].
* LuckyRabbitsFoot:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E43NickOfTime Nick of Time]]", Don Carter carries one with him at all times, as well as a FourLeafClover.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E77TheJungle The Jungle]]", Mr. Sinclair, the president of Alan Richards' company, wears a rabbit's foot on his watch chain. Richards use this to point out that he is almost as superstitious as the Kekouyu.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: M]]
* TheMafia:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E13TheFourOfUsAreDying The Four of Us Are Dying]]", Arch Hammer imitates Virgil Sterig, a gangster who was murdered on the orders of the mob boss Penell.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E39NervousManInAFourDollarRoom Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room]]", Jackie Rhoades is a gangster who typically performs comparatively minor jobs such as breaking and entering and the occasional mugging for his boss George. As the police are well aware that Jackie does not do the big jobs, George tells him to kill the old bartender in order to throw them off the scent.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E83DeadMansShoes Dead Man's Shoes]]", Dane and Bernie Dagget were gangsters who were partners in the running of a nightclub. When Dagget offered to buy him out, Dane refused. Dagget was unwilling to accept this and had him murdered so that he could take over the club.
%%* MagicRealism
* MagicalSeventhSon: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E76StillValley Still Valley]]", the Confederate soldier Sgt. Joseph Paradine met an old man named Teague who had magical powers because he was the seventh son of a seventh son of a seventh son. He also made a DealWithTheDevil to use BlackMagic.
* MakeThemRot:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E2OneForTheAngels One for the Angels]]", Death proves his identity to Lou Bookman by touching a flower, which dies instantly.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E88TheLastRitesOfJeffMyrtlebank The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank]]", the fresh roses that the title character picks for Comfort Gatewood die within minutes of his touching them. This causes her to worry that the townsfolk's fears that Jeff CameBackWrong may be justified.
* MandatoryTwistEnding: The TwistEnding was a major staple of the series that earned the show a reputation for this, though it wasn't quite as "mandatory" as it's remembered as being.
* ManlyTears: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E79FiveCharactersInSearchOfAnExit Five Characters in Search of an Exit]]", the major begins to cry after his numerous attempts to escape the strange room fail. He is also no closer to figuring out what is going on. The ballet dancer comforts him.
* MatterOfLifeAndDeath: "Perchance to Dream".
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane:
** "The Thirty-Fathom Grave." Early on in the episode, Doc finds seaweed in the corridor where Bell claims to have seen the ghosts of his dead comrades. Additionally, one trip to the submarine reveals that a piece of the ship swinging loose could have been responsible for the banging noises...but it also reveals that one of the dead sailors was holding a hammer.
** In "The New Exhibit", a passionate (and slightly unhinged) man named Martin Senescu takes care of wax figures of famous killers in his basement after the wax museum where he works closes down. He firmly believes that they're alive, which disturbs his wife, brother-in-law, and former boss. All three end up being killed, apparently by the figures--but the ending suggests that it was actually ''Senescu'' committing the murders, and simply imagining the figures did it as a coping mechanism. It's not clear which is true.
** "The Fever": The events of most of the episode could be explained by Mr. Gibbs becoming increasingly unhinged through obsession and lack of sleep. Subverted at the end when the slot machine moves after his death.
* MeaningfulName:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E3MrDentonOnDoomsday Mr. Denton on Doomsday]]", the peddler who gives Al Denton the gun and later the potion is named Henry J. Fate.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", the librarian Romney Wordsworth is declared obsolete by the state as [[CulturePolice all books are banned]].
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E84TheHunt The Hunt]]", Hyder Simpson's dog is named Rip, as in RIP. This [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadows]] the revelation that the two of them have been DeadAllAlong.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E109JessBelle Jess-Belle]]", the title character Jess-Belle Stone is named after Jezebel from the Literature/BooksOfKings.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E137Number12LooksJustLikeYou Number 12 Looks Just Like You]]", two of the women who underwent the Number 12 transformation, as Lana did, are named Jane and Doe. This refers to the fact that the people of this society are all beautiful and therefore essentially anonymous as they lack individuality. Furthermore, the psychiatrist is named [[UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud Professor Sigmund Friend]].
* MeaninglessVillainVictory: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E60TheRipVanWinkleCaper The Rip Van Winkle Caper]]", a group of gold thieves put themselves to sleep for 100 years to escape the cops, only to start backstabbing and killing each other off once they awaken, just so they can hoard the gold for themselves. And then it turns out in the future, [[WorthlessYellowRocks gold is worthless]]. Fittingly, the last of them dies begging a nearby driver for water in exchange for a bar of gold, much to the driver's confusion.
* MechanisticAlienCulture: Many episodes of the classic sci-fi anthology featured aliens with ambiguously robotic characteristics. "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E55MrDingleTheStrong Mr. Dingle, the Strong]]", for example, featured one with [[BizarreAlienBiology two heads]].
* MentalTimeTravel: In the final scene of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E56Static Static]]", [[spoiler:the bitter bachelor Ed Lindsay is sent back in time in 1940 so that he can marry Vinnie Brown. Not marrying her when he had the opportunity is the biggest mistake of his life.]]
* MesACrowd: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E63TheMindAndTheMatter The Mind and the Matter]]", Archibald Beechcroft eventually hits on the idea of creating a world full of Beechcrofts using his [[RealityWarper ability to manipulate reality]] but he quickly discovers that a lot of him is as bad as a lot of everyone else.
* MexicanStandOff: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E66Two Two]]", the man and woman find discarded weapons and briefly point them at each other in spite of their attempts to get along.
* AMindIsATerribleThingToRead: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E52APennyForYourThoughts A Penny for Your Thoughts]]", Hector B. Poole discovers how petty and self-centered the people around him can be when he becomes inexplicably psychic. It's not as bad as some cases [[spoiler:(and it helps him get the girl, Helen Turner)]], but he's still relieved when his newfound power vanishes.
* MindRape: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E73ItsAGoodLife It's a Good Life]]", Aunt Amy was the only person who could exercise any control over Anthony Fremont, until she offended him by singing in his presence and his mind "snapped" at her. She's left as a shell of her former self, smiling vacantly and no longer watching how she acts or what she says around Anthony.
* MindOverMatter: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E57ThePrimeMover The Prime Mover]]", Jimbo Cobb has possessed the power of telekinesis all of his life. When he was young, he assumed that [[IThoughtEveryoneCouldDoThat everyone had this ability]]. He stopped using his ability as it frequently got him into trouble in school and gave him headaches. He is forced to reveal it when a car turns over outside of the Happy Daze Café, which he owns with his friend Ace Larson, and there is no other way to save the people inside. Ace sees the possibilities of Jimbo's power and the two of them take a trip to UsefulNotes/LasVegas, where Jimbo uses his ability to move the dice as Ace pleases.
* MinimalistCast:
** Earl Holliman is the only actor to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E1WhereIsEverybody Where Is Everybody?]]" until the last five minutes.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E9PerchanceToDream Perchance to Dream]]" only features three credited actors: Richard Conte, John Larch and Suzanne Lloyd.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E36AWorldOfHisOwn A World of His Own]]" only features three actors: Keenan Wynn, Phyllis Kirk and Mary [=LaRoche=].
** Robert Cummings is the only actor to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E37KingNineWillNotReturn King Nine Will Not Return]]" until the last five minutes.
** Only two actors appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E39NervousManInAFourDollarRoom Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room]]": Joe Mantell and William D. Gordon, who only appears in two scenes.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E46AMostUnusualCamera A Most Unusual Camera]]" only features four credited actors: Fred Clark, Jean Carson, Adam Williams and Marcel Hillaire.
** Creator/AgnesMoorehead is the only actor to appear on screen in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E51TheInvaders The Invaders]]". The director Douglas Heyes has a voice over cameo as one of the "tiny" astronauts in the final scene.
** As the title would suggest, "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E66Two Two]]" features only two actors: Creator/CharlesBronson and Creator/ElizabethMontgomery.
** Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters are the only credited actors to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E70AGameOfPool A Game of Pool]]". An uncredited female actress has a brief voice over role in the two scenes set in the afterlife.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E81NothingInTheDark Nothing in the Dark]]" features only three actors: Gladys Cooper, Creator/RobertRedford and R.G. Armstrong.
** The only credited actors to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E91LittleGirlLost Little Girl Lost]]" are Sarah Marshall, Robert Sampson and Charles Aidman. Although they are uncredited, Tracy Stratford and Creator/JuneForay nevertheless play prominent roles.
** Creator/MickeyRooney is the only actor to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E125TheLastNightOfAJockey The Last Night of a Jockey]]".
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E128UncleSimon Uncle Simon]]" only features three credited actors: Cedric Hardwicke, Constance Ford and Ian Wolfe.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E129Probe7OverAndOut Probe 7, Over and Out]]" only features four actors: Richard Basehart, Antoinette Bower, Harold Gould and Barton Heyman.
** Collin Wilcox, Richard Long, Pamela Austin and Suzy Parker are the only actors to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E137Number12LooksJustLikeYou Number 12 Looks Just Like You]]". With the exception of Wilcox, they all play multiple roles.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E139NightCall Night Call]]" only features three credited actors: Gladys Cooper, Nora Marlowe and Martine Bartlett. The voice of an uncredited male actor is heard in the final scene.
** Creator/MartinLandau, John Van Dreelen and Bob Kelljan are the only actors to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E149TheJeopardyRoom The Jeopardy Room]]".
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E150StopoverInAQuietTown Stopover in a Quiet Town]]" only features two credited actors: Barry Nelson and Nancy Malone.
** Neville Brand and Creator/GeorgeTakei are the only actors to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E151TheEncounter The Encounter]]".
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E154ComeWanderWithMe Come Wander With Me]]" only features four actors: Gary Crosby, Bonnie Beecher, Jonathan Bolt and Hank Patterson.
** Peter Mark Richman and Hazel Court are the only credited actors to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E155TheFear The Fear]]".
* MirrorUniverse: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E21MirrorImage Mirror Image]]", Millicent Barnes speculates that the appearance of her {{Doppelganger}} at the bus terminal is due to the normal universe converging with an alternate universe and that her doppelgänger must eliminate her in order to remain in the normal universe. Paul Grinstead later learns that she is right.
