Twilight Zone Bomb Shelter

This episode of The Twilight Zone “The Shelter”, focuses on a neighborhood set into mass hysteria because there has been an announcement over the radio that an unidentified flying object has been spotted flying towards America. This is assumed to be a plane carrying an atomic bomb because of the tensions that were happening at this time between Russia and America during the Cold War. The tensions at the time of production for this episode were very high as the Berlin Crisis of 1961 had just taken place the summer before. This Crisis is why the writer of the episode, Rod Serling wanted to create a fictional scenario where there was an immediate threat of a nuclear war. Rod Serling was a soldier during WW2 which influenced his future stories

as he wanted to go to war when he enlisted, but after being discharged he would experience nightmares about the war causing him to change his stance on the idea of war. He wrote scripts for movies in part as therapy for his time in the war. Serling also spoke out very often through his work about Racism and Censorship although these are not present in this specific episode of the Twilight Zone.
The main subject of this specific episode of the twilight zone is about the threat of Nuclear war and how people would react if there was a real threat.

This episode is set in a 1960’s American suburb where only one family has prepared for a nuclear threat by building a bomb shelter. The episode shows how people will turn against each other when their lives are on the line as the rest of the families in this neighborhood break down the door to the bomb shelter in order to get in even though it was only built for three people and would no longer work since the door was broken. The fallout shelter is the focus of the episode as it is meant to play on the anxiety of people not having a shelter and what they would do if they didn't have one when doomsday came. The other objects that play an important role during the episode is a radio that is on the CONELRAD station which was a real government station that was used solely to warn of an enemy nuclear attack during the Cold War. They use the radio many times during the episode as it is how they recieve updates on what is going

on.
After watching this episode I could see how it could provoke fear into Americans at the time.

The unknown of what would happen if a nuclear war broke out is played out through this episode. The feelings of the time period are shown when Serling says “What you’re about to watch is a nightmare. It is not meant to be prophetic, It need not happen.” Showing that the hope of all was for this situation to never occur but that it was a real possibility at that time. At the end of the episode sterling returns to state “For civilization to survive the human race has to remain civilised”. I believe this statement has a double meaning as it could be talking about how world leaders must remain calm as part of the big picture and not go for something that could end all of humanity. The more personal meaning is one about what we would do if this situation were to ever become reality as we need to make sure we remain calm and do not turn into savages when are lives are on the line like what has happened in this episode. I believe this second takeaway was the most important as the episode ends with the people learning that it was a false alarm and now must deal with the consequences of knowing what their neighbors are truly

like.
This neighborhood will never be normal again as after the neighbors tell the owner of the bomb shelter they'll pay for the damage to the shelter he says that “I wonder if anyone of us has any idea what those damages are”. Referencing the emotional damage the neighbors have given him and how he thinks he will never be able to act the same way as he did before around them. Serling made this episode in order to play on the fears of all of America by using the threat of a nuclear war to show people's true colors and to show how a situation as terrible as a nuclear war should never happen. Serling used the breaking apart of this neighborhood to bring the realities of the worst case scenario during the Cold War into American homes.