With “The Twilight Zone,” Serling realized he could use allegory to make his political points. After all, how could a network censor or a viewer angrily insist that a story was saying something controversial about the world when it centered on a three-armed Martian? This might help explain why “The Twilight Zone” still seems so incredibly — and at times depressingly — relevant. Serling and his collaborators repeatedly and stealthily tackled such subjects as prejudice, creeping authoritarianism, the dangers of humans being replaced by technology and the peril of conformity as a societal ideal in ways that still resonate. Many episodes, when rewatched now, feel like they could have been written five minutes ago.

 

‘The Twilight Zone’ Was a Warning America Ignored

By Alan Sepinwall

Mr. Sepinwall is a TV critic and the author of the forthcoming “Serling: A Journey Into the Twilight Zone With TV’s First Visionary.”