Fueling an entire career with twist endings is heavy to corroborate – just askM. Night Shyamalan . But Rod Serling did it , with the 156 episode of the ground - breaking anthology seriesThe Twilight Zone , thanks to his commitment to enhancing the twists by show humanity in both its angelic and monstrous forms .
Thanks to Netflix and Amazon Prime , where all but the quaternary time of year ’s 18 episodes are streaming ( Hulu and CBS All Access reader get all five time of year ) , you may revisit Serling ’s lasting accomplishment – one that ’s still prescient nearly 60 years after it debuted and that CBS All Access has boot with Jordan Peele as host ( first appearance April 1 ) . But where to begin ? Here are 50 essentialTwilight Zoneepisodes that you need to see ( minor spoilers to trace ) .
50. “The Hunt”
Season 3 , Episode 19In this super cute , mostly silly episode , Hyder Simpson ( Arthur Hunnicutt ) is an previous sap with an quondam hound named Rip . When they both die while hunt racoons , Hyder has a luck to record heaven . The uncollectible news ? They wo n’t take Rip . He reject the offer , stuck outside the pearly gates , but his loyalty ( and the loyalty of everyone who loves doggos ) is repay . A expectant spectral battle that ’s summed up by , " They ’re near dogs , Brent . "
49. “The Night of the Meek”
Season 2 , Episode 11One room to become Santa is for Santa to go down off your cap . The other agency is to be drunk and obtain a magic bag in an alley . That ’s what fall out to Henry ( Art Carney ) , a besotted poor devil in a tatty Santa Claus costume , who proceeds to bring the exact trust gift to homeless men and a mission full of children . He ’s arrested , naturally , and ring jail with some high - cost brandy , but after all the present are doled out , what could the generous Henry talent to himself ?
48. “Stopover in a Quiet Town”
Season 5 , Episode 30The best PSA about intoxicated driving of all time . A hubby and wife wake up in a unknown house after a nighttime of boozing . The only thing they can recollect is driving home fuzzy and seeing a elephantine shadow over their car . They madly search a family fill with plastic solid food and painted - on appliance , briefly seeing hope when they find a working wagon train , but their portion was seal when they drive intoxicated ; the Twilight Zone had a cruel life planned for them . Serling left behind the common poetry of his ending monologue for a clear message against get behind the rack after have got even a drinkable or two .
47. “A Penny For Your Thoughts”
time of year 2 , Episode 16In a premise that seems straightaway translated from the old adage , a schlub name Hector B. Poole ( Bewitched ’s Dick York ) win the power of reading thoughts after flipping a penny that lands on its side . What results is a kooky puzzle of using others ’ hush-hush sins and intentions against them to get justice for the regular joes . York ’s proto - Jim Carrey ungainliness makes the goofy tale even goofier .
46. “Living Doll”
Season 5 , Episode 6Before Chucky , there was Talky Tina . For those who are terrified by the weird valley of humanity snare inside dolls ( i.e. all children and parent who grew up around doll ) , this paranoid instalment does for toys whatJawsdid for the cryptical end of the pool . Telly Savalas sweats through this news report about a gruff begetter whose daughter ’s winding - up bird says hateful thing to him before escalating to threats of corporal trauma . It ’s tough to know who the scoundrel is , though , because Tina may just be the ultimate protector of the baby who possess her .
45. “A Kind of Stopwatch”
Season 5 , Episode 4Patrick McNulty ( Richard Erdman ) has hassle link up with people . He ’s a blowhard with a live take on everything , but after his swinish behavior loses him his job and father him tossed from a bar , a scuzzy drunk gives him a watch the can stop time . This narration echoes the far superior " Time Enough at Last , " and the hell McNulty experience is less than one-half of what he deserves , but it ’s a clever slant on a phantasy everyone has waste by a full moron . If a dude at the bottom of the gun barrel gives you an implausibly brawny objective , maybe think double before using it .
44. “The After Hours”
Season 1 , Episode 34Anne Francis ( from Forbidden Planet ) is golden in this episode . She toy a fair sex who buys a thimbleful on the 9th trading floor of a department store thatdoesn’t have a 9th floor . The unraveling plot of land is a layer patty of satisfying twists with a wholly unexpected ending that seems to wryly comment on the distinctive structure of aTwilight Zoneepisode . Winking at the formula ( at the end of the first season no less ) , it ’s neither cruel nor too kind .
