The Twilight Zone

THE TWILIGHT ZONE

“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.”

This quote is from the hit TV show The Twilight Zone. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained fantasy, science fiction, suspense or horror. It often concludes a macabre or unexpected twist. It also introduced many Americans to the genre of science fiction.

During the 1950's, the genre of film noir started to decline because of the invention of the television. People started to stay home and watch TV for free rather than go out to the movies. At the forefront The Twilight Zone.

The term "twilight zone" predates the television program, and originally meant simply a "gray area". Rod Serling himself chose the title of the series; and said that only after the series aired did he discover that the twilight zone was also a term applied by the US Air Force to the terminator, the border between night and day on a planetary body. It applies to a collision of two things, the gap in between things, not one or the other.

Alfred Hitchcock criticized the medium's limitations. His most vocal complaints concerned the censorship frequently practiced by sponsors and networks. "I was not permitted to have my Senators discuss any current or pressing problem," he said of his 1957 production The Arena, intended to be an involving look at world politics.

Thus, The Twilight Zone frequently used science fiction as a vehicle for social comment. Networks and sponsors infamously censored all potentially "inflammatory" material, but remained ignorant of the methods developed by writers such as Ray Bradbury for dealing with important issues through seemingly innocuous fantasy.

The characteristics of science fiction are advanced technological gadgets, special effects, extra-terrestrials, futuristic technology, and non-human beings, such as monsters.

The themes of science fiction are the dangerous and sinister side of knowledge, vital issues about humankind, loss of personal individuality, good versus evil, prophetic nature, and anxiety about technological progress. This was very true for America that had just gone through World War 2, witnessing the invention and dropping of the atomic bomb, so these science fiction movies really tapped into every American's feeling of existentialism.

Frequent themes of The Twilight Zone include nuclear war, mass hysteria, and McCarthyism. McCarthyism is a vociferous campaign against alleged communists in the US government and other institutions carried out under Senator Joseph McCarthy in the period 1950–54. Many of the accused were blacklisted or lost their jobs, although most did not belong to the Communist Party.

During The Twilight Zone's run, episodes such as "The Shelter" or "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" offered specific commentary on current events. Other stories, such as "The Masks" or "The Howling Man" operated around a central allegory, parable, or fable that reflected the characters moral or philosophical choices.