I always felt Twilight Zone is fairly overrated. They almost always slip into a story that could be conveyed effectively in 45 seconds.
Serling’s writing style is fairly stilted, too. People don’t have conversations, they talk at each other.
He also was fairly rigid in his presentation. You see this in his concept for Planet of the Apes. The ape civilization was almost exactly like our civilization - no wiggle room, not much creativity or imagination. Too rigid.
In the final version of the film, the presentation of the ape civilization was far superior. They were not exactly like us, but they were still like us. Some of the technology was there, but much of the technology wasn’t. They didn’t have the same exact roles as we have, but you could recognize the types. Far better. Far more effective.
The weaknesses of Twilight Zone became very apparent when instead of stretching a 45 second story into a half hour, they stretched it to an hour. Brutal. Forgettable television.
Well said.
Sirling’s script for POTA followed the book. It’s actually a great story, as much as I love most of the Apes movies I’d really love to see somebody actually make a movie from the book.