* MissedTheCall: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E86KickTheCan Kick the Can]]", Ben Conroy's failure to step out of his comfort zone, even for a moment, and play kick-the-can bars him forever from joining the other Sunnyvale Rest Home residents and [[FountainOfYouth becoming young again]].
* MissingReflection:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E11AndWhenTheSkyWasOpened And When the Sky Was Opened]]", Colonel Clegg Forbes realizes that he is about to [[RetGone disappear]] when he sees that he no longer has a reflection.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E32APassageForTrumpet A Passage for Trumpet]]", Joey Crown discovers that he does not have a reflection when he looks into the mirror at the cinema. It is later revealed that this is because he is a state of limbo between life and death.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E81NothingInTheDark Nothing in the Dark]]", [[spoiler:Wanda Dunn's suspicion that Harold Beldon is Death is confirmed when he tells her to look in the mirror and she sees that he has no reflection.]]
* MisspellingOutLoud: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E35TheMightyCasey The Mighty Casey]]", the Hoboken Zephyrs manager Mouth [=McGarry=] tells the robot pitcher Casey's creator Dr. Stillman never to say the word "R-O-B-B-O-T-T" as he doesn't want anyone else to find out.
* MistakenFromBehind: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E23AWorldOfDifference A World of Difference]]", Arthur Curtis mistakes a little girl for his daughter Tina from behind.
* MisterSandmanSequence: In the first scene of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E78OnceUponATime Once Upon a Time]]", Woodrow Mulligan is walking through the Harmony town square on March 10, 1890 and complains about the high prices of sirloin steak (17c per lb) and ladies' hats ($1.95). The speed limit for bicycles is then shown as being eight miles per hour.
* MobileKiosk:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E2OneForTheAngels One for the Angels]]", Lou Bookman has a mobile pitch: a suitcase with extendable legs. When he finishes a pitch, he collapses the legs back into the suitcase and moves on.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E12WhatYouNeed What You Need]]", Pedott has a similar setup.
* MonochromeCasting: In an [[InvertedTrope inversion]] of the usual application of this trope in 1960, all of the actors with speaking roles in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E27TheBigTallWish The Big Tall Wish]]", with the exception of Walter Burke, are African-Americans. It is especially notable as the episode did not concern racial issues.
* MoodWhiplash: "A Kind of a Stopwatch" is a very funny episode until [[spoiler:the watch breaks, trapping [=McNulty=] in a timeless world forever.]]
* MotorMouth: [=McNulty=], the main character of the episode "A Kind of Stop Watch.”
* MuggleSportsSuperAthletes: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E90TheFugitive The Fugitive]]", while playing softball with Jenny and other neighborhood children, Ben uses his alien abilities to hit the ball over the fence with little to no effort.
* MultipleHeadCase: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E55MrDingleTheStrong Mr. Dingle, the Strong]]", the Martian scientist's two heads each have their own personality. They seem to get along well.
* TheMultiverse: The main character of "The Parallel" discovers that he has accidentally stumbled into a [[AlternateDimension parallel world]] with a [[AlternateHistory similar chronology]] to his own.
* MundaneWish: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E38TheManInTheBottle The Man in the Bottle]]", Arthur and Edna Curtis' first wish (out of four) is to have a pane of glass in their shop repaired, in order to [[GodTest test the genie's power]] first. The couple then proceeds to waste their remaining wishes, but in the end console themselves with the thought that at least the glass got repaired. Arthur then accidentally breaks the pane with the end of his sweeping brush. He and Edna begin laughing.
* MundaneUtility: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E57ThePrimeMover The Prime Mover]]", Ace Larson employs Jimbo Cobb's telekinesis to help him win at gambling.
* MurderBallad: Used as a PlotDevice in "Come Wander with Me".
* MurderousMannequin: Subverted in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E34TheAfterHours The After Hours]]"; Marsha White is, at first, understandably terrified when the mannequins come to life, but it soon becomes apparent that they are friendly, and only want [[spoiler:[[TomatoInTheMirror her to remember that she is also a mannequin]]]].
* MyCarHatesMe:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E40AThingAboutMachines A Thing About Machines]]", Bartlett Finchley is chased by his car, which corrals him to his pool and pushes him in. He quickly sinks to the bottom and drowns.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E134YouDrive You Drive]]", Oliver Pope is distracted while driving and kills a young neighborhood boy named Timmy Danbers in a hit-and-run accident. His car soon begins to behave strangely, honking its horn and turning on its lights by itself. When Oliver's wife Lilian later attempts to drive it, the car drives itself to the scene of the accident. The car eventually tries to run Oliver down but stops at the last moment. It then opens its passenger door, instructing Oliver to get in, and drives him to the police station so that he can confess.
* MyGrandsonMyself: In "Queen of the Nile", Pamela Morris lives with the elderly Mrs. Viola Draper, ostensibly her mother. She is actually [[spoiler:Pamela's daughter and Pamela is at least several hundred years old, heavily implied to have been Cleopatra.]]
* MyGreatestFailure: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E67TheArrival The Arrival]]", the disappearance of Flight 107 is the only case that the FAA investigator Grant Sheckly was never able to solve in 22 years on the job. He was so [[TraumaInducedAmnesia traumatized by his failure that he repressed his memory of the case]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder: N]]
* NamedByTheAdaptation:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E9PerchanceToDream Perchance to Dream]]", the girl in the dream and the psychiatrist are named Maya and Dr. Elliot Rathmann respectively. Neither character is given a name in the short story by Charles Beaumont.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E31TheChaser The Chaser]]", the potion seller is named Professor A. Daemon. In the short story by John Collier, he is not given a name.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E73ItsAGoodLife It's a Good Life]]", Anthony Fremont's mother is named Agnes. In the [[Literature/ItsAGoodLife short story]] by Jerome Bixby, her first name is not given.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E91LittleGirlLost Little Girl Lost]]", Chris, Ruth and Tina's surname is Miller. In the [[Literature/LittleGirlLost short story]] by Creator/RichardMatheson, their surname is not given.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E94FourOClock Four O'Clock]]", the protagonist is named Oliver Crangle. In the short story by Price Day, his first name is not given.
* NamelessNarrative: None of the characters in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E79FiveCharactersInSearchOfAnExit Five Characters in Search of an Exit]]" are given names.
* NapoleonDelusion: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E92PersonOrPersonsUnknown Person or Persons Unknown]]", one of David Gurney's fellow patients believes that he is UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill.
* ANaziByAnyOtherName:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E42TheEyeOfTheBeholder Eye of the Beholder]]", the Leader is based on UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. In his speech, he continually stresses the importance of ensuring "glorious conformity" and abiding by a single norm. He says that all that is different must be cut out like a cancerous filth as differences weaken the state.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", the State is based on various totalitarian regimes. In his opening narration, Rod Serling says that "it has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time." The Chancellor himself says that the State had predecessors who had the right idea such as UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler and UsefulNotes/JosefStalin but they did not go far enough in eliminating the undesirables such as the elderly, the sick, the maimed and the deformed.
* NaziProtagonist:
** "Death's Head Revisited" centered around a former concentration camp officer at Dachau who revisits the camp to relive his happy memories of the many atrocities he committed during the war. He eventually receives [[LaserGuidedKarma karmic justice]] from the souls of his victims.
** The main character of "He's Alive" is an American Nazi who becomes increasingly popular thanks to guidance from a mysterious advisor. Since said advice includes murdering one of his own followers to create a martyr, justice catches up with him too.
** TheReveal of "Judgment Night" is that the main character was one of these [[EvilAllAlong all along]].
%%* NeverSleepAgain: "Perchance to Dream", "Ninety Years Without Slumbering"
* NewspaperDating: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E59AHundredYardsOverTheRim A Hundred Yards over the Rim]]", Chris Horn, who is from 1847, realizes that he is in the future when he sees a calendar dated 1961 in Joe's diner.
* NiceCharacterMeanActor: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E85ShowdownWithRanceMcGrew Showdown with Rance McGrew]]", whereas the fictional Marshal Rance [=McGrew=] is extremely courageous and never hesitates in the face of danger, [[TheDanza the actor of the same name]] turns up late for work, snaps at the director and other members of the crew at every opportunity and demands that a stuntman be used for even the simplest scenes.
* NiceShoes: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E83DeadMansShoes Dead Man's Shoes]]", Dane wore a very expensive and distinctive pair of two-tone black and white shoes before he was murdered. When Nate Bledsoe puts them on, Dane's personality takes over his body. [[spoiler:After Dagget kills Dane, the same thing happens again when Chips puts on the shoes.]]
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: The subject of "I Am the Night--Color Me Black". It only happens in certain areas of the world that are dominated by hatred.
* NoAntagonist: ''Many'' episodes.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E71TheMirror The Mirror]]", Ramos Clemente is a not-so-subtle {{Expy}} of UsefulNotes/FidelCastro while Tabal's appearance is clearly based on that of UsefulNotes/CheGuevara. The entire episode, which was made between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, is one long TakeThat at Castro. In his closing narration, Rod Serling even says that "any resemblance to tyrants living or dead is hardly coincidental." Funnily enough, General De Cruz mentions both Castro and his predecessor General Fulgencio Batista, the former right-wing dictator of UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}} on whom De Cruz himself is based, in the first scene.
* NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E28ANicePlaceToVisit A Nice Place to Visit]]", an inveterate criminal dies and goes to the afterlife: a pleasant place where he gets everything he wants and all his gambles always pay off. He becomes dissatisfied and asks to be sent to [[{{Hell}} The Other Place]], saying he doesn't belong in Heaven. The reply he gets: [[spoiler:"[[ThisIsntHeaven Whatever gave you the idea you were in Heaven]], Mr. Valentine? [[WhamLine This]] ''[[WhamLine is]]'' [[WhamLine the other place!]]"]]
* NoDialogueEpisode:
** Throughout "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E51TheInvaders The Invaders]]", the main character makes plenty of noises as she fends off tiny aliens, but none of it is dialogue. Aside from Serling's narrations, the only spoken dialogue comes when the last and soon-to-be-killed invader sends a distress call back home. [[spoiler:The tiny invaders are then revealed to be humans from Earth. This revelation subsequently justifies the trope, as the woman is a (giant) alien and wouldn't know English or any other language from Earth.]]
