Thirteen years after the end of World War II, a man named Peter Jenson (William Bendix) visits a psychoanalyst, Dr. Gillespie (Martin Balsam).

This is where things stood when Bert Granet, the new producer for Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, discovered "The Time Element" in CBS' vaults while searching for an original Serling script to add prestige to his show.

"The Time Element" (introduced by Desi Arnaz) debuted on November 24, 1958, to an overwhelmingly delighted audience of television viewers and critics alike.

The Twilight Zone Season 1 Blu-ray boxed set released on September 14, 2010, offers a remastered high-definition version of the original Desilu Playhouse production as a special feature.

[5] The program's supporting cast features Darryl Hickman, Jesse White, Bartlett Robinson and future Three Stooges member Joe DeRita.

It reflects his background in Central New York State and is named after Cayuga Lake, on which he owned a home, and where Cornell University and Ithaca College are located.

Aside from Serling, who wrote or adapted nearly two-thirds of the series' total episodes, writers for The Twilight Zone included leading authors such as Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury,[6] Earl Hamner, Jr., George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, Reginald Rose, and Jerry Sohl.

Many episodes also featured new adaptations of classic stories by such writers as Ambrose Bierce, Jerome Bixby, Damon Knight, John Collier, and Lewis Padgett.

Twilight Zone's writers frequently used science fiction as a vehicle for social comment, as networks and sponsors who censored controversial material from live dramas were less concerned with seemingly innocuous fantasy and sci-fi stories.

Frequent themes on The Twilight Zone included nuclear war, McCarthyism, and mass hysteria, subjects that were avoided on less serious primetime television.

Other stories, such as "The Masks", "I Dream of Genie", or "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" were allegories, parables, or fables that reflected the moral and philosophical choices of the characters.

The requisite multicamera setup of the videotape format precluded location shooting, severely limiting the potential scope of the storylines, and the experiment was abandoned after just six episodes ("Twenty Two", "Static", "The Whole Truth", "The Lateness of the Hour", "The Night of the Meek", and "Long Distance Call").

Even so, the network was slow to consider a revival, turning down offers from the original production team of Rod Serling and Buck Houghton and later from American filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.

While the show did not come close to matching the enduring popularity of the original, some episodes – particularly Alan Brennert's love story "Her Pilgrim Soul" and J. Neil Schulman's "Profile in Silver" [8][9] – were critically acclaimed.

Outlines for such a production were rejected by CBS until early 1994, when Serling's widow discovered a complete shooting script ("Where the Dead Are") authored by her late husband, while rummaging through their garage.

Written just months before Serling's death, "Where the Dead Are" starred Patrick Bergin as a 19th-century doctor who stumbles upon a mad scientist's medical experiments with immortality.

"The Theatre" starred Amy Irving and Gary Cole as a couple who visits a cineplex where they discover the feature presentation depicts their own lives.

[17][18] In November 2017, it was reported that Jordan Peele was developing a reboot of the series for streaming service CBS All Access with Marco Ramirez serving as potential showrunner.

Unlike the first film, which was an anthology feature, it will be a big-budget, SFX-laden continuous story possibly based on classic episodes of the series such as "Eye of the Beholder", "To Serve Man", or any of the 92 scripts written by Rod Serling, to which Warner Bros. owns the rights.

A wide range of artists worked on the title, including Jack Sparling, Reed Crandall, Lee Elias, George Evans, Russ Jones, Joe Orlando, Jerry Robinson, Mike Sekowsky, Dan Spiegle, Frank Thorne, and Alex Toth.

[41] In 1990, NOW Comics published a single issue of a new series using the title logo from the 1985 revival, featuring an adaptation of Harlan Ellison's story "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich".

"[42] Comics publisher Dynamite Entertainment ran a multiple-issue series, written by J. Michael Straczynski and with art by Guiu Vilanova, beginning in December 2013.

Rod Serling sued the Marketts for quoting the four-note motif from The Twilight Zone, without his approval, which resulted in the change of the title to "Out of Limits".

Beginning in 2002, episodes of the original The Twilight Zone were adapted for radio, with Stacy Keach taking Serling's role as narrator and produced by Carl Amari of Falcon Picture Group.

Each episode features a current Hollywood celebrity, including Jason Alexander, Blair Underwood, Lou Gossett, Jr., Michael York, Jim Caviezel, Jane Seymour, Don Johnson, Sean Astin, Luke Perry and others in the title roles.

In 2017, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School produced a live adaptation directed by Adam Graham with permission from CBS, with two shows containing four episodes each.

The attraction in Japan is the only one not themed to The Twilight Zone, due to cultural differences and constraints in licensing for the Oriental Land Company, owner and operator of the Tokyo parks.

[59] In Mad Men, Paul Kinsey quotes Rod Serling's "submitted for your approval" opening and foreshadows the original show's cancellation (Season 1, Episode 2), saying "Mitch in Media says CBS might pull the plug -- I'll kill myself.

"[59] The Late Show with Stephen Colbert aired a skit The Twilight Zone: Just The Twists on February 1, 2016 and on January 22, 2024, where the host claims to get access to unreleased alternative versions of episodes.

The episodes mirror The Twilight Zone's intro, theme song, and storytelling style, complete with an announcer impersonating Rod Serling's voice and narration.