New version of The Twilight Zone to be on CBS All Access
- Thread starter Shaka Zulu
- Start date
Both episodes were ok and mostly predictable. It looks like next week's episode is going to be good, though. I'll keep watching for now.
I'll agree with most that The Comedian was a bit too long, I liked the ending though.
Nightmare at 30,000 Feet was great, it was an interesting angle for a remake. Hearing Dan Carlin from Hardcore History did take me out of it. Great storytelling voice though.
Nightmare at 30,000 Feet was great, it was an interesting angle for a remake. Hearing Dan Carlin from Hardcore History did take me out of it. Great storytelling voice though.
The other female comedian clearly said at the beginning that he had been exonerated. I suppose he had a real good lawyer...
That other problem I had was why
why his girlfriend didn't say something like "darling, why are you talking in your skit about people who doesn't exist?"
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the rule was clear: he had to say the name of the person to make him/her to disappear. To erasing everyone he had to name 7 billions of people...
Just finished It's still a good life, the 2003 sequel to It's a Good life, with Cloris Leechman and Billy Mumy. The actress playing Billy's daughter looked a lot like Billy. 
Saw a Twilight Zone tonight called "Quarantine" starring an impossibly you Scott Wilson from The Walking Dead, which I liked.
The Comedian was dumb.
The plane one was better but... Meh?
Saw a Twilight Zone tonight called "Quarantine" starring an impossibly you Scott Wilson from The Walking Dead, which I liked.
The Comedian was dumb.
The plane one was better but... Meh?
I do think that the episode was a bit long for Twilight Zone, but that didn't make it bad-- just different from (most) Zones. TZ should have punch, and this was a slow-burning nightmare. Which was fine.
The cast was good (Samir's frenemy was a knockout) and the guy who played Samir was great with his face language at communicating the realization, horror, indulgence, and repentance that were swirling around in his head. After the dog and the nephew vanished, it didn't take him long to figure out what was happening-- he probably watched Twilight Zone as a kid-- and his first impulse was to use his newfound power to make the world a better place, which was the whole purpose behind his strident, humorless routine from the start. But then the negative consequences kicked in and when he lost his girlfriend he went completely off the rails. The montage of him shrieking his hatred of his former tormenters while the audience inexplicably laughed was both chilling and painful.
In true TZ fashion, the universe just decided to screw with Samir for no apparent reason, maybe just to see what would happen. We'll probably never know who TC Wheeler really was. He was introduced as a famous former comedian, but why did he show up now to mess with Samir? Did he sell his own soul once, and this is now his Hell? Was it a test? Did he succeed with Samir or fail?
The ending I expected-- or at least what I would have done-- is go out and do a routine about TC Wheeler. That would have undone all the events of the story, and perhaps a lot more. But Samir's redemption by self destruction, followed by the final twist of Wheeler moving on to his next victim, was classic TZ.
All in all, it was pretty good. Better than the last revival, perhaps as good as the 80s version. We'll see what they have in store for us.
The cast was good (Samir's frenemy was a knockout) and the guy who played Samir was great with his face language at communicating the realization, horror, indulgence, and repentance that were swirling around in his head. After the dog and the nephew vanished, it didn't take him long to figure out what was happening-- he probably watched Twilight Zone as a kid-- and his first impulse was to use his newfound power to make the world a better place, which was the whole purpose behind his strident, humorless routine from the start. But then the negative consequences kicked in and when he lost his girlfriend he went completely off the rails. The montage of him shrieking his hatred of his former tormenters while the audience inexplicably laughed was both chilling and painful.
In true TZ fashion, the universe just decided to screw with Samir for no apparent reason, maybe just to see what would happen. We'll probably never know who TC Wheeler really was. He was introduced as a famous former comedian, but why did he show up now to mess with Samir? Did he sell his own soul once, and this is now his Hell? Was it a test? Did he succeed with Samir or fail?
