TWILIGHT ZONE - Card #62 - NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET - WILLIAM SHATNER

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Venditore: jamesmacintyre51 ✉️ (6.501) 100%, Luogo in cui si trova l'oggetto: Hexham, GB, Spedizione verso: WORLDWIDE, Numero oggetto: 325897368416 TWILIGHT ZONE - Card #62 - NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET - WILLIAM SHATNER.

Rod Serling's TWILIGHT ZONE - Individual Base Card from the series issued by Rittenhouse in 1999

William Shatner OC (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor, author, producer, director, screenwriter, and singer. In his seven decades of television, Shatner became a cultural icon for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise in the Star Trek franchise. He has written a series of books chronicling his experiences playing Captain Kirk, being a part of Star Trek , and life after Star Trek. He has also co-written several novels set in the Star Trek universe, and a series of science fiction novels called TekWar, that were adapted for television.

Shatner also played the eponymous veteran police sergeant in T. J. Hooker (1982–1986) and hosted the reality-based television series Rescue 911 (1989–1996), which won a People's Choice Award for the Favorite New TV Dramatic Series. Shatner also appeared in seasons 4 and 5 of the NBC series 3rd Rock from the Sun as the "Big Giant Head" that the alien characters reported to. From 2004 until 2008, he starred as attorney Denny Crane both in the final season of the legal drama The Practice and in its spinoff series Boston Legal , a role that earned him two Emmy Awards. He appeared in both seasons of the comical NBC real-life travelogue with other male companions "of a certain age" in Better Late Than Never , from 2016 to 2017. Shatner has also pursued a career in music and spoken-word recordings since the late 1960s, having released eight albums.

Early life

Shatner was born in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, Canada to a Conservative Jewish household. His parents are Ann (née Garmaise) and Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacturer. He has two sisters, Joy and Farla. His paternal grandfather, Wolf Schattner, anglicized the family name to "Shatner".

All of Shatner's four grandparents were Jewish immigrants. They came from Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire (from locations of present-day Ukraine and Lithuania).

Shatner attended two schools in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Willingdon Elementary School and West Hill High School, and is an alumnus of the Montreal Children's Theatre. He studied Economics at the McGill University Faculty of Management in Montreal, Canada, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. In June 2011, McGill University awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Letters. Shatner was also awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from New England Institute of Technology in May 2018.

Acting career

Early stage, film, and television work

After graduating from McGill University in 1952, Shatner became the business manager for the Mountain Playhouse in Montreal before joining the Canadian National Repertory Theatre in Ottawa, where he trained as a classical Shakespearean actor. Shatner began performing at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, beginning in 1954. He played a range of roles at the Stratford Festival in productions that included a minor role in the opening scene of a renowned and nationally televised production of Sophocles's Oedipus Rex directed by Tyrone Guthrie, Shakespeare's Henry V , and Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great , in which Shatner made his Broadway debut in 1956. Shatner was an understudy to Christopher Plummer in Henry V ; the two would later appear as adversaries in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country .

In 1954, he was cast as Ranger Bob on The Canadian Howdy Doody Show .

His film debut was in the Canadian film Butler's Night Off (1951). His first feature role came in the MGM film The Brothers Karamazov (1958) with Yul Brynner, in which he starred as the youngest of the Karamazov brothers, Alexei. In December 1958, he appeared opposite Ralph Bellamy, playing Roman tax collectors in Bethlehem on the day of Jesus' birth in a vignette of a Hallmark Hall of Fame live television production entitled The Christmas Tree directed by Kirk Browning, which featured in other vignettes such performers as Jessica Tandy, Margaret Hamilton, Bernadette Peters, Richard Thomas, Cyril Ritchard, and Carol Channing. Shatner had a leading role in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents third-season (1957–58) episode titled "The Glass Eye", one of his first appearances on American television.

In 1959, he received good reviews when he played the role of Lomax in the Broadway production of The World of Suzie Wong . In March 1959, while performing on stage in Suzie Wong , Shatner was also playing detective Archie Goodwin in what would have been television's first Nero Wolfe series, had it not been aborted by CBS after shooting a pilot and a few episodes. He appeared in a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone , "Nick of Time". He appeared twice as Wayne Gorham in NBC's Outlaws (1960) Western series with Barton MacLane, and then in another Alfred Hitchcock Presents 5th-season episode titled "Mother, May I Go Out to Swim?" In 1961, he starred in the Broadway play A Shot in the Dark with Julie Harris and directed by Harold Clurman. Walter Matthau (who won a Tony Award for his performance) and Gene Saks were also featured in this play. Shatner featured in two episodes of the NBC television series Thriller ("The Grim Reaper" and "The Hungry Glass") and the film The Explosive Generation (1961).

Guthrie had called the young Shatner the Stratford Festival's most promising actor, and he was seen as a peer to contemporaries like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford. Shatner was not as successful as the others, but during the 1960s he "became a working actor who showed up on time, knew his lines, worked cheap and always answered his phone." His motto was "Work equals work", however, Shatner's willingness to take any role, no matter how "forgettable", likely hurt his career. He took the lead role in Roger Corman's movie The Intruder (1962) and received very good reviews for his significant role in the Stanley Kramer film Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and two episodes, "Nick of Time" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," of the science fiction anthology series The Twilight Zone . In the 1963–64 season, he appeared in an episode of the ABC series Channing . In 1963, he starred in the Family Theater production called "The Soldier" and received credits in other programs of The Psalms series. That same year, he guest-starred in Route 66 , in the episode "Build Your Houses with Their Backs to the Sea."

In 1964, Shatner guest-starred in Season 2, Episode 2 (titled "Cold Hands, Warm Heart") of the ABC sci-fi anthology series The Outer Limits . Also that year, he appeared in an episode of the CBS drama The Reporter ("He Stuck in His Thumb") and co-starred with Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Newman, and Edward G. Robinson in the Western feature film The Outrage . 1964 also saw Shatner cast as the titular Alexander in the pilot for a proposed series called Alexander the Great alongside Adam West as Cleander. The series was not picked up and the pilot wasn't broadcast until 1968 when it was repackaged as a TV movie to capitalize on West and Shatner's later fame. Shatner had hoped that the series would be a major success but West was apparently unsurprised by the rejection, later noting that "It turned out to be one of the worst scripts I have ever read and it was one of the worst things I've ever done."

In 1965, Shatner guest-starred in 12 O'Clock High as Major Curt Brown in the segment "I Am the Enemy" and in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in an episode that also featured Leonard Nimoy, with whom Shatner would soon be paired in Star Trek . He also starred in the critically acclaimed drama For the People in 1965, as an assistant district attorney, co-starring with Jessica Walter. The program lasted only 13 episodes. Shatner starred in the 1966 gothic horror film Incubus (Esperanto: Inkubo,) the second feature-length movie ever made with all dialogue spoken in Esperanto. He also starred in an episode of Gunsmoke in 1966 as the character Fred Bateman. He appeared as attorney-turned-counterfeiter Brett Skyler in a 1966 episode of The Big Valley , "Time To Kill." In 1967, he starred in the little known film White Comanche starring as two characters: Johnny Moon, a virtuous half-Comanche gunslinger, and his twin brother Notah, a bloodthirsty warlord.

