‘There’s nothing in the dark that isn’t there
when the lights are on’.
One of the few genuine visionaries of television, Rod Serling lured us into the Twilight Zone with his very own form of hot, beat terror. His prologues were delivered with such unsettling and hip precision, setting each tale to a sinister syncopation. His maverick personality drove him from a career as a nifty middleweight, into the paratroopers, eventually landing him in television. Inspired by his own immediate success and suffering tormented bouts of amnesia and combat flashbacks, he began to write some truly groundbreaking television plays, including the critically celebrated Requiem for a Heavyweight, starring Jack Palance and, in Serling’s own update five years later, Muhammed Ali. Serling’s film work is tragically undervalued. Collaborating with John Frankenheimer on his paranoid White House masterpiece Seven Days in May and giving a wicked re-write to Planet of the Apes, he brought a subtle violence to both films that is ingrained in their very structure. But it is The Twilight Zone, that middle ground between light and shadow, that gave Serling the opportunity to tell his own skewed stories. There’s something about these perfectly sculpted monochrome tales that connects so cleanly with our insecurities. Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Frankenheimer’s Seconds, The Twilight Zone captures the fear of unknown systems and cultures, of a way of doing things that could turn America on its head. Serling pulls the walls down. He tells us over and again ‘You’re not safe’. Whether it’s a gremlin on the wing of your aeroplane, a devil offering you long odds on your soul or a cat that steals your breath away, familiar things and places can be as frightening as an alien attack. After six series Serling left these cool science fiction realms for the horror singed Night Gallery. Again, Serling would cruise onto our screens, as if moving from the real world to the imaginary, and present us with a painting. The painting would depict the theme of the tale to follow, and the camera would slowly close in, taking us deeper into unreality. Night Gallery drew heavily on a tradition of American horror, frequently Lovecraft, Hawthorne and Poe. In Fall of the House of Usher we are told that the American gothic is a miscarried genre, however with episodes of such nocturnal resonance as ‘Certain Shadows in the Wall’ or ‘Midnight Never Ends’, Serling finally delivers it. Night Gallery was also a proving ground for young directors, among them Steven Spielberg and waning icons such as Joan Crawford and Roddy McDowell. Rod Serling brought to television something new, something like the paintings in Night Gallery, suspended in time and space, the frozen moment of a nightmare.
One of the few genuine visionaries of television, Rod Serling lured us into the Twilight Zone with his very own form of hot, beat terror. His prologues were delivered with such unsettling and hip precision, setting each tale to a sinister syncopation. His maverick personality drove him from a career as a nifty middleweight, into the paratroopers, eventually landing him in television. Inspired by his own immediate success and suffering tormented bouts of amnesia and combat flashbacks, he began to write some truly groundbreaking television plays, including the critically celebrated Requiem for a Heavyweight, starring Jack Palance and, in Serling’s own update five years later, Muhammed Ali. Serling’s film work is tragically undervalued. Collaborating with John Frankenheimer on his paranoid White House masterpiece Seven Days in May and giving a wicked re-write to Planet of the Apes, he brought a subtle violence to both films that is ingrained in their very structure. But it is The Twilight Zone, that middle ground between light and shadow, that gave Serling the opportunity to tell his own skewed stories. There’s something about these perfectly sculpted monochrome tales that connects so cleanly with our insecurities. Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Frankenheimer’s Seconds, The Twilight Zone captures the fear of unknown systems and cultures, of a way of doing things that could turn America on its head. Serling pulls the walls down. He tells us over and again ‘You’re not safe’. Whether it’s a gremlin on the wing of your aeroplane, a devil offering you long odds on your soul or a cat that steals your breath away, familiar things and places can be as frightening as an alien attack. After six series Serling left these cool science fiction realms for the horror singed Night Gallery. Again, Serling would cruise onto our screens, as if moving from the real world to the imaginary, and present us with a painting. The painting would depict the theme of the tale to follow, and the camera would slowly close in, taking us deeper into unreality. Night Gallery drew heavily on a tradition of American horror, frequently Lovecraft, Hawthorne and Poe. In Fall of the House of Usher we are told that the American gothic is a miscarried genre, however with episodes of such nocturnal resonance as ‘Certain Shadows in the Wall’ or ‘Midnight Never Ends’, Serling finally delivers it. Night Gallery was also a proving ground for young directors, among them Steven Spielberg and waning icons such as Joan Crawford and Roddy McDowell. Rod Serling brought to television something new, something like the paintings in Night Gallery, suspended in time and space, the frozen moment of a nightmare.
