“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimention as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimention of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone.”
Out on the 19th of september!
Before each episode of this show properly begins, the viewer is instantly bombarded with enigmatic and thought provoking ideas delivered perfectly by Mr. Serling himself. So it’s no wonder that one of the reasons why The Twilight Zone is so awesome is because of all the incredible ideas and theories it tackles. Whilst this is a common theme in any science fiction, what seperates The Twilight Zone from Doctor Who or Star Trek for instance, is not the emphasis on possible gizmos and gadgets or large alien beings hellbent on exterminating humans, but rather ideas, possibilities, sophisticated theories and such like. In fact each of these self-contained episodes explore an intriguing idea brilliantly and is one of the main reasons for its fascinating appeal. So, in this blog I shall attempt to show exactly what Imean by all these brilliant ideas!
Time travel.
"No Time Like The Past"
If ever there was something to really mess with your head, it’s this! The Twilight Zone is cram packed with episodes based around traveling through time, from The Last Flight (Vol. 1) to No Time Like The Past (Vol. 4) with some pretty scary and freaky goings on. But, as I’m sure you’re well aware, it’s all completly possible, or at least according to scientific theory. I’m no quantum physicist – I just watch movies! – so I’ll save my typing for someone a little more educated on the topic…
Still don’t get it? Just pretend you do.
Living Dolls
Robert the real life Living Doll (Click me!)
The Dummy has got to be one of the most recognised Twilight Zone episodes ever created with it’s story of a menacing vantriloquist puppet with a life of its own. Scary stuff indeed! The idea is obviously very popular in horror films from the notorious Child’s Play films to the incredibly unsettling Trilogy of Terror section (click HERE). But scarier than all of those is the fact that there does actually exsist a haunted ‘living doll’ (apparently) named Robert the Doll. This ‘toy’ truly is the stuff of nightmares and has become quite a legend. Apparently the doll is possessed by the spirit of a young boy named Robert. His owner would talk to him as though it were alive and blame anything that would go wrong in the house on the doll – even into married adulthood. A lot creepy things happened including one very frightened person waking up in the middle of the night to see Robert standing at the end of the bed holding a knife (I kid you not!). He has since become somewhat of a tourist attraction since being moved to (and locked up in) East Mortello Museum where visitors swear that they see the doll smile or frown at them. Visitors have also found that taking a photo of Robert without asking for his permission first results in the photos coming out wrong – very spooky. More recently, the doll underwent a test in which it was scrutinised by a Aura detecting camera and, believe it or not, the doll had an aura! For more info check out this blog I posted a while back.
Of course these are just two examples that show just how powerful and frighteningly fascinating the ideas The Twilight Zone explored were/are. There’s plenty more, including wormholes, cyborgs, wartime paranoia, premonitions, space travel and oh so many more!
So, that’s another reason why The Twilight Zone is so awesome – the ideas it tackles.
Twilight Zone: Vol. 4 is out on the 19th September. Pre-Order it here, here or here!
