The following article contains SPOILERS. – editor
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As a kid, I used to watch The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling’s masterful, mind-blowing television series from the early 1960s, because it scared the crap out of me. Aliens! Apparitions! Monsters! Horrors! Suspense!
It was a young boy’s dream and nightmare, all at once.
But now, revisiting the series as an adult, I’ve come to appreciate the weight and depth of the Zone, especially its philosophical, ethical, and spiritual themes. Such ideas were evident right from the start, when it debuted on CBS on October 2, 1959.
That first episode, “Where Is Everybody?”, focuses on a man who wanders into a small town, only to find it deserted. As he walks about searching for someone, anyone, we realize something’s amiss, but what? He wonders aloud, “Who’s watching the store? Who’s watching any of the stores?” And a moment later: “I wish I could shake that crazy feeling of being watched. Listened to.” It’s as if he’s appealing to the heavens, an omnipresent something. When he finds a radio at the police station, he picks up the microphone and pleads, “Calling all cars! Calling all cars!” Now it’s a desperate prayer, but the response is only silence.
In a book store, he finds a rack with William Goldman’s The Temple of Gold and Ignazio’s Salone’s Bread and Wine – classic works addressing man’s search for meaning. Another rack is loaded with copies of The Last Man on Earth.
He begins losing his mind; he cries out for help while repeatedly pressing the button on a Walk/Don’t Walk sign. We learn that he is an Air Force test pilot who has been in isolation for three weeks to prepare him for a solo space flight to the moon. A doctor tells him, “We can feed the stomach, we can supply microfilm for reading, recreation, even movies of a sort. We can pump oxygen in and waste material out. But there’s one thing we can’t simulate, a very basic need – man’s hunger for companionship.” He might as well have cited Genesis: “It is not good for man to be alone. . .”
As the frazzled pilot is taken away, he looks up at the moon and says, “Hey, don’t go away up there!” Mere words for our lunar neighbor? Or a variation on everyman’s prayer that God never leave nor forsake us?
Reading too much into it? Perhaps. But one need only watch the first season to see that Serling keeps returning to the supernatural. For example:
Episode 2: “One for the Angels”
When Death, wearing a businessman’s suit, tells salesman Lou Bookman that he is scheduled to die at midnight, Bookman argues that he still has unfinished business. He pleads for more time to make one final sales pitch, “one for the angels.” When Death agrees, Bookman declares he’s quitting sales forever. He figured he’s outsmarted Death and is now immortal. But someone must die at midnight, and when a little neighbor girl lies mortally wounded after being hit by a car, Bookman pleads with Death to take him instead. When Death declines, Bookman goes into a frenetic sales pitch, holding Death’s attention until after midnight, forcing him to miss his “appointment” with the girl. Bookman smiles and says, “Thank God,” and Death takes him instead – a sacrifice for the innocent one. Death admires Bookman’s savvy and compassion, and assures the salesman that he “made it” into heaven.
Episode 6: “Escape Clause”
Walter Bedeker is a 44-year-old hypochondriac, convinced he’s about to die, though he’s perfectly healthy. The Devil appears – in human form, wearing a suit and tie – and offers Bedeker immortality in exchange for his soul. Bedeker takes the deal, and proceeds to live recklessly, throwing himself in front of trains and other life-threatening behavior – all to collect claims from insurance companies. When he commits a murder and is sentence to die, Bedeker is thrilled, knowing he’ll survive the chair. But against his wishes, Bedeker’s lawyer lessens the sentence to life in prison – a dull life behind bars where Bedeker’s immortality cannot be enjoyed. He summons the Devil to exercise his “escape clause,” and quickly dies of a heart attack. In his closing narration, Serling paraphrases Ecclesiastes 3: “There is a saying that every man is put on Earth condemned to die.” And there’s no getting around it.
