The Twilight Zone (1985 TV series)

The Twilight Zone (1985-1989) was an American science-fiction/fantasy anthology television series based on Rod Serling's classic TV anthology show, The Twilight Zone. The show contains mostly ironic or special situations with a twist at the end, which show the human nature, coupled with science fiction, horror or fantasy.

Season 1

Shatterday [1.1a]

Peter Jay Novins: [to his alter-ego on the other end of the phone] What do you mean I can't lead a happy life? What do you know about it?

Peter Jay Novins: What do I know about your life? Who do you think you're talking to? This is me, Novins. Me!

Peter Jay Novins: There's nothing wrong with my life! Not one thing! Nothing! [pause] So what's so wrong with it, wise guy?

Peter Jay Novins: Everything! Just about every piece of a stinks on ice. The sad part is, you know it, and you still won't make repairs. Well, that changes. From today on, that changes.

---

Narrator: Peter Jay Novins, both victor and victim, of a brief struggle for custody of a man's soul. A man who lost himself... and found himself... on a lonely battlefield, somewhere in the Twilight Zone.

A Little Peace and Quiet [1.1b]

Narrator: Wouldn't it be nice if once in a while everyone would just shut up and stop pestering you? Wouldn't it be great to have the time to finish a thought or spin a daydream? To think out loud without being required to explain exactly what you meant? If you had the power, would you dare to use it, even knowing that silence may have voices of its own... to the Twilight Zone?

---

Radio newscaster: I... I can't believe this is happening. It's... it's all over. We've... just had a confirmation the first Soviet missile will reach the U.S. airspace in a matter of minutes. OK... OK... those of you listening should immediately go to the nearest public shelter. What's the point? It's over! It's over! We're history. Yeah, OK, I'll tell them. War... nuclear war has just broken out between the United States and Russia. ICBMs... full-scale nuclear war... There's not much... this is it. This is the end. We've had a verification Soviet missiles have entered U.S. airspace...

Wordplay [1.2a]

Cathy Lowery: How was your morning?

Bill Lowery: Pretty good, I guess. Except for one really strange thing that happened. I was leaving work, and this kid - Robbie? works in the mail room? - he stops me and he says...

Cathy Lowery: Excuse me, sweetie, I don't mean to interrupt you, but this is gonna be done pretty quick and I wanted you to look in on Donnie before we eat.

Bill Lowery: Is something the matter?

Cathy Lowery: His cold's getting worse. He's so pale and awfully congested and he didn't touch his dinosaur when I took it in to him.

Bill Lowery: [startled] What? What did you say?

Cathy Lowery: I said, I think Donnie's cold is getting worse.

Bill Lowery: No no no. Did you say "dinosaur"?

Cathy Lowery: Mm-hmm, he wouldn't touch it and it's his favorite: tuna-fish.

Bill Lowery: Why are you saying "dinosaur"?

Cathy Lowery: What do you expect me to say?

Bill Lowery: Did Robbie or someone for work call you and tell you to say "dinosaur" as a joke or something?

Cathy Lowery: Robbie? Who's Robbie? Why would he call me?

Bill Lowery: Then why are you saying "dinosaur" instead of "lunch"?

Cathy Lowery: "Dinosaur instead of lunch," Bill, what are you talking about?

Bill Lowery: Can't you hear what you're saying? You're saying Donnie wouldn't touch his *dinosaur*!

Cathy Lowery: [confused] I know. And I'm a little worried.

Bill Lowery: "Dinosaur"? Come on, Kathy, i-it's "lunch"! The word is "lunch"!

Cathy Lowery: [annoyed] "Lunch"? What has "lunch" got to do with anything?

Bill Lowery: "What has lunch got to do with any - ?"? All right. Okay. What does "lunch" mean?

Cathy Lowery: [unsure] Bill, you know what "lunch" means.

Bill Lowery: [angrily demanding] What does it mean! Tell me!

Cathy Lowery: [a little afraid] It's a color.

---

Narrator: A question trembles in the silence: Why did this remarkable thing happen to this perfectly ordinary man? It may not matter why the world shifted so drastically for him. Existence is slippery at the best of times. What does matter is that Bill Lowery isn't ordinary. He's one of us. A man determined to prevail in the world that was, and the world that is, or the world that will be...in the Twilight Zone.

Chameleon [1.2c]

Curt Lockridge: But, wait, wait, wait, tell me, why did you come here! ...why?

Alien/Dr. Vaughn Heilman: Just curious.

---

Narrator: Imagine yourself a visitor to many worlds, drifting on the solar wind, a thousand voices singing in your memory. Now imagine you're this man, who can only guess at the wonders he might have known, wonders that exist for him now only as a riddle...from The Twilight Zone.

Healer [1.3a]

Narrator: Ah, Jackie, Jackie. You're a small-timer, a roof-crawler, a poke pincher, a nickel-and-dime grifter with salt in your dreams and ashes in your pockets. Don't cut that wire, Jackie. Don't open that window. You won't be able to jimmy yourself out as easily as you got in. That's not the big score in there...it's the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Now he is John, no longer Jackie. Perhaps not Brother John, brother to all men, but at least fit to walk among men who care. Because caring is part of the secret, the secret we all learn. That the heart cannot heal what the eye cannot see. Not even...in the Twilight Zone.

Children's Zoo [1.3b]

Mother: How about I teach you a new word. You ready? Here's your new word: comb. As in comb you hair. Try it sometime.

Father: Do you expect me to look like James Bond or somebody. I'm in construction, for crying out loud!

Mother: I'm not asking for James Bond, just something closer to the human race.

Father: [Burp!] How's that?

Mother: You're grotesque!

Kentucky Rye [1.3c]

Bob Spindler: [after the man claims Bob was responsible for his having a serious accident the night before] You're crazy; I don't have to listen to this. Who do you think you are?

Stranger: The guy you killed.

