60 Years Ago, The Twilight Zone Did Best Black Mirror Episode’s Idea Better
There’s nothing new under the sun, right?
In 1959, The Twilight Zone premiered on CBS, and from the very first episode, the series about the strange, the otherworldly, and the unknown drew viewers into the world of Rod Serling, the showrunner and writer of most of the episodes.
Serling came up with The Twilight Zone while Alfred Hitchcock Presents was already on television. In many ways, these projects are similar: the episodes are unrelated and last half an hour, always ending with an unpredictable twist. But if Hitchcock focused on detective stories, Serling decided to turn to science fiction.
The Twilight Zone has had three reboots – in the 80s, 2000s and 2020s. Thanks to this, the show has become an example of how the same motifs and plots are reinterpreted at different times and with different emphases. And some of these stories, as they changed, moved into other shows.
Judgement Night Tells About a Man Punished For His Sins
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In 1959, the original series aired the episode Judgment Night. A man wakes up in the cabin of a passenger liner and remembers nothing. The passengers and crew turn out to be the nicest people possible.
After long and pleasant conversations, the stranger returns to his cabin, looks through his things, and is surprised to find a Nazi cap. The episode takes place in the 1940s.
A peaceful ship quietly slips under the Nazis' noses, and then an attack occurs. The main character watches as all his new friends die in the fire, and realizes that he himself is about to die. But here, the action shifts to the enemy.
We learn that this man was the captain of a German submarine and that it was he who ordered the sadistic shooting of an obviously peaceful ship. Now, as punishment, he is condemned to live and die on that ship every night.
White Bear Explores The Same Topic, But in a Different Setting
In the Black Mirror episode White Bear, Victoria wakes up with no memories and finds herself in a frightening company of infected people. She tries to save herself, stop the spread of the signal that turns people into zombies. But she still turns out to be completely helpless against the world around her.
The end of the episode shows that everyone receives a punishment that fits the crime. Victoria was an accomplice in the murder of a little girl and now, day after day, she must experience the same feelings of loss and helplessness that the child experienced before her death.
The Twilight Zone Had an Enormous Influence on TV & Movies
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It's worth noting that while White Bear is one of the highest rated Black Mirror episodes, with an 8.0 rating on IMDb, Judgement Night is rated 7.3. Of course, the Twilight Zone episode is inferior to Black Mirror in visuals, but the same cannot be said about the semantic component.
Also, it was The Twilight Zone that gave birth to a genre of stories that not only have a final twist, but turn the entire story on its head.
The Twilight Zone has inspired both writers and filmmakers. Christine, the jealously-mad car from Stephen King 's novel of the same name, has a sister in The Twilight Zone. A car, which decides where to go and who to kill, appears in the episode A Thing About Machines.
The main character of the film The Truman Show finds out that his whole life is a reality show. This plot twist was familiar to The Twilight Zone viewers. The main character of the episode A World of Difference also discovers that his life takes place inside a movie. In fact, he is just an actor who has gone crazy and confused reality with the film set.
And the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise borrowed the idea of nightmares coming to life from the episode Perchance to Dream. The main character sees in a dream a woman who threatens to kill him, and is terrified of falling asleep.