Rod Serling's TWILIGHT ZONE - Individual Base Card from the series issued by Rittenhouse in 2005.
"The Midnight Sun" is episode 75 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
The word that Mrs. Bronson is unable to put into the hot, still, sodden air is 'doomed,' because the people you've just seen have been handed a death sentence. One month ago, the Earth suddenly changed its elliptical orbit and in doing so began to follow a path which gradually, moment by moment, day by day, took it closer to the sun. And all of man's little devices to stir up the air are now no longer luxuries—they happen to be pitiful and panicky keys to survival. The time is five minutes to twelve, midnight. There is no more darkness. The place is New York City and this is the eve of the end, because even at midnight it's high noon, the hottest day in history, and you're about to spend it in the Twilight Zone.
The Earth's orbit has been perturbed, causing the planet to slowly fall into the sun.
A prolific artist, Norma, and her landlady, Mrs. Bronson, are the last residents in their New York apartment building. Their former neighbors have either moved north to seek a cooler climate or they have already perished from the extremely high temperatures. At twenty minutes to midnight, it is 110 °F (43 °C) and sunny as high noon. Norma and Mrs. Bronson try to support each other as they watch life as they know it erode around them. The streets are deserted, water usage is limited to an hour a day, and their electricity is gradually being turned off. Food and water are scarce and the sea has dried up. A radio presenter announces that the police have been moved out of the city, and that citizens must defend themselves against looters, then angrily goes off script, joking that you can "fry eggs on your sidewalk and heat up soup in the oceans". The presenter is then forcibly taken off air.
As the temperature rises to 120 °F (49 °C), the two women grow weaker. Norma burns her hand on a windowsill. Mrs. Bronson becomes psychologically unstable, beseeching Norma to paint a picture of a cool subject, rather than Norma's usual paintings of the sun and burning cities, screaming, "Don't paint the sun anymore!". A looter enters the building through the roof access door, which Mrs. Bronson neglected to lock. They hide in Norma's apartment. The looter calls from outside, demanding entry. Norma threatens him with a cocked revolver, and they hear him walk away. Against Norma's pleas, Mrs. Bronson unlocks the door, and the stranger forces his way in, pulls the revolver from Norma and drinks their water. He calms down after seeing their distress and begs for their forgiveness, claiming that he is an honest man driven insane by the heat. He throws away the revolver and describes the recent death of his wife and newborn child. He begs for forgiveness until Norma acknowledges him with a nod; he then leaves the apartment building.
In an attempt to console Mrs. Bronson, Norma shows her an oil painting of a waterfall cascading into a lush pond. Mrs. Bronson deliriously claims that she can feel the coolness and delightfully splashes in the imaginary waters before dying from heat stroke. Norma sits in shock as the thermometer surges past 130 °F (54 °C) and shatters. The paint on Norma's oil paintings begins to melt before her eyes; she screams and collapses.
The scene cuts to the same apartment at night with heavy snow outside the windows. The thermometer reads −10 °F (−23 °C). Norma, who has been bedridden with a high fever, is being cared for by a doctor and Mrs. Bronson. The Earth moving closer to the sun is revealed to be only a fever dream, while in reality the Earth is moving away from the sun, and the world's inhabitants are actually freezing to death.
The poles of fear, the extremes of how the Earth might conceivably be doomed. Minor exercise in the care and feeding of a nightmare, respectfully submitted by all the thermometer-watchers in the Twilight Zone.
The effect of the oil paintings melting was accomplished by painting the pictures in wax on the surface of a hotplate. Moreover, the episode was shot in the summer, on a set without air-conditioning, with the director actually turning up the heat on certain key scenes to create the necessary mood and appearance for the story.
Serling's original script featured two characters who did not appear in the completed episode: a police officer and a refrigerator repairman.
