Scripts from The New Twilight Zone

The phrase The Twilight Zone has at least two possible origins. Some say it first appeared in the classic science fiction novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Rod Serling certainly could have seen that. But as a decorated paratrooper in World War Il, it would not be surprising if he had come across the U.S. Air Force aviation term describing the disorienting moment during descent when a pilot cannot see the horizon and loses all sense of perspective. In any case, those three words and the music associated with them are now part of the common vocabulary used to describe a spooky and thought-provoking situation.

So popular was the original black and white series first broadcast from 1959 to 1964 and still available on multiple platforms today, that CBS brought it back in 1985. When CBS cancelled the show in 1987, it didn't have enough of the new in-color episodes to syndicate it, so it turned to MGM studios to produce 30 more to round out the package. That's when writing partners Paul Chitlik and Jeremy Bertrand Finch were called in along with J. Michael Straczinski to guide the series back to its original thoughtful, yet sometimes scary, roots. Here collected for the first time are six of the best teleplays that Chitlik and Finch ever wrote.

Please accept our invitation to re-enter The Twilight Zone using your own imagination to visualize their stories.