It’s impossible to overestimate the cultural impact of the original The Twilight Zone.
So many lovable elements of current TV -- like anthology formats, twist-based plots, and cerebral moral plays -- became popular through its success, and they continue to pervade some of the medium’s best efforts to date. Unrelated movies are said to have “Twilight Zone-ish” twists, and its tone is so well known that simply humming its theme song is universal shorthand for “shit’s getting spooky.” Not bad for a show that premiered in the 1950s.
While modern successors to The Twilight Zone exist, Black Mirror being the most popular, nearly all attempts to emulate Rod Serling’s original vision have fallen flat. TV reboots in the 1980s and in 2002 left little impact on the series’ legacy, and nobody wants to talk about the 1983 movie. In fact, what movie?
Since it’s proven difficult to capture the lightning in a bottle that made the show great, Jordan Peele’s 2019 reboot is a bold-ass move from the get go. After watching the first four episodes of the new The Twilight Zone, I can say that it seems like his risk paid off.
The new The Twilight Zone captures the uneasy feeling and creeping anticipation of many of the original series’ iconic episodes. Even though nearly everyone watching will be prepared for some kind of twist, the buildup and delivery of some episodes’ final moments is gut-wrenching. The show uses many of The Twilight Zone’s classic methods — montages, line repetitions, and full-circle storytelling — to lull the audience into a sense of comfort before smacking them in the face with a last-minute surprise.
Twilight Zone's strength remains in how quickly things go sideways for everyday people — and what their reactions can tell an audience about themselves.
The first two episodes of The Twilight Zone are “The Comedian” and “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet.” They are also the two best episodes provided for review. “The Comedian” is an excellent start to Peele’s new Zone, with a straightforward story hammered into wild shapes by Kumail Nanjiani’s unhinged performance as a down-on-his-luck stand up who accidentally bargains for a horrible power. It is the most classically Twilight Zone-y of the episodes, with familiar beats and a twist that wouldn’t be out of place among the original’s better offerings.
“Nightmare at 30,000 Feet” is a different animal. It is ostensibly a remake of one “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” an original episode famous for starring a young William Shatner. But in practice, it's a strong example of how far and well Peele is willing to stretch The Twilight Zone’s mythos. To say too much about the differences between the two episodes would be to spoil its shocking ending, but suffice to say it involves a prophetic podcast, Adam Scott, casual racism, PTSD, and a very familiar gremlin puppet.
Peele himself is intimately involved in each episode of The Twilight Zone, having taken over Rod Serling’s role as the well-dressed narrator who introduces and concludes every story. He doesn’t try to emulate Serling’s solemn newscaster tone but has his own, Peele-y gravitas. He’s having fun being the center of this warped universe, and it’s just as fun watching him.
The Twilight Zone has always been about putting ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and the reboot does a great job of highlighting the hidden menace in commonplace situations. Sure, there are magical camcorders and mysterious strangers, but the strength of the show remains in how quickly and simply things go sideways for everyday people — and what their reactions to being plunged into a dimension of impossibilities can tell an audience about themselves.
Of the many Twilight Zone reboots and resurrections, this feels like the first one to get it right. It understands what was good about the original, and effectively transports old fans and new converts to the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition...and welcomes them back to The Twilight Zone.
