Richard Matheson had published six novels and three collections of short stories by the summer of 1959, when he attended a private screening of the pilot episode of a new television series called THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Rod Serling, the show’s driving force and the man behind the famous narration which would bookend most episodes, already had purchased and adapted two of Matheson’s stories for the first season – an early indication the author of classics like I AM LEGEND and HELL HOUSE would make the perfect bedfellow for the fledging series. Matheson would go on to write 14 episodes, regarded amongst the series’ all-time best.

RICHARD MATHESON’S THE TWILIGHT ZONE SCRIPTS: VOLUME TWO (I know what you’re thinking, you haven’t read the first one, but that’s okay, because neither have I) begins with “Mute,” long-winded by TZ standards, only because Serling reluctantly went to a short-lived hour-long format to boost ratings in the show’s fourth season.

“Mute” is the story of Ilse Nielsen, an unfortunate little girl whose parents have died, landing her in the hands of a family who is otherwise loving, but thinks she is mute, because she only communicates telepathically. A teacher of Ilse’s learns of her secret and tries to bring her student out of her shell, the results of which are at once sad and inspiring.

“Death Ship” is one of the many TWILIGHT ZONE episodes dealing with time travel, or circumnavigating time. In 1997, three astronauts search the solar system for inhabitable planets to help relieve overcrowded Earth. They find a crashed ship resembling one from Earth and, upon searching it, find their own mangled bodies in the wreckage. “Death Ship” is the perfect blend of science fiction and ghost story, and would make a great introduction for the new fan of the old series.

The best script of the bunch is also the most straightforward. “Steel” tells the story of Battling Maxo, the robotic prizefighter of the future (prizefighting for humans has been outlawed since 1974), and its owner and mechanic, the former light heavyweight “Steel” Kelly and the eternal pessimist “Pole.” Battling Maxo, who resembles a human in all forms except for the absence of sweat glands, is on his last leg; he needs a lot of oil paste, new springs and a new eye lens. But he is an older model, and parts for him are hard to come by.

Desperate for money to fix him up, Kelly agrees to put his aged fighter in the ring with the Maynard Flash, a prototype B-7 that Battling Maxo’s owner tries to convince himself is still full of kinks. In the “ready room” before the fight, Pole is giving his fighter the once-over when Battling Maxo seizes up for good, snapping a critical arm spring in half. Kelly knows to get the money promised Battling Maxo, whose face has been hidden beneath a robe since he was wheeled into the arena, someone has to show up in the ring and at least put on a show. The fight between man and machine is not a very good one.

“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” might be the most famous of all TWILIGHT ZONE episodes. After its initial release as part of the series in 1963, it showed up again 20 years later in TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, with John LIthgow replacing a young William Shatner as the lead. It’s about a man who’s suffered a nervous breakdown and sees a gremlin on the wing of the plane in which he’s flying. The problem is that no one else on board sees anything on the wing, but the story is most effective because it plays on our universal fear of flying. If the gremlin is real, the plane surely will crash, yet no one is going to believe the man they already think to be crazy.

“Night Call” is another example of Matheson playing on the everyday fears of the audience. Here, wheelchair bound Elva Keene receives a late-night prank phone call during a storm. While we’ve all had these encounters, our hearts beating in our throats as every bad thought rushes through our heads (a call at this hour is either a misdial or bad news; someone we love is hurt, or worse), it rarely goes beyond the stray wrong number. Miss Keene isn’t so lucky.

Editor Stanley Wiater saves Matheson’s most poignant script for last. “Spur of the Moment” is another time-wrenching episode with a twist that should both inspire and embarrass filmmakers like M. Night Shyamalan. It tells the story of poor Anne Marie Henderson who, on the verge of her engagement party, has a surreal run-in with an old woman while horseback riding. Age 18 and lovely, engaged to a successful investment banker from New York, Anne suddenly bursts in on her family and family-to-be unleashing her unlikely story: a crazy woman on a horse was just chasing her through the property.

Her fiancé jokingly insists it’s just a case of cold feet, but her father informs house security and calls the police. Later, Anne’s childhood sweetheart crashes the party and tries one last time to convince her she’s making a mistake. While it should come as no surprise to the salty TWILIGHT ZONE viewer that the old woman on the horse was indeed Anne Marie’s future self coming to warn her of the consequences of such a mistake, that’s only the beginning of the brilliant twist Matheson has in store. It’s too bad it would prove to be Matheson’s last episode for the series, as creative differences with new personnel broke up one of the best partnerships in early television history.

Even if you haven’t seen these episodes – whether at all or just in several years – you easily can visualize the scenes in your head as you read Matheson’s scripts, which are minimal on clunky stage direction and full of great descriptive dialogue.

Readers unfamiliar with teleplay transitions and sound and stage direction should adjust quickly to the new format, but it might make for awkward reading initially, especially in the context of a longer script like “Mute.” Perhaps the book’s editor would have been better served to open the book with one of the shorter episodes Serling blessedly reverted to for the show’s fifth and final season. –Jason Light

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• BLOODLINES by Richard Matheson
• WOMAN by Richard Matheson