But it can also be a place of redemption.

Ask Al Denton — a resident of the Old West who, we learn, has “begun his dying early.” He’s also a man destined to take a special place in Rod Serling’s pantheon of broken heroes.

A former fast gun, Denton has devolved into the town drunk. He’s so pathetic that he lets the local bully (played with relish by Martin Landau in the first of two Zone roles) regularly push him into singing “How Dry I Am” just to get a free shot of whiskey.

But all that changes one day. A travelling salesman named Henry Fate rides into town and ensures that a special gun falls into Denton’s hands. Now he can shoot straight again. The bully is humiliated. The townspeople respect him.

Being The Twilight Zone, of course, his troubles are just beginning. Now every man who considers himself a fast draw wants to challenge him.

Two things that Serling does at this point lift this tale above the ordinary.

One is to clue us in to the reason for Al’s alcoholic ways: A long time ago, he killed a fast draw who turned out to be a mere teenager, and the memory haunts him. Our sympathy is naturally aroused. He’s no mere sot. He’s a compassionate, tortured man struggling to quiet a troubled conscience.

The second thing is the resolution. (Stop here if you haven’t seen it.) A new challenger is riding into town, so Mr. Fate supplies Denton with a special tonic. Once consumed, it gives the user 10 seconds to make a perfect shot at almost any distance.

Then comes the twist. At the climactic gun battle, Denton swallows the tonic seconds before he sees his young challenger do the same. They wind up wounding one another in the shooting hand. Neither will be able to compete in a fast-draw contest again.

“You’ll never be able to fire a gun again in anger,” Denton tells the young man. “You’re blessed, son. We’ve both been blessed.”

Thus we see how “fate” works in Serling’s universe. It can, he says in his closing narration, “help a man climbing out of a pit — or another man from falling into one.”

Look for this one, you might say, under “S” for “second chances.”

However important the question is now, it was even more crucial in 1960, when The Twilight Zone was still new to the airwaves and Jim Crow laws, discrimination and segregation were, shamefully, still the order of the day in much of the U.S.

One obvious answer: Write about the problem. Illustrate the ugly face of racism. Nervous producers didn’t like it one bit, but Rod Serling took this route when he based the pre-Zone teleplay “A Town Has Turned to Dust” on the Emmett Till case. The results, in the right hands, make quite a mark.

But there’s another way to improve race relations, one that Serling also tried when he wrote “The Big Tall Wish” for TZ’s first season.

The story concerns a down-and-out boxer named Bolie Jackson, and a little boy who idolizes him — and who’s willing to conjure up a little magic to help Bolie win his next bout.

Long-time fans don’t need a recap, and I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it. The point is this: It features a cast that’s nearly all black.

Big deal, you say? Sure, in 2012. But that was near-revolutionary in 1960. More importantly, they starred in an episode that had nothing to do with race relations. You could have had white actors in the identical parts, and you’d hardly have to change a word of it.

But through casting alone, Serling was making an important statement about race. As he put it at the time:

Television, like its big sister, the motion picture, has been guilty of the sin of omission. Hungry for talent, desperate for the so-called ‘new face,’ constantly searching for a transfusion of new blood, it has overlooked a source of wondrous talent that resides under its nose. This is the Negro actor.

In short, Serling was showing white audiences, not just telling them, that black actors should simply be accepted, as normally and naturally as white actors. Why should it make any difference what color the cast is? We’re all human. We all share many of the same problems. “The Big Tall Wish” helped further this important point in in a remarkably effective, yet non-confrontational way.

Small wonder that The Twilight Zone won the annual Unity Award for “Outstanding Contributions to Better Race Relations” in 1961. As author Martin Grams notes in his book “The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic,” two years later CBS adopted a policy that called on producers to incorporate more black actors into their productions.

True racial harmony may indeed remain a “big tall wish.” But over 50 years ago, Rod Serling helped TV take a big step toward making that wish come true.

Even die-hard fans may be surprised by the length of the casualty list. A couple dozen deaths maybe, but 128? Perhaps that’s because the deaths weren’t graphically depicted.