Episode 17: “The Fever”
When Flora wins a vacation to Vegas, husband Franklin, who detests gambling, grudgingly goes along. When the one coin he puts into a slot machine wins, Franklin pockets the stash but insists he won’t spend another dime. But Franklin begins hearing the machine literally calling out to him, beckoning like the proverbial devil on his shoulder. He tells Flora they can’t keep the winnings, because “If there’s one thing I know, it’s morality. And I will not have this tainted money smelling up our pockets.” He returns to the casino, intending to feed only the “tainted” coins into the machine, but he’s soon hooked, playing obsessively for hours. Flora tries to coax him away; he tells her the machine is “inhuman, the way it lets you win a little, and then takes it all back. It teases you, it holds out promises and wheedles you. It sucks you in.” When he puts his last coin in, the machine breaks down – and so does the now flat-broke Franklin. It’s a variation of Serling’s ongoing commentary about the wiles of the Devil – of temptation, of vanity and pride. (Apparently it was autobiographical: Serling had spent a weekend in Vegas and become enslaved by a similar one-armed bandit.)
Episode 20: “Elegy”
When three astronauts, running out of fuel, are forced to land on an asteroid millions of miles from Earth, they find that it’s much like home – but every person and animal is as still as a statue. One man is alive and well, a genial chap named Wickwire who calls himself the caretaker. He says it’s a cemetery called Happy Glades, where wealthy folks can live their greatest wish after they die – one man is enjoying his farm, another his stint as mayor, all as unmoving as figures in a wax museum. Wickwire says that Happy Glades “promises everlasting peace. You couldn’t have that on earth, now could you?” The astronauts agree, but still they want to go home. Too late. Wickwire has secretly poisoned them. As they die, one asks, “Why us?” Wickwire replies, “Because you are here, because you are men. And while there are men, there can be no peace.” Wickwire puts the embalmed bodies back in their ship, posing them as if they were in fact on their way home. Just as they wished. But the point about the human condition has already been made. “There is no one righteous, not even one . . .” (Romans 3:10)
Episode 22: “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”
The story begins with the activities of a happy neighborhood – children playing, adults talking. When a shadow and loud roar passes overhead and the power goes out, one of the children mentions reading about aliens who take on human form. Over the hours, the normally respectful neighbors eye each other suspiciously; suspicion grows into fear, fear into paranoia, paranoia into outright hostility and violence. All hell breaks loose – with nary an encounter with any aliens at all. But on a nearby hilltop, an alien spaceship has indeed landed, and its inhabitants, observing the madness below, conclude that the easiest way to conquer Earth is to let its people destroy themselves. One can almost hear Jeremiah’s lament: “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”
Episode 25: “People Are Alike All Over”
Two astronauts are headed to Mars. Marcusson, an optimist, believes sentient life everywhere is basically good: “I’m sure that when God made human beings, he developed them from a fixed formula. They’d be the same here on Earth as in the furthest reaches of space.” His colleague, Conrad, has a more cynical view, believing the worst in all beings. When they crash land on Mars, Marcusson’s injuries are fatal, but before he dies, he tells Conrad to not be afraid: “I’ve got a strange hunch if there’s anybody out there, they’ll help you. As long as they’ve got minds and hearts, that means they’ve got souls. That makes them people, and people are alike.” Conrad is pleasantly surprised to find a kind, gentle people who appear quite human. They care for him; they give him a home. But Conrad soon learns the truth: He is locked inside this windowless home, trapped. When the house’s front wall slides up, Conrad realizes he’s behind bars – and the Martians are outside looking in. A sign outside says it all: “Earth Creature in his native habitat.” Moments later, Conrad yells to the heavens, “Marcusson, you were right! People are alike. People are alike everywhere!”
Episode 28: “A Nice Place to Visit”
After robbing a pawnshop, Henry “Rocky” Valentine is shot by police. He wakes to see a large bearded man dressed all in white. The man, “Pip,” tells Rocky he’s his “guide” and has been instructed to give him whatever he wants. Rocky thinks it’s a con job, but when Pip provides him with money, a luxurious home, and beautiful women, Rocky begins to soften. When Rocky asks Pip if he’s “working for someone else,” Pip says, “In a way, yes.” Rocky begins to believe he’s in heaven, and Pip is his guardian angel. Pip says, “Something like that.” Rocky, who has never done anything good, wonders how he got into heaven, but ultimately decides that if God is okay with it, he is too. But Rocky begins to tire of the too-easy life; he wins every time at the casino, every time at cards, every time at the pool table. He yells: “If I gotta stay here another day, I’m gonna go nuts! I don’t belong in heaven, see? I want to go to the other place.” Pip, turning sinister, smiles: “Whatever gave you the idea that you were in heaven, Mr. Valentine? This IS the other place!!” Fade out with maniacal laughter and in with Serling’s narration, in which he observes that Rocky now “has everything he’s ever wanted. And he’s going to have to live with it, for eternity.” Serling may have been theologically amiss about how one gets into heaven, but he clearly gave it some creative thought.