"I spent a lot of time with Buck Houghton, Twilight Zone's producer trying to reduce scripts, some by Rod, by one speaking part or two speaking parts because we were just about to start shooting the show and we were over budget. And Aubrey was really tough on this subject even if it were a small number of dollars." —Del Reisman quoted in Serling: The Rise And Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man.
J. Hoberman, excerpt from "America's Twilight Zone", published in Visions From the Twilight Zone by Arlen Schumer:
The radio version of The Twilight Zone featured a modernized version of this episode starring Kim Fields.
In 2009 the original episode was adapted as a graphic novel, "Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone: The Midnight Sun", by Mark Kneece and Anthony Spay.
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The Twilight Zone is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, suspense, horror, and psychological thriller, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist, and usually with a moral. A popular and critical success, it introduced many Americans to common science fiction and fantasy tropes. The original series, shot entirely in black and white, ran on CBS for five seasons from 1959 to 1964.
The Twilight Zone followed in the tradition of earlier television shows such as Tales of Tomorrow (1951–53) and Science Fiction Theatre (1955–57); radio programs such as The Weird Circle (1943–45), Dimension X (1950–51) and X Minus One (1955–58); and the radio work of one of Serling's inspirations, Norman Corwin. The success of the series led to a feature film (1983), a TV film (1994), a radio series (2002–12), literature including a comic book, novels and a magazine and a theme park attraction and various other spin-offs that spanned five decades, including three revival television series. The first revival (1985–89) ran on CBS and in syndication in the 1980s, while the second revival ran on UPN (2002–2003). In December 2017, CBS All Access officially ordered the third Twilight Zone revival to series, helmed by Jordan Peele. The series premiered on April 1, 2019.
TV Guide ranked the original TV series #5 in their 2013 list of the 60 greatest shows of all time and #4 in their list of the 60 greatest dramas.
As a boy, Rod Serling was a fan of pulp fiction stories. As an adult, he sought topics with themes such as racism, government, war, society, and human nature in general. Serling decided to combine these two interests as a way to broach these subjects on television at a time when such issues were not commonly addressed.
Throughout the 1950s, Serling established himself as one of the most popular names in television. He was as famous for writing televised drama as he was for criticizing the medium's limitations. His most vocal complaints concerned censorship, which was frequently practiced by sponsors and networks. "I was not permitted to have my senators discuss any current or pressing problem," he said of his 1957 Studio One production "The Arena", intended to be an involving look into contemporary politics. "To talk of tariff was to align oneself with the Republicans; to talk of labor was to suggest control by the Democrats. To say a single thing germane to the current political scene was absolutely prohibited."
CBS purchased a teleplay in 1958 that writer Rod Serling hoped to produce as the pilot of a weekly anthology series. "The Time Element" marked Serling's first entry in the field of science fiction.
Several years after the end of World War II, a man named Peter Jenson (William Bendix) visits a psychoanalyst, Dr. Gillespie (Martin Balsam). Jenson tells him about a recurring dream in which he tries to warn people about the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor before it happens, but the warnings are disregarded. Jenson believes the events of the dream are real, and each night he travels back to 1941. Dr. Gillespie insists that time travel is impossible given the nature of temporal paradoxes. While on the couch, Jenson falls asleep once again but this time dreams that the Japanese planes shoot and kill him. In Dr. Gillespie's office, the couch Jenson was lying on is now empty. Dr. Gillespie goes to a bar where he finds Jenson's picture on the wall. The bartender tells him that Jenson had tended bar there, but he was killed during the Pearl Harbor attack.
With the "Time Element" script, Serling drafted the fundamental elements that defined the subsequent series: a science-fiction/fantasy theme, opening and closing narration, and an ending with a twist. "The Time Element" was purchased immediately, but shelved indefinitely.
