-The pioneers of science fiction television didn't just invent a genre.

They taught us something about ourselves.

And they gave us a great ride.

-How wonderful.

My God.

3 years, 40 years ago, and they still talk about the character.

My God.

-So I changed the reading, and I said, "Fascinating."

And that, I think, was where we really found the spark of the character.

-Have these plastic rocks land on -- I mean, that was fun to me.

That was -- You know, I was a kid.

-I, honestly -- I never had a bad day going to work on that show.

-He wanted to speak from a voice of men and women as equals.

-I thought we had some exceptionally good stuff on, and in the few years that have passed since "Twilight Zone" was on, there has appeared another whole new generation, a new body of marvelous science fiction.

-They are the pioneers of television.

-You unlock this door with the key of imagination.

-Warning!

Warning!

♪♪ -They took us to worlds we could only imagine.

-"Star Trek" posits that in 300 or 400 years life will be wonderful.

-They created the characters we loved... and the ones we loved to hate.

-Go through them carefully and erase all references to me.

I want no part of this dehumanized lie dispenser.

-Fascinating.

-I was around enough to know what I had to do to protect, sort of, my territory, and to give this character a chance to breathe.

-They gave us an escape when we needed it most.

-It was a perfect time for a show like "Lost in Space."

And the kids loved it.

-But it is hard to keep a straight face when you're looking at a piece of celery that's talking to you.

-Slanderous attacks on the vegetable kingdom.

-Tonight's story on "The Twilight Zone" is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction.

-They fought to mold entertainment into something with meaning.

-We showed effort constantly.

I think at times we showed ingenuity and creativity.

I don't think we borrowed from anyone.

-I think "The Twilight Zone" is the best television series that was ever produced.

-He's 6 years old with a cute little-boy face and blue, guileless eyes.

But when those eyes look at you, you'd better start thinking happy thoughts because the mind behind them is absolutely in charge.

-I worked on the eye thing.

When Anthony does something, it's like a... ♪♪ -Gene Roddenberry was a complex, incredible man.

-He was kind of doing a selling job.

"This is the way that it's gonna look and this is the way the sets are being built and these are the props, these are the costumes.

Oh, and by the way, you'll be wearing pointed ears."

[ Laughs ] -I don't want her here!

-Sometimes they gave us a scare.

-I don't want her here!

-People, I think, love to be afraid.

They like weird stuff where they can be scared.

-And sometimes it was all in good fun.

-You'd have this cool-looking alien head, and then they'd just put a black sheet over the guy.

[ Chuckles ] And you'd go to a guy in a black sheet with, like, little gloves on.

♪♪ -The guy who would wear a red shirt, like, being beamed down... ♪♪ -Dead.

-...you knew his career in that show is over.

[ Chuckles ] ♪♪ [ Engine shuts off ] -Late 1954.

A Los Angeles motorcycle cop is desperate.

This is the day he will make a rash decision, a choice that will end his police career.

[ Lounge music plays ] [ Indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ After learning where the most powerful Hollywood agents meet, he hunts them down.

♪♪ This policeman has always dreamed of becoming a television writer, but no agent will read his scripts.

-Yes.

He's right over... -Today will be different.

♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] He will demand to be read.

Within hours, one of Hollywood's top agents signed the policeman to a contract.

-Alright.

I'll read it.

-And so began the television career of Gene Roddenberry, motorcycle cop and the man who created "Star Trek."

At least, that's how Gene Roddenberry tells the story.

He was, after all, one of television's great storytellers.

♪♪ ♪♪ Once Gene Roddenberry landed an agent, he worked steadily, churning out freelance scripts for shows like "Dr. Kildare," "Highway Patrol," and "Wagon Train."

♪♪ But he wasn't happy.

Roddenberry wanted his own series, where he could escape the tired old TV formulas.

-Hey, Charlie, how long you gonna wear that derby?

-Well, for the rest of my life, if it's any concern of yours.

It makes me look distinguished.

Don't it, Kenny?

Ha.

-In 1963, Gene Roddenberry got his chance, a breakthrough idea called "The Lieutenant."

-On "The Lieutenant" you saw where Gene was coming from.

-But I thought after a few years, a person would start to grow a little.

-Everybody's got a right to settle scores but us.

Is that it?

I'm nobody's Uncle Tom, Norma.

I'm a man.

I've got a right to feel and act like a man.

-Well, if jumping somebody's all it takes, then why don't you trade that nice uniform in for a funny white sheet with a pointed cap and a burning cross?