Rod Serling’s Worldview
Rod Serling was born into a Jewish family – on Christmas Day, ironically – and was active in the local synagogue. The director of the local Jewish community center says Serling embraced “fierce moralism,” according to biographer Gordon F. Sander – a moralism that often manifested as social justice, especially against prejudice. And often (though not always), good triumphed over evil in Serling’s world. (And when evil got the upper hand, there were always consequences.)
Serling enlisted in the Army because he wanted to go to Germany and kill Hitler. But he was assigned to the Pacific, where he often disobeyed orders and wandered off alone. Later, fighting in the Philippines, he showed flashes of bravery, and was later awarded a Purple Heart. When he returned home, he was “bitter about everything,” and says he turned to writing “to get it off my chest.” After college, he converted to Unitarianism.
Marc Scott Zicree, author of The Twilight Zone Companion, says the series included “least some search for an emotional truth, some attempt to make a statement on the human condition,” and that in every episode, “a moral code was being applied.” Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry lauded Serling’s “deep affection for humanity… and his determination to enlarge our horizons by giving us a better understanding of ourselves.”
In his final interview, Serling questioned the notion of life after death, saying he believes death will be “a totally unconscious void in which you float through eternity with no particular consciousness of anything.” This while also considering his own mortality: “I’ve begun to wonder about time running out. Is it sufficient unto itself that I don’t plan? Because maybe next Thursday won’t come one day. I’m concerned about that.”
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He considered the possibility of divine intervention, or at least of being “ordained” for his life’s work: “Why do I write? I don’t know. I don’t feel . . . God dictated that I should write. You know, thunder rents the sky and a bony finger comes down from the clouds and says, ‘You. You write. You’re the anointed.’ I never felt that . . . I’m afraid that if I started to ponder who I am and what I am, I might not like what I find. So, I’d rather go along with this sense of illusion that I’m a neutral beast going along through life doing everything that’s preordained. I’m out of control anyway, so why fight it?”
But fight he did. Known as one of Hollywood’s angry men, he fought censorship and racism in real life and against injustice and evil in his work, especially on The Twilight Zone. Those notions drove him until his 1975 death, at 50, of a heart attack.
In that final interview, Serling was asked when was the last time he cried. He said he couldn’t remember, but admitted that “the urge is there.” He concluded: “Before I die, just for the hell of it, one night I’ll spend an entire night weeping, and I’ll draw up a list of things that will motivate it. I’m now weeping for the following reasons: chronologically, for all the shit that’s out there that I should have wept at and didn’t.”
The Twilight Zone gives us a glimpse into those things he would’ve wept about – pride, prejudice, and injustice all around.
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Two early cinematic experiences, both around the age of 6, hooked Mark Moring on movies for life. The first was a TV re-run of the classic-but-terrible B-movie horror flick, 1957’s The Deadly Mantis, in which a giant praying mantis breaks free of the Arctic ice and goes on a man-eating rampage. (Or should that be preying mantis?) The second was a family trip to see 1965’s The Sound of Music, Mark’s first trip to a movie theater, in which at least four things were born: a love of music, a love of beauty, a love of film, and a love of Julie Andrews (and perhaps a fifth: a serious crush on Liesl that never really died). Mark has since grown up just a little bit, and now says Raiders of the Lost Ark, which he has watched approximately 100 times, is his favorite film of all time.
Mark is a Copy Writer at Grizzard Communications, where he writes for nonprofit organizations, and an Editor at Large at Christianity Today magazine, where he supervised pop culture coverage for years. He and Nina, parents of two fine young men named Peter and Paul, live in the Atlanta suburbs, where the whole family loves watching movies.