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"Time At Last" (with Burgess Meredith, a go-to player for the series), an episode creepily illuminating nuclear war by way of Meredith's broken glasses, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (written by series collaborator Richard Matheson), which lets us watch William Shatner disintegrate by way of an airplane gremlin, and "Nick of Time," also starring Shatner as he turns his life and will over to a penny fortune-telling machine.

Not only did "The Twilight Zone" win an Emmy and a Hugo, it is still the only American television series ever to have won an Academy Award for best short film ("An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge"). These are a few of the reasons that the show is remembered and talked about still unlike its gimmicky cousin "The Outer Limits."

The series ran from 1959-1964, eventually being cancelled by CBS because of ratings. Audiences never really flocked to the show during its actual run, but made it into an enduring cult favorite in reruns. Money and credibility from the show set Serling up for his next project, "Night Gallery," which was decidedly more horror-based and not as successful, either on air or in reruns.

Serling was not afraid to dip into controversial subjects or to examine themes that everyone else was too afraid to touch. The show stood in stark counterpoint to the other, more popular network fare of the day. And tell me, who of us gets excited at the prospect of a "Rawhide" or "Bonanza" marathon? Those shows may have trumped "The Twilight Zone" on air, but certainly not in today's living rooms or imaginations.

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