** "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", one of the final episodes - actually an unrelated, Oscar-winning short film that Serling purchased the rights to and had re-edited into an episode - also contains virtually no dialogue beyond Serling's narration.
* NoEnding: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E54TheOdysseyOfFlight33 The Odyssey of Flight 33]]", we never whether the titular plane is able to return to 1961.
* NoImmortalInertia: "Long Live Walter Jameson". A man lives more than 2,000 years due to drinking a alchemical potion of immortality. When he's shot and mortally wounded, the effect wears off and he ages into dust in minutes.
* NonSpecificallyForeign: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E68TheShelter The Shelter]]", after the crisis begins, Frank Henderson is continually racist towards the foreign-born Marty Weiss, describing him as a "pushy, grabby, semi-American" and later refers to "you and your kind." However, it is never stated what country Marty is from.
* NoTimeToExplain: "Passage on the ''Lady Anne''". [[spoiler:As it turns out, it's a ship only meant for dying/wanting to die people.]]
%%* NostalgiaAintLikeItUsedToBe: "The Incredible World of Horace Ford"
* NostalgiaFilter: Happens in "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville". CorruptCorporateExecutive Feathersmith makes a DealWithTheDevil to go back in time and relive his life, in order to enjoy once again the climb from a nobody to a tyrannical titan of industry. However, things in his youth weren't exactly as nice as he remembered. For example, he forgets that vaccines weren't invented at that time, the streets are still unpaved, and the girl he reminisced about was nowhere near as attractive or charming as he remembered. This is on top of all the ''other'' mistakes he makes...
* NotSoDifferent: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E71TheMirror The Mirror]]", it becomes apparent throughout the episode that there is little difference between the revolutionary Ramos Clemente and General De Cruz, the previous dictator whom he overthrew. De Cruz himself realizes this when he is brought before Clemente.
%%* NotSoImaginaryFriend: "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "Mirror Image".
[[/folder]]
[[folder: O-P]]
* OddballInTheSeries:
** The first season finale "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E36AWorldOfHisOwn A World of His Own]]" marked the first time thst Rod Serling appeared on screen, but at the end, not the beginning. It's also the only time that Serling is a character in the story interacting with the other characters.
** "Literature/AnOccurrenceAtOwlCreekBridge" is a French silent film adaptation of the classic Creator/AmbroseBierce story, which Serling acquired and ran on American television as a ''Twilight Zone'' episode, with only a few minor edits.
* OneCharacterMultipleLives: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E23AWorldOfDifference A World of Difference]]", Arthur Curtis finds himself switching between two worlds - one where he's a normal businessman and another where he's an alcoholic actor named Gerry Raigan who's playing the role of businessman Arthur Curtis in the film ''The Private World of Arthur Curtis''.
* OneGenderRace: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E55MrDingleTheStrong Mr. Dingle, the Strong]]", one Martian notes that one of the three planets on their itinery after Earth seems particularly interesting, since it contains only females.
* OneWordTitle: "Elegy", "Execution", "Dust", "Static", "Two", "Mute", "Miniature" and "Steel".
* OnOneCondition:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E70AGameOfPool A Game of Pool]]", Fats Brown agrees to play one game of pool with Jesse Cardiff on condition that Jesse will die if he loses. Although he is initially reluctant, Jesse accepts.
** In "The Masks", Jason Foster tells his daughter and her family that unless they wear the Mardi Gras masks he has made for them until midnight, their inheritance when he dies will consist solely of train fare back to their home in UsefulNotes/{{Boston}}.
** In "Uncle Simon", Barbara Polk is told she has inherited her misanthropic uncle's entire estate, as long as she sells none of it and looks after his last invention: a robot which [[spoiler:gradually takes on his personality, and eventually speaks in his voice.]]
* OnTheNext: Each episode ends with Rod Serling telling the audience about the next episode. For season four, clips from the episodes were also shown.
* OntologicalInertia: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E49BackThere Back There]]", during a discussion about traveling back to time to the day before the Wall Street Crash, Peter Corrigan argues that history cannot be changed as the events of October 24, 1929 are a part of established history. When he is sent back in time himself, he learns that some things can in fact be changed. Peter was unable to prevent Lincoln's assassination but inadvertently changes history in a more minor way. The police officer who believed his story made a name for himself for seemingly predicting the assassination. As a result, he became Chief of Police, a councilman and a millionaire after investing in real estate. In the original history, his great-grandson William was an attendant at the Potomac Club but a member of the club in the altered history.
* OntologicalMystery: "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E1WhereIsEverybody Where Is Everybody?]]", "Judgment Night", "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E79FiveCharactersInSearchOfAnExit Five Characters in Search of an Exit]]", and "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E150StopoverInAQuietTown Stopover in a Quiet Town]]" all deal with the protagonists [[YouWakeUpInARoom awakening]] in strange environments under mysterious circumstances, then trying to figure out where they are and how they got there.
* OpenDoorOpening: During the fourth and fifth seasons.
* OpeningNarration: Over the course of the series, five different opening narrations were used in the title sequence:
** The first was used from "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E1WhereIsEverybody Where is Everybody?]]" to "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E32APassageForTrumpet A Passage for Trumpet]]".
--->"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to Man. It is a dimension as vast as space, and as timeless as infinity. It is the middleground between light and shadow, between science and superstition; and it lies between the pit of Man's fears, and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call...the Twilight Zone."
** The second was used from "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E33MrBevis Mr. Bevis]]" to "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E36AWorldOfHisOwn A World of His Own]]", the final four episodes of Season One.
--->"You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!"
** The third was used in Season Two.
--->"You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Twilight Zone!"
** The fourth was used in Season Three.
--->"You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!"
** The fifth was used in Seasons Four and Five.
--->"You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension - a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone."
* OurGhostsAreDifferent:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E70AGameOfPool A Game of Pool]]", Fats Brown comes down from the afterlife as soon as Jesse inadvertently challenges him to a pool game. [[spoiler:Jesse beats Fats and, after he dies, he has to return to Earth every time that he is challenged, having become trapped in a kind of IronicHell.]]
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E85ShowdownWithRanceMcGrew Showdown with Rance McGrew]]", UsefulNotes/JesseJames returns to Earth to tell Rance [=McGrew=] that he, his brother Frank, UsefulNotes/BillyTheKid, Sam Starr and the Dalton brothers, among others, are angry at the inaccurate way in which they are depicted in his show. He eventually assumes the role of [=McGrew=]'s agent to ensure that the series is more accurate from now on.
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E58LongDistanceCall Long Distance Call]]", Grandma Bayles lost two children before her son Chris was born. She never forgave Chris for marrying Sylvia and leaving her. Part of the reason that she was so attached to her grandson Billy was that he [[FreudianExcuse reminded her of her first two children]].
* ParodyAssistance: Serling played a dual role in ''Radio/TheJackBennyProgram'''s TZ spoof, appearing both AsHimself and as the mayor of the actual Twilight Zone.
%%* PeggySue: "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville".
* PeopleZoo: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E25PeopleAreAlikeAllOver People Are Alike All Over]]", the inhabitants of the planet UsefulNotes/{{Mars}} put the Earth astronaut Sam Conrad in a house that acts as a zoo habitat.
* ThePerilsOfBeingTheBest: This theme was explored in several episodes.
** "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" shows us RetiredGunfighter Al Denton, who took the lives of so many challengers who wanted to defeat him and claim his title of FastestGunInTheWest that it psychologically broke him and turned him into a washed up drunk. When he regains his gunfighter abilities, he has to go through it all for a second time against a new set of challengers. When his hand is crippled at the end of the episode so that he'll never be able to use a gun again, he considers it a blessing.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E70AGameOfPool A Game of Pool]]" throughly [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructs]] this trope. Jesse Cardiff, a pool shark praised as the best living player, complains that no matter what he does, he'll never be as good as "Fats" Brown, a deceased legend. Fats arrives from the afterlife to play a game which will determine which of them is truly the best. As they do, they discuss what it means to excel at something--Fats points out that while he's only a pool player, he's the ''greatest'' pool player, which allows him pride. The ending, though, reveals that whoever holds that title is forced to spend his or her entire afterlife defending it from those who want to try for it, until someone else defeats the champ. Serling sums it up when he remarks that "being the best of anything carries with it a special obligation to keep on proving it."
* PerpetualFrowner: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E87APianoIntheHouse A Piano in the House]]", the butler Marvin never smiles to the point that Fitzgerald Fortune considers firing him because he finds his presence depressing. However, the piano reveals that Marvin is a very happy person who often has to stop himself from laughing at Fortune when he has one of his tantrums.
* PersecutedIntellectuals:
** In "Time Enough at Last", everyone looks down on and picks on Henry Bemis (Burgess Meredith) for being a reader.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", Romney Wordsworth, the librarian (also played by Burgess Meredith) is considered obsolete, as books have been banned.
* PhoneCallFromTheDead:
** In "Night Call", an invalid starts receiving mysterious phone calls. The calls are eventually traced to a cemetery, where a fallen phone line is in contact with the grave of her deceased fiancé.
** "Long Distance Call" has a grandmother calling from beyond the grave and urging her beloved grandchild toward acts of suicide so they can be together again.
* PilotMovie: In 1958, Rod Serling wrote a teleplay ("The Time Element") which he hoped to turn into a weekly anthology series. It's often included in the series' canon as its lost pilot episode.
* PlayingWithFire:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E73ItsAGoodLife It's a Good Life]]", it is mentioned that Anthony set Teddy Reynolds on fire for thinking mean thoughts about him.
** In the final scene of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E88TheLastRitesOfJeffMyrtlebank The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank]]", the title character demonstrates this ability when he lights a match without striking it. He tells his fiancée Comfort Gatewood that it was just her imagination.
* PleaseDontLeaveMe: A rare non-dying example occurs at the end of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E87APianoIntheHouse A Piano in the House]]". The titular instrument reveals that {{Jerkass}} Fitzgerald Fortune's cruelty is simply a mask for his true persona: a misanthropic, frightened child terrified of the world and unable to react to others with anything but disgust and hatred. This revelation comes during a party, and all of the guests (including Fortune's wife) leave after Fortune's breakdown; he screams like a toddler, declaring that he doesn't want them to go and threatening to be "very naughty" if they do.
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: "Mr. Bevis" and "Cavender is Coming" were both intended as possible pilot episodes for a spinoff show, but this never materialized.