---

Narrator: Bob Spindler, new owner and sole customer of The Kentucky Rye - a hell of a tavern, where last call goes on forever... in The Twilight Zone.

Bartender [in the mirror, laughing at Bob] It's yours! It's all yours!

Bob Spindler: I never wanted this. I never wanted this.

[throws an empty bottle at the bar mirror, shattering it.]

Little Boy Lost [1.4a]

Narrator: Carol Shelton, photographer, a modern woman with an age-old problem. She can make the artistic choices of light and shadow, which capture a lifetime of human pain or grandeur on film. But like each of us, she has trouble sometimes choosing which road of life to travel, especially when that road winds deep among the shadows...of The Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: The song unsung. The wish unfulfilled. Even with the dream in hand, there is the chill of an eternal loss ...fading ...fading. For every choice made, wrong or right, a thousand alternatives denied. When tomorrow calls, sometimes the heart must be denied. For Carol Shelton, there will be other tomorrows, other joys, and yet ...fading ...fading. For one trembling instant, she was given the opportunity to take snapshots of an alternate future. Snapshots forever undeveloped in the darkness...of The Twilight Zone.

Wish Bank [1.4b]

Mary Ellen: What in God's name is that?

Janice: [reading on the lamp] "Rub me and your wish will come true."

Mary Ellen: Straight out of The Thief of Baghdad.

Janice: Oh! Wait, there's more!

Mary Ellen: What?

Janice: "Certain restrictions may apply."

Nightcrawlers [1.4c]

Price: Mr. Trooper, you don't want me in your territory, believe me. Not with the body count I've got in my head.

---

Price: Listen, I came home walking on the bodies of my friends. Now you think you know what that's like?

Bob: War is over, Mr. Price, no need to bring it back.

Price: Bring it back? It never went away, not for me!

If She Dies [1.5a]

Narrator: What if Paul Marano had turned right instead of left? Hit the brakes a millisecond quicker? Or if... if... if... The word ticks like a crazy clock trying to reclaim a single tragic second...from the Twilight Zone.

Ye Gods [1.5b]

Todd Ettinger: I hope you get to spend the rest of his life with that uncontrollable Fury, 'cause I'm certainly going to spend my life in one!

---

Narrator: The delicate thistledown of romance blows willy-nilly in the scented breeze of chance. On the other hand, perhaps true love is just a crap shoot with the dice loaded and the odds rigged from on high Mount Olympus, a condo for immortals in that subdivision called The Twilight Zone.

A Message From Charity [1.6b]

Narrator: He reached out with his mind, searching for some trace of her... but found only silence. Peter Wood, was alone.... A new year with new friends and a new confidence and, in time, he began to doubt whether it had ever really happened. Until, one day... [Charity tells him to go to Bear Rock] Harmon Brook is very different today. Its waters not quite as pure, its banks lined with tract homes and shopping centers, but Bear Rock is still there. And so is a message, a message from a girl long gone, and yet, never really gone in heart and mind. [Peter finds inscription] A last remembrance of friendship and first love. A love that will live, only and always, in the Twilight Zone.

Teacher's Aide [1.7a]

Narrator: We're told that damned places exist. Buildings where madness permeates the very bricks and mortar. We're told that sometimes dedication and kindness can purge the evil from those walls. This has merely been a story. Life isn't really like this, is it? A lesson to be learned in the study halls of the Twilight Zone.

Paladin of the Lost Hour [1.7b]

Billy: Why must that hour never toll?

Gaspar: The lost hour must never come. If it strikes 12, eternal night falls, of which there is no recall. The light, the wind, the stars, this magnificent place we call the universe, it all ends. And in its place, waiting, always waiting, hungering to be fed, is darkness. No new beginnings, no world without end. Just the infinite emptiness.

---

Narrator: Like a wind crying endlessly through the universe, time carries away the names and deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we were, all that remains is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment. A blessing of the 18th Egyptian Dynasty: God be between you and harm in all the empty places you walk.

Act Break [1.8a]

Narrator: Maury Winkler, struggling playwright and occasional bill payer. Maury knows that all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. What Maury doesn't know is he is about to take center stage in an off-Broadway production in the Twilight Zone.

Dealer's Choice [1.8c]

Narrator: Just a friendly game of cards. It doesn't take much to buy into this game, but buying out may be something else entirely. You see, there's a wild card on the table in a deck that's been reshuffled and cut...in the Twilight Zone.

---

Tony: [after learning that the Devil was in disguise] Ain't nothing about the money, it's the principle of the thing, you know?

Peter: Yeah, yeah that's right. You know, a guy wants to sit in and play poker with some guys, he should come up and say, you know, 'Hello, hi, I'm the Prince of Darkness. Can I sit in for a few hands?'

Dead Woman's Shoes [1.9a]

Narrator: As we walk through life, if we learn nothing else, we learn the only sure things are death and taxes. Well, one out of two isn't bad. And haven't we all said "You can't take it with you"? Another comforting adage without exceptions in the real world, that somehow goes all wonky when considering exit lines, delivered...in the Twilight Zone.

Wong's Lost and Found Emporium [1.9b]

Narrator: There is a place where everything that's ever been lost can be found again. A place where lost hopes, lost dreams, lost chances wait for someone to reclaim them. But before you can find them, first you must become lost...in the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: You won't find it in the Yellow Pages or advertised in the local papers. Its reputation is spread purely by word-of-mouth, from one satisfied customer to another. But if, like most of us, you've lost something in your time, look for this door. And if you don't find it at first, don't lose hope, because even that can be found again...in the Twilight Zone.

The Shadow Man [1.10a]

Narrator: When you're thirteen years old, you're supposed to be beyond those childhood fears of things that go bump in the night. Supposed to be. But for Danny Hayes, those fears are about to rear up before him, from the shadows...of the Twilight Zone.

