 |
| (2019 - ) |
I really wanted to like this new version of the Twilight Zone. When I heard Jordan Peele was the showrunner * my interest piqued even more. Like everyone else I thought Get Out was pretty cool, and while I hated Us, it had yet to materialize when the news broke. He seemed like a good choice. And when I heard he was going to be an on-screen narrator as well as showrunner, I liked it even more. This would be the first Zone since the first where that was the case.
That's proven to be a tricky area of navigation in the other incarnations of TZ. The 80s show opted to keep the narrator offscreen, and that worked pretty well but - to many - it just wasn't the same without the camera whipping around to see Rod Serling directly addressing the audience, cigarette in hand. You knew the story had been personally vetted by the guy on screen. As this wasn't the case with Charles Aidman or with Forrest Whittaker, who, while onscreen, just seemed like an actor playing a part.
* Some say for the 2019 version Peele is the showrunner in name only. Peele himself equivocates on the subject in interviews. So who knows? Does the buck stop with him or one of the other showrunners, Greg Yaitaines or Simon Kinberg?
I was also curious to know: what would a new Zone look like in the wake of things like Black Mirror? I remember, for example, prior to the release of the first Daniel Craig Bond having a conversation with a fellow Bond fan about the impact of 24. It's apples to oranges, perhaps, but 24 made the Brosnan-era Bonds look and feel a little behind the times. We were all pleasantly surprised by how that one (at least) worked out.
Alas, not the case here. Apparently the powers that be felt the right response to things like Black Mirror was to put out a TZ that seems more concerned with hitting every branch of the Wokeness Tree as it free falls to the ground. Almost like a punt; "we'll never match or beat these guys so let's just woke the shit out of this and keep it moving." This is virtue signalling, not storytelling, and it definitely doesn't need to be called "The Twilight Zone." If it was called "The Twitter Zone" (and it's worth mentioning Yaitaines was an angel investor in Twitter, the West's premier social-shaming and un-personing platform) it would make sense.
But, you say, this is The Twilight Zone! Sense need not apply, right? Agreed. But I'm talking storytelling sense. There are plenty of episodes (from each previous incarnation) that relegate making sense to evoking a particular vector of anxiety. All well and good. But here it's a very, very particular and obnoxiously Voxsplainey anxiety. These aren't anxieties we all share or can learn from, in other words; this is bullet-point list of your garden variety wokester's social media preoccupations and mental shortcuts.
Once you realize this, the lack of sense quickly makes sense. You will never see an episode like "The Obsolete Man", for example, on this new Twilight Zone, because the show seems to be, bizarrely, on the side of the state from that episode. That is... an odd predicament for something called The Twilight Zone to be in.
Your mileage might vary on these conclusions. So it goes. Let me say, too, I like plenty of things that do not share my own political conclusions, but they have to make sense as stories. Without that, it's just agitprop. And agitprop ain't The Twilight Zone; it's an indictment.
Let's see what that indictment looks like. From least to most... I can't say favorite, because these are all non-favorites, for the most part. Generally speaking, though, if each of the following had been trimmed down to twenty-five minutes and handed off to people less interested in narrativemongering and more into sci-fi/ storytelling, they all probably would have worked. It's a shame.
10.
"Replay"
Directed by Gerald McMurray. Written by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds.
A woman with a magic camcorder that rewinds reality struggles to stop a policeman from Occupy Democrats central casting from shooting her son for driving and/or dreaming while black.
The Black Lives Matter episode.
Look, let's put to one side the argument on the actual facts that animate the BLM narrative. Whether you think this episode paints a reality or an unreality sustained with extreme prejudice by a wildly irresponsible media-academe - who just may be getting the very people of whom they purport to care killed in greater numbers than they have to be - let's just get that out of the away. It doesn't matter what's real or unreal, here, it only matters if people can relate to the anxiety. If done well, then anyone could; if done poorly, then only people who believe in the silly caricatures of take-your-pick-media and attendant narrative framing will do so.
To say "Replay" fails to even nod in the direction of any outside its own echo chamber is an understatement. None of the details add up. None of the characters seem like real people or say real-people-things. This is basically emotional tortureporn but also - somehow - the definition of narrative masturbation. That people want to masturbate to Black Lives Matter fantasies is deeply embarrassing. (And disturbing! Of all the things to masturbate to, FFS.)
 |
| Also: this dude is totally doing it wrong, isn't he? The BLM sign is supposed to be facing the street. Is he reminding himself while he sits in his otherwise-awesome-looking study? (A quick word on sets in general for the show: the production value is outstanding. Every episode had one room at least that I wanted to spend time in.) |
A fine waste of Sanaa Lathan, which should be punishable by fine. The episode flirts at one point with an interesting premise, i.e. "connect with Home to avoid vicious cycles." Think of how much better something like that is done in Octavia Butler, or Alice Walker, just to name a couple. But of course, the episode is not concerned with doing its job well; this is agitprop for fellow travelers of this narrative. As is:
9.
