Was Rod Serling Trying To Tell Us Something?

One of my favorite shows of all time is The Twilight Zone. When I was a kid I would beg my dad to let me stay up and watch it when it came on PBS (we had to hook the Rabbit Ears to the UHF screws to watch it ). Recently I have begun watching it again, and now that I am older, wow. Rod Serling was a genius, and now I think I am beginning to understand a good bit of what he was actually trying to say. I would guess that a great many of us here are fans of the show, but I can honestly say I never realized the depth and signifigance of some of those classics until I watched them again many years later.


"The Obsolete Man" with Burgess Meredith is an excellent example with some pretty jaw dropping quotes...

"You can't destroy truth by burning pages!"

"You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future, not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world; it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advancements, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace."

"The Chancellor, the late Chancellor, was only partly correct, he was obsolete. But so was the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under 'M' for mankind... in the Twilight Zone."

"The Old Man in the Cave", a man named Goldsmith is the Mainframe Computer's only liason to the last survivors of a nuclear holocaust. Another great episode with a profound message.


"The Little People" which made me swear off ant squishing as a child.

It seems Rod Covered everything from Alien Invasions, Alternate Universes, to Big Brother Regimes and Time Travel, some of that could have walked right off the pages here at ATS... Apparently there's alot more to the Twilight Zone than I thought, but anyway to make a long post shorter, what's your episodes and what did you get out of them? Just a show or was Rod trying to tell us something?

If you ask me all the UFO, Big Foot, Lochness, Devil's Triangle stuff is just a lot of hooey to keep enquiring minds too busy to think about what they otherwise might be.

I think that Patrick McGoohan was definitely trying to tell us something more substantial with his television series The Prisoner.

Although Rod Sterling was only presenting most of the episodes, i must agree. The show was truly genius and should go down as one of the greatest tv shows of all time. I'd choose it over most of what's on TV anyday.

The Obsolete Man is my alltime favourite Twilight Zone episode! It's written, correct me if I'm wrong, by Richard Matheson who wrote I Am Legend. I thought this was the bets of all the Twilight Zones because it illustrated the danger of a totalitarian government. Isn't weird but true that all forms of totalitarianism depend (very heavily) on a death, or at least an assimilation of art. It's very Marxist, has anyone read Marx's criticism of art recently, it's pretty scarry.

AMD

i'm only 20 years old so this show obviously wasn't in my era. and my parents are in their early 40's so it wasn't in there's either.

but we have a Tivo at my house and somehow the tivo recorded the show on there (must have matched up w/ one of the catagories that we chose) anyway, i watched one of them with my dad and despite it being in black and white i was amazed at how the story lines seem more sophisticated than most of the ideas portrayed in TV shows nowadays. so i keep watching them

my favorite one is the one called "to serve man". in which aliens called kanamites come to planet earth that are like 7 feet tall and with giant foreheads and they claim to be there to serve man and they leave this book and say "if you want to know our true intentions its all in this book". obviously the humans have to figure out a way to decifer it. meanwhile the aliens are teaching humans all these better ways to create energy and lead safer more efficent lives and after a while they start letting humans go in there space ships to their planet to visit. well when they decifer the title it comes saying "to serve man" so naturally all the people trust them even more. well right at the end this cia guy or something has finally gotten his chance to take a flight with the aliens to their planet and the lady that has been trying to decifer the pages in the book runs up and says "dont get in i decifered the book! its a cook book!!!" and the aliens shove the guy in the space ship. and it ends with the cia guy talking to you from the ship as they are trying to fatten him up warning human beings about the faults of their human nature.

"to serve man" its only natural for us to think something would want to come and serve us...too bad not in the way we thought...pretty clever

Kind Regards,
digitalgrl

[edit on 10/01/2004 by DigitalGrl]

To Serve Man is my all time fave too.
Not changing the topic, but I have always wondered why he had to die so young, at age 51 with no previous illnesses or is it my conspiracy alert on?
Perhaps, he was too far beyond his time, experience?

Originally posted by DigitalGrl

"to serve man" its only natural for us to think something would want to come and serve us...too bad not in the way we thought...pretty clever

Kind Regards,
digitalgrl

[edit on 10/01/2004 by DigitalGrl]

Oh this was the absolute best!!! I will still watch this one! At the time i watched this, i thougt it was the coolest one he'd ever made.

