The Twilight Zone (CBS All Access) (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

Just finished both. Underwhelmed each time, but for different reasons.

Peele’s not working for me as the narrator yet, but it’s not in any way his fault. I think I realized what it is. In the original show, Serling carried the weight of authorship with him. He wrote the majority of the scripts, did who-knows-how-many uncredited rewrites, and oversaw the whole thing. When he spoke, it wasn’t just a mouthpiece reading a script; it was like the voice of god revealing the secrets of the universe.

I know Peele is credited as an executive producer, but he’s not the showrunner and he hasn’t had a full writing credit on the show. It’s not “his” show in the way the original was Serling’s. And I think the narrator is only worth having on screen and in the show if it’s coming from someone in Serling’s position.

The first episode was way, way, way too long. At 20ish minutes, it would have worked.

I don’t love the hour long original TZ episodes, I couldn’t warm up to the hour long Outer Limits, and I have trouble with Black Mirror as well. Half an hour is perfect for these kinds of stories. It’s enough time to lay out an intriguing premise and set up and pay off a mystery or twist, but not too much time for the audience to get ahead of you. More than half of this episode was unnecessary to make the point it was making.

The Nightmare redo was a little better, but not by much. At 37 minutes, it was better paced, but still overlong. This was also an easy one to see where it was going, and i got there 15 minutes before the episode did. And because I had seen a version of this twice before, I never experienced any suspense. The original episode works in large part because the audience doesn’t quite know until the very end if they’re watching the delusions of a man losing his mind, or an insane thing happening to a sane person. But once you know the answer, it’s less fun to see a watered down, elongated version taking its time getting there.

In nitpicks, the plane interiors seemed unbelievably roomy for 2019, and I have a hard time believing that anyone is giving up a first class seat on a 12 hour international red-eye flight.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Just finished both. Underwhelmed each time, but for different reasons.

Peele’s not working for me as the narrator yet, but it’s not in any way his fault. I think I realized what it is. In the original show, Serling carried the weight of authorship with him. He wrote the majority of the scripts, did who-knows-how-many uncredited rewrites, and oversaw the whole thing. When he spoke, it wasn’t just a mouthpiece reading a script; it was like the voice of god revealing the secrets of the universe.

I know Peele is credited as an executive producer, but he’s not the showrunner and he hasn’t had a full writing credit on the show. It’s not “his” show in the way the original was Serling’s. And I think the narrator is only worth having on screen and in the show if it’s coming from someone in Serling’s position.

One of other thing is that Serling had a great and distinctive speaking voice that most narrators would kill to have in their arsenal.

 

[benbess]

I've been a fan of the original Twilight Zone for about 45 years, while my son has liked the show for about 15 years. We watched the first episode of the new one together and didn't care for it at all. It's way too long, way too obvious, not funny, not scary—just bad TV. Peele as narrator and the intro were all that worked for us. We think they should have kept the show to 25 minutes per episode, like the original. And I they should have put it in Peele's contract that he direct the first one—and choose the people who directed the other ones.

 

[benbess]

....Is the original TZ really that great, episode for episode....

For me, personally, the original Twilight Zone is a great show, even though about half of the episodes are mediocre—which leaves about half of the episodes in the good to great range. But anyway, this breakdown is close to how I'd rate the breakdown of episodes for Star Trek TOS, Next Gen, DS9, and Voyager.

 

[TonyD]

I didn’t like the conclusion to ep 2.
Everything leading up to the point when

Spoiler

the weird mystery guy ended up in the cockpit was good But I started questioning everything that happened previous to when guy went into cockpit.

The entire even was apparently created by that device that was predicting or making everything happen and none of it makes sense.
If The magazine guy never picks up that book reader does any of it happen?
I just think the book device created the event. The guy never gets into the cockpit without the device.
So I question the motivation for the device and the cockpit guy.

I did see that the doll was a copy of the one from the original TZ Shatner version.

 

[Doug Wallen]

Episode 2 was better, much better than the premier, but it still didn't quite hit me like I wanted it to. Was there really anything on the mp3 player or was it a delusion/premonition?

The episode left questions and didn't spark any deep discussions like the best original episodes did. I did feel the narrator/narration was better in this episode.

Neither episode left much of an impression but I will continue to check it out. I'm paid up through the end of the month .

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

Episode 2 was better, much better than the premier, but it still didn't quite hit me like I wanted it to. Was there really anything on the mp3 player or was it a delusion/premonition?

The episode left questions and didn't spark any deep discussions like the best original episodes did. I did feel the narrator/narration was better in this episode.

Neither episode left much of an impression but I will continue to check it out. I'm paid up through the end of the month .