* PragmaticAdaptation: Episodes adapted from short stories were often massaged a bit. In Creator/DamonKnight's short story "To Serve Man", the alien representatives are described as looking like pigs. The producers thought the audience would find this too silly, so the alien makeup is the more conventional [[MyBrainIsBig tall-head]] variety. (Ironically, another iconic episode, "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E42TheEyeOfTheBeholder Eye of the Beholder]]", ''did'' feature characters wearing pig-like masks.)
* PrestigePeril: The episode "The Man in the Bottle" has a man wish to be the leader of a modern country who cannot be voted out of position...only to find that he's Adolf Hitler, and it's the end of World War II.
* PrettyInMink: Some furs are worn in some episodes, such as "Twenty-Two", and especially in "A Nice Place to Visit" to show the supposed grand nature of the place.
* ProfessionalGambler: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E96TheTradeIns The Trade-Ins]]", in the hope of winning enough money to afford a second procedure so that he and his wife Marie can both be young again, John Holt takes part in a high stakes poker game run by the professional gambler Mr. Farraday. He loses most of his money over several hands. Farraday is moved when he learns why John is playing and by the fact that he is desperate to have the procedure done due to the terrible pain that he is experiencing. John has three kings and hopes to win back the $5,000 that he lost. Although Farraday has three aces, he takes sympathy and allows John to win.
%%* PropheticFallacy
* ProsceniumReveal: "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E4TheSixteenMillimeterShrine The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine]]" opens with Barbara Jean Trenton bidding farewell to her man, a soldier who is going off to war. It is soon revealed to be a scene from ''Farewell Without Tears'', one of Barbara's old films.
* PsychicStrangle: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E41TheHowlingMan The Howling Man]]", the Devil uses one on David Ellington [[UngratefulBastard as soon as he releases him from his confinement]].
* PublicExecution:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", Romney Wordsworth uses the opportunity provided by his televised execution for being obsolete to demonstrate that [[spoiler:the Chancellor is nothing more than a DirtyCoward by trapping him in his room until just before the bomb explodes]]. The Chancellor also mentions that the executions of 1,300 people in six hours were shown on television the previous year.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E71TheMirror The Mirror]]", Ramos Clemente orders the mass public execution of 1,000 prisoners, all of whom are former followers of General De Cruz. The executions continue unabated for a week, to the horror of the people. Clemente tells Father Tomas that they will continue so long as he has enemies.
* PurgatoryAndLimbo:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E32APassageForTrumpet A Passage for Trumpet]]", after the drunken Joey Crown deliberately steps off the curb as [[DrivenToSuicide part of a suicide attempt]], he is hit by a truck and enters a limbo state between life and death.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E69ThePassersby The Passersby]]", [[spoiler:it turns out that the dirt road outside Lavinia Godwin's house is Purgatory. She and UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln are the last people to walk down the road and into the afterlife.]]
** {{Discussed|Trope}} in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E79FiveCharactersInSearchOfAnExit Five Characters in Search of an Exit]]". The hobo speculates that they are trapped in Limbo.
[[/folder]]
----
!!''The Twilight Zone (1995)'' provides examples of:
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: I-K]]
* IJustWantToBeNormal: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E42TheEyeOfTheBeholder Eye of the Beholder]]", Janet Tyler has had ten previous reconstructive surgeries to correct her deformity over the years and is awaiting the results of her eleventh. She tells the nurse that she never wanted to be beautiful, only for people not to scream when they looked at her.
* IllegalReligion: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", the State claims to have determined that Main/{{God}} does not exist and therefore has banned any form of religion. Possessing a [[Literature/TheBible Bible]] is punishable by death.
* ImAHumanitarian: The twist ending of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E89ToServeMan To Serve Man]]" reveals that [[spoiler:the title book is a cookbook; the seemingly benevolent aliens are harvesting humans for food]].
%%* ImmortalityImmorality: "Love Live Walter Jameson", "Queen of the Nile".
* ImmuneToBullets: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E69ThePassersby The Passersby]]", the Union soldier that Lavinia Godwin shoots suffers no ill effects from the bullet [[spoiler:as he is already dead]].
%%* ImportedAlienPhlebotinum
* IncredibleShrinkingMan: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E94FourOClock Four O'Clock]]", the fanatical ConspiracyTheorist Oliver Crangle plans to shrink all of the so-called evil people whom he believes are trying to destroy the United States at four o'clock. [[spoiler:When the time comes, Crangle is shrunk himself.]]
* InnocenceLost: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E86KickTheCan Kick the Can]]", Charles Whitley regrets that growing up means having to let go of childhood games and beliefs, recalling that Ben Conroy once believed in magic. He thinks that people start to grow old as soon as they stop playing these games.
* InjunCountry: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E59AHundredYardsOverTheRim A Hundred Yards over the Rim]]", Charlie, a member of Chris Horn's wagon train in 1847, is worried about being attacked by the Apache as the expedition is approaching their territory.
* InnerMonologue:
** Nan Adams' inner monologue, in which she tries to make sense of the hitchhiker's repeated appearances, is heard throughout "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E16TheHitchHiker The Hitch-Hiker]]".
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E37KingNineWillNotReturn King Nine Will Not Return]]" features Captain James Embry's panicked thoughts when he finds that he is alone in the [[UsefulNotes/{{Africa}} African desert]] with his B-25 Mitchell bomber ''King Nine'' in 1943.
** Michael Chambers' inner monologue is heard at various points throughout "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E89ToServeMan To Serve Man]]" as he relates the story of the Kanamits' arrival on Earth and its aftermath.
* InnocentAliens: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E97TheGift The Gift]]", Williams' goal in coming to Earth, giving humanity a CureForCancer, was entirely selfless and honorable.
* InsistentTerminology: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E53TwentyTwo Twenty-Two]]", Liz Powell's agent Barney Kamener says that she is a stripper but she corrects him by saying that she is a dancer.
* InstrumentalThemeTune: There were actually two of them. The first season featured a haunting, string-laden theme composed by Music/BernardHerrmann; this was replaced in Season 2 with a different and much more familiar theme (featuring the iconic high-pitched four-note guitar riff) composed by Marius Constant.
* 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.
* InTheDoldrums: "Time Enough at Last" has a man who only wants to read be the sole survivor when everyone else on Earth is killed off. He finally has all the time in the world to read! [[spoiler:And then he breaks his glasses.]]
* InvisibleToNormals:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E2OneForTheAngels One for the Angels]]", only the person who is about to die, initially Lou Bookman, can see Mr. Death. After Maggie Polanski is hit by a truck, she can see him as well.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E16TheHitchHiker The Hitch-Hiker]]", Nan Adams is the only one who can see the title character.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E33MrBevis Mr. Bevis]]", Mr. James B.W. Bevis is the only person who can see his GuardianAngel J. Hardy Hempstead.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E55MrDingleTheStrong Mr. Dingle, the Strong]]", neither the two-headed Martian nor the two Venusians can be seen by humans. However, they can see each other.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E81NothingInTheDark Nothing in the Dark]]", [[spoiler:the revelation that the contractor can't see Harold Beldon leads Wanda Dunn to realize that he is Death.]]
* 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.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", the [[spoiler:Chancellor]], having sentenced librarian Romney Wordsworth to death for being obsolete, is lured into a trap wherein [[spoiler:Wordsworth locks him in his apartment with the time bomb he has chosen as his method of execution. The state will not rescue the Chancellor for fear of losing face, and eventually, in front of the television audience Wordsworth has requested be witness to his execution, the panicked Chancellor begs to be set free in the name of the God the state denies even exists. His cowardice causes him to be sentenced to death as obsolete]].
* IronicEcho:
** Wordsworth does this to the Chancellor a couple of times in the penultimate scene of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]":
--->'''Wordsworth:''' You're cheating the audience. Face the camera.\\
''((later))''\\
'''Wordsworth:''' You must face the camera. It's very important. [[LampshadeHanging You said so yourself.]]
** The semi-TitleDrop of "People Are Alike All Over".
--->'''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''...
* IronicHell:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E28ANicePlaceToVisit A Nice Place to Visit]]", Rocky Valentine is a small-time crook shot dead by a policeman after a robbery, but in the afterlife, he finds his every desire catered to with no effort whatever, and he wins every game he plays, and assumes he has gone to Heaven. However, he soon grows bored of endless effortless victory, and asks Pip, the spirit guide who greeted him in the afterlife, if he can go to "the other place" for a while. Pip menacingly informs him that he's ''in'' "the other place", and will spend eternity being driven insane by getting everything he wants without trying.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E70AGameOfPool A Game of Pool]]", Jesse Cardiff laments that he will never be regarded as the greatest pool player as long as people compare him to the deceased "Fats" Brown, and wishes he could play a game against him to settle the question once and for all. When Brown's ghost appears and Cardiff defeats him, his "reward" is to spend the afterlife as Brown had previously done, defending his "greatest" title against people who wish they could play a game against him to settle the question of whether or not they really are better than he was.
* {{Irony}}: Besides its frequent use on the show, there's a meta example. A year before Dennis Weaver played a man afraid to go to sleep in the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E62ShadowPlay Shadow Play]]", he played a man with the opposite problem in the ''Series/AlfredHitchcockPresents'' episode "Insomnia".
* IsThisAJoke: Standard explanation for anything unusual and unexplainable.
* ItsAlwaysMardiGrasInNewOrleans: "The Masks" tells the story of wealthy but terminally ill New Orleans resident Jason Foster, who is visited by his useless daughter and her even more useless husband and children. The day of this visit happens to be Mardi Gras.
* JackassGenie: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E38TheManInTheBottle The Man in the Bottle]]", a genie grants Arthur Castle four wishes. His third wish is to become the head of a contemporary foreign country who can't be voted out of office. The genie turns him into UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler at the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, in a bunker under attack. Castle has to use his fourth wish to escape this fate.
* JerkassFacade: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E87APianoIntheHouse A Piano in the House]]", Fitzgerald Fortune 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. He's even shown to be a LovingBully (of the emotional variety) towards his wife because of it. In the end, the piano makes him reveal this to everybody in the room.
* JunglesSoundLikeKookaburras: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E77TheJungle The Jungle]]", Alan Richards hears sounds of the African jungle over the telephone due to the curse placed on him by the Kekouyu, yet the kookaburra sound pops up.