Opening Day [1.10c]

Narrator: The perfect crime is the one nobody realizes has been committed. Every day, we commit a dozen perfect crimes in our mind, and we never get punished, because those crimes never happen. That's the way it is in the real world. But murder, like a bad meal, has a way of repeating, especially when the bloody stroke is struck…in the Twilight Zone.

The Beacon [1.11a]

Narrator: They say every road goes somewhere. But that isn't so. Roads are just there. It is we who do the moving. They stop where we stop, not caring whether we follow them to our chosen destination or...into the Twilight Zone.

One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty [1.11b]

Narrator: He had to go back; it was that simple. Back to the place where his anger had first taken root. Back to find the turning point which had set him on the road to success . . . and loneliness. Because here, in a small Ohio town, lived the shadows of the boy he used to be and the man he could have become. Gus Rosenthal is returning home . . . to the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: It's rather bittersweet how we spend so much time trying to justify ourselves to the shadows of those who are long gone. And even if they were alive, would they remember? Would they recall what they had said or done that made you spend the rest of your life proving yourself? And if you could go back, wouldn't you learn that you were always the master of your fate? And if you learned that great truth, wouldn't it free you of a useless burden? Dead cargo...from the Twilight Zone?

Her Pilgrim Soul [1.12a]

Narrator: And bending down beside the glowing bars, murmur, a little sadly, how love fled and paced upon the mountains overhead and hid her face among a crowd of stars. A variation on William Butler Yeats to all those who have loved and lost, and loved again, on Earth or...in the Twilight Zone.

I of Newton [1.12b]

Sam: Yeah, well you can just go back to whatever stygian depths you came from, fella. Because I have no intention, thank you, of selling my soul for the solution of any equation.

The Devil: "Stygian depths," I like that. You mention Dante to most people these days, and they ask you how you liked "Gremlins." You got class. But no can do, babe. You see, we took an option on your soul the moment you summoned me. I'm just a sub-agent here to close the deal. It's all a formality. In other words, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Sam: But that's not fair!

The Devil: Of course it's not fair. We're evil. Look it up.

---

Narrator: Another of our continuing tips on what to do if the Devil shows up on your doorstep. A public service announcement from the Twilight Zone.

But Can She Type? [1.13b]

Narrator: What do you get the woman who has everything, but respect? Ask Karen Billings, recipient of a very unusual and definitely non-returnable present. Because this year, for Christmas, Karen Billings received...the Twilight Zone.

The Star [1.13c]

Narrator: The survey ship Magellan, bearing with it the last legacy of a long-dead people. A legacy to be kept and cherished and, in time, bequeathed to a world still unborn. From the current inhabitants...of the Twilight Zone.

Still Life [1.14a]

Narrator: Ancient maps included unknown lands labeled "terra incognita," and warnings like, "here, there be tigers." Modern maps of an enlightened world show no such disclaimers. Perhaps they should. Perhaps even today, there are realms which cannot be charted anywhere...outside the Twilight Zone.

The Little People of Killany Woods [1.14b]

Narrator: In the days to come, when human beings navigate the great depths of space, they'll eventually come to a small planet in a distant galaxy. It's a pleasant place, but quite unlike the Earth. There's one unusual similarity, however: shamrocks grow there in great profusion. Brought they say by one Liam O'Shaughnessy, lately of Earth and now residing in one of the greener corners...of the Twilight Zone.

The Misfortune Cookie [1.14c]

Max: [reading his review] "Mr. Lee's Chinese Cuisine: If you love your Pekingese, don't ask for a doggie-bag"? Is Mr. Lee's really that bad?

Harry Folger: I wouldn't know. I've never had the displeasure of dining there.

---

Narrator: Check please, for Mr. Harry Folger. For whom the phrase "dim sum" is not merely a description, but a damnation. A man who finds himself sitting down to a single, neverending course of just desserts. Prepared for him in the kitchens of the Twilight Zone.

Monsters! [1.15a]

Bendictson: Toby, there are things in the night worse than me. Things so terrible that I've spent a hundred and forty seven years running from them. Things that wait and hide, and if one of my kind stays too long in a place, they come out. Real monsters, Toby. Real beasts.

---

Bendictson: Midnight. Not twelve on the clock, but mid-night. When twilight and dawn are evenly balanced, one no stronger than the other. Each pulling against the other in the opposite direction, so that the very fabric of the night is torn apart. Midnight ... when the monsters come out.

A Small Talent for War [1.15b]

Alien Ambassador: I think you have misunderstood me. Your savagery is an issue. That's true. But, you see, on the thousands of planets under our control, we breed warriors, gentleman. Warriors to fight for us across the galaxy! In your case, your savagery has not bred true. You are woefully backwards in the act of war. you fight erratically and clumsily. Your weapons are shockingly crude. And worst of all, in your hearts you long for peace. A small talent for war. Too small. Too small to be of any use to us.

---

Narrator: If we are pawns of dark powers, then even our highest aspirations become a grim joke. But if not, then no one will goad us toward world peace or take it away once we have achieved it. Doubters please note, you've just seen it achieved once, however briefly, in The Twilight Zone.

A Matter of Minutes [1.15c]

Narrator: Time, a handy fiction to explain why everything doesn't happen all at once. Or maybe we're the fiction, moving minute by minute...through the Twilight Zone.

To See the Invisible Man [1.16b]

Narrator: It's a world much like our own, yet much unlike it. A twisted mirror of reality, in which a man can find himself cast out, made invisible by public acclamation, belonging no longer to society, but only to the gray reaches...of the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: A small footnote found in the court records of some parallel world. The name of Mitchell Chaplin, who served his sentence of invisibility and learned his lesson well. Too well. This time, however, he will wear his invisibility like a shield of glory. A shield forged in the very heart...of the Twilight Zone.

