The Bizarre Pleasures of the 1980s ‘Twilight Zone’ Reboot

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Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” is the gold standard for anthology TV shows, science-fiction and fantasy TV series and, some might argue, TV shows period.

The series, which ran for 156 episodes from 1959 to 1964, has some rivals for those accolades, for certain. “The Outer Limits,” broadcast from 1963 to 1965, had some sterling episodes. 

But Serling’s original series, often imitated, has never been duplicated. Although … I would argue that its first reboot, appearing on CBS for 65 episodes from 1985 to 1989, comes closer to capturing the spirit and integrity of the original – even closer than filmmaker Jordan Peele’s polished remake that aired 2019-2020. More on that reboot in a bit.

The mid-1980s was an odd time for TV, with the debut of real prestige TV a few years away and only a few series that really stood out from the pack, including “St. Elsewhere” and “Hill Street Blues.” Even series with occasionally strong episodes like “Miami Vice” were very much a product of the commercial TV world of the time.

The 1980s “Twilight Zone” definitely made concessions to be on broadcast TV. But – here’s the heresy – it comes closer to, even approaching, the quality of the original than any other series.

But before all that, there was the word, and the word came from Rod Serling.

Honoring Serling’s legacy

Sometimes in the original “Twilight Zone,” creator/frequent writer Serling supplied only voice-over intros and outros for episodes. Often he appeared on camera and, like Alfred Hitchcock at the time, subsequently became a well-known figure to television viewers. In his narrations, Serling was by turns ominous, humorous and ironic, just like the 92 scripts he wrote for his 156-episode series.   

The playwright – whose work with “The Twilight Zone,” his lesser follow-up series “Night Gallery,” and film screenplays including “Requiem for a Heavyweight,” the prophetic political drama “Seven Days in May” and the original “Planet of the Apes” – shined a light on humanity in a manner that even the most common denominator of viewers could understand. He won a Peabody, Emmys and turned himself into a cultural touchstone. Time is passing, for certain, but a large percentage of the population still knows enough about Rod Serling to, at least, have a sense of what he contributed to the culture before his death in 1975.

Serling lived on through his writing but also for a fleeting glimpse we get of him in the opening credits for the reboot series, which began on CBS in September 1985 and appeared, in sometimes truncated form, into 1989 (the third and final season airing through television syndication).

In 65 episodes, more or less, running an hour long but usually consisting of a couple of 20-minute-plus stories plus shorts, the 1980s “Twilight Zone” helped perpetuate Serling and his best-known achievement for another generation of fans. 

And while it was at it, the reboot featured early-, late- or career-high performances from the likes of Danny Kaye, Glynn Turman, Morgan Freeman, William Peterson, Frances McDormand, Bruce Willis, James Cromwell, Helen Mirren, Elliot Gould, Adolph Caesar, Mare Winningham … just too many others to mention.

And it provided a showcase for the work of authors and screenwriters like Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Alan Brennert, Richard Matheson, George R.R. Martin, Robert Crais and David Gerrold, Rod Serling himself and directors including Wes Craven, William Friedkin, Joe Dante, John Milius and Martha Coolidge. 

For a while, the 1980s “Twilight Zone” was the place to be, obviously.

A reboot you ‘Need to Know’

If you watched the series when it originally aired, it’s likely a few episodes still stick with you. The first season episode “Gramma,” Harlan Ellison’s adaptation of Stephen King’s original story, is remembered as one of the scariest things to appear on TV at the time. The King original, which appeared in his collection “Skeleton Crew,” is about a boy who’s scared to be left home alone with his ailing grandmother … and with good reason.

As memorable as “Gramma” was, a few others live on in my memory, although not for scares. These episodes featured Serling-worthy stories, characters and twists.

“Profile in Silver” might be my favorite episode of the reboot. Writer John Hancock’s story finds a 22nd century instructor at Harvard going on a solo personal field trip back in time to observe the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The academic Joseph Fitzgerald (Lane Smith) can’t bear to let JFK (Andrew Robinson) be killed, however. He warns him just as shots ring out in Dallas. JFK and a suspicious Secret Service supervisor reward Fitzgerald with a trip back to D.C. But almost immediately, other events – severe weather, political assassinations and military action – break out and Fitzgerald, a distant descendant of Kennedy, becomes convinced he must undo the heroic action that saved the president’s life.

“Need to Know” is probably my other favorite episode. William L. Peterson, star of films like “Manhunter” and “To Live and Die in L.A.,” stars as a government agent who comes to a small town where insanity seems to be contagious. Frances McDormand is the town resident who asked for help when her father went mad. Tension builds and the episode – based on a story by Sidney Sheldon, no less – has the same feeling of dread and paranoia as “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” And that ending!

There’s “Shatterday,” written by Ellison, directed by Craven and starring Willis, about a man who loses himself but is replaced; “Paladin of the Lost Hour,” starring Kaye and Turman, about a man who keeps the world running, in a tale that might remind viewers of Ray Bradbury; “Her Pilgrim Soul,” about a lab experiment that recreates a woman (the wonderful stage actress Anne Twomey) from the past; and lighter fare like “I of Newton,” “The Uncle Devil Show” and “Dealer’s Choice.”

I can’t argue that every episode of the 1980s show is the equal of the original, which was a collective masterpiece. It’s hard to imagine how any series could come closer, though.

There was a “Twilight Zone” movie, of course, and two more attempts to recreate the small-screen success of Serling’s vision.

Remakes still in fashion

I have almost no memory of the 2002 reboot of “The Twilight Zone,” featuring Forest Whitaker as the host and narrator. The reboots are always a study in which actors are hot at the time, and this reboot featured performances from Jason Alexander, Lou Diamond Phillips, Jason Bateman and even Bill Mumy, returning in a follow-up to the “It’s a Good Life” story from the very first version of the show. Titus Welliver and Andrew McCarthy are among the neighbors freaking out in a new version of “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.” About 42 stories were told over the course of a single season, usually two per episode. 

More interesting, although still lacking compared to the first two incarnations of the show, is director and host Jordan Peele’s remake that aired in 2019 and 2020.

The series had big names – Kumail Nanjiani and Tracy Morgan in the first episode alone, followed in later episodes by Adam Scott (in a more paranoid remake of the original series’ “Nightmare at 30,000 feet”) and others. 

I swear it seems like a preponderance of episodes feature people in the entertainment industry and it feels too self-referential. I did like the conceit that the episodes took place in the same world, however, with the airliner from “Nightmare” showing up as a model on a flight to Mars in another episode and Nanjiani’s face on magazine covers in another episode.

I wanted to like Peele’s version more than I did, but I was struck by how slow some of the 20 episodes seem. The inclination to give each story an hour – probably intended to emphasize the gravitas of the series – seemed to work against the punchiness of the franchise.

Sci-fi and fantasy anthologies are still very much a thing, with “Black Mirror” presenting absorbing and disturbing stories in the “Twilight Zone” manner. 

There’s no series that equals the story-telling power of the original, however, except for its 1980s incarnation.

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