The Daily Zone

Posted on May 28, 2023 by Doc

“You’re traveling through another dimension — a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s a signpost up ahead: your next stop: 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.

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call ‘The Twilight Zone’.” -ROD SERLING

Welcome to The Daily Zone. This is one of the summer’s big initiatives at EYG, along with the second annual June Swoon. This will fall under the TV G[eek] category and it will be a deep dive into the episodes of the EYG Hall of Fame member, the TV show The Twilight Zone.

This idea formed after I completed reading a graphic novel that I had recently purchased b Koren Shadmi entitled The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television. It was a fascinating read about the life and times of the creator of the classic TV series that ran from 1959-1964.

The Twilight Zone was an anthology series where every episode dealt with a new story and different characters. It was a science fiction series despite Rod Serling not being an expert in the genre. According to The Twilight Man graphic novel, Serling decided on science fiction because much of what he was trying to do was being censored because it was too current and controversial. Being able to set the story in a sci-fi world, he found he could get away with the concepts without the censorship that he fought against for much of his career.

With summer vacation approaching, I knew I had some time available for something new. Even with the June Swoon 2 already planned, I figured that there would still be plenty of time to start up what I called The Daily Zone.

Every day, starting today, I will watch at least one episode of the original Twilight Zone and do a write up on them. There may be several episodes on each post, to save writing. During the summer months, I anticipate watching several episodes in a single day. There were five seasons and 156 episodes of the series, which ran about a half hour each. All of the seasons are currently available on Amazon Prime. There is also a 2019-2020 series from producer Jordan Peele which I may include in the Daily Zone when I work my way through the original series from Rod Serling.

I am not sure if I am setting a time frame for completion of this project. I would ideally be done before school resumes in mid-August, but I have not sat down and planned that out.

I have seen a few episodes of the series but I have not seen very many. The graphic novel made me intrigued to see the work of Rod Serling.

I may yet revisit this summer the 1983 film, Twilight Zone: The Movie in the Doc Classic Movies Reviewed section of the site. I know some of the sections of that film were remakes of the series. I have seen that film, but it has been a very long time.

The Twilight Zone is a member of the EYG Hall of Fame, being inducted in the Class of 2010.

The rankings of each episode will fall into the following five categories.

The best episodes will receive…