15 saddest Twilight Zone episodes from the original series
The Twilight Zone episodes are considered to be downright frightening since they cover a mixture of horror, sci-fi, and mystical topics. The series was first written by Rod Serling and is one of the most influential dark fantasy television series of all time. Serling addresses societal issues ranging from warfare, corruption, alienation, death, racism, suffering, and other relatable themes in a sugar-coated fantasy manner.
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Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone entertains and challenges its audience in equal measure. Some of the episodes are too sad many people didn't complete watching them. Here are examples of the saddest episodes from The Twilight Zone that will leave you heartbroken.
15 Twilight Zone episodes
Below is a list of The Twilight Zone episodes that will leave you in a sad mood due to the unexpected turn of events in the 1959 TV series.
1. S1.E7 - The Lonely
Jack Warden portrays James Corry as a criminal sentenced to 50 years in isolation on a desolate asteroid. James finds solace in an android female named Alicia. The audience is left with moody, dreamy and poetic feelings due to the illusion of the love between Alicia and Corry.
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The two are confused and don't know how to react to the complex muddle of everything that happens. They have to adapt to their loneliness as there is no other way out.
2. S3.E10 - The Midnight Sun
The TV series shows a change in the Earth's orbit, meaning there is no more night. The weather is boiling hot, making the future of human beings the worst as it can be measured in months at the most.
Only two women are left in New York as humanity has been wiped out by the intense heat. The episode shows an apocalypse where nothing can be done as it gets hotter daily, endangering humanity.
3. S3.E9 - Deaths-head Revisited
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In this episode, Serling addresses his Jewish ancestry in the Holocaust for this visceral, horrifying tale. In the Deaths-Head Revisited, a criminal war returns under an alias to Auschwitz years after the war, reflecting on his glorious, murderous past executing and torturing Jewish prisoners.
Auschwitz soon finds that the dead never rest easy and that no matter how hard one tries to ignore it, the past always has a way of finding you. The episode is thrilling as it involves a mixture of events with some of the less positive pursuits of man: human slaughter, torture, misery and anguish.
4. S1.E24 - Long Live Walter Jameson
In the series, Walter Jameson stars as the titular gentleman, a learned professor dating a young woman named Susanna Kittridge. Unfortunately, the lady’s elderly father (Sam) eventually refuses permission for Jameson to marry his daughter.
Jameson is accosted by one of his wives, Laurette Bowen, whom he abandoned long ago, and she shoots him with a pistol. The unexpected turn of events proves how ugly love can sometimes be.
5. S3.E3 - The Shelter
Everyone is friendly and jovial at Dr Bill Stockton's birthday party; until a Civil Defense announcement overheard by his son (Paul) is made, and unidentified objects have been detected heading for the United States.
Everyone scatters in panic, but they all return to the Stocktons'. The doctor locks himself and his family into his shelter, leaving the neighbours outside. This episode reveals how ugly people can get when things go south.
6. S1.E16 - The Hitch-hiker
On a cross-country road trip from New York City to Los Angeles, a young woman named Nan Adams is haunted by a hitchhiker (Leonard Strong). She drives the night highways and meets a smiling spectral hitchhiker who no one else can see. She grows increasingly frightened of him.
Upon reaching Arizona, Nan Adams stops to call her mother in Manhattan, New York City. The woman eventually discovers that she might not have survived a recent roadside accident. She instantly becomes emotional and feels helpless.
7. S1.E21 - Mirror Image
A young woman named Millicent Barnes is stuck at a bus stop in the wee hours of the morning. She strongly believes something is wrong; whatever she does, people keep telling her it's the second (or third or fourth) time she's done it.
The Mirror Image eludes obscure phenomena many would term parallel realities. The uncanny, nightmarish quality of the episode leaves viewers in confusion and shock, making it a sad episode to complete.
8. S2.E12 - Dust
A poor farmer (Luis Gallegos) is sentenced to death by hanging for accidentally killing a girl. The farmer’s father pleads with the mother and father of the dead girl to spare his son, but his pleas are unheard.
As the crowd gathers to witness Luis’ hanging, his father sprinkles magical dust everywhere. The magic dust drops the trapdoor, and Luis is unharmed. When the girl’s parents are asked if another hanging attempt should be made, they decide to set Luis free. Justice for the death of the young girl is compromised.
9. S5.E1 - In Praise of Pip
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The events in the episode unfold in Vietnam, where medics are examining a wounded soldier named Pip Phillips. The father of the soldier, Jack Klugman, drifts into an abandoned carnival where he meets a version of his son as a little boy.
Jack reevaluates the beauty of their early years together and begs the fates for one last chance to do the right thing and save his long-suffering boy. He prays to God and offers to trade his own life in exchange for Pip's life, but he collapses and dies on the midway.
10. S5.E22 - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
In this episode, Peyton Farquhar awaits his execution at the hands of the Union Army. As Farquhar is about to be executed by hanging, he sees a vision of his home, wife, and children. The rope breaks, dropping him into the river and is swept down the rapids giving him a second chance.
He runs towards his wife in the open lane as he smiles and weeps. Unfortunately, Farquhar stiffens and gasps, and his head snaps back just before the couple falls into each other's arms.
11. S1.E5 - Walking Distance
Here, a 36-year-old New York advertising executive Martin Sloan takes a country drive and winds up stopping at a service station close to his old hometown. After walking into town, he sees that it apparently has not changed since he was a boy.
The episode leaves viewers confused as they try to understand the nostalgia behind the unfolding events. It resonates with anyone who has ever wearily longed to go back to a simpler time in their life.
12. S5. E17 - Number 12 Looks Just Like You
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In a future society, all nineteen-year-olds bodies have to be changed to a physically attractive design chosen from a selection of numbered models. Marilyn Cuberle, an 18-year-old, decides not to undergo the Transformation.
No matter how she tries to maintain her individuality, Marilyn ends up in the operating room and forcefully undergoes the transformation. The episode shows how helpless one can be, especially in matters linked to oneself, like making a life decision.
13. S1.E10 - Judgement Night
A German sailor named Lanser is haunted by a feeling of impending doom. He stops the ship for repairs when the overworked engines break down at 12:05. Lanser is convinced that everyone aboard the ship will die at 1:15.
A serious-minded comment on how war creates monsters and how the monsters eventually get crushed by karma, supernatural or otherwise, makes the episode stand out.
14. S1.E11 - And When The Sky Was Opened
Three Air Force pilots returning from a test flight of an experimental spaceplane. One of the men, Forbes, visits his co-pilot Gart in the hospital. He insists that there was a third man named Harrington that no one seems to remember his existence.
Harrington has been erased from headlines and Gart’s memory. Reality has been overwritten to remove Colonel Steve Harrington completely, and only Forbes knows the difference. How can Forbes convince the world that his friend of 15 years ever existed? A very tough task for him to accomplish.
15. S1.E34 - The After Hours
Anne Francis gets lost in a department store. While still in a confused state, she is approached by a saleswoman who guides her to the only item on the floor; the exact gold thimble that Anne wants. During their conversation, Anne realizes that the saleswoman already knows her name.
It probably won't surprise you that Anne soon learns that the store's employees insist there is no ninth floor- and she can see what's wrong with the saleswoman.
The Twilight Zone episodes are loved by many due to their suspense and truth about humanity. The show unveils societal issues that affect most people in a sugar-coated fantasy manner.
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