The Twilight Zone

"The Time Element" was Serling's 1957 pilot pitch for his show, a time travel adventure about a man who goes back to Honolulu in 1941 and unsuccessfully tries to warn everyone about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor.

The script was rejected and shelved until Bert Granet discovered and produced it as an episode of Desilu Playhouse in 1958.

His successful television plays included "Patterns" (for Kraft Television Theatre) and “Requiem for a Heavyweight” (for Playhouse 90), but he was frustrated by constant changes and edits made by the networks and sponsors.

In "Requiem", the line "Got a match?" had to be cut because the sponsor sold lighters; other programs had similar striking of words that might remind viewers of competitors to the sponsor, including one case in which the sponsor, Ford Motor Company, had the Chrysler Building removed from a picture of the New York City skyline.

According to comments in his 1957 anthology Patterns, Serling had been trying to delve into material more controversial than his works of the early 1950s.

This led to Noon on Doomsday for the United States Steel Hour in 1956, a commentary by Serling on the defensiveness and total lack of repentance he saw in the Mississippi town where the murder of Emmett Till took place.