Star Trek

Shatner was cast as Captain James T. Kirk for the second pilot of Star Trek , titled "Where No Man Has Gone Before". He was then contracted to play Kirk for the Star Trek series and held the role from 1966 to 1969. During its original run on NBC, the series pulled in only modest ratings and was cancelled after three seasons. In his role as Kirk, Shatner famously kissed actress Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) in the November 22, 1968, Star Trek episode, "Plato's Stepchildren". The episode is popularly cited as the first example of a kiss between a white man and a black woman on scripted television in the United States. In 1973, he returned to the role of Captain Kirk, albeit only in voice, in the animated Star Trek series.

1970s

After the cancellation of Star Trek in early 1969, Shatner experienced difficulty in finding work in the early 1970s, having become somewhat typecast from his role as Kirk. With very little money and few acting prospects, Shatner lost his home and lived in a truck-bed camper in the San Fernando Valley until small roles turned into higher-paying jobs. Shatner refers to this part of his life as "that period", a humbling time during which he would take any odd job, including small party appearances, to support his family.

Shatner again appeared in "schlock" films, such as Corman's Big Bad Mama (1974) and the horror film The Devil's Rain (1975), Kingdom of the Spiders (1977), and the TV movie The Horror at 37,000 Feet . Shatner received good reviews as the lead prosecutor in a 1971 PBS adaptation of Saul Levitt's play The Andersonville Trial . Other television appearances included a starring role in the western-themed secret agent series Barbary Coast during 1975 and 1976, and guest roles on many 1970s series such as The Six Million Dollar Man , Columbo , The Rookies , Kung Fu , Ironside and Mission: Impossible . A martial arts enthusiast, Shatner studied American Kenpo karate under black belt Tom Bleecker (who trained under the founder of American Kenpo Ed Parker). Shatner was an occasional celebrity guest on The $10,000 Pyramid and The $20,000 Pyramid in the 1970s, once appearing opposite Leonard Nimoy in a week-long match-up billed as "Kirk vs. Spock". In a notable 1977 appearance, he gave an illegal clue ("the blessed " for Things That Are Blessed when he had intended to say "the Virgin Mary") at the top of the pyramid ($200), which deprived the contestant of a big money win. He reacted strongly, throwing his chair out of the Winner's Circle. Other shows included The Hollywood Squares , Celebrity Bowling , Beat the Clock , Tattletales , Mike Stokey's Stump the Stars and Match Game . Richard Dawson, during an Archive of American Television interview, mentioned that Shatner was Mark Goodson's first choice to host the Family Feud pilot in 1976, but (after Dawson's agent sent a sternly worded threat to Goodson) gave the job to Dawson instead. He did a number of television commercials for Ontario-based Loblaws and British Columbia-based SuperValu supermarket chains in the 1970s, and finished the Loblaws ad spots by saying, "At Loblaws, more than the price is right. But, by Gosh, the price is right." He also did a number of television commercials for General Motors, endorsing the Oldsmobile brand, and Promise margarine.

Kirk returns and T. J. Hooker

After its cancellation, Star Trek engendered a cult following during the 1970s from syndicated reruns, and Captain Kirk became a cultural icon. Shatner began appearing at Star Trek conventions organized by Trekkies. In the mid-1970s, Paramount began pre-production for a revised Star Trek television series, tentatively titled Star Trek: Phase II . However, the phenomenal success of Star Wars (1977) led the studio to instead consider developing a Star Trek motion picture. Shatner and the other original Star Trek cast members returned to their roles when Paramount produced Star Trek: The Motion Picture , released in 1979. He played Kirk in the next six Star Trek films, ending with the character's death in Star Trek Generations (1994). Some later appearances in the role are in the movie sequences of the video game Starfleet Academy (1997), briefly for a DirecTV advertisement using footage from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country running from late summer 2006, and the 2013 Academy Awards, in which he reprised the role for a comedic interlude with host Seth MacFarlane.

Although Trekkies resurrected Star Trek after cancellation, in a 1986 Saturday Night Live sketch about a Star Trek convention, Shatner advised a room full of fans to "get a life". The much-discussed sketch accurately portrayed his feelings about Trekkies, which the actor had previously discussed in interviews. Shatner had been their unwilling subject of adoration for years; as early as April 1968, a group attempted to rip his clothes off as the actor left 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and he stopped attending conventions for more than a decade during the 1970s and 1980s. Shatner also appeared in the film Free Enterprise in 1998, in which he played himself and tried to dispel the Kirk image of himself from the view of the film's two lead characters. He also has found an outlet in spoofing the cavalier, almost superhuman, persona of Captain Kirk in films such as Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) and National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 (1993). In 1994, he starred as the murderer in the Columbo episode "Butterfly in Shades of Grey".

Besides the Star Trek films, Shatner landed a starring role on television as the titular police officer T. J. Hooker , which ran from 1982 to 1986. He then hosted the popular dramatic re-enactment series Rescue 911 from 1989 to 1996. During the 1980s Shatner also began directing film and television, directing numerous episodes of T. J. Hooker and the feature film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier .

Subsequent acting and media career

Shatner has enjoyed success with a series of science fiction novels published under his name, though most are widely believed to have been written by uncredited co-writers such as William T. Quick and Ron Goulart. The first, published in 1989, was TekWar , which Shatner claims he developed initially as a screenplay during a Writers Guild strike that delayed production of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier . The series of books led to four TekWar television movies, in which Shatner played the role of Walter Bascom, the lead character's boss. A short-lived television series followed, airing on USA Network and Sci-Fi Channel in the United States and CTV in Canada, in which Shatner made several appearances in the Bascom role and directed some of the episodes.

In 1995, a first-person shooter game named William Shatner's TekWar was released. He also played as a narrator in the 1995 American documentary film Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie directed by Peter Kuran. He narrated a television miniseries shot in New Zealand A Twist in the Tale (1998). In the television series 3rd Rock from the Sun , Shatner appeared in several 1999–2000 episodes as the "Big Giant Head", a high-ranking officer from the same alien planet as the Solomon family who becomes a womanizing party-animal on Earth. The role earned Shatner an Emmy Award nomination.

Shatner has appeared in advertisements for many companies and products. In the early 1980s he appeared in print and television ads endorsing the Commodore VIC-20 home computer. Since the late 1990s he has done a series of commercials for the travel web site priceline.com, in which Shatner plays a pompous, fictionalized version of himself. Although he received stock options for the commercials, Shatner says that reports that they are now worth hundreds of millions of dollars are exaggerated. Shatner was also the CEO of the Toronto, Ontario-based C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, a special effects studio that operated from 1994 to 2010.