Tooth and Consequences [1.16c]

Narrator: Women, it is said, rarely go out with men who say "now, spit". A good example: Dr. Myron Mandel, who put a tooth under his pillow and wished for love, but probably should've settled for a quarter.

Welcome to Winfield [1.17a]

Narrator: Visiting hours have just ended at City General Hospital, but this man never needs permission to enter. He comes to places like these quite frequently during the visitors last hours, with a visitor's pass printed in... the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: You're now leaving scenic Winfield, population: sixty-two; median age: one hundred and twelve. There's not much to do here, but you do it for a very long time. Look for it off the beaten path, just south of the middle of nowhere, on the backroads...of the Twilight Zone.

Quarantine [1.17b]

Narrator: In his mind, he starts to hear a song, a song of alien thoughts speaking without voice, welcoming him. Matthew Forman, once a sleeper standing outside time, has found his place at last. A voyager touching the farthest shores...of the Twilight Zone.

Gramma [1.18a]

Georgie: Last chance, Gramma! Stop fooling around! Wake up or Mom will chew me out for letting you die.

---

Uncle Doug: Medea was someone's mother. Messalina, Lucretia Borgia, Typhoid Mary. Mothers, every one of them.

Cold Reading [1.18c]

Narrator: Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, where radio was king and the special effects were as big as your imagination. All recorded live in the studios of...the Twilight Zone.

The Leprechaun-Artist [1.19a]

Narrator: Consider for a moment if you were a leprechaun, making your home under the roots of trees or in the hollows between rocks. Wouldn't you want to get away from it all now and then? A winter in Pismo Beach? A summer trip to Disneyland where no one would even notice you? But if you really were a leprechaun, where else would you vacation but in the Twilight Zone?

Dead Run [1.19b]

Manager: Sounds to me you've been taken in by a lot of secular intellectual propaganda. I've been only in charge here for a short while. My predecessor wasn't a religious man. He thought this was a job just like any other where you could compromise every now and then. But you can't. Not when your keeping the land clean. As it says in Psalms: "The ungodly are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous." Sinners, John... the murderers, the muggers, the hustlers, the pornographers, atheists, heathens, and so-called humanists.

Johnny: You mean... anyone who doesn't measure up to your standards.

Manager: Not my standards, John. The only standards that matter. Age-old inviolate standards that God-fearing people have observed for centuries.

---

Narrator: Centuries ago, Hell was reached by chalk-white horses pulling shuttered coaches; by Spanish galleons borne on black sails through uncharted seas. Legend has it Leonardo da Vinci was once commissioned to build a flying machine to carry souls to Hell, but it never returned from its maiden flight. But along this particular road to Hell lies redemption for the damned as well as for drivers who have found work... in The Twilight Zone.

Button, Button [1.20b]

Arthur Lewis: Hi honey, what're you doing up so late? What's wrong?

Norma Lewis: I wanted to talk to you.

Arthur Lewis: Well great, wait right there, I'll get a beer. So this guy, did he come?

Norma Lewis: He brought the key to unlock the top.

Arthur Lewis: So what's it all about?

Norma Lewis: If we open the top and push the button, somewhere someone who we don't know will die and we will collect $200,000.

Arthur Lewis: You're kidding, that's what he said? Well it must be some kind of joke.

Norma Lewis: He was very serious about it.

Arthur Lewis: Was this guy with a company or something?

Norma Lewis: He said he couldn't tell me that, he just kept repeating over and over again 'the person who died... will be someone... you don't... know.'

Arthur Lewis: That's disgusting!

Norma Lewis: Oh what's so disgusting about it?

Arthur Lewis: Are you saying you think it's okay?

Norma Lewis: I think it's weird! But ever since he left, I've been wondering, you know? What is this? Some kind of survey to see who will and who won't push it?

Arthur Lewis: Well we won't push it!

---

Norma Lewis: So, what happens now?

Mr. Steward: Why, you spend the money, and I hope you enjoy it. The button unit will be reprogrammed, and offered to someone else, with the same terms and conditions.

Norma Lewis: Someone else?

Mr. Steward: Yes. I can assure you it will be offered to someone... whom you don't know. Good day.

Need to Know [1.21a]

Narrator: Often the most perplexing mysteries have the simplest solutions, the most complex questions, the simplest answers. Sometimes we seek them long and hard only to find the solutions and the answers lie right before us in a reference book, under "T" for the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Man is a questioning creature, constantly striving for answers. But there is some knowledge for which he's not yet ready. Secrets once learned overwhelm him. Secrets that for now are best left undisturbed...in the Twilight Zone.

Take My Life...Please! [1.22a]

Narrator: Let's hear it for him, ladies and gentlemen. A big hand for Billy Diamond, a mad-cap kind of guy who'll make you laugh until it hurts, late of Hollywood and Las Vegas, now leaving 'em rolling in the aisles...of the Twilight Zone.

Shadow Play [1.23a]

Narrator: Adam Grant, a nondescript man found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead. Like most other criminals caught in the wheels of justice, he's scared, right down to the marrow of his bones. But it isn't prison that scares him, the long, silent nights of waiting, the slow walk to the hanging room, or even death itself. It's something else that holds Adam Grant in the hot, sweaty grip of fear, something worse than any punishment this world has to offer, something found only in the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: We know that a dream can be real, but what if reality is only a dream? We exist, of course, but how? In what way? As we believe, as flesh and blood human beings, or are we simply playing parts in someone else's feverish, complicated nightmare? Think about it and then ask yourself, "Do you live here in this country? In this world? Or do you live instead...in the Twilight Zone?"

Grace Note [1.23b]

Narrator: Rosemarie Miletti, oldest of five children. Always responsible, always dependable. Time and dreams sacrificed to family and duty. Rosemarie, soon to receive a gift of time offered by one who can least afford it. A first fleeting glimpse...into the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: To live life fully, one should hear the melody the world makes. Pity those who stumble through their years without ever hearing the song. The greatest gift we can bestow on those we love is to help them hear it. One life ends, another begins. But the song of life fills the universe, even into the last highest darkened balcony row...in the Twilight Zone.