-It could have been any two lieutenants, but he made one black and one white.

He wanted to write about the human condition, and he was adamant about this.

♪♪ -The network thought race was too hot a topic in the early 1960s and fought Roddenberry over nearly every episode.

Increasingly frustrated, he let the series die, realizing there was only one way to explore important issues on television.

Roddenberry would have to locate his next series in the future.

-You can't expect me to believe that.

I'm getting out of here.

-Stay where you are.

[ High-pitched squealing ] -Science fiction stories weren't exactly new in the mid-1960s.

Countless low-budget movies provided entertainment for kids and work for actors... like Peter Graves.

-There was a huge audience for them.

They liked to see grasshoppers climbing up Chicago and strange creatures taking over the world.

And, man, if they said that in 70 minutes I could beat them all, I was for that.

And it was a way to pay the rent and buy the groceries.

♪♪ -For his new television series, Gene Roddenberry aimed to move the science fiction genre in an entirely different direction.

He didn't want monsters or giant grasshoppers.

Instead, Roddenberry was developing a show that explored ideas and values.

-The show valued education, it valued teamwork, it valued loyalty.

It was forward-looking always, just by its very nature, and I think those things appealed.

-By 1964, Roddenberry's idea was ready to pitch to a network.

He called it "Star Trek."

-It never occurred to him that this was visionary or anything.

It just -- He felt if he wrote it and he could get it out there, then millions of people would say, "Oh, yes, that's right."

[ Telephone ringing ] -CBS showed interest in "Star Trek," but expressed concern that an outer space show might be too expensive to produce.

[ Knock on door ] Roddenberry responded with an impressive list of innovative cost-saving ideas, but CBS wouldn't commit.

Then Roddenberry learned CBS's secret -- the network was using him, fishing for ideas, because they already had a space show in the works, a series called "Lost in Space."

-You sure are acting funny.

-Danger, Will Robinson!

Danger!

-What kind of danger?

-By the early fall of 1965, the "Star Trek" proposal was floundering, but "Lost in Space" was now on the air and a big hit.

♪♪ The series creator would go on to become the most successful science fiction producer of the decade, a man named Irwin Allen.

-He was crazy.

I mean, he was -- [ Laughs ] He was -- You know, but often creative people are.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -The polar opposite of Gene Roddenberry, Irwin Allen wasn't interested in political issues or character development.

Instead, his signature was action, excitement.

-You don't know that you can remove them from their present time zone.

You might just kill them yourself.

-Well, what's our choice, General?

To let them die with that ship?

-He generated energy on the set in a rather unusual way.

I've never seen anyone else do it like this.

But he would sit on top of a very tall ladder.

-And he took a hammer and this waste paper basket, and every time we were supposed to -- we were on a gimbal -- and every time we were supposed to go from one side to the other, he'd hit the hammer onto the waste paper basket, and we'd all move one way and then the other.

-And he would take a hammer and a steel -- um, probably tin -- pail -- and go "Dr-dr-dr-dr-dr" on the inside.

And he said, "Keep it up, keep it up!

"I want that kind of energy, come on, come on, come on!

Okay, action!"

And you were like this.

[ Laughs ] -And he loved it more than anyone.

I'm surprised he didn't have a gun, you know, to shoot off, you know?

♪♪ -As a boy, Irwin Allen loved roller coasters... ♪♪ ...the excitement, the fear, the speed.

[ People screaming ] And he molded his TV series in much the same way.

[ People screaming ] They were fast, simple, and fun, with a dose of fright.

-I think he had a vision of the show being colorful, being, you know, kind of eccentric, having these monsters, breaking new ground, having lots and lots of, you know, rocks and meteors and falling and laser guns.

And that was his vision, more like a comic book.

-Danger!

Warning!

-As "Lost in Space" gained an audience in 1965, "Star Trek" seemed stuck in the starting gate.

[ Indistinct conversations ] NBC executives commissioned a "Star Trek" pilot.

♪♪ But they didn't like what Roddenberry delivered.

-Great.

Last time.

♪♪ -Sorry, Number One.

With little information on this planet... -The pilot was thought-provoking, but lacked excitement.

NBC wanted more action.

-But they said to Roddenberry, "It's a very interesting premise.

Let's do another pilot."

I have never heard of that before or since.

-By now, the star of the first pilot, Jeff Hunter, was unavailable, and so Gene Roddenberry turned to his next choice to Captain the Enterprise, Jack Lord.

But Lord and Roddenberry couldn't agree to a contract, so Jack Lord moved on to "Hawaii Five-O" and Gene Roddenberry moved on to William Shatner.