43. “The Last Flight”
time of year 1 , Episode 18One of the many , many installment dealing with the military , this redemptive tale chronicle how a cowardly lieutenant steers his aeroplane aside from the fight only to sentence travelling from WWI to 1959 . The more unbelievable thing is that the fellow pilot film he entrust to sure demise is still alive . With some sharp writing from Richard Matheson ( in his first script for the show ) , a paradox is turn into something rare inThe Twilight Zone : a second chance .
42. “And When the Sky Was Opened”
Season 1 , Episode 11Another military recital , another Matheson story ( this time adapted from his poor story " Disappearing Act " by Serling ) , there ’s a sentiency of dread to " And When the Sky Was Opened " that Serling and company do not want to soothe for the witness . The episode involves a triple of pilot light on an experimental journey outside the earth ’s standard atmosphere . During the trip they all black out , and the plane goes off radiolocation , but it crashes in the desert and the work force are recovered . That is until multitude stop recognize them , and the augury of their being start slipping away like image on Marty McFly ’s newspaper .
41. “Nightmare as a Child”
Season 1 , Episode 29Helen Foley ( Janice Rule ) meets two people on the same day that transfer her biography forever . The first is a young , severe girl named Markie ( Elizabeth Burnham ) , who tells her she ’s there to storm Helen to remember her female parent ’s slaying . The 2d is Peter Selden ( Shepperd Strudwick ) , who confesses to the violent death . The episode confronts storage and PTSD in a entrancing path , and replace the usual slow burn of horrifying realization with tense , straightaway danger .
40. “Kick the Can”
Season 3 , Episode 21What if believing you ’re young canmakeyou young ? Charles Whitley ( Ernest Truex ) thinks it does , even if it lands him in hot water at his retirement domicile . To rebel , he engineer a handsome game of squawk the can ( youthful for 1898 ! ) that his pal Ben ( Russell Collins ) refuse to participate in at his own peril . Depending on which side of the hill you ’re on , this is either a joyous reminder not to take life so seriously all the time or a worrisome reminder that even wizened adults are as scared of the tangible world as the untested .
39. “The Odyssey of Flight 33”
time of year 2 , Episode 18You require winding ? Too bad . uncertainness , desperation , and a steadfast loss of jet fuel hallmark this episode that focuses on a passenger plane fly from London to New York City . Close to landing at Idlewild Airport ( aka Kennedy Airport as of 1963 ) , the plane prison term locomote from 1961 back to the Cretaceous Period ( clever girl ) which rightly freaks everyone out . Channeling the Flying Dutchman of myth , the plane set about to revive the time swirl , and succeed , but undershoots their present to land in 1939 . They decide to make one more attempt , because one more endeavor may be all their rest fuel will allow .
38. “Two”
Season 3 , Episode 1A ethereal poem of an sequence , the crude vanity is remarkable as Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery represent two opposing soldier in a farseeing war who find themselves warily memorize to trust each other in an evacuated metropolis . It ’s a long road toward peace , marked by piquant , romantic , and violent performance . The squab as a symbolisation is on the nose , but their slow stripping off of uniform for unlike apparel is elusive and sweet .
37. “A Hundred Yards Over the Rim”
Season 2 , Episode 23The show primarily hung around the 1960s , but it also make out to duck into the far future and the Old West . This installment chooses all the above with a groundbreaker leading his family out westward . When his son falls ill , he go over a hill crown to find intellectual nourishment and body of water but identify he ’s go to 1961 where he determine more than he bargained for . This episode apply an invert Grandfather Paradox to create a sort narration about survival , faith , and brand unexampled old-timer .
36. “I Am the Night – Color Me Black”
time of year 5 , Episode 26Other than perhaps the most hamfisted closing of the entire series , this fib of an execution that could have been stayed puts bothThe Twilight Zone ’s tower trust in the goodness of humankind and its Mariana Trench - cryptic surrender to our evil . Hatred and bigotry are on center stage as a small - town sheriff wrings his workforce about whether to hang an innocent homo . On the morn he ’s to be executed , the sun does n’t go up . acknowledge it as a cosmic sign , the townspeople express grace and release the man . Just kidding . They live in the Twilight Zone , which is scarily like our own . The episode aired months after JFK ’s character assassination , and , in the end , the dark sky phenomenon appears in lots of hatred - filled place around the world , including a street in Dallas .