The ending I expected-- or at least what I would have done-- is go out and do a routine about TC Wheeler. That would have undone all the events of the story, and perhaps a lot more. But Samir's redemption by self destruction, followed by the final twist of Wheeler moving on to his next victim, was classic TZ.
All in all, it was pretty good. Better than the last revival, perhaps as good as the 80s version. We'll see what they have in store for us.
I watched the classic Twilight Zone episode "It's A Good Life" and a brilliant analysis of the movie adaptation of this episode by Rob Aggar at YouTube yesterday. The classic episode was expertly written. Of the four episodes from that movie, this is the one which stuck out the most to me. It's scary to imagine a kid having that much power, as they do not yet understand the concept of life and death.
I'm thinking that the TZ's format (moral tale with a twist ending) is not the best suited for the modern audience because:
- If you rely on only these elements, well, an hour is simple too much
- When in the 50s I suppose the twist endings were a smart novelty, well, today I believe that a good chunk of the audience can guess the ending after the first few minutes...
Regarding the ending of "Nightmare at 30,000 ft",
was everybody actually dead and we were seeing an afterlife where the passengers beat Andy for what he did? It seems unlikely that everyone would have survived a crash landing that left the plane in pieces plus the passengers looked like zombies suggesting that they were already dead. But if they were really all alive then that would mean the suicidal pilot also survived. Why didn't the passengers go after him since he was the real culprit instead of Andy? I mean sure Andy played a key role in the crash since he gave the pilot the codes to get into the cockpit so it made total sense for the passengers to blame him but they should still go after the pilot since he was the one who actually crashed the plane.
Perhaps Wheeler was like Fats Brown in "A Game Of Pool": A real person, who is now deceased (at one point in "The Comedian", Samir mentions that Wheeler was there, and the bartender was like "Yeah, right") who keeps coming back to tempt present day comedians.
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Yeah, Wheeler did remind me of the Fats Brown character a bit.
Also, anyone notice that Samir appears in the mural on the wall at the very end of the episode. I wonder if the mural is actually all the comedians that have disappeared the same way Samir did?
Planet Canada alert:
The law prof who was the mentor to Samir's girlfriend was the Armistice Station officer from nuBSG's pilot episode.
The law prof who was the mentor to Samir's girlfriend was the Armistice Station officer from nuBSG's pilot episode.
Ryan Robbins, who later had another role on BSG as Connor, a civilian introduced as a resistance member in the New Caprica storyline and later bartender on Galactica who also took part in Gaeta's mutiny against Adama. Stargate fans might recognize him as Ladon Radim, a Genii soldier part of the assault team to take Atlantis in the first season episodes The Storm/The Eye and later staged a coup to become the Genii leader. He's probably more recognized among genre fans for his role on Sanctuary.Planet Canada alert:
The law prof who was the mentor to Samir's girlfriend was the Armistice Station officer from nuBSG's pilot episode.
"Twilight Zone" is one of a few shows that has no canon as such, making revivals or even "reboots" a lot easier to accept without the so-called "baggage of canon" that all these other shows had to build their names up with in the first place, keeping in mind all these shows that are being rebooted because of "brand recognition" might never have been made if the same mindset existed when they were first made.
Let's see 'em remake the episode where the sexy human is called ugly by everyone else. And what direction they take it. But that one would be too easy.
Let's see 'em remake the episode where the sexy human is called ugly by everyone else. And what direction they take it. But that one would be too easy.
Isn't that basically every so called "ugly" person on every TV show or movie?
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So far I'm liking it. I'm not too familiar with Jordan Peele's work (beyond names), so seeing it in action is new for me. "The Comedian" was good, though I felt it could have been a half hour episode. "Nightmare at 30,000 feet" was solid, and felt much tighter at just over 35 minutes. They're promising starts, and I hope the show gets even better from here. It certainly has the star power to keep people tuned in, and the writing is pretty on point.