In May 1999, Simon & Schuster published Shatner's book Get a Life! , which details his experiences with Star Trek fandom, anecdotes from Trek conventions, and his interviews with dedicated fans, in particular those who found deeper meaning in the franchise.

Shatner co-starred in the movie Miss Congeniality (2000) as Stan Fields, playing the role of co-host of the Miss United States Pageant alongside future Boston Legal co-star Candice Bergen. He reprised the role in the sequel Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2004), in which Stan Fields was kidnapped in Las Vegas along with the winner of the pageant of the previous year. (Shatner hosted the Miss USA Pageant in 2001 as a real presenter in Gary, Indiana.) In the live-action/animated film Osmosis Jones (2001), he voiced Mayor Phlegmming, the self-centered head of the "City of Frank", a community comprising all the cells and microorganisms of a man's body, who is constantly preoccupied with his reelection and his own convenience, even to the detriment of his "city" and constituents. In 2003, Shatner appeared in Brad Paisley's "Celebrity" and "Online" music videos along with Little Jimmy Dickens, Jason Alexander, and Trista Rehn. Shatner also had a supporting role in the comedy DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story (2004), which starred Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. Star Trek: Enterprise producer Manny Coto stated in Star Trek Communicator 's October 2004 issue that he was preparing a three-episode story arc for Shatner. Shortly thereafter, Enterprise was cancelled.

After David E. Kelley saw Shatner's commercials, he brought Shatner on to the final season of the legal drama The Practice . His Emmy Award-winning role, the eccentric but highly capable attorney Denny Crane, was essentially "William Shatner the man ... playing William Shatner the character playing the character Denny Crane, who was playing the character William Shatner." Shatner took the Crane role to Boston Legal , and won a Golden Globe, an Emmy in 2005, and was nominated again in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 for his work. With the 2005 Emmy win, Shatner became one of the few actors (along with co-star James Spader as Alan Shore) to win an Emmy Award while playing the same character in two different series. Even rarer, Shatner and Spader each won a second consecutive Emmy while playing the same character in two different series. Shatner remained with the series until its end in 2008.

Shatner made several guest appearances on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien , including cameos reciting Sarah Palin's resignation speech, Twitter posts, and autobiography. (Palin herself made a cameo on the show in December 2009, reciting passages from Shatner's autobiography, Up Til' Now in front of Shatner himself.) He has also recited Twitter posts by Levi Johnston, father of Palin's grandson. He also appears in the opening graphics of the occasional feature "In the Year 3000", with his disembodied head floating through space, announcing, "And so we take a cosmic ride into that new millennium; that far off reality that is the year 3000", followed by the tag line, "It's the future, man." He also played the voice of Ozzie the opossum in DreamWorks' 2006 feature Over the Hedge .

In January 2007, Shatner launched a series of daily vlogs on his life called ShatnerVision on the LiveVideo.com website. In 2008, he launched his video blogs on YouTube in a project renamed "The Shatner Project." Shatner also starred as the voice of Don Salmonella Gavone on the 2009 YouTube animated series The Gavones .

Shatner was not "offered or suggested" a role in the 2009 film Star Trek . Director J. J. Abrams said in July 2007 that the production was "desperately trying to figure out a way to put him in" but that to "shove him in ... would be a disaster", an opinion echoed by Shatner in several interviews. At a convention held in 2010, Shatner commented on the film by saying "I've seen that wonderful film." Shatner had invented his own idea about the beginning of Star Trek with his 2007 novel, Star Trek: Academy — Collision Course. His autobiography Up Till Now: The Autobiography was released in 2008. He was assisted in writing it by David Fisher. Shatner has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (for television work) at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard. He also has a star on the Canada's Walk of Fame. Shatner was the first Canadian actor to star in three successful television series on three different major networks (NBC, CBS, and ABC). He also starred in the CBS sitcom $#*! My Dad Says , which is based on the Twitter feed Shit My Dad Says created by Justin Halpern. The series premiered in late 2010 and was canceled May 2011. Shatner is also the host of the interview show Shatner's Raw Nerve on The Biography Channel, and the Discovery Channel television series Weird or What? Also in 2011, Shatner appeared in the episode of Psych titled, "In For a Penny" on the USA Network as the estranged father of Junior Detective Juliet O'Hara (Maggie Lawson). He has signed on to continue the role into the 2012 season.

In 2011, Shatner starred in The Captains , a feature-length documentary which he also wrote and directed. The film follows Shatner as he interviews the other actors who have portrayed starship captains within the Star Trek franchise. Shatner's interviewees included Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula, and Chris Pine. In the film, Shatner also interviews Christopher Plummer, who is an old friend and colleague from Shatner's days with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

In February 2012, Shatner performed in a new one-man show on Broadway, called Shatner's World: We Just Live in It . After a three-week run at the Music Box Theatre, the show toured throughout the United States.

In May 2012, Shatner was the guest presenter on the British satirical television quiz show Have I Got News for You , during which he coined the portmanteau "pensioneer", combining the words "pensioner" and "pioneer".

On July 28, 2012, the premium cable TV channel Epix premiered Get a Life! , a documentary on Star Trek fandom starring Shatner that takes its title from his infamous Saturday Night Live line and his 1999 book on the topic.

On September 25, 2012, Shatner portrayed the home plate umpire in the music video "At Fenway", which was written and recorded by crooner Brian Evans.

On April 24, 2014, he performed for one night only an autobiographical one-man show on Broadway, which was later broadcast in over 700 theaters across Canada, Australia, and the United States. A large portion of the revenue went to charity.

In 2015, he played Mark Twain in an episode of the Canadian historical crime drama series Murdoch Mysteries . Also in 2015, he played Croatoan—main character Audrey Parker's interdimensional, dangerous father—in the last episodes of the fifth and final season of SyFy channel's fantasy series Haven .

In August 2015, he appeared in “William Shatner Presents: Chaos on the Bridge,” a documentary uncovering the creation of Star Trek: The Next Generation , featuring cast interviews from the original series which he also wrote, produced and directed.

Premiering August 23, 2016, Shatner appeared in the NBC reality miniseries Better Late Than Never , which documented the adventures of Shatner and three other aging celebrities (Henry Winkler, Terry Bradshaw and George Foreman) as they travel to Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia. That same year, he cofounded the comic-book company Shatner Singularity, whose titles include the graphic novel Stan Lee's 'God Woke' by Stan Lee and Fabian Nicieza. That work won the 2017 Independent Publisher Book Awards' Outstanding Books of the Year Independent Voice Award. Better Late Than Never was renewed for a second season on NBC with a "preview" episode on December 11, 2017, and an "official" season premiere on New Year's Day, January 1, 2018. Shatner later joked that legendary Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw was "putty in my hands."

