The IMDb List Strikes Again: Are Your Favorite Twilight Zones on Its Top 10?

Even before I published my last post on the lowest-ranked Twilight Zone episodes on IMDb, I was pondering its logical sequel: a post listing the highest-ranked TZs. Sure, talking about the Zone‘s rare duds offers some contrarian fun, but what we really want to do is enjoy the good stuff!

And there’s plenty of that. Most series would die for the Zone‘s hit-to-miss ratio, particularly in its first three seasons. To illustrate how routinely excellent the series could be, consider the fact that “The Howling Man,” “Eye of the Beholder,” and “Nick of Time” aired on three consecutive weeks early in Season 2. That’s crazy.

So here are the 10 Twilight Zone episodes with the highest rankings on IMDb, from highest to lowest:

Does IMDb’s Bottom 10 Twilight Zones Line Up With Your Least Favorites?

We all love discussing our favorite Twilight Zone episodes and comparing top 10 lists. But even the best series in the world can’t hit a home run every time up. Nearly every fan has at least a couple episodes they’re willing to skip.

The question is, which ones? Taste is highly subjective. I’ve been sharing quotes and facts about the fifth dimension on social media since 2010, and it is very common to see an episode provoke cheers from some fans — and jeers from others.

So is true consensus impossible? Probably, but I think you can find something close to it on IMDb. When you look up a series there, you can select a list of episodes by season, or you can click “top.” That gives you a list of all episodes in order of how fans have ranked them (on a 0 to 10 scale), from the highest to the lowest.

So here are the 10 Twilight Zone episodes with the lowest ranking on IMDb, from highest to lowest:

Tickets for SerlingFest 2025: “Rod Serling… In His Own Words” Are On Sale Now

If you were at last September’s SerlingFest, or even if you just read about it here, you know it was a particularly special event. A record number of people turned out to witness the unveiling our new statue of Rod Serling.

But while the statue was new, SerlingFest is not. The Rod Serling Memorial Foundation holds one nearly every year—sometimes virtual, but usually in-person. And given the interest and enthusiasm of the 2024 Fest, we figured we had to go in-person again!

For one thing, despite the high attendance for the unveiling, a lot of fans still haven’t seen the statue in person. And even those who were there for the event haven’t seen it in its finished form. Although the statue itself was completed in time for the 2024 Fest, the walkway and special bricks with fan messages etched on them were not.

So fans who come to the 2025 SerlingFest, “Rod Serling… In His Own Words,” can see the truly completed statue set-up. But that’s not all. As usual, we’ve been working on a great lineup of guests, including Frank Spotnitz. One of the key writers and producers of The X-Files and other key TV shows, Spotnitz is a huge Twilight Zone fan.

Would You Call The Twilight Zone Science Fiction? Here’s What Serling Had to Say

The Wikipedia entry for The Twilight Zone defines it as a “fantasy science fiction horror anthology television series.” I don’t blame them for piling up the adjectives like that, because the fact is, Rod Serling’s foray into the fifth dimension is hard to classify.

An article that I came across recently on Slashfilm underscores this point:

“To venture into the Twilight Zone was to experience the bizarre and macabre, which often took on the appearance of mundanity to deceive unsuspecting travelers. While some episodes are unconventional morality tales that caution against the evils of consumerism or the price of hubris, others take mysterious turns and propose thought-provoking ‘what-if’ scenarios.”

And yet, the author notes, in spite of its genre-hopping nature, the Zone is still most often classified as science fiction. Its creator, though, had a different view. “This is not science fiction,” he told the Modesto Bee. “It’s sheer fantasy we’re doing.”

Twilight Zone’s “The Thirty-Fathom Grave”: A Look at the Ship It Was Shot On

The Twilight Zone took viewers from one end of the galaxy to the other, and even visited multiple time periods. Yet it did so very convincingly. Not bad for a vintage series shot almost entirely on the back lots of MGM Studios!

Location shooting in the early 1960s was mostly reserved for feature films. Yet the Zone crew did get out on occasion. Parts of “The Lonely” and “I Shot an Arrow into the Air,” for example, were filmed in Death Valley to give them a more convincing off-Earth look. The exterior shots in “You Drive” were captured in a neighborhood in Culver City, California. And so on.

Perhaps the most unique shooting location for the Zone, however, came in Season 4, when they filmed parts of “The Thirty-Fathom Grave” aboard the USS Edson, a functioning U.S. Naval vessel that later saw action in Vietnam and other parts of the world.

And get this: you can tour it today. Since 2012, the Edson been part of the Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum in Michigan.

Save the Date: The Next SerlingFest is Coming Your Way Next September

Good news, Serling fans! Even though it won’t occur for many months … and we don’t yet have an agenda … I’m happy to say that we already know when the next SerlingFest will occur.