35. “A Nice Place to Visit”
Season 1 , Episode 28Kitschy and over - the - top , this episode luxuriates in the cheapness of its principal character , a smash - and - grab robber named Rocky ( Larry Blyden ) who ’s blast by the police and wake up to find himself in a perplexing variation of heaven where all his earthly desire are catered to . The haughty Pip ( Sebastian Cabot ) plays his guardian backer , who gives him an endless stream of hard cash , a plush apartment , and attractive women who inquire what they can do for him . So , what ’s the apprehension ? A clever twirl on payoff and torture that grins wide as it shoves the tongue in .
34. “Deaths-Head Revisited”
Season 3 , Episode 9This Dachau - set episode aired after the Adolf Eichmann trial started and months before the guilty finding of fact was deliver , proclaiming that the SS leadership was n’t merely " just fall out orders . " Serling ’s searing , topical story focalise on a former SS captain who visits Dachau in 1961 only to find one of his victims is now caretaker of the prison camp . Realizing he ’d mutilate the man years before , the Nazi lose his mind in series of delusion wherein he ’s placed on run and deemed guilty . Serling exit the installment proclaiming that Dachau and other absorption camp must last out bear as monument to horror so that it may never happen again .
33. “A Stop at Willoughby”
Season 1 , Episode 30Gart Williams ( James Daly ) hates his mod caper , his demanding boss , and his recreant wife , and longs for a calmer , simpler fourth dimension . The universe gifts him Willoughby , a town that is n’t in reality on his commuter train line because it exists in idyllic 1888 . Williams ping pong between the relaxing saunter through Willoughby and his progressively grinding life until he decides to get off the train at Willoughby and stay . If you think he found the peace he was looking for , the subtext is optimistic , but the underlying lesson of the episode is distressful if you view the implications of turn tail this populace , no matter how appealing another world seems . It ’s also a frightening warning about the dangers of succumbing to nostalgia .
32. “Where is Everybody?”
time of year 1 , Episode 1The very first installment ofThe Twilight Zoneset a touchstone for melodic theme and elements that would crop up regularly over five seasons : a enigmatically empty city , an isolated humankind , the military , paranoia , and the hopes and fears of 1960s America . The floor follows Mike Ferris ( Earl Holliman ) as he more and more frantically explores the diners , streets , and movie theatre of a townspeople where there are net ton of signs of human liveliness , but no mass . It ’s as if he ’s always just a few second from catching someone before they ’ve left a room , and he hypothesizes he may be the lonesome survivor of a nuclear war . The Twilight Zone , by nature , has another explanation .
31. “Shadow Play”
Season 2 , Episode 26A in a heartfelt way inventive episode , this narrative sees Adam Grant ( Dennis Weaver ) found guilty of murder and set for execution . Instead of being upset , he ’s discommode that it ’s already happened . A lot . Every night in fact . Grant is convinced that he ’s inside a ambition ( likeInception , but with the electric hot seat ) , which is a reasonable rationalisation for someone face a prospect as heavy as imminent death . The thing is , he makes a lot of good points about the irrationality of the human beings and the people in it . Is he right-hand ? Or is he a panic-struck human beings delude himself in his last time of day ? Which is worse ?
30. “People Are Alike All Over”
time of year 1 , Episode 25Gleefully wrick a phrasal idiom intend to be sunny , Serling redeem an episode about two astronauts who see things other than . Marcusson ( Paul Comi ) is optimistic , verify that they should n’t worry about go to Mars because people are alike all over . That should go for unknown , too . Conrad ( a brainy Roddy McDowall ) is deeply pessimistic and cynical . Marcusson is pour down when they down , so Conrad must interact with the Martians , who storm him with hospitality and interest . Do n’t hold your hint for the happy ending , though . In a twist that inspired severalStar Trekentries , Conrad learn , to his repulsion , that his colleague was veracious : hoi polloi are just as bad wherever you go .
