I miss The Twilight Zone

I’m not old enough to have watched the originals. Not even close.

I enjoyed the reruns, though. The Sci-Fi channel always did a good job of running marathons, and I’d record dozens, and spend countless hours in utter bliss. I’ve long since abandoned TV (yup, haven’t watched in nearly a year), but I do miss one thing:

The Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling did something that few will ever achieve.

He brought us the kooky and bizarre—the unexplained.

He baffled our imaginations and crafted our dreams.

Rod Serling was a man with something all great story-tellers must have: IMAGINATION.

A man on an airplane wing—mid-flight.

A crashed UFO—and an alien enters a diner in human form.

Or how about the train that only had one stop?

Or the astronauts who found a planet of little people, and decided they were gods?

Many have attempted to re-create The Twilight Zone. It hardly worked. The newer remake had little success, and I found it a bit boring.

Outer limits was good, but not The Twilight Zone.

There were others, too, but none came close to Serling’s impact on the world.

One reason I believe Hollywood has had a tough time re-making the bizarre, is because nowadays, most shows are an hour long. The Twilight Zone was generally thirty minutes, and perhaps a must for the genre of ‘strange’.

Perhaps because it’s not personal anymore. Rod Serling brought a certain commitment to the show. You could tell loved it. In this day and age, they would probably have long since replaced Serling as ‘host’ with a ditzy, clueless celebrity of the month.

Perhaps it’s because others focus on special effects and not the story.

Perhaps imagination is not what it once was. Media and TV and Iphones . . . maybe the idea of The Twilight Zone will fade as generations pass.

Either way, I can say this about The Twilight Zone:

. . . some bring the tonic

. . . others bring the vodka

. . . but Rod Serling brings the twist.

-Vincent Hobbes