In 2017, Shatner again appeared in a music video with Brian Evans (singer), whom he had previously appeared with in the 2012 music video "At Fenway," in the singer's cover of the Dolly Parton song, "Here You Come Again."

In 2017, Shatner appeared in the animated television series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic as the voice of Grand Pear, the estranged maternal grandfather of Applejack and her siblings, in the seventh season episode "The Perfect Pear". Shatner noted himself as a "brony", a member of the Friendship Is Magic fan base; he confirmed his involvement in the series via his Twitter account following a post where he recited one of the show's catch phrases.

Music and spoken-word work

Main article: William Shatner's musical career

Shatner began his musical career with the spoken-word 1968 album The Transformed Man , delivering exaggerated, interpretive recitations of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." He performed a reading of the Elton John song "Rocket Man" during the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards that has been widely parodied. Ben Folds, who has worked with him several times, produced and co-wrote Shatner's well-received second studio album, Has Been , in 2004. His third studio album, Seeking Major Tom , was released on October 11, 2011. The fourth, Ponder the Mystery , was released in October 2013 on Cleopatra Records, produced and composed by musician Billy Sherwood (member of Yes). Shatner also has done a concert tour with CIRCA:, which includes an ex and current member of Yes, Tony Kaye and Billy Sherwood.

In August 2018, Shatner released Why Not Me , his first country music album and fifth album overall, with Jeff Cook, who is best known as a founding member of Alabama (American band). The album, on the Heartland Records Nashville label, also includes guest vocals by Neal McCoy, Home Free (group) and Cash Creek. In October, he released Shatner Claus , a Christmas album composed of duets with established musical artists including Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Todd Rundgren, Billy Gibbons and others. In January 2019, it was announced that Shatner would make his debut at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, with Jeff Cook, on February 15, to promote Why Not Me .

On February 15, 2019, Shatner made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, with Jeff Cook, performing the title track to Why Not Me . They were introduced by Fred LaBour (a.k.a. Too Slim), a member of the cowboy singing and comedy group Riders in the Sky, who were among the other guest performers that evening.

Space Shuttle Discovery

Shatner recorded a wake-up call that was played for the crew of STS-133 in the Space Shuttle Discovery on March 7, 2011, its final day docked to the International Space Station. Backed by the musical theme from Star Trek , it featured a voice-over based on his spoken introduction from the series' opening credits: "Space, the final frontier. These have been the voyages of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Her 30-year mission: To seek out new science. To build new outposts. To bring nations together on the final frontier. To boldly go, and do, what no spacecraft has done before."

Discography

The Transformed Man (1968) – Decca Records

William Shatner Live (1977) – live double album – Lemli Records

Captain of the Starship – William Shatner Live! (1978) – live double album – Imperial House (This is the William Shatner Live album rereleased under a different title with different cover artwork).

Spaced Out: The Very Best of Leonard Nimoy & William Shatner (1996) – compilation album -Universal (Includes 7 tracks from The Transformed Man + 17 tracks by Leonard Nimoy)

Has Been (2004) – Shout! Factory

Exodus: An Oratorio in Three Parts (2008) – JMG/Jewish Music

Seeking Major Tom (2011) – Cleopatra Records

Ponder the Mystery (2013) – Cleopatra Records

Why Not Me (2018) – Heartland Records Nashville

Shatner Claus (2018) – with Iggy Pop, Brad Paisley and Judy Collins – Cleopatra Records

Personal life

Shatner dislikes watching himself perform, and says that he has never watched any Star Trek or Boston Legal episodes nor any of the Star Trek movies except while editing Star Trek V: The Final Frontier which he directed, although his book Star Trek Memories makes reference to his having attended the gala premiere of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and watching episodes of Star Trek .:201

Family

Shatner has been married four times. His first marriage, to Gloria Rand (née Rabinowitz), produced three daughters: Leslie (b. 1958), Lisabeth (b. 1960), and Melanie (b. 1964). Rand was a Canadian actress. Rand and Shatner married on August 12, 1956. Shatner left Rand while he was acting in Star Trek: The Original Series , after which she divorced him in March 1969. The divorce was finalized in 1969. Shatner's second marriage was to Marcy Lafferty (daughter of producer Perry Lafferty) and lasted from 1973 to 1996.

His third marriage was to Nerine Kidd Shatner, from 1997 until her death in 1999. On August 9, 1999, Shatner returned home around 10 p.m. to discover Nerine's body at the bottom of their backyard swimming pool. She was 40 years old. An autopsy detected alcohol and Valium (diazepam) in her blood, but the coroner ruled the cause of death as an accidental drowning. The LAPD ruled out foul play, and the case was closed.

Speaking to the press shortly after his wife's death, a clearly shaken and emotional Shatner said that she "meant everything" to him, and called her his "beautiful soulmate". Shatner urged the public to support Friendly House, a nonprofit organization that helps women re-establish themselves in the community after suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction. He later told Larry King in an interview that "my wife, whom I loved dearly, and who loved me, was suffering with a disease that we don't like to talk about: alcoholism. And she met a tragic ending because of it."

In his 2008 book Up Till Now: The Autobiography , Shatner discusses how Leonard Nimoy helped take Nerine to treatment for her alcoholism. Shatner writes in an excerpt from his book:

Leonard Nimoy's personal experience of alcoholism now came to play a central role in my life and it helped us bond together in a way I never could have imagined in the early days of Star Trek . After Nerine [Kidd] and I had been to dinner with Leonard and Susan Nimoy one evening, Leonard called and said: "Bill, you know she's an alcoholic?" I said I did. I married Nerine in 1997, against the advice of many and my own good sense. But I thought she would give up alcohol for me. We had a celebration in Pasadena, and Leonard was my best man. I woke up about eight o'clock the next morning and Nerine was drunk. She was in rehab for 30 days three different times. Twice she almost drank herself to death. Leonard took Nerine to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but she did not want to quit.

In 2000, a Reuters story reported that Shatner was planning to write and direct The Shiva Club , a dark comedy about the grieving process inspired by his wife's death. Shatner's 2004 album Has Been included a spoken-word piece titled "What Have You Done" that describes his anguish upon discovering his wife's body in the pool.

In 2001, Shatner married Elizabeth Anderson Martin. In 2004, she co-wrote the song "Together" on Shatner's album Has Been . Shatner filed for divorce from Elizabeth in 2019.

Relationships with other actors

Shatner first appeared on screen with Leonard Nimoy in 1964, when both actors guest-starred in an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. entitled "The Project Strigas Affair." As co-stars on Star Trek , they interacted socially both on and off the set. After Star Trek 's cancellation in 1969, Shatner and Nimoy reunited in the production of Star Trek: The Animated Series , as well as The $20,000 Pyramid , where "Kirk vs. Spock" appeared on two different tables. Nimoy also guest-starred on T. J. Hooker , a show in which Shatner played the title role.

