the uncanny when it provides an allegedly rational explanation to the protagonist’s
unexplainable experience.
Besides that of Rod Serling, the contribution of Richard Matheson to The Twilight Zone
is among the most determining as to the general aesthetic and narrative direction of the series.
Matheson inspired or wrote all together sixteen episodes for The Twilight Zone throughout the
five seasons of the series and participated in its attempted revival after Selling’s untimely
departure. Although some of the episodes penned or inspired by Matheson for the series may
fall into neighboring modes, such as science fiction, i.e., “Third from the Sun” and the
aforementioned “Steel,” or the uncanny, i.e ., “Nick of Time,” most of them can be considered
as belonging to the fantastic, for their narrative authority relies upon the tension created by the
irruption of the impossible in an identifiable reality - as we will see later on, Matheson even
introduces the fantastic effect within the universe of science fiction in “Death Ship,” the
analysis of which will prove most helpful to further define the semio-structural composition of
the fantastic mode.
The Fantastic According to Matheson
The episodes “Little Girl Lost" and “Night Call” can be seen as nearly perfect illustrations
of the modern fantastic, thematically as well as motif wise, for they establish narrative
authority upon a semiotic opposition between a highly identifiable reality - our very own - and
the impossible, and explore recurrent themes of the fantastic mode, such as the existence of
other dimensions and of life after death. In “Little Girl Lost,” we see how, in a very typical family
environment, a little girl vanishes into another dimension until she is rescued by her father, with
the help of a physician friend of her parents and the family dog. The presence of the physician,
who can only speculate that the little girl has fallen through a hole into another dimension,
brings forward the failure of official epistemology, since he can offer no real explanation for the
phenomenon, even if he actively participates in saving the little girl.
“Night Call,” scripted by Matheson and based on his short story, “Long Distance Call,”
is a casebook example of ghost story set against a modern, common background, which
corresponds to Maupassant's perceptive albeit underdeveloped definition of the mode as a
representation of a reality close to us in which, however, something “almost” impossible is
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