"Point of Origin"
Directed by Mathias Herndl. Written by John Griffin.
The nanny of a wealthy socialite is taken away by immigration authorities. Get ready for the big twist: it is the wealthy socialite who is the real alien! An ice cream truck that appears every so often reminds us that this is, like, about America and stuff.
The Open Borders/ Dreamers episode.
It was a toss-up between "Replay" and this one for worst of the 2019 season. Not only is the point thoroughly confused (and at odds with its own messaging, something that happens so often it might be considered a design feature rather than an ironic glitch of the intersectional left) the plot is presented in such an absolute jumble and the performances so terrible that my wife and I had to ask a dozen people just what the hell this was supposed to be about.
There was a pretty cool episode of the revamped X-Files (written by Darin Morgan, so always an occasion) that did such a more intelligent, more entertaining, more internally cohesive, and just all-around better take on many of the same themes here. And I didn't walk away from that episode feeling hectored (incoherently).
8.
"Not All Men"
Directed by Christina Chloe. Written by Heather Anne Campbell.
A weird meteor shower activates the toxic masculinity that lies dormant in even the mildest of men and sets them on a rampage. Two women are stunning and brave in face of the calamity.
The #YesAllMen episode.
A tonally one-note deal that squanders a somewhat fun premise by reminding us every few minutes that this is NOT a metaphor. With tears of rage in its eyes. At episode's end, not even gay men who practice appropriate allyship are safe, although one can "choose" their way out of it, apparently, if they just woke hard enough.
Think of how much better they did this sort of thing on Buffy. Or in the movie Slither.
The above three episodes are virtually unwatchable once their premises get tangled up in the confusion of virtue signals. The next three are ruined by their endings but are actually fairly compelling up until then. That makes them even more disappointing, so I considered putting them in the bottom three spots, but at least they're watchable enough until they blow it.
7.
"Blurry Man"
Directed by Simon Kinberg. Written by Alex Rubens.
A writer on the new Twilight Zone series is menaced by the blurry man of the title and tries to unlock the repressed memory that seems to be blocking her from finishing her rewrites. Then she remembers - man, she used to love the Twilight Zone! - and then Blurry Man turns out to be Rod Serling.
 |
| Egads. |
Both Jordan Peele (who is clearly sending up himself so we shouldn't take him too seriously) and Sophie refer to the Twilight Zone as having had Rod Serling put himself in every episode "until now." I suppose you could make the case for his "appearing" in the other two Twilight Zones by virtue of his image being used in the opening credits. Otherwise, it's a bit of a pointless dis to the narrators/ hosts of the other series, no?
Another in the "makes no damn sense" category but the lead is pretty good and easy to watch going through increasingly silly set pieces.
 |
| Some of which are pretty to look at, though. |
The episode is conflicted on what it wants to be and why it wants to do what it's attempting to do or attempting to explore through Sophie's choice (ahem). But no clear answer is given, because the dilemma is not clearly defined. Needed a few more rewrites. Again, though, such things ("refining the script" "making it make sense" "having a point) are not the point, and I shouldn't harp on them.
The ending is very dumb. Why would Rod Serling be terrorizing this poor woman with lightning bolts and explosions and tables flipping over and all the rest if he just wants to, what, welcome her to the Zone? Help her become a better writer? (Huh?) Is she accepting her break with reality at the end or being invited into a pantheon she has disavowed? And did she disavow it? We learn nothing from the moments shown from her childhood. The whole thing just unravels fatally with the dumbness of the reveal.
6.
"Nightmare at 30,000 Feet"
Directed by Greg Yaitanes. Story by Simon Kinberg, Jordan Peele, and Marco Ramirez.
Adam Scott is white and not even getting to board the plane in the "privilege lane" (!) makes him feel any better about it. When he finds a magic mp3 player where Dan "Hardcore History" Carlin tells the story of the airplane's destruction, he tries to save everyone, but he's just too damn white. At the end, his fellow travelers tear him to shreds.
Jesus Harold Christ this fucking episode. (The "White Privilege" episode if it even needs to be said.) It's actually incredibly tense and watchable, so kudos all around, but the self-loathing/ narcissism two-punch is bigger than any I've seen in recent memory. They even throw in some anti-semitism to woke it up even more by having the flight from Washington, DC bound for Tel Aviv, i.e. "the Zionist capitol" in the progressive-media imagination. This is an unconscionably racist episode somehow unaware of how hateful and racist it actually is.