And how about the one with Agnes Moorehead and that little alien with the sharp knife? Incredible!

members.cox.net...


Entire transcript of "To serve Man"

[edit on 21-3-2006 by dgtempe]

i just watched one last night about this lady who is in a bus station and she goes up to the counter to ask the guy when the bus is going to come and he yells at her and tells her to stop coming up and talking to him and she says she has never spoken to him before. then her suitcase keeps appearing and disappearing. Its all about parallel planes of existence and how each of us has a twin in those different planes and once and a while the planes converge and the ones from the other plane try to take out the ones in our time on earth.

pretty advanced for that era huh?
that was a pretty good one. i'm seeing all these for the first time since as i mentioned before i'm only 20 but they some of the most indepth storylines i have seen in a long time. i thought most stuff from back then was pretty cheesy...guess i was wrong

Kind Regards,
Digitalgrl

Well, I had a nice post typed up and then it told me another topic with this name existed...

Too slow I guess... But you get a star for it since I think it is a great topic.

Yup, my favorite episode was also 'To Serve Man'. It made me wonder if we are all just cattle... For sure it will make me think twice about jumping on a 'space ship'

We are a type 0 civilization, what do you think the chances are of a type 2 or type 3 civilization coming and using the Earth for its resources... People and all.... (Imagine the Borg (Type 5 if I remember right) at your door step)

Also the episode with the space ship in the secluded old lady's attic... With those little toy robots attacking her... lmao... Rod commented on how he had to use cheap toys because of his budget... Even though, it was still one of my favorite episodes... Probably #2.

"Time enough at last", the guy who loved to read, locked himself in a vault and WW3 happened.... he came out, was the only guy left and had all the time in the world to read now.... I won't spoil the ending.... But it was a great one too.... One of Rod's personal favorites.


Anyway, yeah. Rod Serling was a great writer.

we all know captain kirk seeing the monster on the wing is the best episode, and showed that we need better plane inspectors

I know this is an old thread but it even makes more sense now than it did a couple of years ago. Specially THE OBSOLETE MAN.

Either Rod was looking at the future, and the Matrix, or he had inside info.

I still never miss one of those old shows when they're on!!!

reply to post by twitchy


Excellent post.

In my gut, I have a feeling that Rod Sterling's "to Serve Man" is correct.

www.imdb.com...

If "they" show up, be afraid, be very afraid.

No, I don't believe in our "space brothers", will come here to save us.

Watch a fish pond. The bigger, smarter fish eat the smaller dumber fish. I'm sorry but I bellieve and I feel this is the law of not only Earth, but the universe.

I'm not saying to shoot first and ask questions later, but to be cautious, very cautious.

[edit on 13-2-2010 by ofhumandescent]

reply to post by dgtempe


Good post and I agree.

Rod Sterling for whatever reason was "connected" he had an insight that nobody else in his time had.

So much of his stuff rings true.

[edit on 13-2-2010 by ofhumandescent]

TextThe "Eye of The Beholder" episode was definitely sending an anti "Illuminati" message. He had it where a woman who was not "the norm" was being forced to live in a separate society with the rest of the "undesirables" while the "normal" people were living in privileged society. She was seen as an outcast because she did not look like the majority. They had a leader who was pushing for "glorious conformity."

"Number 12 Looks Just Like You" was also pretty deep on the same level. Everyone was being made to take surgery so that everyone ended up looking exactly alike. Deeper messages than you'd expect Twilight Zone to have. "The obsolete Man" was definitely eye opening. It was beyond entertainment. Serling was nobody's puppet. That was pretty obvious.

a reply to: twitchy

we have only been rehatching twilight zone episodes.

It is pure Gold. Best stories ever made in our time.

All of them are the best. ALL.

a reply to: twitchy
Absolutely fantastic, for the time, they don't make em like that anymore, of course everyone is posting pretty much the same thing , except of course the one member who likes the Prisoner better.

a reply to: twitchy

On the top of my list of best tv shows even today. I binge watch them from time to time.

Sad that Hollywood has gotten lazy or untalented. They think the special effects Is the most important aspect of a show or movie today. I always felt Rod was ahead of his time.