Celebrate 'Twilight Zone' Day with Damon Lindelof's Favorite Episode
While the “national day” craze has gotten a bit out of hand of late — National Gumdrop Day? National Wiggle Your Toes Day? National Button Day? — today’s quasi-holiday is one we can get behind: Twilight Zone Day. Created to honor Rod Serling’s seminal TV series — which premiered in 1959 — Twilight Zone Day is the perfect time to revisit your favorite Zone moments. But don’t go in blind; there were 156 episodes, after all. Let Damon Lindelof, co-creator of Lost and The Leftovers — two series that definitely qualify as spiritual descendants of The Twilight Zone — tell you his favorite episode first. Damon, take it away:
“My favorite episode is A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE, from Season 1.
Imagine an episode of Mad Men where Don Draper suddenly walks off the set of Sterling Cooper and finds a film crew standing there. Confused and alarmed, Don is told that he’s actually an actor named Jon Hamm. Now, picture if you will, the company for which Mr. Draper worked is actually called SERLING-Cooper and you have just taken a deep, meta-dive…. into the Twilight Zone.”
Watch “A World of Difference” here:
And when you’re done with that, might we suggest…
The 1960 ode to the terror of technology, “A Thing About Machines”? (Get out of here, Finchley!)
The 1961 attachment-parenting cautionary tale “It’s a Good Life” (featuring a young and gorgeous Cloris Leachman)?
And, of course, Serling’s iconic fable about the arbitrary nature of beauty, “The Eye of the Beholder”?
There’s a signpost up ahead: You’re about to enter a YouTube rabbit hole. Before you do, vote for your all-time favorite episode below. Have a weird and wonderful Twilight Zone Day, everybody!
