The Season 1 Fan Feedback That Changed Rod Serling’s Approach to The Twilight Zone

Looking back a few decades, there’s no denying the original run of The Twilight Zone is among the most influential and iconic science fiction series ever put to film. But back in the 1950s and 1960s when they were actually making it? They were still just figuring it out, as series creator,a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/topic/rod-serling" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"Rod Serling,/aexplained./p pThe original emTwilight Zone/em series ran from 1958 to 1964 (check out a data-entity-href="https://www.syfy.com/schedule" data-entity-title="https://www.syfy.com/schedule" href="https://www.syfy.com/schedule" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"theschedule/a to catch emThe Twilight Zone/em on strongSYFY/strong), telling bizarro morality tales and ambitious what-ifs on a shoestring budget. Serling did an interview with emThe Courier-Journal/em (via a href="https://www.metv.com/stories/rod-serling-on-the-importance-of-being-original" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"MeTV/a) after the show’s first season in 1960, and revealed the fan feedback he received that would shape the direction of the show for the seasons that would follow. And arguably, for every future adaption of the series in the decades to come./p h2How Fan Feedback Changed emThe Twilight Zone/em/h2 pSerling said fans would send letters, and he came to realize that some of the show’s early episodes were just “too different,” adding he was proud of around 18 of those initial 36 episodes that comprised the show’s first season: “There are others I liked, and there were some I wished we had never heard from in the first place."/p pThat feedback led Serling to rethink exactly what makes a “emTwilight Zone/em story” in the first place, as many fans sent letters asking for more of a balance between the darker episodes, lighter episodes, and the open-ended stories that would become a hallmark of the franchise in some of its most beloved installments. Fans even pitched alternate endings for Season 1 episodes, and ways they would’ve approached the stories differently./p pstrongFor More on emThe Twilight Zone/em:bra href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/why-robby-the-robot-had-3-cameos-on-the-twilight-zone" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"The Classic Twilight Zone Episode That Inspired Jordan Peele's Usbr Why This Famous Sci-Fi Robot Showed Up on The Twilight Zone 3 Different Times/abra data-entity-href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/the-weird-story-of-the-twilight-zone-episode-that-won-an-oscar" data-entity-title="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/the-weird-story-of-the-twilight-zone-episode-that-won-an-oscar" href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/the-weird-story-of-the-twilight-zone-episode-that-won-an-oscar" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"The Strange Occurrence of the Twilight Zone Episode That Won an Oscar - Yes, an Oscar/a/strong/p p"We will do more of our shows with tongue-in-cheek. We will also have more women as leading characters,” Serling said. “We will avoid some of the 'real-far-out,' endings which leave no alternatives for the viewer. We have found our audience wants to think.”/p pSerling took the feedback from fans to heart, and brought those lessons into the writers room as they mapped the next four seasons of the original series, setting the show on a path that would end with the quintessential anthology series redefining sci-fi TV and how weird you could get on broadcast television as a medium./p pThough the original run wrapped in 1964, emThe Twilight Zone/em would be revived in the mid-1980s for another run, then a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/twilight-zone-2002-upn-revival-producer-ira-behr-interview" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"again in 2002/a, and then again in 2019 by a data-entity-href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/nope-five-best-moments-of-the-jordan-peele-movie" data-entity-title="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/nope-five-best-moments-of-the-jordan-peele-movie" href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/nope-five-best-moments-of-the-jordan-peele-movie" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"emNope/em/a and a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/the-real-horror-in-jordan-peeles-us-capitalism-and-classism" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"emUs/em/a filmmaker a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/jordan-peele-created-one-of-the-best-classic-twilight-zone-episodes-with-downtime" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"Jordan Peele/a. But it all started with Rod Serling’s black and white era./p pemstrongWant to relive some of those classic Twilight Zone episodes? Check out the a href="https://www.syfy.com/schedule" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"SYFY schedule/a to catch the OG series airing regularly!/strong/em/p