When does Trek channel the Twilight Zone

[The Squire of Gothos]

Late here, so this is a half formed thought, but are there many episodes of Trek that come close to being a Twilight Zone episode?

There are a few episodes that put crew members in an alternate reality (or what they think is an alternate reality) like The Inner Light, but they just don't seem Zoney enough.

Time Squared though, seems more like it. There was something more personal about the better TZ episodes, where our protagonist learns something about their deepest thoughts or fears. Seeing Picard look upon himself in the episode and doubt himself lends itself well to that. I can imagine Rod Serling introducing the episode.

 

[Dream]

TNG's "The Survivors" always felt like it could have been a TZ episode to me.

 

[Metryq]

"Charlie X" seemed rather Zonish.

 

[Brandonv]

I watched the DS9 episode "Whispers" the other day, and was thinking that it seemed a lot like a Twilight Zone plot.

 

[yousirname]

^ I went to look up that episode because I couldn't remember its name. Yeah, Whispers is pure Twilight Zone/Outer Limits.

 

[T'Girl]

The Empath would have made a good TZ episode.

There was a DS9 episode where they're racing to rescue a woman, only to arrive to find there had been a time-loopy, and she was dead before they got there. Forget the episode's title.

 

[Gaith]

Off the top of my head, TNG "Cause and Effect", "Remember Me", VOY "Flashback", and ENT "Extinction", "Twilight", and "Hatchery" come to mind...

 

[Enterprise is Great]

The Empath would have made a good TZ episode.

There was a DS9 episode were their racing to rescue a woman, only to arrive to find there had been a time-loopy, and she was dead before they got there. Forget the episode's title.

It's called "The Sound of Her Voice".

 

[Greg Cox]

"The Corbomite Maneuver." The twist ending, that the scary alien is just a mannequin and the REAL alien is this cherubic baby, feels like something Rod Serling might have written . . . .

 

[lurok]

The concept behind VOY Scientific Method - invisible aliens performing experiments. Or TNG The Royale...

 

[Gaith]

^ Ooh, yeah. Also "Schisms".

 

[sbk1234]

Maybe not the whole episode, but in City on the Edge of Forever, there's a scene right before the comercial break where they're stuck on the planet, and have just discovered that all of the past has changed, and their present is gone. As Kirk looks up the scene blends into a scene of the stars. Always reminded me of Twilight Zone.

 

[Tracer Bullet]

I'll answer the question a little differently than other posters--I think that TOS especially has many episodes that are structured like Twilight Zone episodes--something eerie is going on, we're not sure what, and there's a twist or surprising ending.

The rest of the franchise mostly stayed away from that sort of plot structure.

 

[Greg Cox]

"The Squire of Gothos" has a very TZ ending. He's just a child playing with his toys!

 

[sbk1234]

There was an old episode where Capt. Kirk was back in time and riding an airplane. He looked out the window and there was that creature on the wing...

 

[Metryq]

There was an old episode where Capt. Kirk was back in time and riding an airplane. He looked out the window and there was that creature on the wing...

Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but your post is ambiguous. That was an old TWILIGHT ZONE episode (not STAR TREK) titled "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" where William Shatner played a man recently released from a psych hospital.

So, yes, that story is rather Twilight Zonish.

 

[Greg Cox]

There was an old episode where Capt. Kirk was back in time and riding an airplane. He looked out the window and there was that creature on the wing...

And then he wandered into a diner and became obsessed with a novelty fortune-telling device . . . .

 

[sbk1234]

So I'm not the only one who's seen it!

 

[xortex]

Charlie X was TZ's It's a Good life ten years later. Matheson wrote for both series anyway.
Braga's Parallels was similar to RS' The Parallel, don't you think.

 

[Greg Cox]

Charlie X was TZ's It's a Good life ten years later. Matheson wrote for both series anyway.

True, although Matheson only wrote a single Star Trek episode, "The Enemy Within," and was much more of a TZ guy . . .

As I understand it, Matheson prefered writing for anthology series, where he could invent his own characters and situations, as opposed to trying to fit his stories into a dramatic series that featured the same characters every week.

(I have fuzzy memories of him telling me as much during a conversation many years ago.)