The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street vs The Shelter

I think The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street has the slight edge here, just as an overall story. But having been a small boy when The Shelter first aired, I can personally testify that it also captures the pervasive underlying dread of nuclear war & paranoia all too accurately & frighteningly at that time.

I was one of those countless children doing the duck & cover drills in grade school, and even then, we knew that duck & cover wouldn't do a thing to save us. And I can remember the Cuban Missile Crisis with terrible clarity--the worst part of it was seeing just how deeply frightened & terrified all the adults were, and how they were trying their best to hide it from us children. To see one's own parents that nakedly frightened shook our world to the foundations, believe me!

Both episodes are superb examples of the nightmare undercurrent just below the surface of daily life then.