Shatner's bereavement following the 1999 death of his third wife, Nerine, served to strengthen his friendship with Nimoy. Nimoy also appeared alongside Shatner at the TV Land Awards (hosted by John Ritter). Nimoy summarized his four-decade friendship with Shatner by remarking, "Bill's energy was good for my performance, 'cause Spock could be the cool individual, our chemistry was successful, right from the start."

Nimoy spoke about their mutual rivalry during the Star Trek years:

Very competitive, sibling rivalry up to here. After the show had been on the air a few weeks and they started getting so much mail for Spock, then the dictum came down from NBC: "Give us more of that guy, they love that guy, you know?" Well, that can be ... that can be a problem for the leading man who was hired as the star of the show; and suddenly, here's this guy with ears – "What's this, you know?" — Leonard Nimoy

On an episode of the A&E series Biography , where it was also divulged that Nimoy was Shatner's best man at his wedding with his fourth wife Elisabeth, Nimoy remarked, "Bill Shatner hogging the stage? No. Not the Bill Shatner I know." When Nimoy died in 2015, Shatner stated "I loved him like a brother. We will all miss his humor, his talent, and his capacity to love." Although Shatner was unable to attend Nimoy's funeral due to other commitments, his daughters attended in his place, and Shatner created his own online memorial for Nimoy.

Shatner has been a friend of actress Heather Locklear since 1982, when she began co-starring with him on T. J. Hooker . As she was also appearing in a semi-regular role in another Aaron Spelling production, Dynasty , Locklear was asked by Entertainment Tonight whether this schedule was difficult. She replied "I'd get really nervous and want to be prepared" for Shatner and for the experienced cast of Dynasty . After T.J. Hooker ended, Shatner helped Locklear get other roles. Locklear supported a grieving Shatner in 1999 when he was mourning the death of his wife Nerine. In 2005, Locklear appeared in two episodes of Shatner's Boston Legal as Kelly Nolan, a woman being tried for killing her much older, wealthy husband. Shatner's character is attracted to Nolan and tries to insert himself into her defense.[clarification needed ] Locklear was asked how she came to appear on Boston Legal . She explained "I love the show, it's my favorite show; and I sorta kind of said, 'Shouldn't I be William Shatner's illegitimate daughter, or his love interest?'"

For years, Shatner was accused by some of his Star Trek co-stars of being difficult to work with, particularly by George Takei, Walter Koenig and James Doohan, the latter two of whom Shatner acknowledges in his autobiography Star Trek Movie Memories . In the 2004 Star Trek DVD sets, Shatner seemed to have made up with Takei, but their differences continue to resurface.

In the 1990s, Shatner made numerous attempts to reconcile with Doohan, but was unsuccessful for some time, Doohan being the only former Star Trek co-star refusing to be interviewed by Shatner for his 1993 memoir Star Trek Memories ; Doohan did participate in the 1994 follow-up, Star Trek Movie Memories . However, an Associated Press article published at the time of Doohan's final convention appearance in late August 2004 stated that Doohan, already suffering from severe health problems, had forgiven Shatner and they had mended their relationship. At a convention directly preceding Doohan's last one, Sky Conway, the convention's head, stated, "At our show: 'The Great Bird of the Galaxy' in El Paso Texas in November 2003, a celebration of Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek , Bill and Jimmy went on stage together. Behind the scenes and before they went on stage, they hugged each other, apologized and expressed their love and admiration for each other. Bill specifically asked me to get them together so he could make amends and clear the air between the two of them before it was too late."

"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet " is episode 123 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone , based on the short story of the same name by Richard Matheson, first published in Alone by Night (1961). It originally aired on October 11, 1963 and is one of the most well-known and frequently referenced episodes of the series. The story follows the only passenger on an airline flight to notice a hideous creature lurking outside the plane.

Opening narration

Portrait of a frightened man: Mr. Robert Wilson, thirty-seven, husband, father, and salesman on sick leave. Mr. Wilson has just been discharged from a sanitarium where he spent the last six months recovering from a nervous breakdown, the onset of which took place on an evening not dissimilar to this one, on an airliner very much like the one in which Mr. Wilson is about to be flown home—the difference being that, on that evening half a year ago, Mr. Wilson's flight was terminated by the onslaught of his mental breakdown. Tonight, he's traveling all the way to his appointed destination, which, contrary to Mr. Wilson's plan, happens to be in the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone.

Plot

While traveling by airplane, Robert Wilson, thinking he sees a gremlin on the wing, tries to alert his wife and the flight crew, but every time someone else looks out of the window the gremlin hides itself near the engine so Robert's claim seems crazy. Robert admits the oddness of the gremlin avoiding everyone else's sight but not his. His credibility is further undermined by this being his first flight since suffering a nervous breakdown six months earlier, which also occurred on an aircraft. Robert realizes that his wife is starting to think he needs to go back to the sanitarium, but his more immediate concern is the gremlin tinkering with the wiring under one of the engine cowlings which could cause the aircraft to crash.

In response to his repeated attempts to raise an alarm about the gremlin, the crew gives Robert a sedative to stop him from alarming other passengers. Robert downs it with water, but does not swallow and secretly spits it out. He then steals a sleeping police officer's revolver, straps himself in to avoid being blown out of the aircraft, and opens the emergency exit door to shoot the gremlin.

Once the airplane has landed, everyone believes that Robert has gone insane. As he is whisked away on a gurney and in a straitjacket, Robert tells his wife that he is alone in his knowledge of what happened during the flight. However, the final scene reveals conspicuous damage to the exterior of one of the aircraft's engines, confirming that Robert was right all along about the gremlin.

Closing narration

The flight of Mr. Robert Wilson has ended now, a flight not only from point A to point B, but also from the fear of recurring mental breakdown. Mr. Wilson has that fear no longer... though, for the moment, he is, as he has said, alone in this assurance. Happily, his conviction will not remain isolated too much longer, for happily, tangible manifestation is very often left as evidence of trespass, even from so intangible a quarter as the Twilight Zone.

