'The Twilight Zone'

Rod Serling's weird, paranoid omnibus series introduced audiences to the beauty of a twist ending – "To Serve Man" comes to mind – as well as left generations of TV watchers with countless remarkable nightmares, from Talking Tina to the plane-mauling goblin that taunted William Shatner to bookworm Burgess Meredith surviving a nuclear war only to break his glasses. As revered as The Twilight Zone is now – Sterling's show spawned a film or series reboots almost every decade, and it opened the door for everything from The Outer Limits to The X-Files — back in the early Sixties, it was largely ignored by Emmy voters. Only once, in 1961, it was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series in 1961, losing to Hallmark Hall of Fame: MacBeth. While The Twilight Zone was shut out in the major awards, Serling received a pair of Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama Emmys.