Almost immediately, Shatner put his unique mark on the "Star Trek" universe.

-So, I saw the pilot, and... the mistake they made, I felt, was that, you know, the captain sat there and said, "Turn left," you know, or, "Starboard," or -- or, you know, "Fire the guns," as though it were momentous, whereas it becomes more fun if it's immediate.

"Oh, my God," you know, "let's get out of here.

Turn left!"

And I suggested that, and they sort of bought it.

And the second pilot became a lighter vehicle.

-Satisfied with the second pilot, NBC picked up "Star Trek," and the series premiered in the fall of 1966.

[ "Star Trek" theme playing ] ♪♪ "Star Trek" was unlike anything that had come before.

♪♪ For the first time, a network drama was talking about issues of race, gender, war, even drug abuse and nuclear proliferation, all cloaked in a science fiction adventure.

-And I finally went to Gene's office one day, maybe after about the fifth episode, and I said, "Gene Roddenberry, I know what you're doing."

And he said, "What, Nichelle?"

And I said, "You are writing morality plays."

And Gene looked at me and he said, "Shh!

They haven't figured it out yet."

[ Laughs ] ♪♪ -By the end of 1966, "Star Trek" had staked its territory as the science fiction show with something important to say.

"Lost in Space," in contrast, had taken a sharp turn in the opposite direction.

What had started as an adventure show was now transforming itself into something more campy.

The reason was competition.

"Lost in Space" was scheduled opposite the biggest TV phenomenon of the mid-1960s... ♪♪ ...a blockbuster show called "Batman."

-How many actors are fortunate enough, lucky enough, to create a character that becomes part of popular culture, iconic?

You know, not many of us are.

So I am grateful, you know, that it hit like that.

-"Batman" was such a big hit, "Lost in Space" tried to mimic its style, with bright outfits, over-the-top action, outrageous bad guys.

-The network has to be going to Irwin Allen, "Hey, everybody's digging this 'Batman' thing.

Make your space show a little more fun."

Right?

♪♪ -I think any copy is flattering in a sense, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

And maybe they were trying to fix it too radically.

♪♪ -While "Batman" was known for its range of iconic villains, "Lost in Space" had been developing one of TV's most flamboyant troublemakers -- Dr. Zachary Smith, played by Jonathan Harris.

-He started building this character that was really very easy to write for, easy to present, easy to make in a -- make the sort of silly, tongue-in-cheek style that "Batman" was representing.

-Now, now, Major, let's not be hasty with our suspicions.

Our real concern should lie with that unfortunate gentleman... down there.

-Originally, Zachary Smith was a standard villain, a temporary role that might be gone after a few episodes.

Determined to extend his stay, Jonathan Harris began rewriting his lines and redefining his character.

-I'd memorize the script, and before we'd shoot any scene, Jonathan would -- "Billy person, come in to my dressing room.

We are going over the scene."

And, like, I knew what I was gonna say, and then, you know, he'd sit there and say, "Now, you can see it's not as it was on the page.

Let's go."

-He was very smart in that way because Jonathan, I knew, would sit up every night and write his dialogue.

-There's no doubt about the fact that he played it huge.

I mean, there's no doubt about that.

You can be a subtle actor, or you go, "Dear, William, save me!

Oh, the pain!"

Right?

I mean, you can be that, and that's what he was.

-Ohh!

How could this happen to me?

Doomed to Devil's Island!

[ Screams ] Oh, dear!

The pain, the pain!

-One day Irwin Allen came down to the set and said, "You."

And Jonathan went, "Yes?"

And Irwin said, "I know what you're doing."

Jonathan was like, "Mm-hmm."

And Irwin said, "Do more."

-Harris had a long résumé on Broadway and in movies, but "Lost in Space" would be his tour de force, and he knew it.

-He was a true actor.

This is a little man from the Bronx, so poor that his mother and father rented his bed out to people when he was a child and he slept on the dining room table.

And he used to go to the theater in New York and sneak in during intermission, when you could kind of get into a play afterwards, and just dream of becoming a stage actor.

And he reinvented himself to achieve that.

You know?

It's great.

It's beautiful.

-I can't tell you how good it is to be home.

-Aww.

-As Harris' profile grew on "Lost in Space," the ensemble cast faded into the background.

By the second season, most of the other actors had very little to do.

A similar pattern was unfolding at "Star Trek."