And what to make of the ending? The narrator tells us that Adam Scott is an investigative journalist unwilling to investigate himself. But it is not himself he's supposed to be investigating; it's his whiteness, as defined by Linda Sarsour or Tamika Malloy, of course. Interesting how that's always the case. I was reminded of the end of 1984. ("He had won the battle over himself; he loved Big Brother.")
"Too! Damn! White!" might have improved the episode a bit had they named it that. At least that would add a touch of levity. (In fact, make it a comedy about intersectionalist mayhem, ending exactly the same way, and it's probably a lot closer to great than it is to terrible.) As it is, everyone Adam Scott talks to except the batshit white terrorist hates him, and then, at episode's end, kills him forever. Or something. Again with the negative-affirmation masturbational fantasies.
5.
"The Comedian"
Directed by Owen Harris. Written by Alex Rubens.
A struggling comedian makes an unknowing deal with a legendary comic that sends his career to the stars but with a catch: the real things he brings up result in those things disappearing from the world. He tries to stay one step ahead of this power until it ultimately consumes him and he joins the 4th of July Ball mural at the back of the room.
The Cancel Culture episode.
The wokeness is definitely front and center, but there's just enough self-awareness here on cancel culture being an ultimately nihilistic thing to carry the day. It's essentially a Magic Peddler/ be-careful-what-you-wish-for sort of deal. And the lead (Kumail Nanjiani) sells it well; I was genuinely interested in the relationship between him and his wife, his family, etc.
And at least it all adds up, too. This is the first we've looked at that does so. So why is it here at #5 instead of any higher? One reason: Didi Scott (Diarra Kilpatrick.)
Every moment with her onscreen is a small eternity of agony. Much has been made in recent years about comedians who have no actual jokes, who just shout their wokeness at you. She may even be sending up the thing, who knows; Samir's character certainly is. (Witness his bombing with his "edgy" Second Amendment material.) But Didi, somehow, keeps getting screentime, and there is no sense that we're supposed to be judging her equally. And at episode's end, she seems poised to take the same poisoned apple. But why? The world is doomed when she gets the power; can anyone plausibly see such a character cancelling herself to save anyone or anything? Is that the note the episode should end on: and then the world was cancelled, thanks to Didi Scott. That's the way the cookie crumbles... in the Twilight Zone.
With "The Comedian," the show wants its cake (i.e. these comedians are awful; this way of life is destructive; be careful what you wish for) and to eat it (far too many over the top lines to quote, with "STAY IN YOUR BITCH-ASS LANE!" probably the least offensive) too. An experiment: swap the casting for the Didi Scott character with the straw man drunk driver comic character, and let events unfold exactly the same way. How do your feelings change?
4.
"The Wunderkind"
Directed by Richard Shepard. Written by Andrew Guest.
After botching the re-election campaign of an incumbent President, Raff Hanks, a would-be kingmaker, seeks to redeem himself (or perhaps get revenge on an America that spurned his expertise) by getting Oliver, an eleven year old You Tube star, elected. When Oliver makes it to the White House and passes all sorts of crazy laws, Raff regrets his decision.
This is kind of a fun one. Good performance from John Cho, if nothing else. If you think the narcissism of the pundit/ political advisor class is a clear and present danger in this country - and I'm not sure the makers of this episode do but I sure do - it's kind of darkly funny in several spots. America's political-media elites are still in denial about the election of 2016. A missed opportunity here, perhaps, to examine that a bit, but examining the denial can still be instructive to those of us outside that loop. (Witness for example how Oliver's parents are what is sometimes referred to as "Fox News Hot.")
It's an interesting premise. Anyone who hasn't read Prez (the DC comic) or the Sandman story deconstructing it or seen Wild in the Streets should do so; it'll give you something to contrast this against.
It's not very realistic (the campaign especially) but it almost rises to enjoyable. Vulture - who gets literally everything wrong, which is a gift - calls it a "facile stab at political satire," so you know just from that that there's something here. Jordan's wrap-up at the end is good: "Society is a fragile ecosystem. Razzle and dazzle people with the right lies and eventually they'll go blind to the madness right in front of their faces. Raff Hanks made a living selling the American dream. But, once sold, he created a true nightmare that he couldn't buy back."
Ahh, projection. A helluva drug.
3.
"The Blue Scorpion"
Directed by Craig William Macneil. Written by Glen Morgan.