Cast
  • William Shatner as Robert "Bob" Wilson

  • Christine White as Julia Wilson

  • Ed Kemmer as Flight Engineer

  • Asa Maynor as Stewardess

  • Nick Cravat as Gremlin

Remakes

Twilight Zone: The Movie version

The episode was remade in 1983 by director George Miller as a segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie . Unlike Bob Wilson, whose credibility was compromised by a recent nervous breakdown in the 1963 version, John Valentine, played by John Lithgow, suffers from severe aviatophobia, the fear of flight (also referred to as aviophobia, aerophobia or pteromechanophobia). This gives the flight crew and other passengers added reason to disbelieve his wild claims, although they initially have more sympathy for John than Bob received in the original episode. Valentine is also a novelist. Valentine travels alone, unlike Wilson, who is with his wife. In this version, while flying through a violent thunderstorm, Valentine is in the lavatory trying to recover from a panic attack. The flight attendants coax Valentine from the lavatory and back to his seat. Valentine notices a hideous gremlin on the wing of the plane and begins to spiral into another severe panic. He watches as the creature wreaks havoc on the wing, damaging the plane's engine. Unlike in the 1963 version, in which the gremlin appears to unknowingly damage the plane out of curiosity, the movie gremlin intentionally damages the plane intending for it to crash. Valentine finally snaps and attempts to break the window with an oxygen canister, but is wrestled to the ground by another passenger (an off-duty security guard). Valentine takes the passenger's gun, shoots out the window (causing a breach in the pressurized cabin), and begins firing at the gremlin. This only serves to catch the attention of the gremlin, who rushes up to Valentine and destroys the gun. After they notice that the plane is beginning an emergency landing, the gremlin leaps away into the sky. The police, crew, and passengers write off Valentine as insane. However, while a straitjacketed Valentine is carried off in an ambulance, the aircraft maintenance crew arrives and finds the damage to the plane's engines complete with claw marks.

2019 version

In October 2018, it was announced that Adam Scott was cast in an episode for the 2019 reboot series, entitled "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet". Other cast mates include Chris Diamantopoulos, China Shavers, Katie Findlay and Nicholas Lea. The remake removes the gremlin completely, though it makes a cameo as a doll that washes up on the atoll near the end, and instead focuses on a sinister podcast hosted by the enigmatic Rodman Edwards (voiced by Dan Carlin).

Opening narration

Settling in for a 13-hour transatlantic flight to a land rife with ancient mysteries is Justin Sanderson. Mr. Sanderson's occupation is to uncover unbiased truth. But with an hour left before certain doom, he must ask the right questions of the right people. Landing at the truth this time will require an unscheduled stopover... in the Twilight Zone.

Plot

Justin Sanderson is a magazine journalist, suffering from PTSD, who is boarding Golden Airways for a flight to Tel Aviv. While awaiting his flight, he befriends Joe Beaumont, a former pilot for the company and alcoholic who suffered some undefined failure in the past. As he boards his flight, he discovers an MP3 player from the Whipple Company (a homage to the episode The Brain Center at Whipple's ) that has a podcast playing called Enigmatique , hosted by Rodman Edwards (a homage to the series creator and host Rod Serling). As Sanderson begins listening to it, he realizes that Edwards is listing off certain details and events relating to the fictional Flight 1015, just moments before it will crash. Sanderson begins to panic and tries to make sense of the situation, but is told to calm down. He begins listening further and learns that the crash may have had to do with a former Russian gangster hiding under witness protection named Igor Orlov and quite possibly an air marshal hidden on the flight. Both attempts to interact or warn the related only result in annoying the passengers and crew.

Sanderson later learns that the last words uttered from the pilot before the crash is "Good night, New York". While trying to warn the pilot from saying that, the air marshal reveals herself and restrains him from causing any more trouble. Beaumont approaches him and admits that he believes him. Sanderson manages to get Beaumont into the cockpit where he beats up the pilots and takes control of the flight. As the crew is put to sleep due to lack of oxygen, save for Sanderson who was given a breathing can by Beaumont, Beaumont reveals his plan to "redeem" himself by crashing the plane to atone for his past failures. As he signs off with "Good night, New York", it dawns on Sanderson that he indirectly causes the crash.

Justin awakens on an island and discovers the MP3 where he learns that all the passengers survived after months of searching except for Sanderson who disappeared. The other passengers reveal themselves as they all attack and kills Sanderson who they blame for the crash.

Closing narration

In his final moments, Justin Sanderson made the case that he did everything he could to avert disaster. But in the end, he was an investigative reporter unwilling to investigate himself, until it was too late. Justin discovered that the flight path to hell is paved with good intentions, and it passes directly... through the Twilight Zone.

In popular culture

The episode is considered one of the most popular of the series and parts of the plot have been repeated and parodied several times in popular culture, including television shows, films, radio and music:

  • On the October 20, 1984 episode of Saturday Night Live , in a skit with guest host Jesse Jackson, Ed Grimley sits next to Jackson on a plane, sees the gremlin, and disturbs Jackson, who eventually walks off the set.

  • In 1990, UK indie band Pop Will Eat Itself released their third album, Cure for Sanity , which features a track called "Nightmare at 20,000 feet". The track is said to be inspired by singer Clint Mansell's fear of flying.

  • In The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror IV" (1993) is a segment called "Terror at ​5 1⁄2 Feet". It takes place on a school bus rather than an aircraft, and puts Bart Simpson in the role of Bob Wilson. An AMC Gremlin driven by Hans Moleman drives alongside the bus.

  • American band Anthrax based the videoclip for their 1998 song "Inside Out" on this episode.

  • In the 3rd Rock from the Sun episode "Dick's Big Giant Headache: Part 1" (1999), William Shatner makes his first appearance on the series. John Lithgow's character meets Shatner's character as he gets off an aircraft. When Shatner describes seeing something horrifying on the wing, Lithgow replies, "The same thing happened to me!" This references not only Lithgow's portrayal of the nervous passenger in the 1983 Twilight Zone remake, but also an earlier 3rd Rock episode "Frozen Dick" (Season 1, Ep 12, 1996) when he and Jane Curtin's characters were due to fly to Chicago to pick up awards before Dick panicked about something on the wing while the plane was still on the tarmac and gets them both kicked off the plane.

  • The episode inspired the opening sequence of the 2000 slasher movie Urban Legends: Final Cut , directed by John Ottman.

  • Keith McDuffee of TV Squad listed the gremlin as the ninth scariest television character, in 2008.

  • On the March 16, 2010 episode of Saturday Night Live , guest host Jude Law plays Shatner's original role, while cast regular Bobby Moynihan is the gremlin on the wing of the jet. One scene features the musical guest Pearl Jam talking with the gremlin.

  • Shatner had a cameo on the "Whoopi Goldberg" episode of Muppets Tonight on July 7, 1996. Miss Piggy is bothered by a Gremlin while riding in a jet Miss Piggy goes to tell another passenger...Shatner. Shatner looks at the Gremlin and nonchalantly says, "Oh. Him again." He claims that he's been complaining about the gremlin for years, but nobody does anything about it.

  • In the Robot Chicken episode "Tapping a Hero", the episode is parodied in a sketch.

  • In Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls , Jim Carrey parodies Shatner and his character in this film.

  • In the horror film Flight 7500 , a character watches the episode as part of the in-flight services, paralleling their own dire situation.