♪♪ Any number of characters might have become major players in the "Star Trek" universe, but by 1967, it was clear just two actors would form the nucleus of most stories... ♪♪ ...William Shatner's charismatic Captain Kirk and Leonard Nimoy's logical Mr. Spock.

-But what happened was that when the show went on the air, the Spock character sort of broke out, and it took some time psychologically, emotionally, creatively to work out the proper balance.

And Bill and I were very competitive with each other, very competitive.

-William Shatner's competitive nature didn't originate on "Star Trek."

He already had a long history as one of the industry's hardest-working performers, dating all the way back to his very first acting jobs on local TV in Canada.

-Camera one, zoom in on Shatner, close-up.

-In 1954, the Toronto, Canada, version of "Howdy Doody" added a new character -- Ranger Bob, played by a 23-year-old William Shatner.

-I've heard many times that I did "Howdy Doody," but the whole experience is wiped out of my head.

So, if I were on a stand with my hand on the Bible, I'd say, "Well, no, I've never done 'Howdy Doody,'" but apparently I did.

♪♪ -Soon Shatner was in New York, gaining notoriety from a number of live television performances in TV's Golden Era.

♪♪ Acting for live TV was a great training ground for actors.

There was no stopping, no second takes, and the enormous studio cameras seemed almost alive.

-Lenses that big and a guy behind it and he's -- and it's on rollers, you know, and he's pushing this thing around.

And the tubes which they were using then were so hot, they needed fans to blow away the hot air to keep them cool.

So, this animal would move around somewhat stealthily and make little cooing sounds, like [whistles] And finally it ends, about like this, and you're in close-up.

So you're looking past it in close-up, and this thing is right in your face.

But it's like a loved one saying, "Oh, Billy, how nice you look today."

And so it's a loving, friendly -- Or it's an animal about to destroy you.

[ Chuckles ] [ Indistinct conversations ] -By the early '60s, William Shatner was in Hollywood, appearing in a long string of television guest roles.

-[ Chuckles ] Tauron's engineer, not a fighter.

Let me show you.

-Oh, no, my Lord [chuckles] you shouldn't -- [ Crowd screaming ] -Get him!

Get him!

-[ Laughs ] [ Both grunting ] [ Groaning ] -Ugh!

[ Laughter ] [ Indistinct shouting ] -He was a hot young actor on the rise, not unlike his cohorts Clint Eastwood or Steve McQueen.

So landing William Shatner as the captain of the Enterprise was something of a coup for Gene Roddenberry.

-Bill Shatner was hired as the star of "Star Trek," and we all understood that.

He was the captain, not only in command of the ship, but it was -- he was hired as the name.

He had some reputation.

He had some background.

♪♪ -As the leading actor on "Star Trek," William Shatner didn't miss an opportunity to expand his character, to fight for his vision of James T. Kirk.

-So, the only one who's validating the character, mostly, is the actor.

So, yeah, it's -- it's -- it's, in my opinion, requisite to make a fuss, up to a certain point, about retaining the characteristics of the character.

-Despite Shatner's efforts, it wasn't Captain Kirk who was the breakout character on "Star Trek."

It was Mr. Spock.

♪♪ Throughout the 1950s, Leonard Nimoy played a wide range of criminals, ethnic characters, and even a low-budget space alien.

♪♪ -How about the others?

-I think they're all dead.

-You're in pretty bad shape yourself.

Take it easy, and I'll call for an ambulance.

-No.

First you must stop the bomb.

-I acted in one of those called "Zombies of the Stratosphere."

And, yes, I was one of the zombies.

[ Laughs ] -When it came time to cast " Star Trek's" Vulcan character, creator Gene Roddenberry thought the natural choice to play Mr. Spock was Martin Landau.

-I turned down "Star Trek."

It would have been torturous.

I mean, I would have probably died playing that role.

I mean, even the thought of it now upsets me.

[ Laughs ] It was the antithesis of why I became an actor.

I mean, to play a character that Lenny was better suited for, frankly.

He's a guy who talks in a monotone, who never gets excited, never has any guilt, never has any fear, never is affected on a visceral level.

Who wants to do that?

-With Landau out of the picture, Gene Roddenberry invited Leonard Nimoy to the set and worked hard to convince him to take the job.

-He was kind of doing a selling job -- "This is the way it's gonna look "and this is the way the sets are being built "and these are the props, these are the costumes.

Oh, and, by the way, you'll be wearing pointed ears."

[ Laughs ] -Creating realistic pointed ears was a formidable challenge.

A makeup man from Lucille Ball's show was recruited to do the first prototypes.

