The Twilight Zone is one of the best-known shows of all time. Although it’s often classified as a science fiction series, many argue that a majority of the episodes constitute horror as well. In fact, The Twilight Zone’s most popular episodes lean heavily into the horrific as a means of social commentary that are sadly still relevant today.

This class will explore classic episodes such as “The Eye of the Beholder”, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”, “The Invaders”, “The Big Tall Wish”, “He’s Alive”, “The Shelter”, “The Obsolete Man”, and the controversial episode “The Encounter”. “The Eye of the Beholder” takes our beauty standards and turns them on their head to illustrate how beauty standards differ across cultures, making the quest for perfection meaningless. “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” and “The Invaders” explore themes of xenophobia, and how it leads to an individualistic society. “The Big Tall Wish” echoes sentiments today about “woke” entertainment with its depiction of Black characters in a non-racial story, while “He’s Alive”, “The Shelter”, and “The Obsolete Man” are cautionary tales of what awaits us if our democracy is threatened in a political climate that very closely matches that of the 1960s.

Finally, we’ll discuss “The Encounter”, and how that episode tackles racism and the effects of war head-on, in a way that was so controversial at the time that “The Encounter” was one of the few episodes that did not re-air for three decades.