This is where things stood when Bert Granet, the new producer for Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, discovered "The Time Element" in CBS' vaults while searching for an original Serling script to add prestige to his show. "The Time Element" (introduced by Desi Arnaz) debuted on November 24, 1958, to an overwhelmingly delighted audience of television viewers and critics alike. "The humor and sincerity of Mr. Serling's dialogue made 'The Time Element' consistently entertaining," offered Jack Gould of The New York Times. Over 6,000 letters of praise flooded Granet's offices. Convinced that a series based on such stories could succeed, CBS again began talks with Serling about the possibilities of producing The Twilight Zone. "Where Is Everybody?" was accepted as the pilot episode and the project was officially announced to the public in early 1959. Other than reruns at the time "The Time Element" was not aired on television again until it was shown as part of a 1996 all-night sneak preview of the new cable channel TVLand. It is available in an Italian DVD boxed set titled Ai confini della realtà – I tesori perduti. The Twilight Zone Season 1 Blu-ray boxed set released on September 14, 2010, offers a remastered high-definition version of the original Desilu Playhouse production as a special feature.
The series was produced by Cayuga Productions, Inc., a production company owned and named by Serling. It reflects his background in Central New York State and is named after Cayuga Lake, on which he owned a home, and where Cornell University and Ithaca College are located.
Aside from Serling, who wrote or adapted nearly two-thirds of the series' total episodes, writers for The Twilight Zone included leading authors such as Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, Earl Hamner, Jr., George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, Reginald Rose, and Jerry Sohl. Many episodes also featured new adaptations of classic stories by such writers as Ambrose Bierce, Jerome Bixby, Damon Knight, John Collier, and Lewis Padgett.
Twilight Zone's writers frequently used science fiction as a vehicle for social comment, as networks and sponsors who censored controversial material from live dramas were less concerned with seemingly innocuous fantasy and sci-fi stories. Frequent themes on The Twilight Zone included nuclear war, McCarthyism, and mass hysteria, subjects that were avoided on less serious primetime television. Episodes such as "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" offered specific commentary on current events and social issues. Other stories, such as "The Masks", "I Dream of Genie", or "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" were allegories, parables, or fables that reflected the moral and philosophical choices of the characters.
Despite his esteem in the writing community, Serling found the series difficult to sell. Few critics felt that science fiction could transcend empty escapism and enter the realm of adult drama. In a September 22, 1959, interview with Serling, Mike Wallace asked a question illustrative of the times: "...[Y]ou're going to be, obviously, working so hard on The Twilight Zone that, in essence, for the time being and for the foreseeable future, you've given up on writing anything important for television, right?" While Serling's appearances on the show became one of its most distinctive features, with his clipped delivery still widely imitated today, he was reportedly nervous about it and had to be persuaded to appear on camera. Serling often steps into the middle of the action while the characters remain oblivious to him, but on one notable occasion, they are aware of his presence: In the episode "A World of His Own", a writer (Keenan Wynn) with the power to alter his reality objects to Serling's narration and promptly erases Serling from the show.
In season two, due to budgetary constraints, the network decided – against Serling's wishes – to cut costs by shooting some episodes on videotape rather than film. The requisite multicamera setup of the videotape format precluded location shooting, severely limiting the potential scope of the storylines, and the experiment was abandoned after just six episodes ("Twenty Two", "Static", "The Whole Truth", "The Lateness of the Hour", "The Night of the Meek", and "Long Distance Call").
The original series contains 156 episodes. The episodes in seasons one through three are 30 minutes long with commercials (24 or 25 minutes without commercials). Season four (1962–63) consists of one-hour episodes with commercials (51 minutes without commercials). Season five returned to the half-hour format.
It was Serling's decision to sell his share of the series back to the network that eventually allowed for a Twilight Zone revival. As an in-house production, CBS stood to earn more money producing The Twilight Zone than it could by purchasing a new series produced by an outside company. Even so, the network was slow to consider a revival, turning down offers from the original production team of Rod Serling and Buck Houghton and later from American filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.