-He did a very crude paste-up of paper mache kind of material on the tops of my ears that looked pretty bad.

And as a matter of fact, the man who was head of -- running Desilu at the time -- stuck his head in to see how we were proceeding.

And I heard the first of the very bad ear jokes.

He said something like -- So, Roddenberry was with him, and he said, "Gene, this poor man needs some help."

And I thought, "Oh, God, I don't really need to hear --" You know, I'm stepping into kind of a scary territory with this character with the makeup and all.

♪♪ -After the ears were perfected, Leonard Nimoy faced an even bigger challenge -- coming to grips with TV's most unusual character.

♪♪ In the two "Star Trek" pilots and the first episode, Nimoy played Spock with a wide range of human-like emotion.

-Spock here.

This is all some sort of trap.

We've lost the captain.

Do you read?

[ Dramatic music plays ] -It wasn't until the second episode that everything clicked.

The key scene was a tense moment on the bridge when the Enterprise seemed under attack.

-Captain, something's grabbed us hard.

-Engines overloading, sir.

-And Spock was given one -- one -- not a line, but a word to say, and the word was "fascinating."

And I got caught up in the excitement of the whole thing, and I said "Fascinating!"

And the director, to his great credit, said, "Do it as a scientific curiosity.

"Rather than get excited, "rather than being caught up in the drama of it, play the curiosity of it."

So I changed the reading, and I said, "Fascinating."

-Fascinating.

-And that, I think, was where we really found the spark of the character.

-We convey greetings and await your reply.

-"Star Trek" soon hit its stride, with compelling characters, sophisticated storylines, and a uniquely optimistic view of the future.

But audiences didn't notice, at least not according to the crude ratings system of the era.

[ Rock music plays ] NBC pressed Gene Roddenberry to make "Star Trek" more like "Lost in Space"... ♪♪ ...more monsters, fewer statements.

From a ratings perspective, it was hard to argue because "Lost in Space" producer Irwin Allen seemed to have the magic touch.

♪♪ By early 1967, Irwin Allen was riding high.

Adding color and campiness to "Lost in Space" had boosted the series' ratings, and "Lost in Space" wasn't Allen's only big hit.

He was also the creator of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," now in its third season.

Plus, "Land of the giants" was on Irwin Allen's drawing board.

And Allen had just launched the most expensive science fiction show ever, "Time Tunnel."

♪♪ -Two American scientists are lost in the swirling maze of past and future ages, during the first experiments on America's greatest and most secret project -- "The Time Tunnel."

-It was massive.

It was massive.

And then when I saw it on air... -The tunnel's gone blank!

-Well, wherever he and Doug are now, at least they're together.

-All the art work that was done after we were, you know, gone.

It was amazing.

-Irwin had a great ability for assembling these teams and making really good pilots, pilots that sold.

He was good at that, but he was incredibly budget-conscious -- and I was gonna say "cheap," but, you know, I don't know if he was cheap.

But he was very budget-conscious.

And once those shows got on the air, they really went into like an autopilot kind of mode.

And I think he was... cheap.

-Allen's legendary frugality meant re-using monsters.

A creature that would attack one week on "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" might show up a few weeks later on "Lost in Space."

-His monsters were recycled.

-I can absolutely tell you without exaggerating there would be some poor stuntman guy in a wet suit that was green with bug eyes on him.

-They would leave our show.

They would go to "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," "Land of the Giants."

-And they would walk him into Stage 10, and they would spray-paint him orange.

-Maybe they would put hair dye, dye them red or something like that, but often we'd go, "Hey, that -- that monster was on our show last week."

You know, it had one eye.

Now it would have three.

-Irwin Allen's formulaic monster-of-the-week shows got good ratings for both CBS and ABC.

Executives at NBC wanted the same for their science fiction show, "Star Trek," but creator Gene Roddenberry wasn't interested in adding more monsters.

He saw "Star Trek" as a vehicle to influence social change, and in 1960s America, few topics seemed more important than racial equality and women's rights, issues that TV ignored.

But Gene Roddenberry wasn't afraid.

♪♪ [ Theme music plays ] ♪♪ For two decades, African-American women were allowed only one role on television -- the servant.

[ Electronic whirring ] -Lieutenant Uhura, take over navigation.

-The breakthrough came when Nichelle Nichols was cast as Lieutenant Uhura, fourth in command on the starship Enterprise.

♪♪ But Uhura was soon written out of storylines as other characters became more dominant.

♪♪ Frustrated, Nichols wrote a letter of resignation.