This had much to do with the strict TV standards then in vogue, of course. But it wasn’t simply that. Rod Serling appears to have been no fan of over-the-top violence. Consider this excerpt from a lecture he gave in 1972:

The thing that disturbs me is that thread of violence that seems to permeate every current film. The other night I saw ‘The Godfather’ for the first time, and I’ll admit that I found it really quite a stunning film – at least, it was good, tight, believable, it had some beautiful performances, and it was very competently directed.

But the mayhem in that picture, the deaths, the killings. Six assassinations by machine gun – each machine-gunning taking a minimum one minute to portray — two strangulations, three beatings, one car explosion, and some very explicit portraits of a bullet plowing into an abdomen and the retina of an eye.

Now, obviously when you deal with an institution as violent as crime is, violence has to be integral. But my concern is that the practicing moralists in this country are forever preaching about how sex can damage the psyche of the young. And through the offices of films like Dirty Harry, Straw Dogs, French Connection, The Godfather and Clockwork Orange, we getting a picturesque view of the variety of ways that men can wreak havoc on other men — bullet, claymore mine, garrot, shrapnel, homicidal rape and kicking to death.

But the moral hang-up continues to be sex, not murder. An act of love, sanctified by law or otherwise, occurs to be morally suspect. But an act of killing? That’s simply a ‘boys will be boys’ syndrome. And I submit to you that the psyche of the young can be far more damaged by seeing what comes out of the barrel of a rifle than by seeing what goes on on the mattress of a motel. I can’t believe that this country is coming apart at the seams because too many people are making love.

Four major assassinations of public figures in the last decade suggests that perhaps a mandatory registration of firearms would be far more responsive to the national malaise than an anti-pornography law.

One can only imagine what Serling would think about the violence we see on screen today. He didn’t live to see Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees or Jigsaw.

We don’t have to go back to 1964. But considering how popular The Twilight Zone continues to be, proving over and over again that substance will always trump style, it’s worth asking: Wouldn’t we all be better served by less CGI and more imagination? By less blood-letting and more genuine storytelling?

In short, does anyone think we’ll be watching Friday the 13th marathons 50 years later the same way we watch Twilight Zone marathons today?

It’s a theme that surfaces repeatedly in Rod Serling’s writing. We see it in his teleplays in the 1950s and in episodes of The Twilight Zone (‘60s) and Night Gallery (‘70s). It helped him create some of his best work.

I’m referring to nostalgia. “I have a desperate desire for serene summer nights, merry-go-rounds and nickel ice-cream cones,” Serling told TV Guide in 1972.

This yearning led to the development of two of his most popular Twilight Zone episodes: “Walking Distance” and “A Stop at Willoughby.” Both came in Season 1. Both feature a harried businessman trying to cope with great stress and a sense of helplessness. Both showcase a longing to escape into the past.

If you’re like most Zone fans, you rate both episodes highly. Pressed to pick a favorite, many opt for “Walking Distance.” But not Serling. Although he seemed pleased with it when it aired, his fondness for it waned as the years went by. “A Stop at Willoughby,” however, he later called his favorite from Season 1.

It wasn’t the theme that bothered him; after all, both episodes are similar in that respect. It was the execution. In a series of college lectures he did later, he picked apart certain scenes, such as the one where Martin Sloane (before he realizes he’s gone back in time) visits his hometown drugstore and orders an ice-cream soda.

Why, Serling wondered, wasn’t the counterman startled when Sloane talks about the drugstore owner as being dead? After all, Mr. Wilson is snoozing away in the back room. But when Sloane says, “One of the memories I have [is] Old Man Wilson, may God rest his soul, sleeping in his big comfortable chair in the other room,” the counterman doesn’t even blink, let alone contradict him.

Serling presumably wrote it that way so that first-time viewers would get a jolt when they see the counterman, after Sloane leaves, go into the back and tell Mr. Wilson they need more chocolate syrup. In retrospect, however, Serling felt that the counterman’s laconic reaction doesn’t hold up on a second viewing (or third — or twelfth, if you’re a diehard fan like so many of us).