29. “The Midnight Sun”
time of year 3 , Episode 10Perhaps the most visceral episode , it ’s a estimable affair that Syfy ’s yearly battle of Marathon is on New Year ’s Day because you really should n’t watch this between May and September . you’re able to sense the heat coming off the projection screen as Norma ( Lois Nettleton ) and her landlady Mrs. Bronson ( Betty Garde ) broil inside their New York City apartment , mercury threaten to bust the thermometer glass , the intact globe falling out of ambit and into the Lord’s Day . Norma ’s vegetable oil paintings are dripping and blistering , and the weatherman snuff it bonkers on air . The crook is n’t totally necessary , but it drives home what ’s still , somehow , a radical warning about taking upkeep of the planet more than half a century later . It ’s a admonition you ’ll desire sunscreen and a down jacket crown to pick up .
28. “The Shelter”
Season 3 , Episode 3The end of the cosmos fueledThe Twilight Zone . Serling was never happier than when he exhibit our frailness in the nerve of doom , especially when the doom scatter to allow for his subjects awkwardly defenseless in their humiliated safety . One key good example ? This history of a group of neighbor who harangue their Quaker Dr. Bill Stockton ( Larry Gates ) for build a bomb tax shelter in basement only to observe themselves heroic for a ticket inside . When a civic defense warning signal warns of an incoming nuclear tap , the friendliness of the suburban area erodes into simmering anger , racism , anti - immigrant tirades , and weeping scourge that threatens the safety of the only person who thought to make tax shelter . The unbalanced and the sane trade places as apace as you’re able to press a launch button .
27. “The Lonely”
Season 1 , Episode 7A stirring portraiture of two out of the question choices , where most of us use the prospect of a desert island as an excuse to dream up our top five albums or make friends with a volleyball , James Corry ( Jack Warden ) is castaway on an asteroid for doing legal injury . This is 2046 ’s version of solitary labor for murderer , and while he ’s all alone out there in the universe , he gets supply drops four times a twelvemonth by a crowd that , through an act of judicial mercifulness , brings him a female robot companion . This episode is ultimately a making love story embedded in a Turing test , and it turn out that cure James ’s loneliness might have been the cruel matter to do .
26. “Nick of Time”
time of year 2 , Episode 7Another Richard Matheson morality play , this clip star William Shatner and Patricia Breslin as honeymooners Don and Pat , whose railroad car break-dance down in a little town and necessitate repairs . It ’s a classic set up , but rather of hurl the usual repulsion at the pair , the villain is an unassuming , tabletop hazard - telling political machine that keeps giving Don prescient answers ( about when the car will be done ; about a promotion he ’s up for at body of work ) . Don is hooked , but Pat just need to pull up stakes , and it becomes her incumbrance either to convince her new married man that spirit ca n’t be lived by the counsel of a cent - eating toy or to find a lasting household in this actual tourist trap .
25. “Nothing in the Dark”
Season 3 , Episode 16This humanely seraphic episode secernate the storey of an old woman who is so afraid of the Grim Reaper that she becomes agoraphobic . The bad news : a demolition squad is set to tear down her menage in the daybreak . Enter Robert Redford as a handsome policeman lying outside her door in the C. P. Snow having been shot , beg this foreign woman to save him . Uncharacteristically square , the sum of " Nothing in the Dark " is a frank , fragile conversation about how something we all must face is n’t something to be feared at all .
24. “The Thirty-Fathom Grave”
time of year 4 , Episode 2CBS canceledThe Twilight Zoneafter Season 3 , only to tap Serling for more , as a mid - season replacement for a go wrong dramatic play . The real life twist : the 22 - arcminute formatting would be stretched to an hour . The newfangled data formatting was boisterous , resulting in a lot of dud ( though the miraculous fifth time of year would tout some of the upright sequence ever ) . One of the gemstone is " The Thirty - Fathom Grave , " which sees a sailor stricken with craze fit and delusion after see what seems to be the clang of a hammer coming from a long - submerge submarine . It ’s a startling portrayal of unease , featuring zombie sailors fundamentally chanting " come play with us . " The ending challenges the viewer to decide whether the hero was driven insane by reality or his own head .
