How Rod Serling Examined Beauty Through the Twilight Zone

The best, most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched...but are felt in the heart. - Helen Keller (1880-1968)

History's most famous blind woman fully captured a concept of beauty better than one possessing the keenest physical vision. It's something to remember in our digitally altered, increasingly airbrushed, nip tuck world of instant beauty.

Rod Serling's television world of The Twilight Zone dealt with the pursuit of physical beauty. We visited alien worlds where ugliness is norm, or watched in awe over tales portraying a future Earth which finds cosmetic beauty bestowed upon each citizen - whether they liked it or not.

What follows are some of the best stories, which taught us beauty could be found in many places. Best of all, it's often there with us all along.

The Eye Of the Beholder

If you mention The Twilight Zone to even a casual fan, this episode may be one they bring up first. It's arguably one with the most jarring pay-off, once seen it isn't forgotten.

A stark, anti-septic hospital is the setting. We meet Janet Tyler, a woman whose face is wrapped entirely in thick gauze bandages, as she moans woefully about feeling sunlight on her face again. All the while, a shadowy photographed physician cautions the procedure she recently underwent may not have worked. It would be the last time they could perform the operation. It's really best if she's ready for the worst.

When the bandages are removed, the young woman's face is finally revealed. Despite this being a classic, there are many who've never seen it and I refuse to give away the secret. Suffice to say that the story lives up to the episode title. As many times as I've watched, I still feel powerfully moved by the emotional outcome.

Number 12 Looks Just Like You

Have you ever wanted to look like someone else? Say a celebrity? In the Twilight Zone, fantasy comes true.