10 Greatest Episodes Of The Twilight Zone
6. It's A Good Life
It’s A Good Life is a darkly hilarious episode that isn’t quite as rich in subtext as some of Serling’s other work, but it still manages to be rather memorable. The episode follows a six-year-old boy with godlike powers who constantly manipulates people into doing whatever he likes. This entire town is under his control, with all the adults on edge and afraid of upsetting him or thinking the wrong thing.
It’s so insane how tense everyone is throughout the half hour, and that feeling definitely extends to the audience. There's no real resolution here, and it's one of the darkest endings in the series: one of the adults tries to stop the boy only to be turned into a jack-in-the-box, and so the nightmare continues.
If the episode has a deeper meaning, it can be read as a metaphor for dictatorships, with everyone always nervous and constantly trying to appease this psychopathic leader who could kill them at the snap of a finger. But if it doesn’t leave you thinking as much as some other episodes, it will at least leave you with your heart racing, feeling as tense as all the characters.