A Day in Beaumont [1.24a]

Sheriff: Go ahead, son. Why don't you tell the major what you saw - the fiery meteor, the bug-eyed monsters, the death ray.

---

Kevin Carlson: Mr. Orson, could you send a message out on your AP wire?

Mr. Orson: Well, what is it this time? Dinosaurs? Giant ants? Tarantulas as big as houses?

Kevin Carlson: Listen to me, this is no joke. We are being invaded! They look like human beings, but inside, they're... they're monsters! We saw them! They made a mistake - a flash camera shines through the illusion! It must have something to do with the frequency of light--

Mr. Orson: Son, if I sent that story out on the AP wire, Mr. AP himself would come out here and rip out my teletype with his own bare hands.

The Last Defender of Camelot [1.24b]

Lancelot: I gave up war a long time ago. I can't even remember the wars I fought in, much less the men I killed. And for what? What were any of them for? What did we build with centuries of blood and widows' tears? They have World Wars now. They number them to tell them apart. They fight them without me.

Merlin: What of your oath? To right wrongs, to punish the wicked?

Lancelot: The longer I lived, the more difficult it became to determine what was a wrong and who was wicked.

Merlin: Galahad would not have abandoned his knightly oaths. Lancelot, Lancelot, what foolishness this is. I have no doubt that you'll be at my side when I set my new Arthur on the throne of England.

Lancelot: Kings are mere ornaments in this time, Merlin. People prefer to choose their own leaders now.

Merlin: Peasants? Peasants? What a foolish notion. How can they understand what's best for them?

Lancelot: Merlin, you don't understand. Arthur ruled a tiny kingdom. Today, there are realms that take up half the world. We fought our wars with sword and lance. Now there are weapons that can fire whole cities in an instant, and poison the earth for longer than you have slept. Today, the world has no room for mistakes, Merlin.

Merlin: I do not make mistakes.

Lancelot: You're wrong. You slept through the end, and the rest of us paid the price. I saw Arthur's eyes when they tied Guinevere to the stake and lit the fire. Later I saw him die at the hands of his own son, and Mordred on the sword of his father. No, no, Merlin. I want no part of these new schemes of yours. Our hour is passed.

---

Narrator: Once upon a time, there was a realm of myth and magic—a high, bright dream that shimmered briefly and then was gone, leaving only memories and one ageless, weary, slightly tarnished hero who proved at last that wisdom and valor go hand in hand, on Earth, in Camelot, and...in the Twilight Zone.

Season 2

The Once and Future King [2.1a]

Narrator: Exit one Gary Pitkin, singer, impersonator, and restless subject of a dead king named Elvis Aaron Presley. A frustrated young man, born twenty-five years too late, who is about to find his own place to dwell, down at the end of lonely street, in a neighborhood called...the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: A round of hollow applause for Gary Pitkin, who tried to pay a blood debt in sequins and B-movies, and discovered to his sorrow that sometimes you are called back for one encore too many in the Twilight Zone.

A Saucer of Loneliness [2.1b]

Man on the Beach: [reading a message in a bottle] There is in certain living souls a loneliness unspeakable. So great it must be shared as company is shared by lesser beings. Such a loneliness is mine and know by this that in immensity there's one lonelier than you'. And it is addressed to the loneliest one.

---

Narrator: Message found in a bottle, sender unknown. Still alive or long dead. The last of his species or a traveler marooned on alien shores. Perhaps in the end, all that matters is this: that even to loneliness, there is an end. And for those who are lonely enough, long enough, a message cast adrift on the darkest beaches...of the Twilight Zone.

What Are Friends For? [2.2a]

Narrator: Old friends have a way of being there when you need them and sometimes when you don't, as Alex Mattingly and his son Jeff are about to learn, courtesy of a very special friend from the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: For Alex and Jeff Mattingly there will always be one special friend, one who loved them both enough to vanish when the time was right, but after all, that's what friends are for. Especially a friend from...the Twilight Zone.

Aqua Vita [2.2b]

Delivery Man: Aqua Vita water'll make you look young. Hey, that's all that matters, right?

Christine: That's a pretty superficial kind of attitude.

Delivery Man: I'm a superficial kinda guy.

---

Narrator: There is indeed a fountain of youth, but not the one Ponce de Leon dreamed of. The true fountain of youth lies in the human heart, and its healing properties are without price. An oasis flowing everfresh from the headwaters...of the Twilight Zone.

The Storyteller [2.3a]

Narrator: Two women. A man. A chase down library steps. And so, our story begins. Like life, all stories have a beginning, a middle and end. But the distances between beginning and end, between story and life, can sometimes be deceptive. Especially when viewed through the shifting prisms of the Twilight Zone.

The After Hours [2.4a]

Narrator: How fortunate for Marsha Cole to squeeze into the mall even though it's closing. Someone should remind her though: Doors that keep others out, can also seal you in...the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Imagine standing forever still, unable to act, to speak, to touch a reassuring hand. If you were released from such a fate, even for a while, wouldn't you hope to forget that in reality, you're only on a short leave of absence...from the Twilight Zone?

The World Next Door [2.4c]

Narrator: For most of us, our secret heart's desire seems to lie behind a bolted door. But what if the lives we find so familiar are someone else's dream come true? Perhaps, for all of us, somewhere is a hidden door...into the Twilight Zone.

The Convict's Piano [2.6]

Frost: How do you get them to leave you alone?

Eddie: I believe in the eleventh commandment. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But do it unto them first.

The Road Less Traveled [2.7]

Narrator: We make our choices and, afterwards, wonder what the other road was like. Jeff McDowell found out and paid the toll. A lesson in courage and cartography from the mapmakers...of the Twilight Zone.

