Twilight Zone - 19.2.03 (1 Viewer)

If the points are truly "timeless", it doesn't matter whether the ideas are several decades, or several millennia, old, now, does it? The problem here is that, without a set-up substantially different from the original version's there's absolutely nothing fresh or new about it, and, therefore, no compelling reason to retell the same tale at all. The "message" of the story is exactly the same. Substituting the covert military for outer-space aliens, with the "average citizens in suburbia" serving as guineau pigs, again, is trivial. Even old wine occasionally needs new glasses. Here the "glasses" are almost completely the same. A pointless remake, indeed.

In all, this program isn't as good, or as satisfying, as the first season of The New Twilight Zone of the 1980s. Those were, at least, fresh stories, occasionally outstandingly done.

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TRANSLATION: Expect more remakes of and "sequels" to the "classics".

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Of course, they do! I've tried to hammer this home over and over and over (and over) again, but many refuse to believe it: EVERYTHING you get to see and/or hear in popular broadcast or other electronic media today has been considered from a MARKETING perspective before it's been approved for production. Literally, everything. Ever wonder why so many British (and, lately, Australian or New Zealand) actors are popping up all over the place in American films, and even television programs, in roles that do not specifically call for "international" (i.e, foreign) persons or their accents??? Well, naturally, it's because the studios want to sell all this programming to foreign---excuse me, "international"---markets and think that putting non-Americans even in thoroughly American settings (and quite often playing American characters) will draw larger audiences in those markets.

And I've said this before and it also bears repeating: blacks form a marked category in not only American, but in any so-called "Western" culture and, so, their appearance in any popular forum is no accident. Look, for example, at the fast-food commercials ("Mickey D's" and others) on American tv and you'll see a lot of dark-brown faces. Guess why?

Some may remember that, about 10(?) years ago or so, the Disney Corporation settled a lawsuit filed, as I remember it, by a black family whose child was (allegedly) prevented by an admissions employee from becoming the billionth visitor to Disneyland . After that settlement the number of black faces went way up in those Disneyland/-world commercials, I noticed. No connexion? I doubt it.

It should, then, be no surprise that such thinking goes into casting on this show or, for example, on any of the cop-buddy movies on the big-screen, many of which by now almost always have the obligatory black "sidekick" (or police superior). (Anyone else remember the so-called "Q-ratings" (public-popularity and name-recognition ratings put together by Hollywood (& Madison Avenue???) marketing departments) that many black film actors were complaining about in the 1980s? Now that's "demographics"!)

Who or what gets to appear (and also, who or what doesn't) in film or tv, on records, etc. is always demographics-driven, as is what is featured and for whom it is prepared in almost all the rest of consumer-oriented capitalist endeavor these days. Never forget that for even a moment.

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That's an understatement, if there ever were one. Black-and-white photography was essential to the moods of the original TZ episodes, and one reason the newer versions don't work for those of us who are priorly familiar with the originals is that the dreamlike---or, better---the nightmarish quality of the originals cannot be adequately duplicated in Technicolor®, or whatever it is they're using these days. I don't know why exactly, but I think that perhaps the "loudness" of the colors inevitably brightens the mood of the piece, despite any writer's, director's, or cinematographer's best efforts, whereas the very grayness of the originals dampened or muted that mood.

That applies also to producer Pen Densham's other epigonal commercial "take-off", The (New) Outer Limits, whose original was likewise produced in glorious black-and-white.

Despite their richer palatte of colors, the "take-offs" inevitably pale in comparison to the gray-shaded originals.

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An empty, totally needless remake. Made for young'ns who won't bother to look at the old (but easily available) black-and-white original. Adds absolutely nothing to The Twilight Zone repetoire---or to anything else. For a short while I thought they were going to play on race differences, since the doctor was obviously going to be black (we could see his hands) and the "imperious leader" on the screen was pretty obviously also played by a black actor (Roger Cross). But then the nurses all seemed to be white, so that would've been totally tricky. So, then I thought, what new twist will they give this (otherwise) exact copycat story? None. The make-up makes all the "normal" people look like burn victims instead of (sort of) like the "pig people" of the original.

The only change in the script that I could detect (I think) was the absence of the line in the original where the doctor tells Miss Tyler that she will be placed where "people like her are congregated", and she retorts angrily "You mean segregated, Doctor, don't you?!?", with accompanying rant. Maybe it was in there somewhere in this production and I just missed it.

And, man, I like Mark Snow's music normally, but in this show it keeps reminding me of The X-Files, which further reminds me how much I want and deserve something so much better than these tired retreads (covert or overt).

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