"The Jungle" is the twelfth episode of the third season of The Twilight Zone, and was first broadcast in November of 1961. It was written by Charles Beaumont, and starred John Dehner.
Alan Richards and his wife have returned from a trip to Africa, where he was working as an engineer designing a hydroelectic project. While there, a group of shamans placed a curse on the developers of the project, a curse that Richards' wife takes seriously, although he does not. The board of the company also scoffs at the idea, although Richards points out that they have talismans and superstitions of their own.
During the introductory scenes that set up the episode, it seemed that the episode was going into some fairly interesting territory: was Rod Serling going to give the television audiences of 1961 an introduction to post-colonialism and environmentalism?
After the basic conflict is introduced, it settles into more familiar terrain: Richards walks home at night, hearing the sound of drums and jungle animals, and getting more and more afraid. There is very little dialog past a certain point, just one man's suspenseful journey in a dark night, something most viewers (including myself) could probably sympathize with. Much like the previous episode, "Still Valley", this episode chooses not to explore some of the political and social issues implicit in its premise, but instead focuses on telling a standard, if well done, horror story. Of course, since the season has already presented such heavy topical episodes as "The Shelter" and "Deaths Head Revisited", a breather episode or two does make a nice break.