The Card [2.8a]

Narrator: The devil, they say, having so far failed to destroy the human race with nuclear weapons, toxic waste, or elevator music, has finally devised his most cunning weapon: long term credit, with fine print written...in the Twilight Zone.

Private Channel [2.9c]

Narrator: Modern technology has staged a revolution in the art of isolation. Turn up the volume on your headphones, and the world outside drops away. Sixteen-year-old Keith Barnes has lived in this public seclusion for some time now. But tonight, the tiny radio on which he depends to keep people out is about to start pulling them in, thanks to a very special frequency that can only be picked up...in the Twilight Zone.

Song of the Younger World [2.11a]

Narrator: Meet Tanner Smith, Circa 1916, disciple of a young writer named Jack London. Tanner Smith, now consigned to what is affectionately known by the Bowery boys as "The Reff", a grim sojourn into solitude, despair, pain, and sooner than he knows, a curious corner...in The Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: A Song of the Younger World...a tale told on wintery nights when the moon is full, of living with wolves and learning to howl. Of love that transcends worldly pain, and running free...in the Twilight Zone.

The Girl I Married [2.11b]

Narrator: It has been said that the eighties are just the sixties, twenty years later. The costumes may change, but the cast remains: the arrogant, the radical, the naive, and the cynical; the misplaced and the spaced. Each, a stage in the growth of a generation as it treads the tail-end of the twentieth century on a long journey...through the Twilight Zone.

Season 3

The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon [3.1]

Narrator: One old man in a private world of irrational urgencies. For Dr. Jeremy Sinclair, an all too common sight, but Edgar Witherspoon is a most uncommon old man with a secret that reaches out to the four corners of the Earth as the good doctor is about to discover.

---

Narrator: If in the next few months you notice that there has been a spate of catastrophes or things are just not going right, remember that Edgar Witherspoon's replacement is learning how to make some precise adjustments. Don't worry, his education will not last long and then you might give thanks to a physician whose practice extends to the well-being of the entire planet. Dr. Jeremy Sinclair offers a unique form of preventive medicine found only in the Twilight Zone.

Extra Innings [3.2]

Narrator: It's been said that the body is the means through which an athlete can best reveal the dynamic potential of the human spirit. But what happens when the means to that expression is injured beyond repair? Meet Ed Handler, a once-prominent player in the big leagues, a man who's never resolved himself to his faith as a non-participant, who will soon be forced to bat in the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Ed Handler, Monty Hanks. To some, a mere face on a trading card but to a special friend, he is an eternal boy of summer. An athlete who found himself drafted by a unique team in a league that plays its games, in the Twilight Zone.

The Crossing [3.3]

Narrator: There dwells in this parish, a modern day apostle and master builder, who lists among his tools of trade: a Bible, a rosary, and a calculator. His name: Father Mark Cassidy. Age: 42. A fair and noble man who's about to discover one of his accounts is still open. That account is labeled "guilt" and it's concealed in a ledger stored...in the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Blessed are the pure in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. A message delivered from thousands of pulpits to millions of people yearning for peace, including one local parish priest whose road to peace and salvation crossed right through...the Twilight Zone.

The Hunters [3.4]

Narrator: A beautiful summer day full of adventure for a young boy. On the surface, a field, like any other, soon to be covered with neatly arranged family homes. But today, this curious boy is about to discover a terrifying secret that can only be shared within the confines...of the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Time is the invincible enemy of mortal flesh; or so modern man believes. But somewhere in the dark past a few of our distant ancestors discovered a way to bridge the millenia. It's a secret that was buried 12,000 years ago, and rediscovered for a brief moment...in the Twilight Zone.

Dream Me a Life [3.5]

Narrator: Portrait of a man having a bad dream. His name: Roger Simpson Leeds. Place of residence: A retirement home. Roger Simpson Leeds, who since the death of his wife three years ago, has dedicated himself to living a life in which he touches no one and no one touches him. But now, contact has been made and Mr. Leeds is about to find himself touched...by the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Mr. Roger Simpson Leeds, lately returned from a journey into shadow, who found that there is no darkness so complete that it cannot be penetrated by the human heart, or...the Twilight Zone.

Memories [3.6]

Narrator: Mary McNeal, dealer in dreams and memories to whom the recovering of past lives is the greatest good she can render to a forgetful humanity. 8:57 P.M. and Mary McNeal makes another attempt to discover a previous life. However, the journey she is about to take is to another place; a land whose borders are defined by the region we call...the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Mary McNeal, who set out on a voyage of discovery that brought her home again by a most curious route. Now, appointed guardian of doors best kept sealed, in the mirror, mirror world...of the Twilight Zone.

The Hellgramite Method [3.7]

Narrator: Miley Judson, an everyman who has strayed from the path, slipped and fallen, many times. A man who seeks solace from his problems at the bottom of a glass. A good man, at war with himself, slowly drowning in alcohol, swallow by swallow. Pulled down by the insidious undertow of an endless ocean of booze, helpless to stop doing the one thing he does better than anything else: drink.

---

Narrator: Miley Judson happened upon the simple discovery that there is no sure-fire cure, no quick fix, no shortcut to either sobriety or peace of mind. Some people achieve it through an individual act of will, others find strength in numbers. What Miley Judson needed was a little something extra, something that could only be found...in The Twilight Zone.

Our Selena Is Dying [3.8]

Narrator: Your attention is drawn to the residence of the Brockman clan. An ancient mansion, its paneled walls polished by darkness; a lifeless, soundless place, upon which a greater darkness has fallen. The object of the deathwatch, Selena Brockman, grand dame of the menagerie, who lies in her bed in an inch-by-inch battle with death, trying somehow to reach a compromise instead of a capitulation.

