![]() ![]() As CNN’s John Blake wrote in April, “Maple Street” stands as “a cautionary tale about how social order can quickly break down when an unseen threat causes fear to go viral.” Serling’s closing narration echoes this warning, noting that “for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized.” Those episodes and others have echoed in more than a few heads over the last several months. Nothing exemplifies that better than two episodes: “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” in which the fear of alien intruders causes neighbors to suspect and turn on each other and “The Shelter,” where one family’s bomb shelter sparks a crisis among those seeking protection and sanctuary amid the threat of a nuclear strike. Still, as the program made clear on multiple occasions, fear and distrust were potentially our most dangerous enemies, qualities that could quickly upend ordinary people and shatter seemingly idyllic neighborhoods. ![]() The Cold War was also in full swing, so the idea of oppressive regimes informed Serling and his collaborators. It’s worth noting that when “The Twilight Zone” premiered in 1959, the lessons of World War II and horrors inflicted by Nazi Germany were relatively fresh in viewers’ minds. Those include, in no particular order, racism, loneliness, the fragile nature of society, and the enduring notion that the biggest threat to humanity is usually what we tend to do to ourselves. ![]() Yet in a twist worthy of the show’s creepy music, the original series speaks to the strange times through which we’re living more directly and profoundly than the new one.Ĭreator Rod Serling’s anthology show defined the genre and shaped untold numbers of science-fiction yarns, but also dealt with issues that resonate to this day. “The Twilight Zone” has returned periodically since its debut over 60 years ago, including a CBS All Access revival beginning its second season this week. ![]()
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