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Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” was a labor of love made possible due to the consistent contribution of competent writers. While Serling wrote a chunk of the episodes himself, authors like Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, and Ray Bradbury would often pen stories that challenged what was considered “appropriate” for network television. Some were adaptations of classic tales with a quintessential “Twilight Zone” twist, while others drew from chilling real-life incidents by reinterpreting them for a television audience. No matter where the source of inspiration lay, “The Twilight Zone” rooted scathing social commentary at its forefront, critiquing everything from mass moral hysteria to rampant consumerism in a hyper-capitalist society.
Among the show’s contributing writers was sci-fi author George Clayton Johnson (“Logan’s Run”), who wrote several notable episodes, including the Robert Redford-starrer “Nothing in the Dark,” “A Penny for Your Thoughts,” and “A Game of Pool.” When he was an up-and-coming writer, Johnson joined the Southern California School of Writers, where he exchanged ideas with peers like Beaumont and Bradbury. Through them, Johnson met Rod Serling, who would go on to write a script based on Johnson’s short story “All of Us Are Dying.” This was just the beginning of a steady collaboration, paving the path for the sci-fi writer’s career in scriptwriting. Johnson is also known for penning the first telecast episode of “Star Trek” and the story/screenplay for 1960’s “Ocean’s 11.”
However, not everything Johnson wrote for “The Twilight Zone” culminated in a broadcasted episode. In Steven Jay Rubin’s “The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia,” Johnson spoke at length about “Sea Change,” a story he wrote that was rejected by one of the show’s sponsors for its dark subject matter. What exactly was this episode supposed to be about? Let’s dive right into it.
Sea Change was meant to be a part of The Twilight Zone’s second season
According to Johnson’s 1994 interview in “The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia,” Serling bought “Sea Change” from him immediately, as he “loved things that were tense and grim” or anything that evoked “a dangerous, or a mysterious, or a poetic mood.” This was in line with the kind of stories Johnson had sold to Serling, such as season 1’s “Execution” (revolving around a grisly public hanging) or “The Four of Us Are Dying” (featuring the deaths of many, including a face-changing con man). “Sea Change” was no different, but one of the show’s sponsors for the second season had other ideas:
“And then I did one called ‘Sea Change,’ which is the story of a person who gets his hand cut off, and he regrows the hand. But what he doesn’t realize is that the hand is [also] growing a man. And there’s only room for one of them. And it’s a terrifying tale. Rod [Serling] bought it immediately, then he gave it back to me because his sponsor wouldn’t accept it.”
Details about this scrapped story can also be found in “Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine,” which published horror fiction along with extensive articles about “The Twilight Zone” (and its revival) between 1981 and 1989. The magazine’s October 1981 issue includes an excerpt on “Sea Change,” detailing the nuances of Johnson’s story and the reasons behind its rejection. Long story short, the show’s food sponsor believed that “Sea Change’s” gruesome body horror aspect would ruin viewers’ appetites (hence hampering the impact of the ads by the company), prompting series producer Buck Houghton to grudgingly reject it. Johnson agreed to buy the story back on the condition that he would be given a chance to write an original teleplay for “The Twilight Zone.” Houghton agreed, and the rest is history.
It is a shame that “Sea Change” never got a chance to bloom as a “Twilight Zone” episode. Johnson’s story doesn’t shy away from being unsettling or strange and features strong, eclectic characters stuck in a hellish scenario. You can read “Sea Change” by digging up the digital versions of magazines that are now out of print, and it is a story that is certainly worth the effort. After all, it won the (now-defunct) Balrog Award for superior achievement in short fiction and is perceived as one of Johnson’s most valuable works in the genre.
