Of course, Serling shouldn't get all the credit. However, such classics from the first year as "Walking Distance", "And When the Sky Opened", and "The Hitch-Hiker" are among the finest dramatizations of the supernatural ever to appear on TV, and hold up as well today as in that long ago black-and-white. Then too, after the first couple of years, the quality dropped off as scripts began buckling under the weekly pressure by falling back on old material for new variations. But rarely did an entry completely disappoint. Sure, few of the following episodes reached the riveting level of that first installment, at least in my book. Even more happily, was the promise of more to come. A whole new world of what TV could be opened up, thanks to Serling, and his success in getting sponsors to take a chance on an innovative concept. I expect many others besides myself were bowled over by the novelty of what we had seen. How well I remember that 1959 evening when I tuned in "Where Is Everybody?", the series' pilot and first installment- Earl Holliman wandering through a mysteriously deserted town, running smack-dab into a mirror, and winding up in a plausibly topical outcome. However, Serling did insist upon that other missing ingredient, 'imagination'- and by the bucket loads. Of course, TZ never claimed to introduce 'reality' into a weekly series- that would come later with 1971's All in the Family. But, Serling did boldly and persistently set out to challenge the blandness, and in the process prepare the way for greater offbeat programming. Obviously, it would be a great overstatement to view The Twilight Zone as a magic cure for this blighted situation. I think many of us old enough and imaginative enough at the time, knew that network programming could be a lot better than what FCC Commissioner Newton Minnow characterized as TV's "vast cultural wasteland". For rarely did any of these shows demonstrate even a nodding acquaintance with reality as most of us live it, while what imagination was shown was, of course, channeled into safe variations on the usual. Because of the conformist approach, two of the biggest casualties were, not unnaturally, Reality and Imagination. For the above restrictions inevitably produced a product that was almost uniformly bland, superficial, and, by most accounts, boringly predictable- (One near exception was the series from that sly old subversive, Alfred Hitchcock.) But pity the poor writers who week after week had to search for fresh water in the middle of this much traversed desert. I mention this background, because it's hard to appreciate the cultural significance of Serling's Twilight Zone without it. Perhaps more important, producers were strait-jacketed by sponsors who insisted that programming should be as inclusive as possible so as not to risk offending or "confusing" any segment of the audience- all the better, of course, to sell the sponsor's product, a not unreasonable requirement, given TV's commercial basis. TV producers may have wanted to experiment, but were hamstrung by a production code that was even more restrictive than the notorious motion picture code (crime must not be rewarded moral transgressors must be punished the sexes must not be shown in the same bed, etc.). If little else, most of these were entertaining in a blandly narcotizing way. In 1959, network TV was dominated by pretty-boy detective shows (77 Sunset Strip Hawaiian Eye), law & order westerns (Gunsmoke Have Gun, Will Travel), and innocuous sitcoms, (Ozzie & Harriet Leave It to Beaver The Donna Reed Show).
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