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Review liberal*hearted, progressive-minded media. Focus on their political/philosophical/spiritual message. (*liberal adj. Favorable to progress or reform, maximum individual freedom, free from prejudice or bigotry, open-minded, tolerant, not bound by traditional ideas, values, etc.. Characterized by generosity and willingness to give. -- Webster's Dictionary)

The Twilight Zone

(3 reviews)
https://newblueplanet.org/liberal-arts.html/scripted-show_records/the-twilight-zone-r6/

By V.3

· 316 views
  • Artist: Rod Serling
  • Release Year: 1959

A 22 minute morality play on your TV each week from 1959-1964. You thought you were watching pure science fiction but Rod Serling's voice-over in the end made sure you didn't miss the current day cultural message. Usually some lesson about the consequences of selfishness, greed, corruption, or prejudice.

And though Serling always warned us we were "about to enter another dimension" we knew the location was never far from our own backyard.

What's your favorite progressive episode?

    •
    https://newblueplanet.org/liberal-arts.html/scripted-show_records/the-twilight-zone-r6/

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    Explorer

    GreenGuy
      

    Rod Serling was a genius and much of what he wrote about is sadly still valid today.

    100 Club

    macphysto
      

    To me, Rod Serling's "sermonizing" was sometimes heavy-handed and didactic (e.g., The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street). He's Alive is afflicted with the writer’s characteristic moralizing. Yet, it is redeemed by Serling's prescience and, sadly, by its timeliness and relevance during the dark, bleak, and dangerous American era of DJT.

    Response from the author:

    i understand the common criticism that Serling was often heavy-handed. But i liked that. And i think society needed that -- a clear message in 22 minutes to provoke and ponder. He set things up with a shortcut to understanding where the story was going in the intro, and clarified the message in the end -- often the irony. Of course, Hitchcock did the same thing for his show, but the message was usually just to assure us that "crime doesn't pay" and the criminal was apprehended.

    • Like 1
    Enthusiast

    V.3
      

    one of my favorite 3 shows. I learned a lot over some very impressionable years, watching it in wonder on a black and white tv

    Response from the author:

    On 10/29/2025 at 3:56 PM, macphysto said:

    Sledgehammer moralizing seems (to me) to be part and parcel of Science Fiction. It was also done on The Outer Limits. On that series, the messaging for me was subtler, less relentless, and more tolerable.

    A study of whether "messaging" appears in other sixties TV genres might be interesting. To wit, were there homilies in Westerns (Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wagon Train)? Comedies (The Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligan's Island, Get Smart)? Spy adventures (I Spy, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Mission Impossible)? Police-Detective thrillers (The Naked City, Ironside, Mannix)?

    i believe it is no coincidence that moralizing was more prominent in sci-fi. The creators of TZ and Star Trek both spoke of taking advantage of using the genre to tackle topics that censors and audiences would not be comfortable with in more realistic scenarios set in contemporary society, or past scenarios in the Western genre.

    both were, conveniently, "imaginary" worlds

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