ജ THE TWILIGHT ZONE

The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode (156 in the original series) is a mixture of self-contained fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist. A popular and critical success, it introduced many Americans to serious science fiction and abstract ideas through television and also through a wide variety of Twilight Zone literature. The program followed in the tradition of earlier radio programs such as The Weird Circle and X Minus One and the radio work of Serling's hero, dramatist Norman Corwin.

The success of the original series led to the creation of two revival series: a cult hit series that ran for several seasons on CBS and in syndication in the 1980s, and a short-lived UPN series that ran from 2002 to 2003. It would also lead to a feature film, a radio series, a comic book, a magazine and various other spin-offs that would span five decades.

Aside from Serling himself, who crafted nearly two-thirds of the series' total episodes, writers for The Twilight Zone included leading genre authorities such as Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, Jerry Sohl, George Clayton Johnson, Earl Hamner, Jr., Reginald Rose, Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury. Many episodes also featured adaptations of classic stories by such writers as Ambrose Bierce, Lewis Padgett, Jerome Bixby and Damon Knight.

Rod Serling coined the title himself, but only after the series aired did he discover that the "twilight zone" was a term applied by the US Air Force to the terminator, the imaginary border between "night" and "day" on a planetary body.

Music

The original moody title theme for The Twilight Zone was composed by Bernard Herrmann.

The well known Twilight Zone theme that began in the second season was written by avant garde composer Marius Constant.

Other contributors to the music for the original television show are Jerry Goldsmith, Nathan Van Cleave, Leonard Rosenman, Fred Steiner, and Franz Waxman.

Marty Manning released an album inspired by the series in 1961.

The music for Twilight Zone: The Movie was composed by Jerry Goldsmith.

The theme for the 1985 The Twilight Zone television series was performed by The Grateful Dead.

Canadian rock band Rush recorded "The Twilight Zone" on their epic 1976 album 2112 and released it as a single. [wikipedia]