The Rod Serling Thread

I recommend "The Twilight Zone Companion," a book by Marc Scott Zicree that has lots of background stories for most of the episodes and the writers, directors and lead cast for each one. The show really was Serling's vision but there were a handful of other writers who were regular contributors.

I just finished the last episode of Season 5 of The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling wrote a lot of the shows. What was cool was that he almost always did a promo for next week's episode at the end of each show....He would excite the audience by describing the upcoming show in colorful & tantalizing ways.

But what really impressed me was, he always proudly said who the next week's writers were, not the director, the writer. And I don't mean he promoted himself, he never did that.

That is cool. It really was a writer's show and they managed, in most episodes, to pack an emotion-driven plot, often triggered by a fantastic concept, into 30 minutes.