One of the most popular forms of storytelling throughout history, whether it’s film, television or the written word, is the twist ending. We can’t get enough, but it has to be done right. When it’s well executed, like in The Sixth Sense, the Life of Pi or Fight Club, we’re blown away. When it’s not (like the later half of M. Night Shyamalan’s film career minus Split), then we see things coming a mile away.
That’s what made the original run of The Twilight Zone so amazing. On air for 5 seasons, the show hosted by Rod Serling, had surprise endings that came from all over the place – the supernatural, from space, and from the heart. These episodes, are the best examples of what the show had to offer, and they’re brilliant.
Check them out.
“Nothing in the Dark”
Season 3, Episode 16
This is sort of a sweet and humanistic story, with a twist. There’s an old woman, who’s so afraid of death (who she personifies as Mr. Death), that she becomes agoraphobic. The bad news is that there’s a demolition team outside her decrepit apartment building, that’s set to tear it down. When she hears a knock at the door, she finds a policeman (played by the ever handsome Robert Redford), who’s been shot and needs help. She gets over her fear to help him, only to find that he’s come to help her move on. Beautifully told, it’s a frank discussion on how sometimes what we’re scared of the most, isn’t something to be feared.
“Third From the Sun”
Season 1, Episode 14
In the height of the cold war, this episode hits the zeitgeist of the times, right on the head. In this episode, a group of scientists plan to hijack a space-ship to escape a world that’s on the brink of H-Bomb annihilation. When their boss finds out, the timeline needs to move up and they rush out to hijack the rocket before it’s too late with their wives and daughters. Once they make their tense escape, they set course for a safe planet, 11 million miles away. It’s called: Earth.
“I Shot an Arrow into the Air”
Season 1, Episode 15
This one serves as one hell of a gut-punch. When four astronauts survive a crash-landing on a desolate landscape, after a dangerous rocket launch, they find themselves running low on resources. Human nature takes over and only one astronaut is left, after murdering the others for water. As he begins to walk away he sees telephone poles in the distance and finds that they were a ridge away from Reno, Nevada. They never left Earth after all.
“The Encounter”
Season 5, Episode 31
This story walks a fine line between a haunted object and blinding racism. When a WWII veteran and a scarred Japanese man are locked in an attic, they challenge each others hatred, regrets and racism, with a supernatural Samurai sword, that seems to be egging them on. It’s a brutal episode, that showcases how deep our hatreds and beliefs go, and what it’ll cost us in the end.
“The Long Morrow”
Season 5, Episode 15
If you remember the old christmas tale called The Gift of the Magi, then you’ll see where this one is going. 31-year-old Astronaut Doug Stansfield is enlisting in a 40 year mission to a distant star. He’ll be put in suspended animation, but the love-of-his-life will age back on earth. When he returns, 40 years later, he finds that his love had placed herself in suspended animation too; she was still 26. He, on the other hand, after a breakdown in communication, neglected to do the same, thinking if they were both old, they could grow older together. Now, it’s not meant to be.
“The Masks”
Season 5, Episode 25
This one is a voodoo-inspired tale about truth and and just desserts. When a wealthy patriarch of a family invites his whining daughter, her greedy husband and their bullying children over for a Mardi Gras party, he tells them that in order to get his inheritance, they have to wear ugly masks until midnight. If they refuse, they don’t get any money. I think you can see where this one ends up, right?
“The Silence”
Season 2, Episode 25
This is one of the best episodes that doesn’t involve the supernatural. When an arrogant member of a men’s club bets a chatty one that he’d give him $500,000 to remain silent for an entire year, he accepts. Placed in a room full of microphones, and taunted by the one making the bet, what results in a tragic and punishing outcome.
“It’s a Good Life”
This is easily one of the best, with a 6-year-old kid Anthony who can do anything. He hates singing and dogs, can read minds, change matter and make people disappear with a blink of his eyes. So consequently, the townspeople wander around on eggshells, thinking happy thoughts. It’s chilling and silly at the same time, until the end, when a man gets turned into a jack in the box, with his old head.
“Twenty-Two”
Season 2, Episode 17
There’s a lot of episodes of the show that deal with nervous breakdowns, and this one had a twist I never saw coming. When an overworked dancer is recuperating in the hospital, she has recurring dreams about danger, room 22, a hospital morgue and a creepy nurse telling her there’s “room for one more,” When the episode comes to it’s conclusion, you realize that the dream was a premonition, but not what you were expecting.
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
Season 5, Episode 22
Based off of a popular short story, this is an ethereal adaptation of the story of a man who’s rope snaps as he’s about to be hanged. Escaping down the river, the episode focus on surreal imagery and fantasy, until the man arrives home to his wife, only to see his head neck snapped. It was all a dying fantasy.
“In Praise of Pip”
Season 5, Episode 1
As a father and a son, this one kills me. When a bookie finds out that his son has been killed in action in South Vietnam, he regrets not being a better father. Shaken, he accidentally kills his boss and stumbles into an abandoned amusement park, where he finds a 10-year-old version of his son. After he spends his lost time with his son, he bargains with God to trade his life for Pip’s. The ending is gonna give you feels.
It’s okay to let the tears flow on this one.
“The Eye of the Beholder”
Season 2, Episode 6
This is probably one of the better known episodes, but it’s still pretty deep. When a facial reconstruction patient has her bandages removed, she’s revealed to be a gorgeous woman, surrounded by deformed people. In this world, you see, she’s the disgusting one. By not showing the doctors and nurses for the entirety of the episode, the twist is preserved and lucky for our main character, she’s sent to a community of other “ugly” specimens that look like her.
“Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”
Season 2, Episode 28
Instead of being an incredibly psychological or supernatural episode, this one is just fun. Taking elements from an Agatha Christie novel, a group of people are snowed-in at a roadside diner and one of them isn’t from Earth. Even though in the end, there’s a devastating bridge collapse and an impending invasion of the planet, it’s still a pretty light-hearted look at interplanetary rivalries.
“A Game of Pool”
Season 3, Episode 5
This one might seem like a light episode, but the ending’s implications are crazy. This episode has a bitter pool shark to spends his nights practicing and bitterly complaining that he’s be considered the best player in the game if it wasn’t for the long-deceased “Fats.” Fats comes back to life for one more game, with high stakes; win and he will be regarded as the greatest of all time; or lose and he forfeits his life. When Fats loses the game, our protagonist is elated. A short time after his death, however, he’s forced to leave the afterlife to play pool against challengers trying to be better than him – for all eternity.
“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”
Season 5, Episode 3
You had to know this one was coming. William Shatner plays a man who’s had a mental breakdown on a plane, travelling home from the mental hospital, when he sees a gremlin ripping off the wings. No one believes him, so he takes matters into his own hands, with mixed results.
“Time Enough at Last”
Season 1, Episode 8
This is the darkest episode, out of all the ones I’ve seen, and it was ironically also the first one. This episode follows Henry, a book addict, who’s henpecked and always reading, ruining his relationships and his career. When all the other humans are disintegrated in a nuclear blast (but not him, because he spends his lunch break in his bank’s vault with this book), he finds he has all the time in the world to read. At least until he drops his only pair of glasses.
As a gentleman who needs his glasses to live, this terrifies me.
