Movies - TV
Rod Serling’s Brother Helped Create One Of The Best Twilight Zone Episodes
By DEBOPRIYAA DUTTA
“Twilight Zone” creator Rod Serling found inspiration for the episode "The Odyssey of Flight 33" while visiting with his brother, aviation writer Robert Serling.
In The Twilight Zone Companion by Marc Scott Zicree, Robert recalls his brother thinking of the episode’s premise after reading a brochure from American Airlines.
Robert said Rod imagined a jet over the Atlantic that “picked up a freak tailwind of such velocity that its ground speed was something like eight thousand miles an hour.”
Rod suggested that the plane went fast enough to go through a time barrier, sending it back to prehistoric times. Robert then helped shape the episode further.
Weeks after this encounter, Rod called his brother for advice about "cockpit dialogue," as he wanted it to sound as authentic as possible.
With letters from pilots giving technically accurate information for perfect checkpoints and dialogue that the crew would actually say, Rod crafted a gripping tale of Flight 33.