The Twilight Zone
The Bewitchin' Pool
TV Flash files “The Bewitchin' Pool” as the listed series bookend — The Twilight Zone (1959–1964) on CBS, season 5, episode 36, aired 1964-06-19, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S05E36: listed hour 156 of 156 in the The Twilight Zone guide, last listed hour of season 5. It aired 1964-06-19 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “The Fear” (S05E35). No later hour is listed in this guide.
A swimming-pool closer the anthology never required. Forms wear out; they do not need a last fable.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Two children escape their bickering parents through a portal in the bottom of their swimming pool to a magical land watched over by a kindly old woman the children call Aunt T.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Bewitchin' Pool sit in the The Twilight Zone guide?
S05E36 is listed hour 156 of 156 — last listed hour of season 5, season 5 episode 36.
When did The Twilight Zone S05E36 air?
The Bewitchin' Pool aired 1964-06-19 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…