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New version of The Twilight Zone to be on CBS All Access

I just saw the "Comedian" episode; and I gottya ask - did the producers just use a checklist because it just seems they were adding elements associated with previous TZ incarnations, but have ZERO CLUE why the elements are there or how they were effectively used to create a story with a point (as this partiocular story IMO really had none.)

I also gotta ask, given his girlfriend (who's life he changed by removing her mentor) broke up with him and moved out months before his 'final' standup routine; HTF did she suddenly show up at said routine with the notebook of people he thought sould be 'removed'? What? Did she suddenly forget that she left something at his apartment, broke in and decidied to rummage through the place, as well as a nondescript notebook he left lying around in there.

Plus the final scene where the 'Demon Comic' (my term as I don't recall what he was called) shows up and starts talking to the actually funny (I say that because she was supposedly the best comic in the place prior to what the Demon Comic did for the main character who WAS originally not funny at all) black female comic made little sense as she was already quite successful - so again the whole thing just seems random with a lot of previous TZ elements because "TZ" -- but zero clue as to what actually makes a good TZ type story. Plus at nearly 1 hour, it was too long for what they had in it.

Made me not want to bother with any of the other episodes.
 
Cyrus said:
I think a lot of us dropped CBS AA when Discovery season ended. We will back for Picard.
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I've cancelled my CBS AA subscription as well now. I will probably sign up again for the Picard show. I kept the sub a bit after Discovery ended in order to give this TZ a chance but it has disappointed me. So at this point, I don't have any shows on CBS AA that warrant keeping my sub.
 
Got caught up. No comment on the president kid episode, it seems enough has already been said in this thread.

The Mars mission was easily the best episode of the series so far. Great mystery, great tension, and some great acting too in some of those freak-out scenes. It flew past too, it didn't seem to drag much at all.

This past episode with the men going crazy was actually a bit fun. Some nice little chase and thriller stuff going on, though I felt the twist ending was rather stupid, especially the soldier telling her to smile.
 
To all the folks debating whether they should keep watching the show, well, you all have to make your own decisions, but it's not a stretch to say that there are better choices out there. You want some crazy fun weirdo stuff, go watch Black Monday or What We Do In The Shadows. You want some dramatic stuff, go watch Sharp Objects or Killing Eve. (Just examples, there are tons of good shows out there.)

If you're the type of person who only has time to watch 10 tv shows a year, you can do better than Twilight Zone. If you're up to maybe 30 or 40 tv shows, then yeah, you can stick with Twilight Zone and hope we get more really good episodes like the spaceship one.
 
I think there's only three episodes left, so I might as well go the distance. I've already given it more of a chance than Discovery, since it at least felt superficially like Twilight Zone (although the last episode didn't even have that), and had the potential for improvement.
 
Found on Reddit. It gave me a chuckle...

Reviewing "The Hitchhiker" (1960) as if I were a redditor reviewing the reboot

u/hithere297
Hey, so I just finished watching The Hitchhiker and I gotta say, I'm disappointed. I wanted to like it, I really did. But it just wasn't good, and I'll explain why:

So, the episode starts off with a young woman getting her car fixed. She's driving all alone on the highway and it's like, we get it, Twilight Zone: women can drive. They're independent now. No need to shove this down our throats.

I managed to get past that, though, but then we spend like the whole episode watching this woman get followed around by some weird stalker guy who can teleport for some reason. (Of course the stalker is white, but whatever.) If he'd just popped up once or twice, that would be one thing, but the episode gets so fucking repetitive by having him pop up like a billion times. This episode easily could've been cut by at least twenty minutes and nothing would've been lost.

As if this weren't enough, the woman also gives a monologue about how she's being followed, and it's like "yeah, show. We know. We can see it." Didn't this show used to be subtle? It used to be they could make a point without bashing it all over our heads. Stop spoon-feeding us exposition, writers. We're not idiots, we can figure it out on our own.

The episode ends with the woman finding out her mother is in the hospital. Turns out her mother had some sort of breakdown after the main woman died in a car crash, but that doesn't make any sense because we've seen her after the car crash, and she was perfectly fine. Then she gets into the car with the stalker, and it's like, what is this show trying to say? The writers seem confused as to what point they're trying to make.

Again, I really wanted to like this episode, but the writing was so sloppy and inconsistent that I couldn't enjoy it. I've had such high hopes for Rod Serling but unfortunately he seems to be the victim of his own hype.
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From what I've found through the first 3 or 4 episodes, the show isn't really that good.

From what I'm reading from these comments on the episodes I didn't see, the show has gone political. So no real point in continuing. It's anthology, no recurring classic characters, and it's a shame.
 
Mr. Laser Beam said:
"Point of Origin" looks to be one as well.
in this case, immigration.
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Not really...

The focus of the episode's critism is far more on the ignorance and indifference of citizens as their neighbors are being mistreated- and the irony of a nation of immigrants looking down on immigrants.

It's calling out us, rather than our elected officials.

Government agents were present and malevolent in the same way that racist police were in "Replay." The episode wasn't about them and their behaviour was presented as a given.

YMMV

Great episode, btw.
 
Kelso said:
There has only been one political episode.

Many of them have involved moral issues.
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From this thread, I'm counting at least three. The racist white cop was political. I saw that one. The one others are describing seems universally political, and apparently last night, they did the old immigration episode. I'd like to watch The Twilight Zone, not The Liberal Zone.

I really wish writers would just tell their stories while focusing on entertainment and stop with the politics.
 
By that metric, any story addressing social or moral issues can be labeled "political."

So, yeah, I'd say the show isn't for you.
 
Not any story, but when they all do the same thing, and all take extreme positions, demonize anyone who isn't hard core extreme, and mischaracterize the other side, yes, that's not good, and yes, you're right that the show isn't for me. If that's what they want to do, it's their show, but let's call a duck a duck and own it.
 
Kirk Prime said:
From this thread, I'm counting at least three. The racist white cop was political. I saw that one. The one others are describing seems universally political, and apparently last night, they did the old immigration episode. I'd like to watch The Twilight Zone, not The Liberal Zone.

I really wish writers would just tell their stories while focusing on entertainment and stop with the politics.
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I must say - if that's your feeling, had you watched Rod Serling's original TZ when it was first run, you wouldn't have liked it either. There are more overtly political messages in it that now 50 years later are unrecognized by modern audiences.
 
Preview for "The Blue Scorpion" looks really interesting. I'm actually looking forward to this episode!

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