You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound and mind but of tropes. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Up ahead is a signpost that will lead you into your next destination — your next stop, TV Tropes' official entry on "The Twilight Zone!"
When Rod Serling came up with The Twilight Zone (1959), he couldn't have known that he was creating a multimedia franchise that would endure for decades after his untimely death.
The Twilight Zone maintains a prominent place in pop culture. The original series is the Trope Codifier for the Genre Anthology. Its title and theme music underwent Memetic Mutation long before the term existed. Rod Serling's distinctive delivery as The Narrator, and his on-screen hosting, have been spoofed and homaged countless times. The better-known Twist Endings ("Time Enough at Last", "The Eye of the Beholder", "To Serve Man") have reached It Was His Sled status. The stories and themes presented by Serling and his fellow creators have proven strong enough to support three revivals of the TV series, a movie, a radio adaptation, a pinball game, merchandise such as action figures and prop reproductions, even a Disney theme park ride. It's been a huge influence on pretty much every anthology series that followed it, including its Spiritual Successor Night Gallery, which was also hosted and largely written (but not creatively controlled) by Serling, though that series focused primarily on supernatural and horror tales, rather than the fantasy and science fiction featured in Twilight Zone.
Here's a list of The Twilight Zone's various iterations, including the versions that have pages on This Very Wiki.
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Works and creators associated with The Twilight Zone franchise (with TV Tropes articles):
Television series
- The Twilight Zone (1959). The show that started it all. It aired on CBS from 1959 to 1964.
- The Twilight Zone (1985). The first TV revival. It aired on CBS from 1985 to 1987, then was Un-Cancelled for a season of First-Run Syndication in 1988-1989 so it would have enough episodes to run as a daily strip.
- The Twilight Zone (2002). The second TV revival, which ran during the 2002-2003 season on UPN.
- The Twilight Zone (2019). A 2019 revival aired on CBS All Access, executive produced and hosted by Jordan Peele. Cancelled after its second season in 2020.
Feature films
- Twilight Zone: The Movie. The first revival in any medium. Released in 1983, it features remakes of original episodes directed by Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller, plus a new story written and directed by John Landis. Best remembered for three actors
being killed during the filming of Landis' segment. - Tower of Terror. A Made-for-TV Movie based on the Disney Theme Parks ride listed below. A Divorced Installment that never mentions its Twilight Zone connection.
Pinball
- Twilight Zone. An acclaimed game that features plenty of Mythology Gags based on the original series.
Rides
- The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. A popular attraction at several Disney Theme Parks.
Video Games
Short stories adapted into The Twilight Zone episodes
- "The Cold Equations". Filmed for the syndicated season of the 1980s series.
- "The Howling Man". Filmed for the original series.
- "It's a Good Life". Made into one of the original series' best-remembered episodes, then remade for The Movie. The UPN revival produced a sequel episode, "It's Still a Good Life", with Bill Mumy reprising his role as the protagonist Anthony Fremont.
- "Little Girl Lost". Made into one of the original series episodes and an inspiration for Poltergeist.
- "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge". Filmed as a French short film which was re-edited into an episode of the original series.
Creators involved with The Twilight Zone
- Rod Serling. Creator, host, and pre-eminent writer of the original series.
- Richard Matheson. Veteran sci-fi/horror writer who scripted sixteen original episodes, many of which were adapted from his own short stories.
- Ray Bradbury. A major influence on Serling, who gave him a Shout-Out in both "Walking Distance" and "A Stop at Willoughby". He adapted his own story "I Sing the Body Electric" for the original series, and the 1980s series adapted his stories "The Burning Man" and "The Elevator".
- Harlan Ellison. Writer and creative consultant for the 1980s series.
- George R. R. Martin. Wrote several episodes for the 1980s series.
- Stephen King. The 1980s series adapted his story "Gramma".
- Robert Silverberg. The 1980s series adapted his story "To See the Invisible Man".
- J. Michael Straczynski. Writer and story editor for the 1980s series.
- Forest Whitaker. Host of the 2002-2003 series.
- Jordan Peele. Host and narrator of the 2019 revival.
- Theodore Sturgeon. The 1980s series adapted his stories "Yesterday Was Monday" and "A Saucer of Loneliness".
- See also The Twilight Zone Actors.
Tropes named after The Twilight Zone episodes
Works in The Twilight Zone franchise (without their own pages):
Feature films
- Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics: A 1994 film co-produced by Rod Serling's widow Carol Serling, who found some old stories written by Rod in a trunk in the family's garage. James Earl Jones was the host and narrator. The film had two segments:
- The Theatre: A woman goes to the theater, but the screen shows events from her own life.
- Where the Dead Are: Set a few years after The American Civil War, a doctor discovers his colleague has found a way to bring the dead back to life.
Comic books
- The Twilight Zone (Dell) (1961-1962)
- The Twilight Zone (Gold Key) (1962-1982) - The Gold Key Comics version, which began when the original series was still on the air and continued into the early 1980s, was by far the longest running. An artistic rendition of Rod Serling introduced each story as he did on TV, becoming technically a Posthumous Character after Serling died in 1975, but the drawn Serling continued to "host" the comic book.
- The Twilight Zone (NOW) (1990-1993)
- The Twilight Zone (Dynamite) (2013-2015) - The Dynamite Comics series
- The Twilight Zone Special: Lost Tales (2014)
- The Twilight Zone: Shadow & Substance (2015)
- The Twilight Zone: 1959 (2016)
Literature
The Twilight Zone has been the subject of many books. Some of the episodes have been adapted as short stories and novels by various authors (including Rod Serling himself). Anthologies of short stories adapted for the series have been published. The Twilight Zone Companion, Marc Scott Zicree's 1982 history of the series, became a best seller and has been updated twice. A second history, Martin Grams, Jr.'s The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic, appeared in 2008.
Magazines
Between 1981 and 1989, The Twilight Zone Magazine published new short fiction in the same Science Fiction, Horror and Urban Fantasy genres as the show, including stories by prominent writers like Stephen King and Harlan Ellison. It also covered contemporary Speculative Fiction series and movies.
Radio
From 2002 to 2012, The Twilight Zone was a Radio Drama series. It adapted all of the original episodes, as well as unfilmed premises for the original series. It even created several original stories.
Tabletop games
The original series had a board game.
Theater
Anne Washburn's The Twilight Zone is a stage play that weaves adaptations of eight TOS episodes into a unified storyline.
Toys
Two toy companies, Sideshow and Bif Bang Pow!, have made action figures (and in Bif Bang Pow!'s case, other merchandise) based on the show.
Video Games
- The Twilight Zone, an Anima/DOS graphic text adventure developed by Gigabit Systems, Inc., and released in 1988.