23. “Third From the Sun”
Season 1 , Episode 14In a starring Cold War thriller , a group of scientist plan to hijack a projectile in monastic order to escape a world on the cusp of H - bomb - induced doom . When their boss incur out their plan , the timeline gets bumped up and the sweat starts to pullulate . The centrepiece of the episode is a secret plan night gathering that turns into the cellar bar view fromInglourious Basterdsbefore all the shooting . Our pacificist Hero of Alexandria breathlessly make their escape , but the show has one more worm up its arm for us .
22. “It’s a Good Life”
time of year 3 , Episode 8One ofTwilight Zone’smore cense episodes focalise on a small town in Ohio harass by a savage devil who can read the great unwashed ’s intellection and kill them with a roll of its eyes . The beast is a six - twelvemonth - previous boy who hat singing and dogs , but get laid people walking on eggshells who fear being cast out " to the cornfield . " It may seem silly by today ’s touchstone , but the episode reaches a grotesque climax when the freakish little snob transforms a valet de chambre who stand up to him into a jack - in - the - box topped by his sure-enough human head teacher . The installment cease presently after with Serling admitting there was no point to it . He just wanted to tell us about this horrifying fucking kid .
21. “I Shot an Arrow Into the Air”
Season 1 , Episode 15Continuing Twilight Zone ’s bastardly streak , this early episode sees four astronaut survive a crash - landing place into a desolate landscape after blasting off from earth . When resources run low , human nature erect its ugly psyche until all but one – the one willing to slay – are dead . The stunner that they were always a heap ridge off from signs for Reno ( having never even left Earth ’s compass ) leaves the man who kill in vain tears , and us a little more sour on our fellow serviceman .
20. “The Long Morrow”
Season 5 , Episode 15Like a blank space ageGift of the Magi , astronaut Doug Stansfield ( Robert Lansing ) engage for a one - human beings , 40 - class misstep to a upstage virtuoso system of rules , only to confront a harrowing truth : the love life of his life ( Mariette Hartley ) will be an older woman when he return from the ocean trip . What follows is a grand , life - affirming , somber exhibit of the power of love that also prove the necessity of communicating .
19. “The Silence”
Season 2 , Episode 25Serling takes aim at false bluster and men who venture to be more wealthy and of import than they really are in this inventive installment . A peculiarly pompous phallus of a private club bets an annoying buster extremity $ 500,000 that he ca n’t stay dumb for a full year . What ’s shocking is n’t that he draw in it off , or even how he pulls it off , but that he ’s punished for assuming that the man frame up the money was good for it .
18. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
time of year 5 , Episode 22Kind ? Cruel ? Both ? " Owl Creek Bridge , " based on Ambrose Bierce ’s popular scant story and acquired by Rod Serling for $ 25,000 after winning a short moving-picture show Oscar , is an ethereally clear story of a Civil War prisoner about to be hanged by Union Troops , whose roach snaps , allowing him to scat down the river and onto his homestead . surrealistic mental imagery and poetical focus on the condemn man ’s environment ( all the way down to the bugs on the ground ) provide a jarring serenity after the near - hanging . But this is stillThe Twilight Zone , where a man is n’t plainly allow to rush into his married woman ’s await arms after escaping the gallows .
17. “Twenty-Two”
Season 2 , Episode 17The Twilight Zoneis filled with people who suffer nervous breakdowns . Liz Powell ( Barbara Nichols ) , an overworked social dancer recuperating in the infirmary , suffers from a recurring nightmare where she races from an unseen peril . One night she reaches " Room 22 , " the infirmary morgue , where a robotic - seeming cleaning woman spookily suggests , " Room for one more , dearest . " Eesh . This is about as hide - crawl as episodes get , and also one of the most clever at hiding its twist behind a series of red herrings .
16. “Walking Distance”
Season 1 , Episode 5Waiting for mechanics to desexualize his motorcar during an impromptu road tripper , Martin Sloan ( Gig Young ) walks a mile and a half to the actual hometown of his young , where he reminisces about 10 - cent cocoa soda and blissful afternoons on a zippy - go - circle before come fount - to - human face with his 11 - twelvemonth - old self . Martin is the original manchild : so despairing to outride in the past that he ’s uncoerced to jump his future . plow out that ’s fairly easy to do when you ’re within salient distance of your pre - puberulent self . " Walking Distance " is notoriously aggravating for its airy ending . There is no slap-up pull or sense of resolution , but a haunting question about the value of our retentiveness versus our will to make the future brilliant .