He leveled similar criticism at other scenes, claiming that the characters weren’t acting or reacting realistically given the circumstances. Why didn’t the parents call the cops when an adult male kept coming back and insisting he’s the grown version of their young son? And so on.

Much as I hate to contradict the master, I have to disagree. I don’t mean that his specific criticisms are off base, necessarily, though they do strike me as nitpicking. It’s just that I’d pick “Walking Distance” over “A Stop at Willoughby” (much as I love them both).

“Willoughby” is terrific, and it has a great twist ending. But Gart Williams yearns for a generic paradise. We can sympathize, to be sure, but his utopia, however attractive, isn’t quite as powerful as a desire to go back home.

We all want to find a place where we can relax and slow down. But stronger still is the hunger to return to our past, find our younger self, and speak a few words of hard-won wisdom — pass along a little perspective. “Martin, I only wanted to tell you that this is a wonderful time of life for you,” the elder Martin tells his younger self. “Don’t let any of it go by without enjoying it.”

Plus, “Walking Distance” has a happy ending (albeit bittersweet). Martin Sloane gets his chance to go back, and returns to the present not only with a limp, but with his father’s advice to look for “band concerts” and other hallmarks of his carefree youth in the here and now. Gart Williams, by contrast, winds up dead.

Yes, we’re given to believe that he’s now happy in Willoughby (a stand-in for heaven, we see), but I can’t help finding the end of “Walking Distance” a bit more satisfying. Maybe because we all want a second chance — a fresh start. Martin Sloane gets that — and the possibility that we could get it too speaks to something deep inside all of us.

And let’s not forget the staging of “Walking Distance” — a stand-out even in a series that was routinely excellent in this department. The photography, the score (by the amazing Bernard Herrmann) and the acting is all world-class.

Then there’s the writing. There’s no better way to conclude than with Serling’s lyrical closing to the episode:

Martin Sloan, age 36, vice-president in charge of media. Successful in most things but not in the one effort that all men try at some time in their lives — trying to go home again. And also like all men perhaps there’ll be an occasion, maybe a summer night sometime, when he’ll look up from what he’s doing and listen to the distant music of a calliope, and hear the voices and the laughter of the people and the places of his past.

And perhaps across his mind there’ll flit a little errant wish, that a man might not have to become old, never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth. And he’ll smile then too because he’ll know it is just an errant wish, some wisp of memory not too important really, some laughing ghosts that cross a man’s mind, that are a part … of the Twilight Zone.

Time now for Hollywood to bring its ”A” game. The last few weeks of the year inevitably bring a fresh crop of films that the major studios hope will be serious Oscar contenders.

But what did our favorite Twilight Zone scribe, our curator at the Night Gallery, think of the Academy Awards? Not much.

Here, taken from a 1972 speech, is what Rod Serling had to say about the yearly Oscar telecast:

This offers up the patently impossible premise that there’s a ‘best picture’ and a ‘best performance’ and a ‘best director’ and a ‘best’ actor and actress. And I don’t think that’s true; I think that borders on the nonsensical. You can make comparative judgments about an art form, any art form. But a film isn’t a horse race. And to say that the whole or a component part thereof is the best, absolutely the best, is like trying to establish than an orange tastes better than an apple.

And there’s always something a little tribal rite-ish, a little shoddy, a little cheap about those Academy Awards ceremonies – the synthetic suspense, and the full-blown gush of breathless appreciation expressed by the winner as he or she thanks the 316 people by name responsible for her being there that evening. And all those shots of people like Liz [Taylor] and Dick [Burton], who sit there in a kind of celestial radiance, as if they weren’t really human.

I think it’s ancient, anachronistic crap that smacks of a Hollywood of another time – a Hollywood of Louella Parsons and Fatty Arbuckle and fan magazines. I’d say glory be to George C. Scott, who had the guts and the integrity to take a walk and refuse to lend his name to an institution that had the same kind of dignity that you’d find in a kind of smarmy Miss America pagent or an evening of professional wrestling.