Doug - are you also watching Star Trek discovery?

 

[Doug Wallen]

Absolutely.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I appreciate that unlike the lithgow version they at least changed it up a little but it was still a bit too long. It was the better of the two but not by much. I’ll watch it until Trek is over then make the decision to drop all access or not

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’ll almost certainly watch all of the new TZ episodes, but if it doesn’t get better before Discovery ends, I’m fine with waiting to finish TZ until after Trek is back.

I don’t think I’m going to want to pay $10 a month just for this show.

 

[Matt Hough]

I watched "The Comedian" tonight on YouTube. The premise held great promise in the best Twilight Zone tradition, but you could see the ending from a mile away, and I agree that it seemed a little long. The second episode was also on YouTube, but I didn't indulge as I don't like binging a show unless I'm having to review it on disc. I'll sample it some other night when TV is slower.

 

[Nelson Au]

I watched Nightmare at 30,000 Feet tonight. I can see what they were doing in setting up the reporter with the same conditions as the original with Shatner.

Spoiler

But instead of seeing something out the window, the MP3 player was the source of his terror.

But I’m with Tony, the conclusion doesn’t make sense.

 

[benbess]

As a little ps, I'm fortunate in that once in a while I get to teach a class on Sci Fi Film. I'm teaching it this semester, and the three episodes from the original show my students watched and analyzed were The Midnight Sun, Number 12 Looks Just Like You, and Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up. Although it was clear that these shows were very low budget compared to today's TV, they had surprisingly strong impacts on my c. 20 year old students. The original Twilight Zone actually worked better for them than the original Star Trek, which we watched the following week.

 

[Sam Favate]

"The Comedian" doesn't work. I hate to generalize, but the original show often showed us people living good lives (suburban families, successful businesspeople, friendly neighborhoods, etc.) and then took those people down the dark paths of the Twilight Zone, and in the process revealing the darker truths about our own good lives (or the lives with which we could identify).

"The Comedian" starts out with a guy who doesn't live a good life. He's struggling, not very good at what he does and doesn't seem to have many comforts. So, deconstructing his life as he goes through the Twilight Zone, it puts us in a downward spiral, exposing what truths? He was already living the dark path. It just got darker. I saw some similarities to original series episodes Where Is Everybody? and It's A Good Life. But it's not enough.

Personally, I miss the black and white episodes and the late 50s-early 60s period. I think the show should be B&W and set in that time period.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

As everyone has pointed out here, "The Comedian" could have benefited enormously from editing to a half-hour; the length isn't justified. The premise is solid - I know a few stand up comedians, and self-loathing is often a common denominator to the point of self-annihilation, but this was too obviously headed there. I did think the use of Tracy Morgan was inspired; who knew he could come off so sinister?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

A lot of things work at 25 minutes that just fall apart at twice the length. At 25 minutes, you can get away with broad strokes for character descriptions; at 50 minutes, it starts to feel one-note and underdeveloped. And plot wise, you can usually keep an audience guessing for twenty minutes, but longer than that, and they get ahead of you.

I think they probably should have kept the beginning, had the dog disappear but had a plausible alternative for how that could have happened so he didn’t figure it out right away. Then have him disappear her mentor, her life changes, he loses her, then he wipes himself out to undo the damage and restore her life to normal, (or wipes out his comedy career and they both go on to live happy but unfamous lives, the end. Something tighter that didn’t just repeat the same premise over and over.

 

[Kyrsten Brad]

In the Nightmare episode, I thought I caught a brief glimpse of the original TZ gremlin. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[TonyD]

In the Nightmare episode, I thought I caught a brief glimpse of the original TZ gremlin. Can anyone confirm this?

Someone already mentioned it.

I didn’t like the conclusion to ep 2.
Everything leading up to the point when

Spoiler

the weird mystery guy ended up in the cockpit was good But I started questioning everything that happened previous to when guy went into cockpit.

The entire even was apparently created by that device that was predicting or making everything happen and none of it makes sense.
If The magazine guy never picks up that book reader does any of it happen?
I just think the book device created the event. The guy never gets into the cockpit without the device.
So I question the motivation for the device and the cockpit guy.

I did see that the doll was a copy of the one from the original TZ Shatner version.

 

[Carabimero]

I kinda thought the point of the episode was that we sometimes make our worst dreads come true by obsessing over them too much.

 

[Sam Favate]

The second episode felt more like a Twilight Zone episode but it didn't make a lot of sense, as some of you noted. But I liked the atmosphere, the music, the photography. But It's really very different from the original episode from which it gets its name. I wish I could give it a passing mark for all the good stuff I mentioned (and the actors!) but the writing - the best thing about the original - is still lacking.