The Big Picture No matter how many times they try to reboot it, The Twilight Zone will never work as well as it did in the original 1959 to 1964 run. There was a magic captured in those five seasons that just has never been matched by any of the three revivals . But why is that? What is it about Rod Serling's original series that makes it so singular? Since his iteration was canceled, filmmakers have attempted to bring us back to his eerie land of sight, sound, and mind.
'The Twilight Zone's 1985 - 1989 Revival Has Aged the Best The first revival of The Twilight Zone came in the form of a show that from 1985 to 1989. No matter what you might think about this or any of the subsequent attempts, the '80s series feels as though it's aged the best. It was an interesting time for a new Twilight Zone show, given other Serling-inspired horror anthologies like Tales from the Darkside and Tales from the Crypt were currently airing.
This reboot attempts to inject a bit more style into the world than Serling's simple and unassuming original series had, an attempt to liven things up and possibly steer this new series in a bit more of a "genre" direction. All that does is age the series like milk, though. That said, when there are effects, they're top-notch, and loads of great science fiction and horror stories are penned for the '85-'89 run.
Surprisingly, some episodes get things right. "Cradle of Darkness" might be ridiculous in its bizarre execution of a story that asks "Would you kill baby Hitler?" but it ends up being so whacky that you can't help but enjoy the experience. There's also the mind-boggler that is "Cold Fusion," an episode that will repeatedly leave you wondering what's real and what isn't.