And as you can see, we already have a theme: “Rod Serling … In His Own Words.” We’re going to have a great line-up of Serling experts as usual, of course, but punctuating their presentations will be a focus on what he had to say about the issues of the day.

We don’t have him with us today, alas, to help us navigate the political issues of our own time. But we can still consult his timeless wisdom and his steadfast moral compass to help us keep our bearings in our own rocky era.

Syfy’s 2024-2025 New Year’s Twilight Zone Marathon Schedule

Nostalgia runs deep and strong in the fifth dimension. So it’s no surprise that many of its fans cherish an annual tradition: the New Year’s Twilight Zone marathon on Syfy!

Sure, it has its drawbacks—relentless ads and horrible edits chief among them. (I mean, cutting the transformation scene in “The Howling Man”? Surely the Devil engineered that!) Plus, they keep doing this thing now where many of the episodes run in 25-minute increments, so they start at odd times, rather than on the hour and half-hour.

But we don’t let health warnings keep us from our favorite junk foods, and we’re not about to let Syfy’s sins cause us to abandon our annual soirée, are we?

As usual, I’ll be live-tweeting over on my X page and (as best I can) on Facebook and Bluesky too. So without further ado, let’s get to the schedule—113 episodes (out of 156) unspooling over a (roughly) 48-hour period. With any luck, you’ll see some of your favorites … and maybe discover an episode or two you’ve never seen before. (Times listed are EST—and ignore Syfy’s article saying it starts at 1am; they’re off by two hours.)

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

“In the Presence of Mine Enemies”: Serling’s Powerful Portrait of Life in the Warsaw Ghetto

Like most Rod Serling fans, I was introduced to the great man through the magic of The Twilight Zone. Happily, though, there’s much more to discover if its five seasons aren’t enough to sate your appetite for his unique and incisive brand of writing. Case in point: the live teleplays that first earned him fame and helped pave the way for the Zone.

I’ve highlighted a few of these gems on this site, but I always want to do more. So I thought I’d turn the spotlight on my friend and fellow Rod Serling Memorial Foundation board member Tony Albarella and reprint an article of his from the Foundation’s newsletter, which I edit. Enjoy!

“In the Presence of Mine Enemies”
Playhouse 90
Aired: May 18, 1960

Directed by Fielder Cook
Starring Charles Laughton, Arthur Kennedy, Susan Kohner, Oscar Homolka, George Macready, Sam Jaffe, Robert Redford, Otto Waldis, and Bernard Kates

Playhouse 90 was a prestigious 1956-60 CBS anthology that aired live, 90-minute teleplays on a weekly basis. Utilizing the top talent in the television field, 90’s producers relied on Rod Serling to spearhead the writing corps.

Twilight Zone’s “The Big Tall Wish”: The Price and the Perils of Disbelief

“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
— Roald Dahl

I came across that quote recently—and immediately thought of The Twilight Zone. (What can I say? Occupational hazard.)

And you can probably guess which episode came to mind: Season 1’s “The Big Tall Wish,” the tale of Bolie Jackson (Ivan Dixon), a boxer who’s been through the wringer and back again. His one advantage: a kid named Henry (Stephen Perry) who believes in him.

Henry isn’t your average kid, though. When he believes in you, he can make things happen. He can cast the big, tall wish on your behalf … and what he wishes for comes true.

There’s just one catch: You have to believe—honestly, deeply, truly—in Henry’s magic, or things go back to the way they were.

That may not be hard for some people, but for Bolie, it’s asking a lot. Too much, really. Because being on the short end of the stick his whole life has left him profoundly soured. It’s scarred him in ways that go deeper than the “scrapbook” cut into his face by opponents with a mean right hook.

The school of hard knocks has an apt pupil in Bolie. It’s emptied his heart and mind of anything approaching optimism, let alone a belief in magic.

So when Henry tells Bolie that he won his last match because he used his wishing power to reverse the initial outcome—Bolie sprawled on the floor, counted out by the referee—the pessimistic pugilist can’t accept it.

Rod Serling Comes Home: A Special Statue-Unveiling Caps the 2024 SerlingFest

“Fame is short-lived,” Rod Serling once remarked while The Twilight Zone was in its first run on CBS. “One year after this show goes off the air, they’ll never remember who I am.”

How shocked he would have been to see, more than 60 years later, fans thronging Recreation Park in his hometown of Binghamton, New York, to witness the unveiling of a special statue.

And yes, to remember. Because the architect of the fifth dimension seems about as likely to be forgotten as are Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, or William Shakespeare. In short, he’s in a pantheon of literary immortals.

Serling was at least partly right, though. Fame is short-lived. But he couldn’t foresee that his work would continue to touch millions around the world for generations to come, enabling him to transcend mere fame. Nor could he know that on a sunny afternoon 29 years after his untimely death, many of those fans would be drawn to the park near his boyhood home.