CBS gave the new Twilight Zone a greenlight in 1984 under the supervision of Carla Singer, then Vice President of Drama Development. While the show did not come close to matching the enduring popularity of the original, some episodes – particularly Alan Brennert's love story "Her Pilgrim Soul" and J. Neil Schulman's "Profile in Silver" – were critically acclaimed. In a tribute to the original series, the opening credits include a brief image of Rod Serling. Four episodes are remakes of those from the original series: "Night of the Meek", "Shadow Play", "The After Hours" and "A Game of Pool", while "Dead Woman's Shoes" is an adaptation of "Dead Man's Shoes". Unlike the original series and the second revival, this series does not include the opening monologue during the title sequence. As well, the narration is all strictly voice-over and the narrator never appears on-screen.
In the early 1990s, Richard Matheson and Carol Serling produced an outline for a two-hour made-for-TV movie which would feature Matheson adaptations of three yet-unfilmed Rod Serling short stories. Outlines for such a production were rejected by CBS until early 1994, when Serling's widow discovered a complete shooting script ("Where the Dead Are") authored by her late husband, while rummaging through their garage. She showed the forgotten script to producers Michael O'Hara and Laurence Horowitz, who were significantly impressed by it. "I had a pile of scripts, which I usually procrastinate about reading. But I read this one right away and, after 30 pages, called my partner and said, "I love it," recalled O'Hara. "This is pure imagination, a period piece, literate – some might say wordy. If Rod Serling's name weren't on it, it wouldn't have a chance at getting made."
Eager to capitalize on Serling's celebrity status as a writer, CBS packaged "Where the Dead Are" with Matheson's adaptation of "The Theatre", debuting as a two-hour feature on the night of May 19, 1994, under the name Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics. The title represents a misnomer, as both stories were conceived long after Twilight Zone's cancellation. Written just months before Serling's death, "Where the Dead Are" starred Patrick Bergin as a 19th-century doctor who stumbles upon a mad scientist's medical experiments with immortality. "The Theatre" starred Amy Irving and Gary Cole as a couple who visits a cineplex where they discover the feature presentation depicts their own lives. James Earl Jones provided opening and closing narrations.
Critical response was mixed. Gannett News Service described it as "taut and stylish, a reminder of what can happen when fine actors are given great words." USA Today was less impressed, even suggesting that Carol Serling "should have left these two unproduced mediocrities in the garage where she found them." Ultimately, ratings proved insufficient to justify a proposed sequel featuring three scripts adapted by Matheson.
A second revival was developed by UPN in 2002, it was hosted by Forest Whitaker. It was broadcast in a one-hour format composed of two half-hour stories, it was canceled after one season. "It's Still a Good Life" is a sequel to "It's a Good Life", "The Monsters Are on Maple Street" is an adaptation of "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "Eye of the Beholder" is a remake of an episode from the original series, with Serling still credited as writer.
In December 2012, it was reported that Bryan Singer was developing and executive producing a third revival television series for CBS Television Studios. A writer for the series was not chosen and the program was not pitched to any networks. CBS, which broadcast the original series and first revival, was reportedly interested. In February 2013, Singer told TG Daily that the project was still in development and that he hoped to direct the pilot and have A-list actors appear on the revival. The following month, he told IGN that a writer with whom he had previously worked was in negotiations to join the revival and that he felt "passionate" towards the original series and the planned revival.
In February 2016, it was reported that Ken Levine would write and direct the pilot episode of the revival series. It was also reported that the series would be interactive. In November 2017, it was reported that Jordan Peele was developing a reboot of the series for streaming service CBS All Access with Marco Ramirez serving as potential showrunner. In December 2017, CBS All Access ordered the third The Twilight Zone revival to series. It was announced that the series would be produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Monkeypaw Productions and Genre Films. Jordan Peele, Marco Ramirez, and Simon Kinberg will serve as executive producers for the series and collaborate on the premiere episode. Win Rosenfeld and Audrey Chon will also serve as executive producers. Peele was revealed to be the new host and narrator in September 2018, and the new opening sequence was released. The series premiered on April 1, 2019.
The second episode of the series, "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet", is based on "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".