Episode Guide
The Comedian – | Review Score – 3.5/5 Nightmare at 30,000 Feet – | Review Score – 4/5 Replay – | Review Score – 1.5/5 A Traveler– | Review Score – 3/5 The Wunderkind– | Review Score – 2/5 Six Degrees of Freedom– | Review Score – 3.5/5 Not All Men– | Review Score – 1/5 Point of Origin– | Review Score – 2.5/5 The Blue Scorpion– | Review Score – 3.5/5 Blurryman – | Review Score – 3.5/5 Out of all the anthology shows I’ve watched over the years, I can’t remember a time where the episode quality has been quite so drastic from week to week. Jordan Peele’s rebooted Twilight Zone is a serious mixed bag of quality, with some hidden gems drowned out by a trove of socially and politically charged narratives and subverted plot twists that go nowhere. When it comes to disappointing reboots this year, The Twilight Zone is certainly up there with one of the worst. Stylistically at least, The Twilight Zone is a good looking show and the episodes themselves are visually very nicely presented. There’s an ebb and flow to a lot of the episodes and the unsettling tone running through many of them is partly thanks to the musical score and interesting camera angles used. These parts in particular really make The Twilight Zone aesthetically pleasing but it’s let down by some questionable storytelling and an inconsistent quality. For all the good visuals, The Twilight Zone lets itself down with agenda-driven writing and nonsensical plot twists that go nowhere. Whether it be a child President personifying Donald Trump or contrived racial issues, Twilight Zone presents big ideas in a haphazard and sloppy manner, failing to make this pay off in many of the episodes. There are stand-outs here though, including Blue Scorpion and Nightmare At 30,000 Feet, but these feel far too rare given the hype behind this show. It’s a shame too, as there’s a fair few famous faces that crop up that add some star power but for the most part they feel wasted in a show that feels far too agenda-driven than it should be. The Twilight Zone of old reveled in the weird and wonderful and while that is still evident here to an extent, it’s muddied by the modern plot lines that try and mix this with present day social issues. With The Twilight Zone already renewed for a second season and the show ending on an admittedly high note this year, there’s still hope here that this one will turn it around and deliver good on its premise. With less politically charged plot lines and a much more consistent quality across all the episodes, The Twilight Zone could be one of the best anthology shows out there once again. As it stands though, the quality is really lacking, held back from being a better show and ultimately becoming one of the bigger disappointments of the year.
