The Twilight Zone (2002 TV series)

Did You Know?

• An original opening used for the first half of the season included images of Rod Serling and a creepier musical arrangement.
• The opening was later changed to a rock-theme score provided by Jonathan Davis, singer of the band Korn.
• The revised opening removed the Serling images and became the main version used in reruns and on the DVD boxset release.

Series history

The 2002 revival of The Twilight Zone aired as hour-long episodes split into two separate half-hour stories, but it lasted only a single season before being cancelled. Despite this short run, reruns have found a home in syndication, appeared on MyNetworkTV starting in the summer of 2008, and became available for streaming on Tubi by fall 2023. This version of the series was notable for tackling modern social issues directly, including terrorism, racism, gender roles, sexuality, and stalking. Memorable episodes include Jason Alexander playing Death who wants to retire from his grim job, Lou Diamond Phillips as a pool cleaner repeatedly shot in his dreams, Susanna Thompson as a woman whose spoken wish upgrades her family, Usher as a police officer haunted by calls from the dead, Brian Austin Green as a businessman whose past items mysteriously reappear, Jeffrey Combs as a hypochondriac whose imagined diseases become real, and Katherine Heigl as a woman who travels back in time on a suicide mission to kill baby Adolf Hitler. The series also revisited classic Twilight Zone stories with remakes and updates. One such remake was "Eye of the Beholder," featuring Molly Sims. Another update, "The Monsters Are on Maple Street," modernized the original "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street." That classic episode centered on paranoia during a neighborhood blackout, where anti-alien hysteria served as an allegory for Cold War anti-communist fear. The 2003 remake, starring Andrew McCarthy and Titus Welliver, swapped aliens for terrorists. Additionally, the revival included "It's Still a Good Life," a sequel to the original series' "It's a Good Life," made 41 years after the first episode aired. Bill Mumy returned as the adult Anthony, the demonic child he originally played, with his real-life daughter Liliana Mumy portraying Anthony's daughter, a child who starts off more kind but possesses even greater powers. Cloris Leachman also reprised her role as Anthony's mother. Mumy later wrote scripts for other episodes in this revival.