George C. Scott evidently shared Serling’s disdain. He won the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Gen. George S. Patton in the movie “Patton” — in absentia. He returned the award, later telling Time magazine, “The whole thing is a goddamn meat parade. I don’t want any part of it.”

Considering that the annual highlight is when they show a montage of classic films, I’m inclined to agree.

“Good evening, and welcome to a private showing of three paintings, displayed here for the first time. Each is a collector’s item in its own way — not because of any special artistic quality, but because each captures on a canvas, suspends in time and space, a frozen moment of a nightmare.

“Our initial offering: a small gothic item in blacks and grays. A piece of the past known as the family crypt. This one we call simply The Cemetery. Offered to you now, six feet of earth and all that it contains. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Night Gallery.”

And with those words, Rod Serling gave TV viewers their first glimpse of a unique art display – designed not to be edifying, but to be eerie.

The date was November 8, 1969. Gone were the time-traveling tales and mind-bending sci-fi of The Twilight Zone. Man had finally reached the moon … and found a bunch of rocks. It was the season of high-profile assassinations and campus riots. Vietnam was in full swing.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that, as the host of a made-for-TV movie called “Night Gallery,” Serling served up a three-course meal of poetic come-uppance. Goodbye, reveries. Hello, revenge.

Yes, The Twilight Zone had some scary moments. Who can forget the faces of the doctors and nurses in “Eye of the Beholder”? Or the tiny tyrants of “The Dummy” and “Living Doll”? But you were more likely to take a bittersweet trip to Mars — or the past. Even when little Tina tumbled off her bed and through an errant dimensional hole in “Little Girl Lost,” things ended happily.

Not so in “Night Gallery,” which starts off with “The Cemetery.” Here we have Roddy McDowell playing the part of a black-sheep nephew who’s all too happy to speed up his wealthy uncle’s demise so he can inherit all his belongings. He has second thoughts after his uncle is buried nearby in the family plot, then seems reluctant to stay planted.

Up next: “Eyes” (Steven Spielberg’s maiden directorial effort). Joan Crawford is a blind dowager so determined to see that she pays a down-and-out loser to donate his sight — so that, with the help of a cutting-edge surgical procedure, she can see for a few hours. She gets her sight. Needless to say, she gets a bit more.

Then it’s off to South America, where we trace the “Escape Route” of a Nazi war criminal (played by Richard Kiley, star of the live TV0 version of Serling’s first big success, 1955’s “Patterns”). The authorities are constantly on his heels. His only relief comes via the local art museum, where he vividly imagines himself in a small fishing boat on a peaceful lake. Will he get away? Yes, but not the way he expects.

The Twilight Zone will always be Serling’s crowning achievement. “Night Gallery” may stand in its shadow, but for those who enjoy a good chill, it’s certainy worth a tour.

*The Night Gallery pilot movie is on the first disc of the Season 1 DVD. It’s available through Netflix. (Unfortunately, it’s not streaming yet.) The series that followed is available on Hulu.

The episode was “A Game of Pool.” It also starred Jack Klugman, who would eventually appear in four Twilight Zones (a streak matched by Burgess Meredith, another Zone veteran). Seeing Winters and Klugman act and react in this two-man, one-set show gives this episode special appeal.

Having a terrific script helps. Good Zone eps always boiled down to the writing. An intriguing story, cleverly written and engagingly acted – a formula that’s simple to understand, but hard to execute. In this case, it wasn’t Rod Serling but George Clayton Johnson (“Kick the Can,” “Nothing in the Dark,” among others) who wrote the words.

But that doesn’t mean he was wild about ALL the words that wound up in the final product.

Johnson wrote “A Game of Pool” with a different ending. In his original draft, Winters, as the late billiards great Fats Brown, wins the game. Klugman, the determined, long-practicing Jesse Cardiff, is left frustrated. He yells at the retreating figure of Fats, swearing that he’ll keep practicing – that he’ll do anything it takes to beat him someday.

But Serling wanted it to end with Jesse winning. And as Zone fans know, that’s the ending we have today.

