Creator: Rod Serling
Years: 1959-1964

If I could pick one human to narrate my life it would be Rod Serling. That voice man.

The great thing about The Twilight Zone is that Serling could get some of the best actors of his time and did not have to worry about killing them off as each episode was self-contained. Actually, I guess the great thing is that Serling was just a damn good storyteller. Despite the shoddy-by-today’s-standards special effects, some of his sci-fi work is still great television because of the masterful way each story is told. I still remember how I felt the first time I saw “To Serve Man” and “Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?” “Willoughby” is another favorite episode of mine. The line, “It’s a push business!” still rings in my head way too often. My favorite episode might be “Five Characters in Search of an Exit.” I could rattle off a dozen more that still resonate with me and there’s probably more. There are plenty of dud episodes and some of the plots are contrived, but the entire genre owes so much to Serling, a progressive, brilliant man who died way too soon.