You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. And a very dull and un-interesting dimension it is for science fiction and fantasy fans, because in this reality The Twilight Zone never happened!!! It’s hard to believe, but true. The Twilight Zone, one the greatest sci fi/fantasy TV shows and actually one of the all-time best television programs almost never came to pass.
Back in 1957, Rod Serling wrote a script called “The Time Element” and he hoped that it would serve as the pilot for an anthology series. This script focuses on a man who has a recurring dream that he wakes up in 1941 just prior to the attacks on Pearl Harbor. But he comes to believe that these are not dreams and that he is really traveling back in time to that pivotal moment in history. He tries to warn people in the past of the coming attack, though to no avail. But is all this real or just a figment of the imagination? And if so, who’s imagination?
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This script had all of the elements that would later come to define The Twilight Zone such as opening and closing narration, sci fi/fantasy elements, and a twist ending. But CBS, who had purchased the teleplay, had little faith in it and ultimately shelved the project. However, a producer for the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, Bert Granet, stumbled across the script and decided to film it as an episode for that show. And the audience definitely took a shining to “The Time Element” as they flooded the Desilu offices with over six thousand letters of accolade. Critics gave the episode high marks as well and CBS reconsidered their previous position on Serling’s anthology idea which ultimately resulted in The Twilight Zone debuting on that network two years later.
But just think of how different the course of science fiction and fantasy television would have been had Granet never found that script. We might have been robbed of one of the all-time greats that changed the television landscape forever and set the bar for sci fi TV shows that followed (plus, we would have never had the iconic theme song).
