The year was 1958.
William Dozier, chief of CBS West Coast programming, watched as television’s boy wonder, Rod Serling, paced around Dozier’s office, acting out a pitch for a new series.
It was one of the most chaotic pitches the CBS exec had ever seen.
Serling tried to explain his premise, but his descriptions were all over the place: a show that would be science fiction but not really science fiction, fantasy but not really fantasy, social commentary but not really.
No matter how hard or how admirably Serling tried, Dozier simply had no idea what the hell the pitch was about.
“Go home,” Dozier told him, adding that if Serling wrote a pilot, he would be paid whether it was used or not.
Eventually, Serling returned with a 60-minute time traveling tale entitled The Time Element.
Dozier read the story and liked it. He knew it was a great pilot. But he also knew that there was little chance selling CBS on an anthology show, a genre that was already dying in 1958.
To make matters even more daunting, the reality was that television companies viewed science fiction as a genre defined by one thing: ratings death.
The world, however, has never been predictable and business works much the same way. So, Dozier knew that there was always a chance, however small, that he could maybe sell the series if it were cut down into half-hour episodes.
Once again, Dozier sent Serling home to write a new pilot. Both Dozier and Serling knew that they only had one shot to sell the series to CBS and to sponsors.
In order to do that, the pilot needed to be golden.
Several scripts went from Serling’s typewriter to Dozier’s desk, all good, but none were the elusive the golden egg. Serling was getting frustrated and Dozier was still paying him for the yet-written pilot.
Then, Serling came up with a script titled Where Is Everybody?, the story of a man, with no memory of his own identity, who finds himself alone in a seemingly vacated (very recently vacated) town.
If this script didn’t sell CBS on the idea, Serling figured, nothing would. Dozier, on the other hand, had very little hope that Serling’s anthology series would actually ever be produced and decided that, if nothing else, he could, at least, get some of his money back.
To make some quick cash, Dozier sold the rights to Serling’s 60-minute script, The Time Element, to producer Bert Granet. No one, certainly not Dozier, could have predicted the audience response.
Airing in November of 1958 as an episode for DesiLu Playhouse, The Time Element was an enormous success. Serling’s time travel story had whetted the audience’s appetite and caused salivation in the mouths of TV execs looking for the next big thing.
So, the moment the ratings numbers came in, Dozier, using The Time Element as the de facto pilot, was able to get Serling a green light for his anthology series, now titled The Twilight Zone.
The show that nobody wanted had suddenly become the network’s top priority. With CBS so vehemently committed to The Twilight Zone, sponsors were lined up seemingly with ease.
Dozier knew the upper hand was theirs and took full advantage of it. He arranged for Serling to create his own production company, Cayuga Productions, to oversee the new show and insured that it and CBS would split the profits 50-50. This gave Dozier and Serling more control over their show, both creatively and how it was run.
Dozier and Serling began soliciting the talent that was essential if the show was to be all that Serling believed it could. Science fiction writers such as Charles Beaumont, George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, Earl Hamner Jr. and even Ray Bradbury were brought in to keep the show unique, thoughtful and entertaining.
Reluctantly, Serling agreed to do the lead-ins for each episode.
After its premiere in November, 1959, The Twilight Zone ran until 1964, eventually becoming one of the most famous TV shows of all time.
But by 1965, Serling was doing all he could to get out from the shadow of The Twilight Zone. He worried he had pigeonholed himself, that the public would never accept anything Serling offered that didn’t begin with, “Picture if you will,…”
After The Twilight Zone, Dozier had decided to leave CBS in order to form his own production company, Greenway Productions. Greenway had set up shop at Twentieth Century-Fox where Dozier’s old friend William Self was head of television production. When Dozier discovered that the Western was again in vogue with networks, he began looking for a project for Greenway to get behind. Remembering a script Serling had shown him earlier about a Civil War veteran titled The Loner, he immediately acquired the rights.
In no time, Dozier had sold the show to CBS. The amazing thing about the sale was that not only did Dozier lack a pilot episode for CBS execs to view, he sold it without so much as a written presentation.
Dozier succeeded using the star status and name recognition of well-known men: Lloyd Bridges, who had agreed to star, and Rod Serling, considered by many as television’s best of the best. CBS went for it with Dozier’s suggested ownership deal of 50% to Serling, 25% to Greenway and the other 25% to Fox.
This had all the makings of another Dozier-Serling homer run.
The moment production began, it became increasingly evident to William Self and others that Serling and Dozier’s idea of a western was vastly different than that of CBS.
What Serling and Dozier were attempting was an adult western, one that explored such themes as the horrors of war, moral ambiguity, bigotry. CBS, however, wanted a typical western, one with more chases and shootouts, one that would attract younger viewers. It didn’t take long for this difference of visions erupted into a battle of ideals.
On one side was Serling and Dozier who wanted more character and motivation, on the other side was CBS who wanted more Bang! and Pow!
Despite pressure, Serling refused to allow the show to become ordinary and run of the mill.
After only 26 episodes, The Loner was cancelled and Serling, as he often did, took it personally, feeling that his show failed because he himself was a failure.
Dozier, on the other hand, saw it in much simpler terms: it was just business. Never one to lick his wounds, Dozier decided to focus his energy on the new show Greenway had just sold, a campy half-hour version of Batman.
So, what can we take away from this?
Well, sometimes collaborative efforts can produce several projects (ex: Burton and Depp), while others are simply good at one particular moment. No one sets out to capture lightning in a bottle, but sometimes they are in the right place at the right time and surrounded by the right people.
Bringing all of those same elements together another time does not guarantee more lightning, sometimes it just means a lot of people standing around wondering why their bottle is still empty.
The Loner opening: HYPERLINK “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_1jlxhgM-Y” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_1jlxhgM-Y