Within hours, a certain dedicated fan requested a special meeting.

-And I stood up to turn around and meet the Trekkie.

And there is this man, bigger-than-life human being, Dr. Martin Luther King.

He says, "I'm the Trekkie."

He says, "I am the biggest Trekkie on the planet, and I am Lieutenant Uhura's most ardent fan."

He went on to say how important "Star Trek" was, that images on television permeate the culture, either for the good or for the bad, and this is for the highest good.

He said, "You cannot abdicate your position.

"You are changing the minds of people across the world "because for the first time, through you, we see ourselves, "what can be, what we are fighting for, what we are marching for."

[ Thunder crashing ] -Nichols returned to "Star Trek"... -Captain.

-...a singular role model for thousands of Americans who had never before seen a woman of color in a position of power.

-Transporter room, energize.

[ Electronic buzzing ] ♪♪ -Two years later, Nichols broke another cultural barrier when a "Star Trek" episode included TV's first interracial kiss.

-Oh, my God, a white guy's kissing a black girl on camera.

Wow.

♪♪ -In the episode "Plato's Stepchildren," the crew encounters a planet resembling ancient Greece.

The powerful aliens then force Kirk and Uhura to kiss.

-I'm so frightened, Captain.

-But it almost didn't happen.

After the first take, the episode's director realized just how controversial this kiss might become.

-Cut!

Cut!

-NBC executives were summoned to the set.

♪♪ They demanded the scene be re-shot without the kiss.

[ Indistinct arguing ] William Shatner was furious, but not because of any racial activism.

He just thought Captain Kirk would never resist a pretty woman.

-I mean, she's beautiful.

So it wasn't very hard to work up enthusiasm to kiss her.

-NBC wasn't persuaded by Shatner's argument, and a new version of the scene was filmed without the kiss.

But William Shatner still got his way by secretly ruining the new shot.

-And Bill leans me down like this and he comes around and he looks up into the camera before they could cut and he -- The director never even saw it.

He doesn't kiss me.

He's not even close.

And he looks up into the camera and he crossed his eyes.

-With the alternative version ruined, there was no choice but to air the scene with the kiss.

♪♪ [ Laughter, applause ] By sheer force of will, William Shatner had again protected his vision of one of TV's most iconic characters... -Who did that?

-[ Chuckles ] -...James T. Kirk.

-I did.

-He was, um, handsome and athletic and smart and a leader and intelligent and funny and had lots of women trailing him and men loved him and...

It was sort of me.

♪♪ [ Chuckles ] -As Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek" tackled the biggest issues of the day... [ Creature snarling ] -Please!

Help!

-...Irwin Allen's "Lost in Space" was creating perhaps the most insipid and bizarre episode in television history, called "The Great Vegetable Rebellion."

-Will you kindly tell this creature to stop nibbling at me?

It jars me to my very roots.

-It's incredibly bad.

I mean, there isn't a single scene in that -- whatever it is -- 50 minutes of television that isn't so over the top and so ridiculous and so nonsensical and so insane.

-But it is hard to keep a straight face when you're looking at a piece of celery that's, you know, talking to you.

-[ Laughs ] "The Great Vegetable Rebellion."

Well, I remember Mark Goddard saying, "Seven years, seven years of Stanislavski, seven years of method acting, and I'm talking to a carrot?"

-You must be getting awfully tired of playing this game with us.

-Tired?

I've barely started.

You'll make a powerful-looking teakwood tree.

-You're forgetting human resistance.

And you can't stop that unless you -- unless you kill us.

If you kill us, then you can't change us, can you?

-You mean you'd rather die than be a tree?

-When you look at the show, there are times when we're biting our lips from laughing.

I mean, trying not to laugh, you know?

We're like this and trying to say the line and listening.

"Oh, yeah.

Really?

Well, that's -- Yeah."

And we're biting our lips so that we're not breaking up and Irwin doesn't come down and say, "Time is money, time is money."

I mean, really, talking to a carrot.

-Moisture!

Moisture!

-"The Great Vegetable Rebellion" illustrated the tendency of "Lost in Space" to aim at younger children.

-Moisture!

-Fire.

-While "Star Trek" was seen as the more serious science fiction series, not every episode met that goal.

[ Alarm blaring ] -Fire!

-"Star Trek" -- we discussed it earlier privately -- I thought was, again, a very inconsistent show, which at times sparkled with true ingenuity and pure science fiction approaches and other times was more carnival-like and very much more the creature of television than the creature of a legitimate literary form.