* JobStealingRobot: "The Brain Center at Whipple's" has a CorruptCorporateExecutive replacing factory workers with robots, a plot that was still science fiction in 1964.
* JustFollowingOrders: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E74DeathsHeadRevisited Deaths-Head Revisited]]", Gunter Lütze claims that he simply functioned as he was told in abusing and torturing the prisoners at Dachau but his flashbacks indicate that he [[PsychoForHire revelled in carrying out his orders]]. Becker describes this defense as "the Nazi theme music at Nuremberg."
%%* KafkaKomedy: "Time Enough At Last".
* 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 "Caesar and Me"]]). In his book ''The Twilight Zone Companion'', Marc Scott Zicree identifies this as a symptom of SeasonalRot.
%%* KarmicTwistEnding: Former {{Trope Namer|s}} as ''Twilight Zone Twist''.
* KlingonsLoveShakespeare: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E64WillTheRealMartianPleaseStandUp Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?]]", [[spoiler:Ross]] finds the taste of cigarettes wonderful and says that they have nothing like them on UsefulNotes/{{Mars}}. [[spoiler:He and the Venusian Haley both have a taste for human music.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: L]]
* LanguageBarrier:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E66Two Two]]", two soldiers who survived an apocalyptic war, a man and a woman, are wandering in a deserted city. They don't speak the same language. After they meet, they have to learn how to communicate.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E129Probe7OverAndOut Probe 7, Over and Out]]", two humanoid space travelers from different races, a man and a woman, are stranded on a planet. After they meet, they have to learn how to communicate with each other.
* LargeHam: More often than not, an episode will have at ''least'' one.
** Creator/RodSerling himself is a pretty big ham almost constantly in his narrations.
** Creator/WilliamShatner stars up in two episodes. (Although to be fair to Mr Shatner, he is quite reserved in his acting in "Nick Of Time". Which is ironically likely the reason most people only remember his other ''Zone'' episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".)
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]" is filled to the brim with ham...and some interpretative dance towards the end.
* LaserGuidedKarma:
** In "Judgement Night", German U-Boat captain Karl Lanser is forced to relive the sinking of a British passenger liner by a torpedo fired by his submarine over and over - [[spoiler:but as a passenger on the liner, unable to convince anyone aboard of the impending disaster]].
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E74DeathsHeadRevisited Deaths-Head Revisited]]" features SS captain Gunter Lutze, former commandant at the Dachau concentration camp, returning to the camp to reminisce. [[spoiler:The ghosts of the Jewish inmates whose deaths he ordered appear and force him to mentally experience the torture and agony to which he subjected them, and he is driven insane in a matter of hours and is taken away to an asylum.]]
* LatexPerfection: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E95HocusPocusAndFrisby Hocus-Pocus and Frisby]]", the aliens use masks which perfectly hide their true appearance. Somerset Frisby shatters their leader's mask when he punches him in the face.
* LaughTrack:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E98TheDummy The Dummy]]", one is used for the scenes in which Jerry Etherson is performing his ventriloquism act.
** 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 1980s.
* LifeDrinker:
** The title 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).
** "Queen of the Nile". A woman uses a scarab beetle to drain the life force of men so she can maintain her eternal youth. It's implied that she's the actual Cleopatra of Egypt.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle:
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E11AndWhenTheSkyWasOpened And When the Sky Was Opened]]" refers to the line "When the pie was opened" from the NurseryRhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence".
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E15IShotAnArrowIntoTheAir I Shot an Arrow into the Air]]" refers to the line "I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to Earth, I knew not where" from the 1845 poem "The Arrow and the Song" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In the episode itself, the line is misquoted as "I shot an arrow into the air, it landed, I know not where."
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E35TheMightyCasey The Mighty Casey]]" refers to the 1888 poem "Literature/CaseyAtTheBat" by Ernest Thayer.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E42TheEyeOfTheBeholder The Eye of the Beholder]]" refers to the line "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" from the 1878 novel ''Molly Bawn'' by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E60TheRipVanWinkleCaper The Rip Van Winkle Caper]]" refers to the 1819 short story "Literature/RipVanWinkle" by Washington Irving.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E74DeathsHeadRevisited Deaths-Head Revisited]]" refers to the 1945 novel ''Literature/BridesheadRevisited'' by Creator/EvelynWaugh.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E79FiveCharactersInSearchOfAnExit Five Characters in Search of an Exit]]" refers to the 1921 play ''Theatre/SixCharactersInSearchOfAnAuthor'' by Luigi Pirandello.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E100ISingTheBodyElectric I Sing the Body Electric]]" refers to the 1855 poem of the same name by Creator/WaltWhitman.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E140FromAgnesWithLove From Agnes - With Love]]" refers to the 1957 ''Literature/JamesBond'' novel ''Literature/FromRussiaWithLove'' by Creator/IanFleming.
* {{Lilliputians}}:
** {{Subverted|Trope}} in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E51TheInvaders The Invaders]]". [[spoiler:It appears for most of the episode that the invaders belong to a race of tiny aliens but it turns out that they are actually normal sized humans in a world of giants.]]
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E93TheLittlePeople The Little People]]", the astronaut Peter Craig discovers a race of tiny people no bigger than ants on another planet and [[AGodAmI immediately sets himself up as their god]]. [[LampshadeHanging Craig even compares them to the Lilliputians]]. [[spoiler:He is later killed by a giant spaceman who picked him up and accidentally crushed him in his hand.]]
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E155TheFear The Fear]]", Charlotte Scott and a highway patrolman named Robert Franklin are harassed by a 50 foot tall alien monster. [[spoiler:It turns out that the monster is in fact a giant balloon being controlled by two very small aliens. They soon leave Earth to avoid being crushed by the "giant" humans.]]
* LongingForFictionland:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E23AWorldOfDifference A World of Difference]]", Brinkley thinks that Gerald Raigan has [[LostInCharacter convinced himself that he is Arthur Curtis]], whom he is playing in ''The Private World of Arthur Curtis'', as he is attracted by the character's happy life with his loving wife Marian and daughter Tina.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E30AStopAtWilloughby A Stop at Willoughby]]", the extremely stressed advertising executive Gart Williams keeps dreaming of Willoughby, an idyllic 1888 town straight out of Creator/MarkTwain's work.
%%* LookMaNoPlane: "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".
* LouisCypher: "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E31TheChaser The Chaser]]" features a character named Professor A. Daemon. His name is suspicious enough to make the viewer wonder about his true nature, albeit that doesn't seem the case [[spoiler:at least until the end of the episode.]]
* LovePotion: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E31TheChaser The Chaser]]", Roger Shackleforth is "madly, passionately, illogically, miserably, all-consumingly in love" with Leila, who can just about stand to be around him. Under the belief that he can't live without her, he buys a love potion from Professor Daemon for $1 and slips it into her champagne. Within less than a minute, the potion takes full effect. Six months later, Roger and Leila are married but she is so [[NoSenseOfPersonalSpace exceptionally clingy and suffocating]] that Roger does not have a moment's peace. As Professor Daemon tried to warn him when he bought it, the potion [[GoneHorriblyRight worked too well]].
* LuckyRabbitsFoot:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E43NickOfTime Nick of Time]]", Don Carter carries one with him at all times, as well as a FourLeafClover.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E77TheJungle The Jungle]]", Mr. Sinclair, the president of Alan Richards' company, wears a rabbit's foot on his watch chain. Richards use this to point out that he is almost as superstitious as the Kekouyu.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: M]]
* TheMafia:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E13TheFourOfUsAreDying The Four of Us Are Dying]]", Arch Hammer imitates Virgil Sterig, a gangster who was murdered on the orders of the mob boss Penell.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E39NervousManInAFourDollarRoom Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room]]", Jackie Rhoades is a gangster who typically performs comparatively minor jobs such as breaking and entering and the occasional mugging for his boss George. As the police are well aware that Jackie does not do the big jobs, George tells him to kill the old bartender in order to throw them off the scent.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E83DeadMansShoes Dead Man's Shoes]]", Dane and Bernie Dagget were gangsters who were partners in the running of a nightclub. When Dagget offered to buy him out, Dane refused. Dagget was unwilling to accept this and had him murdered so that he could take over the club.
%%* MagicRealism
* MagicalSeventhSon: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E76StillValley Still Valley]]", the Confederate soldier Sgt. Joseph Paradine met an old man named Teague who had magical powers because he was the seventh son of a seventh son of a seventh son. He also made a DealWithTheDevil to use BlackMagic.
* MakeThemRot:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E2OneForTheAngels One for the Angels]]", Death proves his identity to Lou Bookman by touching a flower, which dies instantly.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E88TheLastRitesOfJeffMyrtlebank The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank]]", the fresh roses that the title character picks for Comfort Gatewood die within minutes of his touching them. This causes her to worry that the townsfolk's fears that Jeff CameBackWrong may be justified.
* MandatoryTwistEnding: The TwistEnding was a major staple of the series that earned the show a reputation for this, though it wasn't quite as "mandatory" as it's remembered as being.
* ManlyTears: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E79FiveCharactersInSearchOfAnExit Five Characters in Search of an Exit]]", the major begins to cry after his numerous attempts to escape the strange room fail. He is also no closer to figuring out what is going on. The ballet dancer comforts him.
* MatterOfLifeAndDeath: "Perchance to Dream".
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane:
** "The Thirty-Fathom Grave." Early on in the episode, Doc finds seaweed in the corridor where Bell claims to have seen the ghosts of his dead comrades. Additionally, one trip to the submarine reveals that a piece of the ship swinging loose could have been responsible for the banging noises...but it also reveals that one of the dead sailors was holding a hammer.
** In "The New Exhibit", a passionate (and slightly unhinged) man named Martin Senescu takes care of wax figures of famous killers in his basement after the wax museum where he works closes down. He firmly believes that they're alive, which disturbs his wife, brother-in-law, and former boss. All three end up being killed, apparently by the figures--but the ending suggests that it was actually ''Senescu'' committing the murders, and simply imagining the figures did it as a coping mechanism. It's not clear which is true.
** "The Fever": The events of most of the episode could be explained by Mr. Gibbs becoming increasingly unhinged through obsession and lack of sleep. Subverted at the end when the slot machine moves after his death.