Johnson wasn’t happy about that. He has always maintained that his original ending was better. He finally got a chance to see it filmed that way in the 1980s, when the Zone was revived as a series for the first time. Was he correct?

With apologies to a great writer, I don’t think so. The ending as we have it is best.

Yes, it’s easy to say that because a) it’s tempting, as a Zone fan, to yield to Serling’s judgment, and b) we’re biased by having always seen the show with Serling’s preferred ending. But it’s more than that, I believe. Simply put, “A Game of Pool” as we have it is more of a true Twilight Zone.

Johnson’s ending lacks any kind of twist. A champion is challenged, he gives battle, he wins. The only thing making it Zone-like would be Fats materializing from limbo to make his appearance.

But with Serling’s ending, it becomes a be-careful-what-you-wish-for story, which always proved well-suited to the fate-filled Zone universe.

Take what may be the most famous Twilight Zone, “Time Enough at Last.” Burgess Meredith plays a myopic book-lover who wants nothing but time. He gets it — much to his ever-lasting regret.

In “A Game of Pool,” Jesse, too, gets his life-long wish. He beats Fats and becomes the world’s best pool player. Little did he realize it will carry a price: future would-be champs will summon him to pool halls all over and force him to defend his title — indefinitely. This can’t help but elicit a wry smile or chuckle from viewers the first time they see this episode.

“I have been told that it is considered one of the best of series,” Winters said. Whichever ending you prefer, we can all agree on that.

Quick recap: The story centers around a Fidel Castro-like character named Ramos Clemente. Having deposed his country’s previous rulers, he’s all set to enjoy the fruits of power – only to discover, by means of a special looking glass, that he’s surrounded by friends who are only too willing to depose him to gain his vaunted position at the top.

Despite Falk’s presence, “The Mirror” tends to get so-so reviews. Even fans who like it put it in the middle of the pack. There’s much to like, such as Falk’s muscular performance and Serling’s ability to turn a phrase. But it’s stagey, with the action taking place in one room. Plus, as Serling expert Tony Albarella has noted, it’s hardly plausible that Clemente’s allies would turn on him that quickly (though he notes that Serling’s original script calls for a month-long timeframe, which would make more sense.) It lacks the subtlety of some of Serling’s earlier episodes.

Then there’s the political angle. Marc Scott Zicree, in The Twilight Zone Companion, dismisses “The Mirror” as a product of the era’s Cold War mentality. The episode aired, in fact, almost exactly one year before the Cuban missile crisis, but well after Castro (who seized power in 1959) had aligned himself with the Soviet Union.

There’s no question that “The Mirror,” shall we say, reflects its times. Falk’s character may have a different name, but he’s made up to resemble Castro. And Serling, in his closing narration, notes that “any resemblance to tyrants living or dead is hardly coincidental.”

But this episode merits a closer look. Serling isn’t merely taking an easy potshot at a particular world leader. He’s making a larger point about the dark side of power.

Once you’ve clawed your way to the top, he’s saying, you can’t just sit back and enjoy your wine, as Clemente does briefly at the start of the episode. You’ll still have plenty to worry about, especially if you yield to paranoia, as Clemente obviously does. (Seen this way, in fact, the episode could be taken as a left-wing warning to Castro and not a right-wing prophecy.)

Ask yourself: Does Clemente actually see his enemies in the mirror, plotting his demise? Or is it all in his imagination, planted by the suggestion of his predecessor?

It works either way. If it’s real, we’re dealing with a supernatural object, and that certainly qualifies as the basis for a good Twilight Zone. If it’s just in his mind, we’re left with Serling’s meditation on how power is a double-edged sword. And that makes for a satisfying story as well. Par for the course in this, the fifth dimension.

That’s not to say the Jackman film is bad. I haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll reserve judgment. But whether it merits a thumbs up or a thumbs down, it’s worth remembering what made the Richard Matheson original so memorable.

