#The 15 Best Anthology TV Series Ranked

“You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination.”

The familiar theme tune, the spinning door that could take you anywhere, all accompanied by the familiar, dulcet tones of creator and host Rod Serling — really, what is there left to say about “The Twilight Zone,” a series so popular that it’s been revived no less than three times?

Creator Rod Serling was a strong advocate of human rights. Having worked in the entertainment industry for many years, he was only too aware that he’d never get the opportunity to write about social issues in a prime-time television slot, but had the cunning idea of introducing storylines about controversial topics through a palatable fantasy setting. Setting his stories in space or peppering them with robots gave him the freedom to talk about difficult subjects like race, human rights, immigration, and even the touchy subject of McCarthyism without the show ever feeling preachy.

It’s telling that, to modern viewers, the series can feel derivative because of its visual storytelling tropes and twists that we’re all too familiar with. What is, of course, worthy of note is that it’s “The Twilight Zone” that introduced many of these twists and tropes to television’s lexicon in the first place. Bold, brave, and ahead of its time, “The Twilight Zone” is often imitated and parodied, but has never been bettered. From bookworm Henry Bemis’s cruel fate in “Time Enough at Last” to the shrewd pun of the alien cookbook in “To Serve Man,” it’s a worthy memorial to the works of Rod Serling, with his reassuring voice reminding us that everything would be okay — or would it?