* MeaningfulName:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E3MrDentonOnDoomsday Mr. Denton on Doomsday]]", the peddler who gives Al Denton the gun and later the potion is named Henry J. Fate.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", the librarian Romney Wordsworth is declared obsolete by the state as [[CulturePolice all books are banned]].
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E84TheHunt The Hunt]]", Hyder Simpson's dog is named Rip, as in RIP. This [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadows]] the revelation that the two of them have been DeadAllAlong.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E109JessBelle Jess-Belle]]", the title character Jess-Belle Stone is named after Jezebel from the Literature/BooksOfKings.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E137Number12LooksJustLikeYou Number 12 Looks Just Like You]]", two of the women who underwent the Number 12 transformation, as Lana did, are named Jane and Doe. This refers to the fact that the people of this society are all beautiful and therefore essentially anonymous as they lack individuality. Furthermore, the psychiatrist is named [[UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud Professor Sigmund Friend]].
* MeaninglessVillainVictory: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E60TheRipVanWinkleCaper The Rip Van Winkle Caper]]", a group of gold thieves put themselves to sleep for 100 years to escape the cops, only to start backstabbing and killing each other off once they awaken, just so they can hoard the gold for themselves. And then it turns out in the future, [[WorthlessYellowRocks gold is worthless]]. Fittingly, the last of them dies begging a nearby driver for water in exchange for a bar of gold, much to the driver's confusion.
* MechanisticAlienCulture: Many episodes of the classic sci-fi anthology featured aliens with ambiguously robotic characteristics. "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E55MrDingleTheStrong Mr. Dingle, the Strong]]", for example, featured one with [[BizarreAlienBiology two heads]].
* MentalTimeTravel: In the final scene of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E56Static Static]]", [[spoiler:the bitter bachelor Ed Lindsay is sent back in time in 1940 so that he can marry Vinnie Brown. Not marrying her when he had the opportunity is the biggest mistake of his life.]]
* MesACrowd: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E63TheMindAndTheMatter The Mind and the Matter]]", Archibald Beechcroft eventually hits on the idea of creating a world full of Beechcrofts using his [[RealityWarper ability to manipulate reality]] but he quickly discovers that a lot of him is as bad as a lot of everyone else.
* MexicanStandOff: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E66Two Two]]", the man and woman find discarded weapons and briefly point them at each other in spite of their attempts to get along.
* AMindIsATerribleThingToRead: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E52APennyForYourThoughts A Penny for Your Thoughts]]", Hector B. Poole discovers how petty and self-centered the people around him can be when he becomes inexplicably psychic. It's not as bad as some cases [[spoiler:(and it helps him get the girl, Helen Turner)]], but he's still relieved when his newfound power vanishes.
* MindRape: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E73ItsAGoodLife It's a Good Life]]", Aunt Amy was the only person who could exercise any control over Anthony Fremont, until she offended him by singing in his presence and his mind "snapped" at her. She's left as a shell of her former self, smiling vacantly and no longer watching how she acts or what she says around Anthony.
* MindOverMatter: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E57ThePrimeMover The Prime Mover]]", Jimbo Cobb has possessed the power of telekinesis all of his life. When he was young, he assumed that [[IThoughtEveryoneCouldDoThat everyone had this ability]]. He stopped using his ability as it frequently got him into trouble in school and gave him headaches. He is forced to reveal it when a car turns over outside of the Happy Daze Café, which he owns with his friend Ace Larson, and there is no other way to save the people inside. Ace sees the possibilities of Jimbo's power and the two of them take a trip to UsefulNotes/LasVegas, where Jimbo uses his ability to move the dice as Ace pleases.
* MinimalistCast:
** Earl Holliman is the only actor to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E1WhereIsEverybody Where Is Everybody?]]" until the last five minutes.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E9PerchanceToDream Perchance to Dream]]" only features three credited actors: Richard Conte, John Larch and Suzanne Lloyd.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E36AWorldOfHisOwn A World of His Own]]" only features three actors: Keenan Wynn, Phyllis Kirk and Mary [=LaRoche=].
** Robert Cummings is the only actor to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E37KingNineWillNotReturn King Nine Will Not Return]]" until the last five minutes.
** Only two actors appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E39NervousManInAFourDollarRoom Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room]]": Joe Mantell and William D. Gordon, who only appears in two scenes.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E46AMostUnusualCamera A Most Unusual Camera]]" only features four credited actors: Fred Clark, Jean Carson, Adam Williams and Marcel Hillaire.
** Creator/AgnesMoorehead is the only actor to appear on screen in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E51TheInvaders The Invaders]]". The director Douglas Heyes has a voice over cameo as one of the "tiny" astronauts in the final scene.
** As the title would suggest, "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E66Two Two]]" features only two actors: Creator/CharlesBronson and Creator/ElizabethMontgomery.
** Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters are the only credited actors to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E70AGameOfPool A Game of Pool]]". An uncredited female actress has a brief voice over role in the two scenes set in the afterlife.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E81NothingInTheDark Nothing in the Dark]]" features only three actors: Gladys Cooper, Creator/RobertRedford and R.G. Armstrong.
** The only credited actors to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E91LittleGirlLost Little Girl Lost]]" are Sarah Marshall, Robert Sampson and Charles Aidman. Although they are uncredited, Tracy Stratford and Creator/JuneForay nevertheless play prominent roles.
** Creator/MickeyRooney is the only actor to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E125TheLastNightOfAJockey The Last Night of a Jockey]]".
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E128UncleSimon Uncle Simon]]" only features three credited actors: Cedric Hardwicke, Constance Ford and Ian Wolfe.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E129Probe7OverAndOut Probe 7, Over and Out]]" only features four actors: Richard Basehart, Antoinette Bower, Harold Gould and Barton Heyman.
** Collin Wilcox, Richard Long, Pamela Austin and Suzy Parker are the only actors to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E137Number12LooksJustLikeYou Number 12 Looks Just Like You]]". With the exception of Wilcox, they all play multiple roles.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E139NightCall Night Call]]" only features three credited actors: Gladys Cooper, Nora Marlowe and Martine Bartlett. The voice of an uncredited male actor is heard in the final scene.
** Creator/MartinLandau, John Van Dreelen and Bob Kelljan are the only actors to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E149TheJeopardyRoom The Jeopardy Room]]".
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E150StopoverInAQuietTown Stopover in a Quiet Town]]" only features two credited actors: Barry Nelson and Nancy Malone.
** Neville Brand and Creator/GeorgeTakei are the only actors to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E151TheEncounter The Encounter]]".
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E154ComeWanderWithMe Come Wander With Me]]" only features four actors: Gary Crosby, Bonnie Beecher, Jonathan Bolt and Hank Patterson.
** Peter Mark Richman and Hazel Court are the only credited actors to appear in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E155TheFear The Fear]]".
* MirrorUniverse: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E21MirrorImage Mirror Image]]", Millicent Barnes speculates that the appearance of her {{Doppelganger}} at the bus terminal is due to the normal universe converging with an alternate universe and that her doppelgänger must eliminate her in order to remain in the normal universe. Paul Grinstead later learns that she is right.
* MissedTheCall: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E86KickTheCan Kick the Can]]", Ben Conroy's failure to step out of his comfort zone, even for a moment, and play kick-the-can bars him forever from joining the other Sunnyvale Rest Home residents and [[FountainOfYouth becoming young again]].
* MissingReflection:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E11AndWhenTheSkyWasOpened And When the Sky Was Opened]]", Colonel Clegg Forbes realizes that he is about to [[RetGone disappear]] when he sees that he no longer has a reflection.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E32APassageForTrumpet A Passage for Trumpet]]", Joey Crown discovers that he does not have a reflection when he looks into the mirror at the cinema. It is later revealed that this is because he is a state of limbo between life and death.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E81NothingInTheDark Nothing in the Dark]]", [[spoiler:Wanda Dunn's suspicion that Harold Beldon is Death is confirmed when he tells her to look in the mirror and she sees that he has no reflection.]]
* MisspellingOutLoud: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E35TheMightyCasey The Mighty Casey]]", the Hoboken Zephyrs manager Mouth [=McGarry=] tells the robot pitcher Casey's creator Dr. Stillman never to say the word "R-O-B-B-O-T-T" as he doesn't want anyone else to find out.
* MistakenFromBehind: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E23AWorldOfDifference A World of Difference]]", Arthur Curtis mistakes a little girl for his daughter Tina from behind.
* MisterSandmanSequence: In the first scene of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E78OnceUponATime Once Upon a Time]]", Woodrow Mulligan is walking through the Harmony town square on March 10, 1890 and complains about the high prices of sirloin steak (17c per lb) and ladies' hats ($1.95). The speed limit for bicycles is then shown as being eight miles per hour.
* MobileKiosk:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E2OneForTheAngels One for the Angels]]", Lou Bookman has a mobile pitch: a suitcase with extendable legs. When he finishes a pitch, he collapses the legs back into the suitcase and moves on.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E12WhatYouNeed What You Need]]", Pedott has a similar setup.
* MonochromeCasting: In an [[InvertedTrope inversion]] of the usual application of this trope in 1960, all of the actors with speaking roles in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E27TheBigTallWish The Big Tall Wish]]", with the exception of Walter Burke, are African-Americans. It is especially notable as the episode did not concern racial issues.
* MoodWhiplash: "A Kind of a Stopwatch" is a very funny episode until [[spoiler:the watch breaks, trapping [=McNulty=] in a timeless world forever.]]
* MotorMouth: [=McNulty=], the main character of the episode "A Kind of Stop Watch.”
* MuggleSportsSuperAthletes: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E90TheFugitive The Fugitive]]", while playing softball with Jenny and other neighborhood children, Ben uses his alien abilities to hit the ball over the fence with little to no effort.
* MultipleHeadCase: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E55MrDingleTheStrong Mr. Dingle, the Strong]]", the Martian scientist's two heads each have their own personality. They seem to get along well.
* TheMultiverse: The main character of "The Parallel" discovers that he has accidentally stumbled into a [[AlternateDimension parallel world]] with a [[AlternateHistory similar chronology]] to his own.