  • In the Johnny Bravo episode "The Man Who Cried Clown", which is part of "The Zone Where Normal Things Don't Happen Very Often," Johnny sees an evil clown on the wing of the aircraft and is having difficulty convincing the pilots and anyone of its existence which even included a cameo by someone resembling William Shatner who quotes "Oh no you don't! I'm not falling for that again." When he catches and beats up the clown in the airplane's restroom, he is confronted and informed by the pilots that the clown in question and another clown were needed to keep the aircraft in balance during flight. The pilots and some nearby people beat up Johnny and make him take the incapacitated clown's place.

  • In The Angry Beavers episode "Dag's List", Barry the bear is repeatedly launched into the air, landing on the wing of a plane owned by Dairy Airlines. Wally Wingert's secondary character, credited as "Passenger 57" (possibly a reference to the Wesley Snipes film), exclaims in a halted, Shatner-style voice: "There's a bear... on... the wing!"

  • In the movie Sharknado 2: The Second One , Fin Shepard checks the wing of the plane, and sees a shark on the wing of the plane. The flight attendant tells him to calm down.

  • The 1995 Tiny Toon Adventures special Tiny Toons' Night Ghoulery features a segment named "Gremlin on a Wing", which parodies "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", with Plucky Duck in William Shatner's place, accompanied by Hamton J. Pig in an aircraft, and a gremlin similar to that which appeared in the Bugs Bunny short Falling Hare .

  • The Lego Batman Movie features gremlins from the film Gremlins attacking a plane, a simultaneous reference to both the Twilight Zone episode, and the avionic history of the folk creature, the gremlin.[original research? ]

  • In the Futurama episode I Dated a Robot , the main characters watch a TV show entitled The Scary Door , which features a gremlin damaging a plane along with parodies of other story-lines from The Twilight Zone . In the season 9 episode, “Zapp Dingbat,” Zapp Brannigan says to Kif Kroker, “Kif, I’m bored. What say you go out on the wing and pretend you’re a gremlin.”

  • In the beginning of the film Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa , Alex the lion gets scared by a gremlin on the plane wing, who turns out to be Mort (a mouse lemur ) before getting swept away by the wind.

  • In Comedy Central's "Key and Peele – Airplane Continental", Peele's character encounters a gremlin while looking out the airplane window.

  • STRYKE Percussion's 2018 program was entitled "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" and followed a similar plot line to this episode.

  • The 2018 animated film Hotel Transylvania 3 features a scene in which Johnny (Andy Samberg) sees a gremlin outside his airplane window.

The Twilight Zone is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, suspense, horror, and psychological thriller, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist, and usually with a moral. A popular and critical success, it introduced many Americans to common science fiction and fantasy tropes. The original series, shot entirely in black and white, ran on CBS for five seasons from 1959 to 1964.

The Twilight Zone followed in the tradition of earlier television shows such as Tales of Tomorrow (1951–53) and Science Fiction Theatre (1955–57); radio programs such as The Weird Circle (1943–45), Dimension X (1950–51) and X Minus One (1955–58); and the radio work of one of Serling's inspirations, Norman Corwin. The success of the series led to a feature film (1983), a TV film (1994), a radio series (2002–12), literature including a comic book, novels and a magazine and a theme park attraction and various other spin-offs that spanned five decades, including three revival television series. The first revival (1985–89) ran on CBS and in syndication in the 1980s, while the second revival ran on UPN (2002–2003). In December 2017, CBS All Access officially ordered the third Twilight Zone revival to series, helmed by Jordan Peele. The series premiered on April 1, 2019.

TV Guide ranked the original TV series #5 in their 2013 list of the 60 greatest shows of all time and #4 in their list of the 60 greatest dramas.

As a boy, Rod Serling was a fan of pulp fiction stories. As an adult, he sought topics with themes such as racism, government, war, society, and human nature in general. Serling decided to combine these two interests as a way to broach these subjects on television at a time when such issues were not commonly addressed.

Throughout the 1950s, Serling established himself as one of the most popular names in television. He was as famous for writing televised drama as he was for criticizing the medium's limitations. His most vocal complaints concerned censorship, which was frequently practiced by sponsors and networks. "I was not permitted to have my senators discuss any current or pressing problem," he said of his 1957 Studio One production "The Arena", intended to be an involving look into contemporary politics. "To talk of tariff was to align oneself with the Republicans; to talk of labor was to suggest control by the Democrats. To say a single thing germane to the current political scene was absolutely prohibited."

"The Time Element" (1958)

CBS purchased a teleplay in 1958 that writer Rod Serling hoped to produce as the pilot of a weekly anthology series. "The Time Element" marked Serling's first entry in the field of science fiction.

Plot

Several years after the end of World War II, a man named Peter Jenson (William Bendix) visits a psychoanalyst, Dr. Gillespie (Martin Balsam). Jenson tells him about a recurring dream in which he tries to warn people about the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor before it happens, but the warnings are disregarded. Jenson believes the events of the dream are real, and each night he travels back to 1941. Dr. Gillespie insists that time travel is impossible given the nature of temporal paradoxes. While on the couch, Jenson falls asleep once again but this time dreams that the Japanese planes shoot and kill him. In Dr. Gillespie's office, the couch Jenson was lying on is now empty. Dr. Gillespie goes to a bar where he finds Jenson's picture on the wall. The bartender tells him that Jenson had tended bar there, but he was killed during the Pearl Harbor attack.

Production

With the "Time Element" script, Serling drafted the fundamental elements that defined the subsequent series: a science-fiction/fantasy theme, opening and closing narration, and an ending with a twist. "The Time Element" was purchased immediately, but shelved indefinitely.

This is where things stood when Bert Granet, the new producer for Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse , discovered "The Time Element" in CBS' vaults while searching for an original Serling script to add prestige to his show. "The Time Element" (introduced by Desi Arnaz) debuted on November 24, 1958, to an overwhelmingly delighted audience of television viewers and critics alike. "The humor and sincerity of Mr. Serling's dialogue made 'The Time Element' consistently entertaining," offered Jack Gould of The New York Times . Over 6,000 letters of praise flooded Granet's offices. Convinced that a series based on such stories could succeed, CBS again began talks with Serling about the possibilities of producing The Twilight Zone . "Where Is Everybody?" was accepted as the pilot episode and the project was officially announced to the public in early 1959. Other than reruns at the time "The Time Element" was not aired on television again until it was shown as part of a 1996 all-night sneak preview of the new cable channel TVLand. It is available in an Italian DVD boxed set titled Ai confini della realtà – I tesori perduti . The Twilight Zone Season 1 Blu-ray boxed set released on September 14, 2010, offers a remastered high-definition version of the original Desilu Playhouse production as a special feature.

Original series (1959–1964)

The series was produced by Cayuga Productions, Inc., a production company owned and named by Serling. It reflects his background in Central New York State and is named after Cayuga Lake, on which he owned a home, and where Cornell University and Ithaca College are located.