A depressed anthropology professor learns his father has killed himself. While going through his things he discovers a gun called the Blue Scorpion with a bullet with his name ("Jeff") on it. From that point on, everyone he meets seems to be named Jeff, and he feels increasingly compelled to use the gun, at one time even speaking the words of his father's suicide note ("I love him more than I ever loved you") to his estranged ex-wife (whose new lover he tries to shoot). When he rids himself of the gun at the end, it's found by two boys, one of whom discovers the name on the bullet has changed to his own.
The Guns Episode.
I'll say it one more time: edit this one down to twenty-five minutes and you might really have something here. It's overstuffed with gun narrative half-thoughts - practically every one you've ever heard, all put into a blender - and that wears a bit thin over forty-five minutes. It inevitably leads to a Taxi Driver-esque showdown (i.e. an explosion of violence where the mentally disturbed lead is mistakenly lauded as a hero).
As a coherent comment about guns, or violence, or depression, it fails pretty hard. As an accurate description of woke confusion, disdain (my favorite is the "gun superstore" salesman Jeff keeps talking to throughout, who shares snippets of "the legendary Blue Scorpion," etc.) and anxiety on the topic, it lands pretty well. This is one of the few episodes I feel like watching again, even more than the next two. I can't say it's a success, but there's some interesting stuff going on. I've read dozens of "harrowing descent into mental obsession" stories over the years, and this felt like it'd have read well as a short story.
Too bad the lead isn't played by Will Ferrell. Chris O'Dowd does a good job, don't get me wrong, but Ferrell would have lent a little something extra to it. Or maybe Jim Carrey, who's especially vocal in his gun narrative confusion in the real world.
2.
"Six Degrees of Freedom"
Directed by Jakob Verbruggen. Written by Heather Anne Campbell and Glen Morgan.
The crew of the Bradbury spacecraft barely escapes Earth on its planned mission to Mars before North Korea launches its nukes (a specific obsession of the blue-checkmark gliteratti a couple of years ago) at the United States, engulfing the world in nuclear war. Over the long journey to the red planet, the crew fractures, and one member, Jerry, is seemingly killed when he goes out the airlock. The survivors make it to Mars, while Jerry, it is revealed, has been captured by aliens who have been monitoring the crew to determine if they're worth saving.
Okay, just to get my only complaint out of that way: this isn't a terribly original story. Not everything has to reinvent the wheel, but it seems very inspired by things like The Outer Limits episode "Nightmare." Just to name one of the more one-to-one examples. (I'm sure there's a Ray Bradbury Theater episode it's ripping off, as well, but I can't put my finger on it.) Again, though, this a show that prioritizes its optics over all else, so plot redundancy isn't a big concern. Fair enough.
Outside of that, it's pretty good. Who doesn't like a close-quarters/crew-fracturing/ are-we-really-already-dead sort of tale? What? Bad timing, yes, I agree. It could have been better, but compared to most of the above, it's Citizen Kane.
The title makes little sense, no? To the story? Of course, it wasn't chosen to make sense to the story.
1.
"A Traveler"
Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour. Written by Glen Morgan.
At the height of the annual Christmas party in the far north of Alaska where Captain Lane Pendleton pardons whomever's in the lock-up, a mysterious man appears in one of the cells. He claims to be "A Traveler," who is here to chronicle Pendleton's famous parties for his adventure-travel-audience. In reality he is the spearhead of an alien invasion. He promises to give Yuka Mogoyak, a native Alaskan police officer, a position of authority. At episode's end, Jack, her brother, shrugs off the invasion; maybe it'll be better with them in charge.
I basically enjoy Storm of the Century enough where some of that affection carries over to obvious homages like this. It also evokes "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" as well as "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," and has a lot of engaging performances. Easy to pick it as my favorite, even if it's not a very well-constructed episode. It hums along nicely enough, though.
The main problem is the one facing each episode of the series: attempting to shoehorn things that make zero sense into things (everyone rolling with the sudden appearance of someone in a locked cell underneath the station, his entire cover story, his alias as "A. Traveler," that the North Koreans and Soviets would have heard of Lane Pendleton's "famous" Christmas parties, etc.) that make metaphorical sense (arbitrary pardons, white colonization of Alaska, cultural appropriation, Christmas, etc.)
All that said, it's kind of slim pickings for the first season of new Zone, and this is my pick of the best of the lot.
~
Hope season two is better. It's possible. Lord knows there's enough existential anxiety around right now to move beyond luxury beliefs like woke dogma and into more archetypal things. It might even be considered a public service worthy of the (actual)... Twilight Zone.