-Years before "Star Trek" or "Lost in Space," another landmark science fiction series took a very different path, more deeply rooted in the literary tradition of the short story, a series created by Rod Serling.

♪♪ [ Bird chirping ] [ Big band music plays ] [ Bird chirping ] Young Rod Serling was something of a prankster.

♪♪ [ Stick snaps ] He'd go to great lengths to shock his friends and family.

Serling's favorite part was the surprise at the end that no one saw coming.

♪♪ It would become his trademark at the family cabin and later on national television.

[ Dramatic music playing ] -[ Roars ] -From the very beginning, Rod Serling understood that audiences liked to be jolted, scared, astonished.

No one on television did it better.

♪♪ Television's Golden Age was a great time to be a writer.

♪♪ In the era before videotape, everything was live, and that meant a new original play, created just for television, had to be presented every single night.

♪♪ The networks were hungry for talent, and Rod Serling had it.

[ Bell tolling ] Serling's teleplays were quickly seen as some of TV's finest, winning him Emmys for "Requiem for a Heavyweight" and "Patterns."

-I have no interest whatever in the Phillips matter.

-What was that?

-I'm telling you that I don't want the job.

I'm through.

I'm quitting.

I resign, as of now.

-Why?

-Because I hate your guts.

-I'm not a nice human being.

What else?

-You're nothing but a freak!

You'd drive your people into peak efficiency if they can make it or a grave if they can't!

♪♪ -But as television grew from a novelty into a business, sponsors began to demand rewrites of Serling's scripts, redlining storylines they thought might be controversial, even changing the ethnicity of specific characters.

♪♪ Serling soon came to understand what Gene Roddenberry would learn a few years later -- The only way to tell stories of substance on television was to sever the connection to the familiar... ♪♪ ...to set your tales in an alternate world.

And so Rod Serling created "The Twilight Zone."

-That's the signpost up ahead.

Your next stop -- "The Twilight Zone."

[ Theme music playing ] -I would try to choose those stories that, though even science fiction in genre, would be tellable in terms of the most acceptable human terms that we now know.

I would probably shy away from the year 2500.

I would much rather deal in 1998.

In those days, a visionary who fought for control of his project got it sometimes.

-The beauty of the whole science fiction genre was that so much of it had been untouched.

It had been reproduced in printed form over and over again, but it never had been done on camera.

So we had almost a gold mine of unused material that we could operate from.

-"The Twilight Zone" was an anthology, meaning every episode had different characters and a unique setting.

Over five years, "The Twilight Zone" brought America 152 one-of-a-kind tales, thought-provoking short stories.

Everyone has their favorite.

-Is something wrong?

-No.

I -- I thought I saw something out there.

-Among the series' most famous and enduring episodes was "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet."

-Nothing.

-William Shatner plays a nervous flier and the only passenger who sees a strange creature sabotaging the flight.

♪♪ -Oh, the one with William Shatner, with the monster on the wing.

I mean, do you ever look out an airplane window and think about that?

I have for years.

That made such an impression on me.

-Strangely, it seems to have touched a nerve... ♪♪ ...that nerve of, "What is this box doing up in the air?"

And maybe there are little gremlins that -- So, it touches a -- a universal fear, I think.

-But it's good that you're making it snow, Anthony.

It's real good.

And tomorrow -- tomorrow's gonna be a real good day!

-In the episode "It's a Good Life," Billy Mumy portrays Anthony, a young boy with infinite powers, able to create or destroy anything and anyone with just a look.

He's both innocent and terrible.

-When he used his powers, his eyes got big.

And I didn't realize that until many decades later that also his nostrils flared.

[ Chuckles ] But it's true.

When Anthony does something, it's like a... You know?

It's like that.

-Would somebody take a lamp or a bottle or something and end this?!

-You're a bad man!

You're a very bad man!

And you keep thinking bad thoughts about me.

♪♪ -Ahh!

[ Music box plays] -Ahh!

-[ Gasps ] ♪♪ -Of the more than 90 "Twilight Zone" scripts that Rod Serling wrote himself, this episode was his personal favorite.

-An adaptation of mine, a very free, loose adaptation of a short story called "Time Enough at Last," about a myopic bank teller, who, at the end of the world, breaks his glasses, just when he's able to read all that he's ever wanted to read, which was sheer, pure, beautiful irony.

♪♪ ♪♪ -That's not fair.

That's not fair at all.

There was time now.

There was -- was all the time I needed.

[ Crying ] That's not fair.

That's not fair.