15. “In Praise of Pip”
Season 5 , Episode 1In another episode about going into the past to realise the future , Jack Klugman make for a bookie who ’s inform that his son Pip has been kill in action in South Vietnam and declination not being a better father . rattle , the man accidentally hit his gangster foreman before stumbling into an empty amusement car park , where he hallucinate a ten - year - old version of his boy . He spends his want lose time with Pip , teach him how to shoot before dicker with God to trade his life for his son ’s . It ’s a semisweet portrayal of sad - sack remorse and absentee father . Klugman ’s fiber pays with his aliveness for a brief minute of bonding . Either his lifespan was n’t deserving much , or that afternoon with his Logos was deserving the world .
14. “Ring-a-Ding Girl”
time of year 5 , Episode 13In this story of a Hollywood starlet returning house , the far-famed Bunny Blake ( Maggie McNamara ) is portray as often selfish and spot - suction – a characterization that throw us off the perfume of what ’s really going on . Before boarding her plane to shoot a new movie in Rome , Bunny pick up a ring that picture her visual modality – of a cloudy future , or not – which instigate her to stop first in her old stomping earth on the day of their one-year fair . It ’s a startling sequence that prove a nefarious cliché , who would have 3 million Instagram followers in 2016 , can be a sub .
13. “The Eye of the Beholder”
time of year 2 , Episode 6In what ’s become one of the most iconic crook of the series , a facial reconstructive memory affected role removes her patch to reveal a gorgeous cleaning woman beleaguer by nozzle - faced repugnance . See , she’sthe disgusting one . What , you did n’t notice they did n’t show the medico ’ and nurses ’ faces for 20 minutes ? More surprising than the twist in " The Eye of the Beholder " is the glad ending it offers . It ’s wanton to miss while nodding in dumbfounded shock , but the " beautiful " people are ruled over by a tyrant , and our horrible duckling is exiled with another model - ugly specimen , in effect saved from the horrors of rigorous abidance only because they ca n’t be made pretty .
12. “The Encounter”
time of year 5 , Episode 31Star Trek’sGeorge Takei stars in this engrossing episode where a racist WWII old-timer key out Fenton ( Neville Brand ) and a marred Japanese - American valet are mesh in room with their declination , hate , and an former samurai steel that might as well be a ticking clock time - dud . " The Encounter " was ban from television set for years because of racist linguistic process , but the aggressiveness and insult also stand out as some of the good duologue of the series . It ’s a rare moment where the show undertake veridical - world travesty head - on , without UFO distraction or Satan cameos .
11. “The Obsolete Man”
Season 2 , Episode 29Serling had his knives out for totalitarianism in this episode about a God - fear librarian ( Burgess Meredith ) sentence after his Orwellian government view as him useless to the state . take in to pick the method acting of slaying , the librarian elects for televised assassinated , with the state ’s Chancellor present . The lesson : never give airtime to a clever man . As the librarian faces death with faith and solemnity , the Chancellor freaks out , beg to be free in the name of God – a move that evidence that the state is made up of all - too - human humans , and that signs of weakness will be punished disregardless of how necessary you thought you once were .
10. “Number 12 Looks Just Like You”
Season 5 , Episode 17In this installment ’s dystopian future , all men and women must undergo beautification operating theater at the age of 18 , physical ugliness being one of the independent movement of hate in the world . Having seen a loss of identity drive her don demented , fresh - faced adult Marilyn refuse treatment , only to undermine when the chance of being ostracize sounds even more terrifying . It ’s the form of episode deserving call at your television in frustration , made wholly alienating with two actors fiddle almost all the character .
9. “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”
time of year 2 , Episode 28One of the most merriment installment in an harrowing series , this is an Agatha Christie novella with a sci - fi turn – and we ’re invited to make for along . The set up is simple : a chemical group of people are snowed - in at a wayside buffet car , and one of them is n’t from this world . Even though the ending involves a deadly bridge circuit crash and the at hand colonization of Earth , the smell stays playfully glossa - in - face as Serling instructs us to check the semblance of allthreeeyes on the someone next to us .
