Agree. This new Twilight Zone's episodes are disappointing like Rod Serling's Night Gallery episodes were.
New version of The Twilight Zone to be on CBS All Access
- Thread starter Shaka Zulu
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I hate Trump. And I hated this episode. I like when messages are more subtle and not so obvious.
Anyone think that the episode was also a commentary on our social media obsession in the beginning of the ep with the kid getting millions of views with his viral videos?
Thank you for taking the time to write all of that because that's exactly how I felt, especially point 3).
The metaphor of this episode wasn't just painfully obvious, it was redundant. It just kept beating the same drum over and over and over again with no attempt to learn from the metaphor, which is very essence of The Twilight Zone. I'm shocked that this episode was actually produced and that anyone involved thought it was any good.
I'm all for mocking him but put some effort into it. This was just plain lazy. I've seen more effort in a Colbert monologue (not a knock on Colbert, I love him and his monologues).
I've watched the first 5 episodes and it's excellent nonsense! A good range of stories here, (Star Trek was already repeating it's themes 5 episodes in). Nice nostalgia with the original closing theme and other easter eggs. My favourite episode so far is episode 3. Worst episode so far IMO was probbly episode 4, I forget the titles.
Night Gallery is the shit! Just skip the ones not written by Rod Serling.
Night Gallery is the shit! Just skip the ones not written by Rod Serling.
I am glad because I want the show to get a chance. But if The Orville does not get renewed when this TZ, despite its flaws, did get renewed, it will be a crime against television.
While "The Wunderkind" may be absolute horseshit, it did have one redeeming quality: Chief Tyrol from nuBSG as the Marine general. He was actually pretty funny.
The kid, on the other hand...made Trump look like JFK. I don't think I've ever seen any character in any TV series in history, as annoying as this little shit.
About the only way I can make this episode make sense is that it never actually happened, and it's something Raff Hanks dreamed up in an alcoholic haze. That's probably what the writers did, anyway.
No 1015, though. That's the only reason I watched the whole thing - to see if 1015 would pop up again.
And I understand the reference, but...the "Whipple News Network"?
The kid, on the other hand...made Trump look like JFK. I don't think I've ever seen any character in any TV series in history, as annoying as this little shit.
About the only way I can make this episode make sense is that it never actually happened, and it's something Raff Hanks dreamed up in an alcoholic haze. That's probably what the writers did, anyway.
No 1015, though. That's the only reason I watched the whole thing - to see if 1015 would pop up again.
And I understand the reference, but...the "Whipple News Network"?
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This week we have episode five, "The Wunderkind" (starring that guy who was on the first season of Sleepy Hollow). This one was the most baffling yet. I think at this point we can safely say that this revival is aimed squarely at the Millennial Generation, because the levels of political naivete and thematic misfires are astonishing.
There really wasn't what you would call a story here. There was a sequence of events that involved a child being elected president, followed by his campaign manager apparently being killed because of a random statement the kid had made outlawing adult doctors. There was no thematic connection to any element of the story and no relevance to the assumed target of the satire. He might as well have been set upon by that pack of dogs. Furthermore, this pseudo-twist was telegraphed from the opening scene, so it wasn't even a surprise.
The most glaring deficit, aside from a plot, was the lack of a catalyst propelling us into the Twilight Zone. The original show would set the stage for a social satire of this magnitude by placing us unambiguously in an alternate reality or a vaguely futuristic time. But here there was no such surreal setting, nor was there even a mysterious bar patron or traveler, haunted video camera or MP3 player, or even a JFK silver dollar sitting inexplicably on edge. There wasn't even a prologue in the opening narration noting how all qualifications for the presidency had been impulsively repealed without thought to the consequences. Nothing. The venue was essentially the equivalent of our world in which more impossible things happened than even Mary Poppins could handle.