---

Narrator: Jane Doe: age unknown. Sole survivor of a terrible fire, soon to undergo a miraculous recovery. A living warning to those who fail to perceive the distinction that there is a difference between the fear of death and the love of life, especially...in the Twilight Zone.

The Call [3.9]

Narrator: Norman Blane, whose greatest fear is that, if he were to vanish from the Earth tomorrow, no one will notice, or mourn, or question, and whose greatest sadness is the realization that he is probably right. Sofa, coffee table, chair, and pet; solitary decorations in a life noted chiefly for its isolation. Point of origin and point of destination for Norman Blane, whose days and nights are routinely swallowed into unhappy silence.

---

Narrator: On display: a very special exhibit, cast in bronze and loneliness; a tender symmetry of line and form, suggestive of love, finally found...in the Twilight Zone.

The Trance [3.10]

Narrator: Lights. A crowd. The proper atmosphere. And the common coin of desperate belief. Commodities necessary to the life and times of Leonard Randall, who may or may not be someone else as well.

---

Narrator: Critical reviews received and reluctantly acknowledged by Mr. Leonard Randall. A case study in showmanship who found himself upstaged, in the final act...by the Twilight Zone.

Acts of Terror [3.11]

Narrator: Louise Simonson, considered quite pretty once, not long ago. Before the arguments, and the years and the stick took it out of her. Louise Simonson, like so many, broken on the wheel, with one subtle difference...this wheel has a name.

---

Narrator: Louise Simonson, driven by pain and anger, into the desperate regions of the human heart, only to discover the preeminence of her own personal power and an act of recognition that reverberates in and out of the Twilight Zone.

20/20 Vision [3.12]

Narrator: Focus on Warren Cribbens, a myopic little man. Precise with figures, awkward with people. His horizons? A bottom line dotted with decimal points. But his safety in numbers is about to be erased.

---

Narrator: Accidents will happen, and Warren Cribbens had a lucky break. Instead of blindly following orders, his eyes were opened and he saw humanity and discovered it was his greatest asset. Add him to the list of those who have peered into...the Twilight Zone.

There Was an Old Woman [3.13]

Narrator: Not so very long ago, before computerized toys and cathode-ray characters did our speaking and thinking for us, one of the storytellers' most important tools was imagination. The imagination of an audience. That was how it used to be once upon a time...

---

Narrator: There was an old woman. A page in a book. Mere phrases and words, of which no one would look. But a tale worth telling has a life of its own. Happily ever after, in the Twilight Zone.

The Trunk [3.14]

Narrator: It's been said that all good things come to those who wait. This is Willy Gardner, a man whose lifetime of waiting is about to end. Willy Gardner, a man with limited space, limited horizons, and limited contact with humanity. People float in and out of his life like flotsam and jetsam washing up on the beach. But the law of salvage is about to change all that. Today, Willy is about to find something very valuable on his particular beach...in the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Willy Gardner, a simple man who discovered in a steamer trunk the difference between possessions and real wealth. Once adrift in a sea of humanity, he's finally found a safe harbor, in a port of call...known as the Twilight Zone.

Appointment on Route 17 [3.15]

Narrator: One man, one heart. An obsolete fact of life. Witness Tom Bennett, a man who accepts this new organ as just one more item money can buy. A man who would tell you that the boundaries of the Twilight Zone are shrinking as miracles become commonplace.

---

Narrator: A philosopher once wrote: "The heart has its reasons that reason does not know." Perhaps he was born knowing that truth. Or perhaps, like Mr. Tom Bennett, he discovered it with a little help...from the Twilight Zone.

The Cold Equations [3.16]

Narrator: On the frontier, any frontier, there can be little margin for error. Just as the first covered wagons making their way across the American desert had a finite supply of food and water, so too on this even vaster frontier are there laws that must be strictly observed. Thomas Barton has been piloting Emergency Dispatch Ships for five years. He has never been faced with this particular law of the frontier, until now. Thomas Barton is about to discover firsthand that there are limits, even here in the boundless reaches of the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: In the darkness, Thomas Barton hurtles toward his destination with the realization that there is room for emotion on the wilder frontiers of the universe. Emotion and memory of a girl who had not known that sometimes it takes a human life to balance the cold equation in the black geometry...of the Twilight Zone.

Stranger in Possum Meadows [3.17]

Narrator: For Danny Wilkins, a sunny afternoon is a world of adventure. He's a typical boy who likes nothing better than following a trail, just to see where it goes. But today, that trail will lead Danny through a private reserve, which lies just inside the borders...of the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Danny Wilkins, beneficiary of an act of kindness offered by a stranger. A stranger who's been reminded of a truth, the power of which cuts across races, cultures and even species—the love between parent and child. It's a truth that can change minds and actions even in a place known...as the Twilight Zone.

Street of Shadows [3.18]

Narrator: Steve Cranston, a man living what Thoreau called 'a life of quiet desperation'. A man once successful, once firmly ensconced in the American Dream, only to have it turned into a nightmare. Steve Cranston, a statistic, whose number is about to be called...from the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: It has been a time of changes for Steve Cranston. And the hard times are by no means over. But perhaps now the decisions ahead will be a little easier to make. There are no easy answers, here...or in the Twilight Zone.

Something in the Walls [3.19]

Narrator: We direct your attention to the man with the sleek, black briefcase. His name: Dr. Mallory Craig. Occupation: psychologist, newly employed by the Crest Ridge Sanitarium. For the last two weeks, he has been visualizing his first day, looking forward to it with eager anticipation. But there's a terror behind those cold institutional walls that nothing in his education has prepared him for.

---

Narrator: Next time you're alone, look quickly at the wallpaper, and the ceiling, and the cracks on the sidewalk. Look for the patterns and lines and faces on the wall. Look, if you can, for Sharon Miles, visible only out of the corner of your eye or...in the Twilight Zone.