* MundaneWish: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E38TheManInTheBottle The Man in the Bottle]]", Arthur and Edna Curtis' first wish (out of four) is to have a pane of glass in their shop repaired, in order to [[GodTest test the genie's power]] first. The couple then proceeds to waste their remaining wishes, but in the end console themselves with the thought that at least the glass got repaired. Arthur then accidentally breaks the pane with the end of his sweeping brush. He and Edna begin laughing.
* MundaneUtility: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E57ThePrimeMover The Prime Mover]]", Ace Larson employs Jimbo Cobb's telekinesis to help him win at gambling.
* MurderBallad: Used as a PlotDevice in "Come Wander with Me".
* MurderousMannequin: Subverted in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E34TheAfterHours The After Hours]]"; Marsha White is, at first, understandably terrified when the mannequins come to life, but it soon becomes apparent that they are friendly, and only want [[spoiler:[[TomatoInTheMirror her to remember that she is also a mannequin]]]].
* MyCarHatesMe:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E40AThingAboutMachines A Thing About Machines]]", Bartlett Finchley is chased by his car, which corrals him to his pool and pushes him in. He quickly sinks to the bottom and drowns.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E134YouDrive You Drive]]", Oliver Pope is distracted while driving and kills a young neighborhood boy named Timmy Danbers in a hit-and-run accident. His car soon begins to behave strangely, honking its horn and turning on its lights by itself. When Oliver's wife Lilian later attempts to drive it, the car drives itself to the scene of the accident. The car eventually tries to run Oliver down but stops at the last moment. It then opens its passenger door, instructing Oliver to get in, and drives him to the police station so that he can confess.
* MyGrandsonMyself: In "Queen of the Nile", Pamela Morris lives with the elderly Mrs. Viola Draper, ostensibly her mother. She is actually [[spoiler:Pamela's daughter and Pamela is at least several hundred years old, heavily implied to have been Cleopatra.]]
* MyGreatestFailure: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E67TheArrival The Arrival]]", the disappearance of Flight 107 is the only case that the FAA investigator Grant Sheckly was never able to solve in 22 years on the job. He was so [[TraumaInducedAmnesia traumatized by his failure that he repressed his memory of the case]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder: N]]
* NamedByTheAdaptation:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E9PerchanceToDream Perchance to Dream]]", the girl in the dream and the psychiatrist are named Maya and Dr. Elliot Rathmann respectively. Neither character is given a name in the short story by Charles Beaumont.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E31TheChaser The Chaser]]", the potion seller is named Professor A. Daemon. In the short story by John Collier, he is not given a name.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E73ItsAGoodLife It's a Good Life]]", Anthony Fremont's mother is named Agnes. In the [[Literature/ItsAGoodLife short story]] by Jerome Bixby, her first name is not given.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E91LittleGirlLost Little Girl Lost]]", Chris, Ruth and Tina's surname is Miller. In the [[Literature/LittleGirlLost short story]] by Creator/RichardMatheson, their surname is not given.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E94FourOClock Four O'Clock]]", the protagonist is named Oliver Crangle. In the short story by Price Day, his first name is not given.
* NamelessNarrative: None of the characters in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E79FiveCharactersInSearchOfAnExit Five Characters in Search of an Exit]]" are given names.
* NapoleonDelusion: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E92PersonOrPersonsUnknown Person or Persons Unknown]]", one of David Gurney's fellow patients believes that he is UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill.
* ANaziByAnyOtherName:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E42TheEyeOfTheBeholder Eye of the Beholder]]", the Leader is based on UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. In his speech, he continually stresses the importance of ensuring "glorious conformity" and abiding by a single norm. He says that all that is different must be cut out like a cancerous filth as differences weaken the state.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", the State is based on various totalitarian regimes. In his opening narration, Rod Serling says that "it has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time." The Chancellor himself says that the State had predecessors who had the right idea such as UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler and UsefulNotes/JosefStalin but they did not go far enough in eliminating the undesirables such as the elderly, the sick, the maimed and the deformed.
* NaziProtagonist:
** "Death's Head Revisited" centered around a former concentration camp officer at Dachau who revisits the camp to relive his happy memories of the many atrocities he committed during the war. He eventually receives [[LaserGuidedKarma karmic justice]] from the souls of his victims.
** The main character of "He's Alive" is an American Nazi who becomes increasingly popular thanks to guidance from a mysterious advisor. Since said advice includes murdering one of his own followers to create a martyr, justice catches up with him too.
** TheReveal of "Judgment Night" is that the main character was one of these [[EvilAllAlong all along]].
%%* NeverSleepAgain: "Perchance to Dream", "Ninety Years Without Slumbering"
* NewspaperDating: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E59AHundredYardsOverTheRim A Hundred Yards over the Rim]]", Chris Horn, who is from 1847, realizes that he is in the future when he sees a calendar dated 1961 in Joe's diner.
* NiceCharacterMeanActor: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E85ShowdownWithRanceMcGrew Showdown with Rance McGrew]]", whereas the fictional Marshal Rance [=McGrew=] is extremely courageous and never hesitates in the face of danger, [[TheDanza the actor of the same name]] turns up late for work, snaps at the director and other members of the crew at every opportunity and demands that a stuntman be used for even the simplest scenes.
* NiceShoes: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E83DeadMansShoes Dead Man's Shoes]]", Dane wore a very expensive and distinctive pair of two-tone black and white shoes before he was murdered. When Nate Bledsoe puts them on, Dane's personality takes over his body. [[spoiler:After Dagget kills Dane, the same thing happens again when Chips puts on the shoes.]]
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: The subject of "I Am the Night--Color Me Black". It only happens in certain areas of the world that are dominated by hatred.
* NoAntagonist: ''Many'' episodes.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E71TheMirror The Mirror]]", Ramos Clemente is a not-so-subtle {{Expy}} of UsefulNotes/FidelCastro while Tabal's appearance is clearly based on that of UsefulNotes/CheGuevara. The entire episode, which was made between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, is one long TakeThat at Castro. In his closing narration, Rod Serling even says that "any resemblance to tyrants living or dead is hardly coincidental." Funnily enough, General De Cruz mentions both Castro and his predecessor General Fulgencio Batista, the former right-wing dictator of UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}} on whom De Cruz himself is based, in the first scene.
* NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E28ANicePlaceToVisit A Nice Place to Visit]]", an inveterate criminal dies and goes to the afterlife: a pleasant place where he gets everything he wants and all his gambles always pay off. He becomes dissatisfied and asks to be sent to [[{{Hell}} The Other Place]], saying he doesn't belong in Heaven. The reply he gets: [[spoiler:"[[ThisIsntHeaven Whatever gave you the idea you were in Heaven]], Mr. Valentine? [[WhamLine This]] ''[[WhamLine is]]'' [[WhamLine the other place!]]"]]
* NoDialogueEpisode:
** Throughout "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E51TheInvaders The Invaders]]", the main character makes plenty of noises as she fends off tiny aliens, but none of it is dialogue. Aside from Serling's narrations, the only spoken dialogue comes when the last and soon-to-be-killed invader sends a distress call back home. [[spoiler:The tiny invaders are then revealed to be humans from Earth. This revelation subsequently justifies the trope, as the woman is a (giant) alien and wouldn't know English or any other language from Earth.]]
** "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", one of the final episodes - actually an unrelated, Oscar-winning short film that Serling purchased the rights to and had re-edited into an episode - also contains virtually no dialogue beyond Serling's narration.
* NoEnding: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E54TheOdysseyOfFlight33 The Odyssey of Flight 33]]", we never whether the titular plane is able to return to 1961.
* NoImmortalInertia: "Long Live Walter Jameson". A man lives more than 2,000 years due to drinking a alchemical potion of immortality. When he's shot and mortally wounded, the effect wears off and he ages into dust in minutes.
* NonSpecificallyForeign: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E68TheShelter The Shelter]]", after the crisis begins, Frank Henderson is continually racist towards the foreign-born Marty Weiss, describing him as a "pushy, grabby, semi-American" and later refers to "you and your kind." However, it is never stated what country Marty is from.
* NoTimeToExplain: "Passage on the ''Lady Anne''". [[spoiler:As it turns out, it's a ship only meant for dying/wanting to die people.]]
%%* NostalgiaAintLikeItUsedToBe: "The Incredible World of Horace Ford"
* NostalgiaFilter: Happens in "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville". CorruptCorporateExecutive Feathersmith makes a DealWithTheDevil to go back in time and relive his life, in order to enjoy once again the climb from a nobody to a tyrannical titan of industry. However, things in his youth weren't exactly as nice as he remembered. For example, he forgets that vaccines weren't invented at that time, the streets are still unpaved, and the girl he reminisced about was nowhere near as attractive or charming as he remembered. This is on top of all the ''other'' mistakes he makes...
* NotSoDifferent: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E71TheMirror The Mirror]]", it becomes apparent throughout the episode that there is little difference between the revolutionary Ramos Clemente and General De Cruz, the previous dictator whom he overthrew. De Cruz himself realizes this when he is brought before Clemente.
%%* NotSoImaginaryFriend: "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "Mirror Image".
[[/folder]]
[[folder: O-P]]
* OddballInTheSeries:
** The first season finale "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E36AWorldOfHisOwn A World of His Own]]" marked the first time thst Rod Serling appeared on screen, but at the end, not the beginning. It's also the only time that Serling is a character in the story interacting with the other characters.
** "Literature/AnOccurrenceAtOwlCreekBridge" is a French silent film adaptation of the classic Creator/AmbroseBierce story, which Serling acquired and ran on American television as a ''Twilight Zone'' episode, with only a few minor edits.
* OneCharacterMultipleLives: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E23AWorldOfDifference A World of Difference]]", Arthur Curtis finds himself switching between two worlds - one where he's a normal businessman and another where he's an alcoholic actor named Gerry Raigan who's playing the role of businessman Arthur Curtis in the film ''The Private World of Arthur Curtis''.
* OneGenderRace: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E55MrDingleTheStrong Mr. Dingle, the Strong]]", one Martian notes that one of the three planets on their itinery after Earth seems particularly interesting, since it contains only females.
* OneWordTitle: "Elegy", "Execution", "Dust", "Static", "Two", "Mute", "Miniature" and "Steel".
* OnOneCondition:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E70AGameOfPool A Game of Pool]]", Fats Brown agrees to play one game of pool with Jesse Cardiff on condition that Jesse will die if he loses. Although he is initially reluctant, Jesse accepts.
