‘This I rebel against’: television advertising, Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, and a changing industry

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article re-examines Rod Serling’s career as he transitioned from writing live anthology teleplays to his famous series, The Twilight Zone (1959–1964), in service of investigating the changing definitions of authorship as the television industry changed. It does so in order to show that the techniques many critics agree Serling used to subvert corporate sponsors may have been rooted in pragmatic compromise engendered by the need to remain working within the shifting world of TV. These techniques include using science fiction and fantasy on television and becoming a writer-producer and the face of The Twilight Zone. Serling’s transition to science fiction and fantasy, this article argues, could also be seen as a retreat from early TV’s dominant mode of storytelling: social realism. His becoming the face of The Twilight Zone may have been a way to assuage producers’ fears in supporting another anthology series without a consistent cast. This leads to the conflation of Serling the writer with Serling the salesman. Ultimately, these compromises result in the blurring of the line between commercial and series, as well as between writer and salesman.