A Game of Pool [3.20]

Narrator: Jesse Cardiff, pool shark; the best on Randolph Street, who will soon learn that trying to be the best at anything carries its own special risk, in or out...of the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime; and departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time, on the earth, as we know it, and...in the Twilight Zone.

Room 2426 [3.21]

Narrator: Current guest in room 2426: Martin Decker, theoretical biochemist, checked in for observation a week ago. It seems he was displaying antisocial behavior, wrong thinking and other intellectual crimes against the state. Diagnosis: schizophrenia. Curable only by intense therapy sessions, followed by a full confession and disclosure of the facts. Once cured, Martin will be released...or buried.

---

Narrator: As man has progressed, up from the mud and down from the trees, his best tool has always been logical thought. That tool has taken us in a grand arc, from the first flint against steel to the apocalypse of colliding atoms. What Martin Decker, man of science, has learned is that every once in a while, we must step out of the confines of logic and take a leap of faith...into the Twilight Zone.

The Mind of Simon Foster [3.22]

Narrator: The year is nineteen hundred and ninety nine. Within the box, evidence that some things do not change with the passage of time; its contents, the collected debris of a shattered life, now valuable only for the dimes and nickels they can solicit from a third party. A familiar process and a familiar long walk that is about to lead into the unfamiliar terrain...of the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Exit: Simon Foster; a patchwork collection of lost dreams held together by the stolen memories of strangers. A man who discovered that we truly are the sum of our parts. Mr. Simon Foster, a very special resident... of the Twilight Zone.

The Wall [3.23]

Narrator: Alexander McAndrews, former test pilot, with a paper trail of commendations and a closet full of broken records. A man for whom the unknown is to be faced, not feared; conquered, not surrendered to. Alexander McAndrews, who is about to face yet another unknown, but this one is unlike all the others, for this one burns at the very heart...of the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Major Alexander McAndrews, retired, who learned that there is a better world and that sometimes heaven is a place better left untouched by human hands. There may be one more commendation yet to come for the major. One that says 'for services rendered in the Twilight Zone'.

Cat and Mouse [3.24]

Narrator: Andrea Moffatt longs for true love. A man who is strong, handsome, and exotic; who desires her above all other women. She is about to learn that naivete has a price and that the universe has a very curious sense of humor.

---

Narrator: A lesson on romance versus reality, with a word of warning for those who want to mix the two: don't, or you may find your head in the clouds, your feet on the ground, and the rest of you, somewhere...in the Twilight Zone.

Rendezvous in a Dark Place [3.25]

Narrator: Barbara LeMay, the woman in black, out of place in a world of colors and sounds and life. A woman caught between fascination and something more profound, and less earthly. Barbara LeMay, with one foot in the grave; the other, firmly planted in the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Incident in a hospital room. Part of the status quo of life and death. A visitation accompanied by cold winds and warm hands locked in a midnight embrace...in the Twilight Zone.

Many, Many Monkeys [3.26]

Narrator: A city hospital, 8 P.M. An unexpected visitor has just arrived, bearing unwelcome tidings, a disease so new the textbooks haven't recorded it. This then is its first case history, documented from the medical files...of the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Enigma, draped in hospital sheets and self-imposed darkness with the added sobering thought that Claire Hendricks is perfectly correct in her own diagnosis. Take it as a warning, a cry for humanity or a simple plea for responsibility from the dark places of the Twilight Zone.

Love Is Blind [3.27]

Narrator: The man behind the wheel is Jack Haines, a long-haul trucker. On any other night, he'd be on the lookout for a good time, but that's changed. A lot has changed for Jack because of one overheard telephone conversation. He learned that tonight his wife is meeting another man here at the Mustang Bar, his name unknown. The only thing Jack Haines knows for certain is that tonight, there's going to be murder at the Mustang, a little place ten miles from town and deep in the heart...of the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: No comment necessary, except to note the necessity of caution when the hands show midnight in the dark hour of the human soul. A song of warning and hope written in somber red and copyrighted...by the Twilight Zone.

Crazy as a Soup Sandwich [3.28]

Narrator: As certain as death and taxes, we are told that the meek will definitely inherit the Earth. Perhaps, but not always. Consider if you will Mr. Arky Lochner, a well-known petty crook, sidebar six-for-five or shylock, registered coward, and owner of a yellow streak so vivid it could be slathered on a hot dog. Mr. Lochner was written out of the will when the meek were guaranteed their inheritance, and just now he is trying to avoid another kind of payoff, a soulful payoff, in that off-track betting parlor we call...the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: Oh, Arky, Arky. Poor Mr. Lochner. In the magical, mystical bookie parlor we call the Twilight Zone, there's an old, old, very old saying: "Making a deal with a demon is seriously crazy. But making a deal with a master of demons, well, that's crazy as a soup sandwich".

Special Service [3.29]

Narrator: Introduction to Mr. John Selig, a reasonably average man who goes through life with both eyes open and both hands firmly on the wheel. Mr. John Selig, practical and steady, who's about to be blindsided...by the Twilight Zone.

---

Narrator: The next time you think people are talking about you behind your back or a happy coincidence seems just a little too good to be true, check behind the bathroom mirror or see if there are any channels missing from your TV. It just might be that John Selig's ratings have dropped and you've become a star in the phosphor-dot world...of the Twilight Zone.

Father and Son Game [3.30]

Narrator: Don't be deceived by the youthful appearance of our subject, Darius Stephens. He abused his body for seventy-nine years. Now he's walking on his own bought-and-paid-for two feet, down a path he hopes will lead him to a new life.

---

Narrator: Darius Stephens, the product of a new generation of medical miracles that began with false teeth, expanded into prosthetic limbs, and reached near-godhood in plastic surgery and mechanical hearts. As we continue to second-guess and improve upon nature, we are reminded that there is more to being alive than mere flesh and blood...in the Twilight Zone.

External links

• The Twilight Zone quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• The Twilight Zone at TV.com