"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is one of the best episodes of "The Twilight Zone," with a young William Shatner perfectly playing the part of frightened airplane passenger Robert Wilson. In a 2024 interview with Television Academy, Shatner said he was "of two minds" about filming "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," as he was worried that the horror elements could potentially come off as humorous. "And then when I saw the suit that the Czechoslovakian acrobat was dressed in, I thought, 'Well, I hope this isn't laughed at,'" the "Star Trek" actor stated, referring to Cravat's fur-laden costume. Thankfully, this Richard Matheson story (directed by Richard Donner) reads as an enduring metaphor for the fear of flying, with the gremlin representing our collective anxieties. "Since we're talking about it [the episode] more than 60 years later, my hope seems to have come true," Shatner concluded in the same interview.