Picture if you will a television series which can handle any subject matter, make you wonder, laugh, or cry, express emotions about humanity & make you wonder if there are things other than humanity, express evil & goodwill, plus almost always be entertaining and you can sum up Rod Serlings “The Twight Zone”. Many imitators have since tried to rise to the level of this anthology series, including some re-visits to the Zone itself, but none have risen to this level of excellence.

Rod’s life itself was cut tragically short partly from excessive smoking but mostly due to burn out from working too far into his own Zone. In a TV interview with Mike Wallace in 1958, Rod Sterling sat on the set puffing heavily along with Wallace on cigarettes, but making comments about working so many hours that he had no work-life balance as far as seeing his family.

Imagine if you will Rod bringing up this issue about 40 years before it started being mentioned in most of corporate America. Rod was truly a visionary and this series, like that interview, proves that over and over again. The availability of great guest stars to help his efforts never hurt either. The 1950’s & 1960’s had a very talented generation of actors & actresses looking for work & finding it in the infant & developing television works going on. William Shatner, Elizabeth Montgomery, Agnes Moorehead, Wally Cox, Burgess Meredith, twilight zone episodes Art Carney & many others appear in different episodes.

Different defines this series as Rod Sterling went to the corners of imagination to come up with ideas. how many seasons of twilight zone One classic episode that did not get syndicated had a young George Takei (Sulu on Star Trek) playing a character that you would not expect.

The quality of this series was ahead of its time. Throughout the series, he would always use name references to the Southern Tier area of New York where he grew up. Ironically, his high school English teacher outlived him. Sadly, his Cayuga production company was named after the lake near Ithaca, New York where he would die, or maybe he is still living there in the Twilight Zone.