Clearly, this was supposed to be a satire of President The Donald-- but at this it failed badly. While the genuine article gained traction by exploiting the base vulgarity of one ideology and the moral abdication of the other, this kid won over the country across the board with love and puppies. What the hell kind of satire is that? The Donald is only childish in the sense that he's mentally retarded-- wouldn't an escapee from an asylum or a psychotic sniper be a better surrogate? Why make the theme that power corrupts when your source material is about how corruption is power? And how are we to parse the campaign manager, who had regrets and died for them? What is the message here, folks?
Next week: An outer-space adventure. Perhaps it will be a stinging indictment of mesothelioma.
There really wasn't what you would call a story here. There was a sequence of events that involved a child being elected president, followed by his campaign manager apparently being killed because of a random statement the kid had made outlawing adult doctors. There was no thematic connection to any element of the story and no relevance to the assumed target of the satire. He might as well have been set upon by that pack of dogs. Furthermore, this pseudo-twist was telegraphed from the opening scene, so it wasn't even a surprise.
The most glaring deficit, aside from a plot, was the lack of a catalyst propelling us into the Twilight Zone. The original show would set the stage for a social satire of this magnitude by placing us unambiguously in an alternate reality or a vaguely futuristic time. But here there was no such surreal setting, nor was there even a mysterious bar patron or traveler, haunted video camera or MP3 player, or even a JFK silver dollar sitting inexplicably on edge. There wasn't even a prologue in the opening narration noting how all qualifications for the presidency had been impulsively repealed without thought to the consequences. Nothing. The venue was essentially the equivalent of our world in which more impossible things happened than even Mary Poppins could handle.
Clearly, this was supposed to be a satire of President The Donald-- but at this it failed badly. While the genuine article gained traction by exploiting the base vulgarity of one ideology and the moral abdication of the other, this kid won over the country across the board with love and puppies. What the hell kind of satire is that? The Donald is only childish in the sense that he's mentally retarded-- wouldn't an escapee from an asylum or a psychotic sniper be a better surrogate? Why make the theme that power corrupts when your source material is about how corruption is power? And how are we to parse the campaign manager, who had regrets and died for them? What is the message here, folks?
Next week: An outer-space adventure. Perhaps it will be a stinging indictment of mesothelioma.
John Larroquette's cameo should have been longer. He was the only redeeming feature of that episode.
Yeah. Initially I thought he was going to be the Trump character, and would have a melt down when not winning the re-election and refuse to leave the white house.
Haven't seen "6 Degrees of Freedom" yet. What was it like? Better than the Wunderkind horseshit, I hope.
This week’s was better though at 53 minutes it was too long. It could’ve been half an hour easily. The twist was pretty obvious though but I only guessed it half right.
I haven't watched any of these yet, and after reading what you guys have been saying about the episodes not sure if I'm going to, I've got a lot of other better recieved things to watch. I still haven't checked out Black Mirror yet, and that seems to have gotten a much better reception.
My first thought when I heard about the kid president episode was the DC comics Prez. There are two versions of the comic, one from 1973/4 about a teenage boy is elected President after a new amendment to the Constitution is passed allowing teens to hold office. The other version is from 2015 and follows a teenage girl who is elected via Twitter.
My first thought when I heard about the kid president episode was the DC comics Prez. There are two versions of the comic, one from 1973/4 about a teenage boy is elected President after a new amendment to the Constitution is passed allowing teens to hold office. The other version is from 2015 and follows a teenage girl who is elected via Twitter.
"6 degrees of freedom" was really good. I always love space travel so I loved the themes of this episode. It was tense with some nice character moments. The scene with the guy freaking out about it all being a simulation was well done. The ending was good too.
Surely getting to the moon was good enough, to appease those wankers?
So was it real and the aliens were just watching or was it a simulation run by the aliens? I am thinking the latter since the guy who said it was simulation and opened the hatch to the void of space would have died if it was real but he was alive at the end. So it was a simulation just not run by humans to test them for survival but run by aliens to test them for first contact. Right?