Hunter Tylo’s Unaired Episode of The Twilight Zone

by Noel Joshua Hadley

1

 

ROD Serling stands in the corner of the parlor

waiting upon the camera to pan to him.

 

In a few short minutes, he will break the fourth wall

to deliver his opening monologue for an unprecedented performance

before a live nationwide audience,

cigarette poised between his fingertips.

 

A gaffer will illuminate Hunter Tylo, the aging actress,

sitting alone in a dark room of her mind

with a silver screen and a flickering projector,

obsessively rewatching the same tiresome soap episodes

and the television commercials which has preserved

her only mirrored reflection worth living for—fleeting youth.

 

Nowadays, the phone never rings

and the gossip magazines have run out of juicy tidbits,  

thereby striping the actress of fame and purpose.

 

I have read the script and know how it’s expected to unfold.

A former studio exec hires a reporter to pay Ms. Tylo a visit

with the exclusive purpose of highlighting another ghost

in his ‘Where Are They Now?’ column.

 

What he is about to discover

is that she has one last speck of star dust within her,

one final and lasting curtain call to bow for.

 

Before the closing commentary, she will become immortalized

as a living character in her library of film cannisters,

a feat, Serling will add, which is only possible

in the you know where.

 

2

 

“GOING live!” the First Assistant Director announces,

never having the faintest clue that Hunter Tylo

is not waiting to be found in the spotlight.

 

She happens to be next door

giving me a guided tour of the lunar landing site.

Leaving her handprints and signature next to Neil’s boot print

as though this were Grauman’s Chinese Theater,

two angry astronauts come bobbing towards us,

never breaking character.

 

We run for the ashy hills but collide with a matte painting,

which crashes down into her make-believe parlor

only seconds after the tapes start rolling.

 

Douglas Heyes, the director, yells cut.

Bernard Herrmann halts the orchestra, while Rod Serling,

who has only just now begun his monologue,

looks visibly confused and annoyed before they break for a word

from their commercial sponsor.

 

For once, the true terror is turned from its intended audience

to its producers, script writers, and studio execs.

 

In their excitement, the two astronaut actors

had forgotten that they’d removed their space helmets

for a smoke break, thereby exposing themselves as reptilians.

 

A timely lesson and an invitation

to everyone whose ever stepped foot into Studio 33-A.

Not everyone is bought and paid for and bribery

only works on the initiated.

 

Chock it up to a slight technical oversight

and an aging infrastructure in

The Twilight Zone.