** In "The Masks", Jason Foster tells his daughter and her family that unless they wear the Mardi Gras masks he has made for them until midnight, their inheritance when he dies will consist solely of train fare back to their home in UsefulNotes/{{Boston}}.
** In "Uncle Simon", Barbara Polk is told she has inherited her misanthropic uncle's entire estate, as long as she sells none of it and looks after his last invention: a robot which [[spoiler:gradually takes on his personality, and eventually speaks in his voice.]]
* OnTheNext: Each episode ends with Rod Serling telling the audience about the next episode. For season four, clips from the episodes were also shown.
* OntologicalInertia: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E49BackThere Back There]]", during a discussion about traveling back to time to the day before the Wall Street Crash, Peter Corrigan argues that history cannot be changed as the events of October 24, 1929 are a part of established history. When he is sent back in time himself, he learns that some things can in fact be changed. Peter was unable to prevent Lincoln's assassination but inadvertently changes history in a more minor way. The police officer who believed his story made a name for himself for seemingly predicting the assassination. As a result, he became Chief of Police, a councilman and a millionaire after investing in real estate. In the original history, his great-grandson William was an attendant at the Potomac Club but a member of the club in the altered history.
* OntologicalMystery: "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E1WhereIsEverybody Where Is Everybody?]]", "Judgment Night", "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E79FiveCharactersInSearchOfAnExit Five Characters in Search of an Exit]]", and "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E150StopoverInAQuietTown Stopover in a Quiet Town]]" all deal with the protagonists [[YouWakeUpInARoom awakening]] in strange environments under mysterious circumstances, then trying to figure out where they are and how they got there.
* OpenDoorOpening: During the fourth and fifth seasons.
* OpeningNarration: Over the course of the series, five different opening narrations were used in the title sequence:
** The first was used from "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E1WhereIsEverybody Where is Everybody?]]" to "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E32APassageForTrumpet A Passage for Trumpet]]".
--->"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to Man. It is a dimension as vast as space, and as timeless as infinity. It is the middleground between light and shadow, between science and superstition; and it lies between the pit of Man's fears, and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call...the Twilight Zone."
** The second was used from "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E33MrBevis Mr. Bevis]]" to "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E36AWorldOfHisOwn A World of His Own]]", the final four episodes of Season One.
--->"You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!"
** The third was used in Season Two.
--->"You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Twilight Zone!"
** The fourth was used in Season Three.
--->"You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!"
** The fifth was used in Seasons Four and Five.
--->"You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension - a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone."
* OurGhostsAreDifferent:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E70AGameOfPool A Game of Pool]]", Fats Brown comes down from the afterlife as soon as Jesse inadvertently challenges him to a pool game. [[spoiler:Jesse beats Fats and, after he dies, he has to return to Earth every time that he is challenged, having become trapped in a kind of IronicHell.]]
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E85ShowdownWithRanceMcGrew Showdown with Rance McGrew]]", UsefulNotes/JesseJames returns to Earth to tell Rance [=McGrew=] that he, his brother Frank, UsefulNotes/BillyTheKid, Sam Starr and the Dalton brothers, among others, are angry at the inaccurate way in which they are depicted in his show. He eventually assumes the role of [=McGrew=]'s agent to ensure that the series is more accurate from now on.
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E58LongDistanceCall Long Distance Call]]", Grandma Bayles lost two children before her son Chris was born. She never forgave Chris for marrying Sylvia and leaving her. Part of the reason that she was so attached to her grandson Billy was that he [[FreudianExcuse reminded her of her first two children]].
* ParodyAssistance: Serling played a dual role in ''Radio/TheJackBennyProgram'''s TZ spoof, appearing both AsHimself and as the mayor of the actual Twilight Zone.
%%* PeggySue: "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville".
* PeopleZoo: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E25PeopleAreAlikeAllOver People Are Alike All Over]]", the inhabitants of the planet UsefulNotes/{{Mars}} put the Earth astronaut Sam Conrad in a house that acts as a zoo habitat.
* ThePerilsOfBeingTheBest: This theme was explored in several episodes.
** "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" shows us RetiredGunfighter Al Denton, who took the lives of so many challengers who wanted to defeat him and claim his title of FastestGunInTheWest that it psychologically broke him and turned him into a washed up drunk. When he regains his gunfighter abilities, he has to go through it all for a second time against a new set of challengers. When his hand is crippled at the end of the episode so that he'll never be able to use a gun again, he considers it a blessing.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E70AGameOfPool A Game of Pool]]" throughly [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructs]] this trope. Jesse Cardiff, a pool shark praised as the best living player, complains that no matter what he does, he'll never be as good as "Fats" Brown, a deceased legend. Fats arrives from the afterlife to play a game which will determine which of them is truly the best. As they do, they discuss what it means to excel at something--Fats points out that while he's only a pool player, he's the ''greatest'' pool player, which allows him pride. The ending, though, reveals that whoever holds that title is forced to spend his or her entire afterlife defending it from those who want to try for it, until someone else defeats the champ. Serling sums it up when he remarks that "being the best of anything carries with it a special obligation to keep on proving it."
* PerpetualFrowner: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E87APianoIntheHouse A Piano in the House]]", the butler Marvin never smiles to the point that Fitzgerald Fortune considers firing him because he finds his presence depressing. However, the piano reveals that Marvin is a very happy person who often has to stop himself from laughing at Fortune when he has one of his tantrums.
* PersecutedIntellectuals:
** In "Time Enough at Last", everyone looks down on and picks on Henry Bemis (Burgess Meredith) for being a reader.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", Romney Wordsworth, the librarian (also played by Burgess Meredith) is considered obsolete, as books have been banned.
* PhoneCallFromTheDead:
** In "Night Call", an invalid starts receiving mysterious phone calls. The calls are eventually traced to a cemetery, where a fallen phone line is in contact with the grave of her deceased fiancé.
** "Long Distance Call" has a grandmother calling from beyond the grave and urging her beloved grandchild toward acts of suicide so they can be together again.
* PilotMovie: In 1958, Rod Serling wrote a teleplay ("The Time Element") which he hoped to turn into a weekly anthology series. It's often included in the series' canon as its lost pilot episode.
* PlayingWithFire:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E73ItsAGoodLife It's a Good Life]]", it is mentioned that Anthony set Teddy Reynolds on fire for thinking mean thoughts about him.
** In the final scene of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E88TheLastRitesOfJeffMyrtlebank The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank]]", the title character demonstrates this ability when he lights a match without striking it. He tells his fiancée Comfort Gatewood that it was just her imagination.
* PleaseDontLeaveMe: A rare non-dying example occurs at the end of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E87APianoIntheHouse A Piano in the House]]". The titular instrument reveals that {{Jerkass}} Fitzgerald Fortune's cruelty is simply a mask for his true persona: a misanthropic, frightened child terrified of the world and unable to react to others with anything but disgust and hatred. This revelation comes during a party, and all of the guests (including Fortune's wife) leave after Fortune's breakdown; he screams like a toddler, declaring that he doesn't want them to go and threatening to be "very naughty" if they do.
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: "Mr. Bevis" and "Cavender is Coming" were both intended as possible pilot episodes for a spinoff show, but this never materialized.
* PragmaticAdaptation: Episodes adapted from short stories were often massaged a bit. In Creator/DamonKnight's short story "To Serve Man", the alien representatives are described as looking like pigs. The producers thought the audience would find this too silly, so the alien makeup is the more conventional [[MyBrainIsBig tall-head]] variety. (Ironically, another iconic episode, "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E42TheEyeOfTheBeholder Eye of the Beholder]]", ''did'' feature characters wearing pig-like masks.)
* PrestigePeril: The episode "The Man in the Bottle" has a man wish to be the leader of a modern country who cannot be voted out of position...only to find that he's Adolf Hitler, and it's the end of World War II.
* PrettyInMink: Some furs are worn in some episodes, such as "Twenty-Two", and especially in "A Nice Place to Visit" to show the supposed grand nature of the place.
* ProfessionalGambler: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E96TheTradeIns The Trade-Ins]]", in the hope of winning enough money to afford a second procedure so that he and his wife Marie can both be young again, John Holt takes part in a high stakes poker game run by the professional gambler Mr. Farraday. He loses most of his money over several hands. Farraday is moved when he learns why John is playing and by the fact that he is desperate to have the procedure done due to the terrible pain that he is experiencing. John has three kings and hopes to win back the $5,000 that he lost. Although Farraday has three aces, he takes sympathy and allows John to win.
%%* PropheticFallacy
* ProsceniumReveal: "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E4TheSixteenMillimeterShrine The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine]]" opens with Barbara Jean Trenton bidding farewell to her man, a soldier who is going off to war. It is soon revealed to be a scene from ''Farewell Without Tears'', one of Barbara's old films.
* PsychicStrangle: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E41TheHowlingMan The Howling Man]]", the Devil uses one on David Ellington [[UngratefulBastard as soon as he releases him from his confinement]].
* PublicExecution:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E65TheObsoleteMan The Obsolete Man]]", Romney Wordsworth uses the opportunity provided by his televised execution for being obsolete to demonstrate that [[spoiler:the Chancellor is nothing more than a DirtyCoward by trapping him in his room until just before the bomb explodes]]. The Chancellor also mentions that the executions of 1,300 people in six hours were shown on television the previous year.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E71TheMirror The Mirror]]", Ramos Clemente orders the mass public execution of 1,000 prisoners, all of whom are former followers of General De Cruz. The executions continue unabated for a week, to the horror of the people. Clemente tells Father Tomas that they will continue so long as he has enemies.
* PurgatoryAndLimbo:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E32APassageForTrumpet A Passage for Trumpet]]", after the drunken Joey Crown deliberately steps off the curb as [[DrivenToSuicide part of a suicide attempt]], he is hit by a truck and enters a limbo state between life and death.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E69ThePassersby The Passersby]]", [[spoiler:it turns out that the dirt road outside Lavinia Godwin's house is Purgatory. She and UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln are the last people to walk down the road and into the afterlife.]]
** {{Discussed|Trope}} in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E79FiveCharactersInSearchOfAnExit Five Characters in Search of an Exit]]". The hobo speculates that they are trapped in Limbo.
[[/folder]]