♪♪ -Serling encouraged the best science fiction writers of the era to contribute scripts to "The Twilight Zone."

♪♪ Richard Matheson's "The Invaders" was Serling's favorite from an outside writer.

-"The Invaders" with Agnes Moorehead, which was, in a sense, pure science fiction with a very O. Henry-ish twist.

-This is the woman who lives in the house, a woman who's been alone for many years, a strong, simple woman whose only problem up until this moment has been that of acquiring enough food to eat, a woman about to face terror, which is even now coming at her from The Twilight Zone.

-All these little tiny people came out, and they were like outer space people.

And they were poking her with knives and stuff, and she was trying to get rid of them and sweep them away and everything.

Then you find out she was the monster and they were from the United States.

-The ship's destroyed.

Incredible race of giants here.

♪♪ I thought that was such a fabulous one.

I loved it, and she never spoke in the entire thing.

It was all "Unh", you know, grunting and groaning and carrying on.

-[ Groaning ] -The "Invaders" episode revealed a challenge Serling faced every week -- creating quality science fiction on a meager budget.

-This desperately required 8-inch little men to walk across the floor of a room.

All we could use, because we couldn't afford opticals and we couldn't afford montage effects, were little wind-up rubber men.

And they walked precisely like little wind-up rubber men.

And I thought it totally destroyed the illusion and pointed out to me, you know, the desperate built-in problems of doing proper science fiction on television.

♪♪ -Anne!

-Television's rigid parameters led to a fallout between Serling and science fiction icon Ray Bradbury, who wrote an episode called "I Sing the Body Electric," starring a young Veronica Cartwright.

-Anne, darling, don't cry.

Don't cry.

-It was very cool.

Who knew?

I didn't know that it was gonna end up being as popular as it was, you know, in years later.

-Grandma.

Grandma, you're alive!

-Alive!

-In the episode, Cartwright portrays a girl whose mother has passed away and must now accept her new caregiver -- a lifelike robot grandmother.

-In this way, no.

-You can't run away?

-I can't.

I won't.

-You'll never die?

-Never!

-Oh, Grandma.

-Aww.

-Although the episode remains an enduring fan favorite, Serling cut a scene, citing a lack of money.

Bradbury was furious.

The two icons, once good friends, never worked together again.

♪♪ Over time, the grind of weekly television took its toll on Rod Serling.

The meddling of network executives and sponsors was especially trying.

By 1964, the free rein Serling enjoyed in the show's early years was a distant memory, replaced by a stifling bureaucracy.

♪♪ -There was a change, between the show I did in 1959 and the show I did in 1964, in him.

He was very disillusioned with the ad agencies and the censors and people telling him, "That's not a good idea."

-I think at the moment it is being stultified by the current desperate economics of our place out there, that they're being terribly timorous in all new areas of storytelling, only because it costs a buck.

-After five years, Rod Serling had enough, and "The Twilight Zone" left the air in 1964.

♪♪ Serling went on to write "Planet of the Apes" and then returned to television in 1969 with "Night Gallery."

-In 1975, at age 50, Rod Serling passed away, leaving behind a legacy of the best-written show in TV history, "The Twilight Zone."

♪♪ The pioneers of science fiction television didn't just invent a genre.

They taught us something about ourselves.

And they gave us a great ride.

-The core of a successful television show -- it's the relationships.

-Here comes the opportunity to put on superhero outfits, to literally carry a laser gun and to use it?

Who wouldn't have loved -- loved that?

I honestly -- I never had a bad day going to work on that show.

-To make a contribution, to make a real contribution to this show -- that's what my goal was every day.

-I will always be grateful for the experience, not just the job, but the opportunity to create and to discover a lot more than I thought I knew.

-Bill and I and Marta also were able to visit NASA about four or five years ago.

And we had everyone come up to us and tell us that we were the reason that they had gotten involved in the space program.

These are people that build the Endeavour.

-Scientists are coming up to us and saying, "We loved 'Lost in Space.'

You inspired us to go into science."

-And they're looking at us, these, you know, Robinson kids, and saying, "You are the one that made me get into the space program."

It was mind-boggling.

-How wonderful.

My God.

3 years, 40 years ago, and they still talk about the character.

My God.

-I think "The Twilight Zone" is the best television series that was ever produced, and I was lucky to be a part of it.

-"And we can't wait for the next episode."

[ Laughs ] I mean, it's great.

TV's great.

♪♪ -In recent years, dozens of quality science fiction series have been embraced by millions.

But they all owe a debt to the shows that set the standard, created by the pioneers of television.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