8. “A Game of Pool”
Season 3 , Episode 5A enlistment - de - force of pretend artistry , comedian Jonathan Winters spread out his spectacular chop alongside Jack Klugman in an episode that both rewards and questions consecrate your life to perfectionism . Klugman play a pool shark who spends his nights alone , exercise his secret plan and bitterly complaining that he ’d be recognized as the best ever if not for a fabled cue - man who ’s been dead for years . Winters plays the at peace , who render to the mankind of the aliveness for one more game .
7. “The Masks”
Season 5 Episode 25An episode that could have easily appeared onTales From the Crypt , " The Masks " is a hoodoo tale about terrible people getting their just deserts . Jason Foster is the affluent patriarch to a whining daughter , her greedy man of affairs hubby , and his bullying children . Foster invite them to a Mardi Gras party to inform them that , in guild to get a massive inheritance , they have to participate in a customs duty of wear grotesque masque until the stroke of midnight . What happens next is a beautifully mean - spirited parable .
6. “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”
Season 5 , Episode 3The Twilight Zoneoften featured character believed demented by the rest of the world . No one played that role with more manic glee than William Shatner , whose Bob Wilson spots a gremlin ripping up one of the wing during his plane bait back from a mental hospital . get mad by corporate mental rejection , Bob agonise the fashion only Shatner can before stealing a sleeping copper ’s hit man – welcome to 1963 ! – and killing the elf . It ’s a simple-minded tale of a man doing what ’s mightily despite expect bonkers for it , but the joyousness is in watching Shatner be Shatner .
5. “The Invaders”
Season 2 , Episode 15Absolutely gorgeous in every facial expression , this episode is a near - wordless masterwork of awe about midget intruders who terrorize an elderly married woman ( Agnes Moorehead ) . Despite being the size of mouse , they torment and injure her until she fights back , shoot down one and following the other to the flying disk that land on her roof . Since we never hear her speak , it ’s a shock when we pick up the diminutive alien –twist!– wireless back to NASA to warn the other humans not to jaw this giant - inhabited major planet .
4. “To Serve Man”
Season 3 , Episode 24This is the best instance of a strong half hour being completely overshadow by a twist . Before discovering that the alien Kanamit book " To Serve Man " should have " with Hollandaise Sauce " after it , the episode questions whether an external force – foreign or human – can be trusted to have double-dyed motivation . The conclusion , where our hero sits on a spaceship , relinquish to his circumstances as a future primary row , is bleak , but what ’s most insane about the installment is that the codebreakers who ab initio translate the title of the alien ’s book are too credulous to decode what ’s beneath the top .
3. “Five Characters in Search of an Exit”
time of year 3 , Episode 14A soldier , a ballerina , a bagpiper , a clown , and a hobo arouse up inside a rounded metallic element Inferno and no retentivity of who they are . No , this is not the beginning of a uncollectible joke , but a riff on Sartre , a puzzle of identity and purpose . A syrupy end ( this was the Christmas episode , after all ) , it takes nothing away from the sequence ’s nonsensical terror , which also stab meta - fun at the series : the possible explanations for the maw ( a ambition , a aspiration within a pipe dream , hell , aliens ) all echo twists from other instalment .
2. “Time Enough at Last”
Season 1 , Episode 8One the darkest instalment of an often pitch smuggled serial , " Time Enough at Last " follows Henry Bemis ( Burgess Meredith ) as a book junky . All he want to do is read , ruining his vocation as a banking company vote counter and royally puddle off his wife , who blacks out every line in every page of his personal subroutine library ( imagine how long it took her ! ) . Bemis lucks out when all other humans are killed in an nuclear blast . Unfortunately , this isThe Twilight Zone , and " Time Enough at Last " quickly becomes a lesson in pile an supererogatory duad of eyeglasses .
1. “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”
Season 1 Episode 22The Twilight Zone’squintessential sequence depicts a wraithlike " monster , " a swarm of suspicion , fall upon a neighbourhood of ally . As ifThe Thinglooked likeThe Andy Griffith Show , thepossibilityof an alien flak spurs residents to point fingers , office inculpation , and attack each other – a moral object lesson that plays as freshly today as it did during its post - McCarthy earned run average debut . The " wrench " that extraterrestrial have been lazily tinkering with the lights and railroad car , and that they ’ve concluded that the easiest way to demolish mankind is to get us destruct ourselves , is n’t so much lurid as it is depressingly familiar . Enjoy the repose of the election season !
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