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

Twilight Zone 's writers frequently used science fiction as a vehicle for social comment, as networks and sponsors who censored controversial material from live dramas were less concerned with seemingly innocuous fantasy and sci-fi stories. Frequent themes on The Twilight Zone included nuclear war, McCarthyism, and mass hysteria, subjects that were avoided on less serious primetime television. Episodes such as "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" offered specific commentary on current events and social issues. Other stories, such as "The Masks", "I Dream of Genie", or "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" were allegories, parables, or fables that reflected the moral and philosophical choices of the characters.

Despite his esteem in the writing community, Serling found the series difficult to sell. Few critics felt that science fiction could transcend empty escapism and enter the realm of adult drama. In a September 22, 1959, interview with Serling, Mike Wallace asked a question illustrative of the times: "...[Y]ou're going to be, obviously, working so hard on The Twilight Zone that, in essence, for the time being and for the foreseeable future, you've given up on writing anything important for television, right?" While Serling's appearances on the show became one of its most distinctive features, with his clipped delivery still widely imitated today, he was reportedly nervous about it and had to be persuaded to appear on camera. Serling often steps into the middle of the action while the characters remain oblivious to him, but on one notable occasion, they are aware of his presence: In the episode "A World of His Own", a writer (Keenan Wynn) with the power to alter his reality objects to Serling's narration and promptly erases Serling from the show.

In season two, due to budgetary constraints, the network decided – against Serling's wishes – to cut costs by shooting some episodes on videotape rather than film. The requisite multicamera setup of the videotape format precluded location shooting, severely limiting the potential scope of the storylines, and the experiment was abandoned after just six episodes ("Twenty Two", "Static", "The Whole Truth", "The Lateness of the Hour", "The Night of the Meek", and "Long Distance Call").

The original series contains 156 episodes. The episodes in seasons one through three are 30 minutes long with commercials (24 or 25 minutes without commercials). Season four (1962–63) consists of one-hour episodes with commercials (51 minutes without commercials). Season five returned to the half-hour format.

First revival (1985–1989)

It was Serling's decision to sell his share of the series back to the network that eventually allowed for a Twilight Zone revival. As an in-house production, CBS stood to earn more money producing The Twilight Zone than it could by purchasing a new series produced by an outside company. Even so, the network was slow to consider a revival, turning down offers from the original production team of Rod Serling and Buck Houghton and later from American filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.

CBS gave the new Twilight Zone a greenlight in 1984 under the supervision of Carla Singer, then Vice President of Drama Development. While the show did not come close to matching the enduring popularity of the original, some episodes – particularly Alan Brennert's love story "Her Pilgrim Soul" and J. Neil Schulman's "Profile in Silver" – were critically acclaimed. In a tribute to the original series, the opening credits include a brief image of Rod Serling. Four episodes are remakes of those from the original series: "Night of the Meek", "Shadow Play", "The After Hours" and "A Game of Pool", while "Dead Woman's Shoes" is an adaptation of "Dead Man's Shoes". Unlike the original series and the second revival, this series does not include the opening monologue during the title sequence. As well, the narration is all strictly voice-over and the narrator never appears on-screen.

Rod Serling's Lost Classics (1994)

In the early 1990s, Richard Matheson and Carol Serling produced an outline for a two-hour made-for-TV movie which would feature Matheson adaptations of three yet-unfilmed Rod Serling short stories. Outlines for such a production were rejected by CBS until early 1994, when Serling's widow discovered a complete shooting script ("Where the Dead Are") authored by her late husband, while rummaging through their garage. She showed the forgotten script to producers Michael O'Hara and Laurence Horowitz, who were significantly impressed by it. "I had a pile of scripts, which I usually procrastinate about reading. But I read this one right away and, after 30 pages, called my partner and said, "I love it," recalled O'Hara. "This is pure imagination, a period piece, literate – some might say wordy. If Rod Serling's name weren't on it, it wouldn't have a chance at getting made."

Eager to capitalize on Serling's celebrity status as a writer, CBS packaged "Where the Dead Are" with Matheson's adaptation of "The Theatre", debuting as a two-hour feature on the night of May 19, 1994, under the name Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics . The title represents a misnomer, as both stories were conceived long after Twilight Zone's cancellation. Written just months before Serling's death, "Where the Dead Are" starred Patrick Bergin as a 19th-century doctor who stumbles upon a mad scientist's medical experiments with immortality. "The Theatre" starred Amy Irving and Gary Cole as a couple who visits a cineplex where they discover the feature presentation depicts their own lives. James Earl Jones provided opening and closing narrations.

Critical response was mixed. Gannett News Service described it as "taut and stylish, a reminder of what can happen when fine actors are given great words." USA Today was less impressed, even suggesting that Carol Serling "should have left these two unproduced mediocrities in the garage where she found them." Ultimately, ratings proved insufficient to justify a proposed sequel featuring three scripts adapted by Matheson.

Second revival (2002–2003)

A second revival was developed by UPN in 2002, it was hosted by Forest Whitaker. It was broadcast in a one-hour format composed of two half-hour stories, it was canceled after one season. "It's Still a Good Life" is a sequel to "It's a Good Life", "The Monsters Are on Maple Street" is an adaptation of "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "Eye of the Beholder" is a remake of an episode from the original series, with Serling still credited as writer.

Third revival (2019–present)

In December 2012, it was reported that Bryan Singer was developing and executive producing a third revival television series for CBS Television Studios. A writer for the series was not chosen and the program was not pitched to any networks. CBS, which broadcast the original series and first revival, was reportedly interested. In February 2013, Singer told TG Daily that the project was still in development and that he hoped to direct the pilot and have A-list actors appear on the revival. The following month, he told IGN that a writer with whom he had previously worked was in negotiations to join the revival and that he felt "passionate" towards the original series and the planned revival.

In February 2016, it was reported that Ken Levine would write and direct the pilot episode of the revival series. It was also reported that the series would be interactive. In November 2017, it was reported that Jordan Peele was developing a reboot of the series for streaming service CBS All Access with Marco Ramirez serving as potential showrunner. In December 2017, CBS All Access ordered the third The Twilight Zone revival to series. It was announced that the series would be produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Monkeypaw Productions and Genre Films. Jordan Peele, Marco Ramirez, and Simon Kinberg will serve as executive producers for the series and collaborate on the premiere episode. Win Rosenfeld and Audrey Chon will also serve as executive producers. Peele was revealed to be the new host and narrator in September 2018, and the new opening sequence was released. The series premiered on April 1, 2019.

The second episode of the series, "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet", is based on "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".

  • Condition: Ungraded
  • Approximate Size of Card: 3.5 inches x 2.5 inches
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
  • Year Manufactured: 1999
  • Features: Individual Base Card
  • Subject Type: TV & Movies
  • Manufacturer: Rittenhouse
  • Genre: Rod Serling, Classic Sci-Fi, Cult TV Show, Action, Sci-Fi
  • Set: Twilight Zone
  • Franchise: Twilight Zone
  • Graded: No

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