Start, as nearly all good stories do, with an intriguing premise: In the near future, boxing between humans is outlawed. It’s limited to robots — or, as Serling specifies in his intro, to androids – ”definition: ‘an automaton resembling a human being’.” Steel Kelly (Lee Marvin, star of the Zone episode “The Grave”) is a manager who is traveling to a bout with an outdated model — a B2, in a world where the B7 is the latest model. He believes fervently in “Battlin’ Maxo,” but his partner, Pole (played by Joe Mantell, star of the Zone episode “Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room”), is just as convinced they’re wasting their time. Why keep trying to hold an old android together with shoestring repairs?

Sure enough, Maxo breaks down minutes before the fight. Pole is ready to throw in the towel, but Steel refuses to forfeit even a modest purse. He insists on taking Maxo’s place in the ring. With a little make-up and the right expression, maybe no one will know the difference. (If you haven’t seen this episode, feel free to bail – spoilers ahead.)

Does Steel stage some miracle fight and beat the B7? That would have been satisfying, in a way. But Matheson, who faithfully adapts his 1956 short story of the same name, goes a different route. Steel is beaten, and badly. But he manages to stay in the ring long enough to qualify for at least a half payment. We leave him on the dressing-room floor, writhing in pain. Yet he tells Pole that they’ll get the needed repairs. Maxo, he’s convinced, will go on to win some fights in the future.

And that’s the point, really. Matheson isn’t trying to give us a miracle victory. He’s making a larger point about perserverance in the face of overwhelming odds. We’re led to believe that even though Steel lost, he won. (Shades of “Rocky,” which came a decade later.) As Serling puts it in his closing narration:

Portrait of a losing side, proof positive that you can’t outpunch machinery. Proof also of something else: that no matter what the future brings, man’s capacity to rise to the occasion will remain unaltered. His potential for tenacity and optimism continues, as always, to outfight, outpoint and outlive any and all changes made by his society, for which three cheers and a unanimous decision rendered from the Twilight Zone.

Adds Matheson in The Twilight Zone Companion: “I saw the Lee Marvin character as the sort of man who never liked to ask anyone for help, but chose, in the old-fashioned way, to take care of things for himself, however mad. To him it was a straight line progression: to get the money to put Maxo back in condition, he had to get that fee — now. So he got it in the most obvious way he could as he saw things.”

“Real Steel” will surely supply plenty of high-tech rock-em-sock-em. But for a story to stick, we need more — characters we care about, a compelling conflict, and a satisfying resolution. Judged by those standards, “Steel” is a knockout.

Here’s what he told editor Linda Brevelle in what turned out to be his last interview (March 1975). She asked how he could top himself after being feted on so many occasions, and he replied:

Well, first of all, I’ve never really topped myself, because awards in themselves really don’t reflect major accomplishment. It’s kind of a strange, backslapping ritual that we go through in this town where you get awards for almost everything. For surviving the day you’re going to get awards. So I can’t suggest that those things represent any pinnacle of achievement.

If indeed they did, I suppose I’d be worried about how do I top myself. But if indeed I’m a household name, it’s a fortuitous event, really singularly undeserved, and caused by a whole lot of extraneous, fortuitous things that have occurred.

But again, it’s part of the business of really not caring about topping myself, because I really don’t care what’s going to happen. I think just surviving is a major thing. I’d like to write something that my peers, my colleagues, my fellow writers would find a source of respect. I think I’d rather win, for example, a Writer’s Guild award than almost anything on earth. And the few nominations I’ve had with the guild, and the few awards I’ve had, represented to me a far more legitimate concrete achievement than anything.

Emmies, for example, most of that’s bulls**t. Oscars are even worse. We have a strange, terrible affliction in this town. Everybody walks around bent-backed from slapping each other on the backs so much. It looks like arthritis, but it isn’t. It’s hunger for recognition. And it’s sort of like, well, I’ll scratch you this time if you’ll scratch me next time. That kind of thing.

And if that doesn’t convince you, consider the fact that Alfred Hitchcock never won a Best Director Oscar. Not once.

There’s no question that Serling deserved the awards he got, and more. But surely it matters more that his work is still read, watched and enjoyed so many years later. I’m sure he’d consider that — along with a Writer’s Guild award, of course — the only prizes really worth having in the end.