Twilight Zoning: Rod Serling, Unitarian – September 16, 2012
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Twilight Zoning: Rod Serling, Unitarian – September 16, 2012 Twilight Zoning: Rod Serling, Unitarian by David Green Growing up, I was usually regarded as a polite, respectful child, obeying my parent’s wishes. For years, my strict bedtime was 9 PM. My mom and dad would tuck me in and make me say my prayers, and I’d close my eyes and lay very still until they would softly close my bedroom door. Because they were early risers, they’d usually turn off all the lights in the house and turn in themselves around 9:30 or 10. But I had a dirty little secret. I’d lay awake patiently until the only sound in the house was my dad’s snoring, and then with a stealth that would make a Navy SEAL proud, I would creep into the living room, turn on our trusty black-and- white Magnavox TV, set the volume down as low as it could possibly go, plant myself right next to the flickering screen, and watch The Twilight Zone. Every weeknight, right after the local news, a station played a Twilight Zone rerun. Quite often those shows scared me to death, but it was the kind of thrill that at least made you think. It’s a wonder I ever got any sleep at all. I was particularly fascinated by the host of the Twilight Zone. A thin, chain-smoking, eloquent, very sophisticated yet mysterious man named Rod Serling who opened and closed each episode. Some of the shows were pure science fiction, a lot like the weird comic books my big brothers kept hidden under their mattresses. But most of the episodes felt more like morality plays, illustrating the foibles or darker side of human nature. I lived in a pretty safe and dependable world, where I trusted all the adults I knew to be good, solid, ethical citizens. In hindsight I realize the Twilight Zone was one of my first exposures to the very idea that not everyone – and not every form of human culture – was always trustworthy, or just, or rational. That might sound like a negative, but we all learn that kind of thing sooner or later anyway. What made watching the Twilight Zone significant was its consistent depiction that even though bad or weird stuff does exist in the world – things like intolerance and bigotry and corruption – that it’s perfectly okay to be unique, to be an independent thinker, to seek a rational life, to be compassionate, and to insist on the rights and dignity of every human being. No matter what anyone else might think. If it took me a long time before I was ever officially exposed to the principles of Unitarian Universalism, I can trace at least some of the seeds of that journey to influences like the Twilight Zone. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Rod Serling, the man who hosted the show, and was also its creator, producer, and writer of most of the episodes, was himself a Unitarian. He was born in 1924 to a Jewish family in upstate New York. From an early age Rod Serling loved to write, often scathing editorials in his high school newspaper. He was a debater known for his sharp sense of humor. He loved to box; he didn’t shy away from a fight. World War II was in full swing when he graduated from high school and enlisted in the army, joining the elite 11th Airborne Division. He served in the Pacific, and witnessed first-hand the insane brutality of that conflict, where he saw many of his best friends killed. For the rest of his life, the experience left him with nightmares and flashbacks. When the war ended, Rod Serling went to college to study literature but discovered broadcasting, and also met his wife, Carol. She happened to be a Unitarian, so when they married he became one himself. After college he volunteered and did freelance work on radio shows and in the fledgling TV industry in Ohio, writing, acting, and producing. By 1952, he and Carol had moved to Connecticut, where he continued freelance writing for anyone in New York who’d buy his material. His big break came in 1955, when the nationwide show, the Kraft Television Theater, broadcast a program based a script he wrote called Patterns. Patterns is the story of a corrupt corporate boss who manipulates an unwitting up-and-coming executive to push out another employee the older man fears. It was a stinging indictment of American business practices, critically acclaimed, and it earned Rod Sterling his first of several Emmy awards. From that time on, he never had to freelance again. He followed Patterns the next year by writing Requiem for a Heavyweight, a story with themes like loyalty, betrayal, honor, and human dignity. That show won Serling a Peabody, the first time that award for public service in broadcasting had ever been given to a TV writer. Despite his success, Rod Serling was frustrated by what was commonplace in the early years of television. He was forced to change the content of his scripts to satisfy corporate sponsors, who effectively behaved as editors and censors. For instance, one script he wrote featured scenes in New York’s famed Chrysler Building. Problem was, the show was sponsored by Ford. So the location had to be changed. More significantly, many sponsors didn’t want to be associated with themes dealing with controversial social issues. Any references to race or poverty, or things that might question the idealized version of the American way of life were strictly taboo. This was the era of McCarthyism, after all, a time of witch hunts against suspected communists. It was professional suicide to be associated with concepts like free expression or civil rights, any critique of the government or the excesses of capitalism, any commentary that could be perceived as un-American. One program Serling wrote exposed racism and bigotry in the South, and somehow got past the censors. It was called A Town Has Turned To Dust. It earned Serling critical raves, but made him someone who had to be even more carefully scrutinized by networks and their sponsors. On the one hand, they loved Rod Serling because his programs were popular and critical successes, and they elevated the stature of television as a whole. In its early years, most TV programming was thought of as rather lowbrow, pedestrian stuff. But Serling’s projects were an exception. They were intelligent, realistic, and thought-provoking. On the other hand, networks chafed at his insistence on addressing controversial issues. Working in a framework where no one in power wanted to rock the boat, he was essentially a network employee, and he regularly had to fight, bargain, and too frequently give in to their demands. Serling finally decided the only way to avoid artistic interference, the only way to not compromise his values, was to become an independent producer. That way he could control the content, sell it to a network, and the network could then accurately say – if they got any flak for broadcasting his material – they were not responsible, but only showing what viewers wanted to see. And of course, more viewers – higher ratings – meant more advertising revenue. So in 1958 his production company developed a pilot program for a proposed new weekly series for CBS. That show was called the Time Element. It was about a psychiatrist and his war veteran patient; and it contains a rather mind- blowing twist ending, which would become one of Serling’s trademarks. It was incredibly successful, both critically and in viewership. With that 30-minute show, the Twilight Zone series was born. It ran from 1959 through 1964, and each episode was a unique story, with a different cast of characters. The shows could be about the paranormal, the future, the bizarre or pure suspense. A few were humorous, in a twisted sort of way, but most presented characters struggling with an ethical conflict. And most episodes, again, ended with a surprising plot twist to drive home the moral of the story. The series featured veteran actors like Burgess Meredith and Agnes Moorhead, and newcomers like Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, and Robert Duvall. To our eyes today, some of the situations depicted in the Twilight Zone might look a bit trite; some characters might seem too broadly-drawn. But in the context of its time, we have to be amazed this stuff ever got on TV at all. We have to remember, again, that the late 1950s and early 60s were a time of enormous social change. Besides the great paranoia about world communism and the threat of nuclear annihilation; there was much soul-searching and angst about the future of humanity itself in light of the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust, which had happened only the decade before. There was obviously the crying need to come to grips with the civil rights of African Americans. Even Dwight Eisenhower, the president, warned against the dangers of what he called the growing military-industrial complex. There were questions about where our society was headed as far as how diverse we could or should be. What did it mean to be an American? How important was it to conform to certain religious beliefs, political views, or even standards of beauty? Where were we headed in terms of women’s equality versus traditional roles and expectations? How was our way of life affecting the environment? How were we dealing with the headlong rush into an uncharted age of medical and technological advances? All these questions and more, including issues of personal ethics and morality, were dealt with by Rod Serling.