The Greatest Original ‘The Twilight Zone’ Episodes

In the year 2046, a man named Corry is convicted of murder and sentenced to solitary confinement on an asteroid 9 million miles from Earth. Four times a year a spaceship, flown by Captain Allenby, arrives to deliver supplies to the desolate inmate. Allenby is sympathetic to Corry and leaves behind a mysterious package when he departs.

Based on a short story of the same name by Richard Matheson, the episode follows scientist Will Sturka who works at a military base where nuclear weapons are produced. Nuclear war is imminent, much to the delight of the scientist’s co-workers. However, Sturka plans to steal a top-secret spacecraft and escape mutually assured destruction.

Aging Professor Ellis Fowler, who works at a boys’ prep school in Vermont, has been forced into retirement after five decades. He feels his life’s work is a failure and plots to end it all – when he’s visited by beings from a different world.

American David Ellington is traveling through post-World War I Europe and finds himself caught in a storm. He manages to find his way to an ancient castle that has been converted to a monastery. The inhabitants try to turn him away but he insists, unaware of the secrets the castle holds.

Adam Grant is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. However, when sentenced he states that he is dreaming, and his death will mean everyone will cease to exist. Newspaper editor Paul Carson witnesses the spectacle and later finds Grant, worried that he’s telling the truth.

Advertising executive Martin Sloan is out for a drive through the countryside on Sunday afternoon when he realizes he’s stopped at a gas station within walking distance of his childhood hometown. He decides to stroll over only to find that strangely nothing seems to have changed since he was a kid.

The episode is a short French film, based on the 1891 short story of the same name by Ambrose Bierce. After finding critical success it was shown as an episode of “The Twilight Zone.” The plot follows a Confederate sympathizer who attempts to sabotage a bridge during the Civil War. He is caught and is about to be hanged, but he manages to escape – or does he?

Wanda Dunn is an old woman who has managed to escape “Mr. Death” time and time again by hiding in her home. When a police officer is shot outside of her house she is reluctant to help as it may be a trap set by Death.

Newlyweds Don and Pat stop for lunch at a café while their car is repaired at a nearby garage. On the table is a fortune teller machine that only costs a penny. The couple decides to give it a go and is surprised when it accurately predicts Don will receive a promotion when he calls his boss. They decide to keep using the machine and see where it leads them.

Based on Lucille Fletcher’s radio play of the same name, the episode follows Nan Adams on a cross-country road trip. Her journey is interrupted when she gets a flat tire. A mechanic helps her get into town but as they drive, she notices an unsettling hitchhiker. With her tire fixed she continues her journey but the hitchhiker continues to pop up along the side of the road.

One of the few episodes that does not include any sci-fi or supernatural elements, “The Silence” follows a man who bets $500,000 that he can stay silent for an entire year. He must remain in a small glass-walled apartment in the middle of a casino for the year and can only communicate with written notes.

A woman shops in a department store for a present for her mother. She gets on the elevator, and the elevator operator takes her to the ninth floor – even though the elevator displays only eight floors. As she steps out she realizes the floor is empty…but the elevator doors have already shut behind her.

An adaptation of Richard Matheson’s short story “Disappearing Act,” the episode follows a U.S. Air Force pilot, Clegg Forbes, who disappears for an entire day while testing an experimental new aircraft. The craft reappears when it crash-lands in the desert, leaving Forbes with a broken leg. After the accident, Forbes’s co-pilot tells him that there were just the two of them on the plane, but Forbes insists there was a third man.

Gart Williams is a New York City advertising executive who is having problems at work. One morning, he falls asleep on the train on his way to work and wakes to find himself in the 1800s. He falls back asleep, and when he wakes again, back on the train in New York, he has a strange feeling about what he assumes is a dream.

An old wealthy man prepares for his imminent death in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. He insists his family put on mysterious old masks that reflect their negative personality traits. When they refuse, he threatens to cut them out of his will if they don’t comply.

A family enjoys a birthday party in their suburban New York home, with a casual mention of the fallout shelter the patriarch has built in the basement. Suddenly, they hear an announcement that a nuclear strike is imminent, and they scramble for the shelter. Once they’re inside, the once joyous gathering takes a turn for the worse.

In a dystopian future world, Romney Wordsworth is sentenced to death. However, he is allowed to choose how to be executed. He elects for his death to be televised and for it to be carried out by a personal assassin, who alone knows how it will be done.

Annabelle buys her daughter a wind-up doll named “Talky Tina” that says “I love you very much.” However, when Annabelle’s new husband, Erich, winds the doll up, it begins to say very different things. He grows frightened and attempts to throw the doll away – with tragic results.

The episode, based on the short story “It’s a Good Life” by Jerome Bixby, follows a six-year-old with powerful psychic abilities who has isolated his small town from the rest of the world. The town lives in fear of the boy, who doesn’t seem to understand the difference between right and wrong.

Two state troopers are investigating a UFO report when they realized the aircraft crashed and its occupants escaped to a nearby diner. In the diner, the troopers find the cook, a bus driver, and the passengers from his bus. The driver realizes there is one more person in the diner than he had passengers – but no one is sure who the extra one is.

This episode, adapted from a 1953 short story by Lynn Venable, follows a man who loves books in a world where they are detested by those around him. After he survives a nuclear holocaust, he finds a library and prepares to spend the rest of his life reading in peace – until fate intervenes.

All is well on familial Maple Street when a bright flash of light is seen in the sky. The families talking in the street assume it is a meteor and don’t give it much thought after it has passed. However, they soon realize that power has gone out in the surrounding houses. A boy named Tommy begins to talk about a story he read where an alien invasion began similarly…

This episode opens with Michael Chambers locked alone in a bare cell. It then flashes back to some months earlier when a race of aliens landed on Earth, claiming to want to provide humanitarian aid by sharing advanced technology. The aliens leave behind a book in their language and Chambers, working as a cryptographer for the U.S. government, begins to study it.

An episode that served as an analogy for the fear of flying, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” follows the only passenger aboard a flight who sees a strange creature scrambling around the outside of the plane trying to destroy the wing. The passenger, Robert Wilson, has just been released from a sanitarium after a nervous breakdown he suffered aboard a previous flight.

Janet Tyler, who is thought to be hideously ugly, undergoes extensive facial surgery in an attempt to look more “normal.” Tyler’s face is covered in bandages and she is unsure if the procedure was a success. When the surgeon suggests that people should not be judged for their looks, his nurse tells him that such a thought is considered treasonous. When the bandages are finally removed, viewers learn how subjective beauty and ugliness are.