The Twilight Zone
What You Need
TV Flash files “What You Need” as hour 12 of 156 in the TV Flash guide — The Twilight Zone (1959–1964) on CBS, season 1, episode 12, aired 1959-12-25, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E12: listed hour 12 of 156 in the The Twilight Zone guide, hour 12 of 36 in season 1. It aired 1959-12-25 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “And When the Sky Was Opened” (S01E11). Next is “The Four of Us Are Dying” (S01E13).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
A peddler uses his uncanny ability to tell what a person needs to supply them with the proper item at the proper moment. However, a thug gets wind of his ability and forces the peddler to use it for him or die.
Viewer FAQ
Where does What You Need sit in the The Twilight Zone guide?
S01E12 is listed hour 12 of 156 — hour 12 of 36 in season 1, season 1 episode 12.
When did The Twilight Zone S01E12 air?
What You Need aired 1959-12-25 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with the empty-town opener, then the broken-glasses hour. Isolation first, stolen moral second; those two teach the anthology’s real instrument better than any twist ranking.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Serling used fantasy as a smuggled sermon when sponsors would not let a straight drama talk. Watch for isolation as craft, the twist as a bill coming due, and half-hours built to sit in the blood overnight — not to snack in a dump.
October 1959, CBS: a man walks into an empty town and the country learns a new address. The Twilight Zone did not invent the anthology. It invented the anthology as a national flinch — half-hour moral weather, a host in a dark suit, and a closing turn that was supposed to sting after the sponsor smile. Rod Serling had already fought live-drama censors and lost enough rounds to change weapons. Fantasy was the loophole. Aliens, bargains, small towns that eat themselves: the vocabulary of a writer who wanted to talk…
Filed against
- Rod Serling as Host / Narrator
Rod Serling created and hosted The Twilight Zone — moral fables in a black suit, twist endings that taught America to fear its own reflection. Sponsor and censor battles are as legendary as the episodes. On TV Flash he is prestige…