THE TWILIGHT ZONE

Available on disc

1. The Comedian
2. Nightmare at 30,000 Feet
3. Replay
4. A Traveler
5. The Wunderkind
6. Six Degrees of Freedom
7. Not All Men
8. Point of Origin
9. The Blue Scorpion
10. Blurryman

THE COMEDIAN

An unsuccessful stand up comedian meets a master of the craft and is promised that if he uses material from his own past, he will find the laughs. What he aslo finds is that whatever he references disappears forever and the present is changed as a result. As his success grows, but his life gets worse, what will he be willing to sacrifice for career success?

This second entry in the new series suffers from a number of weaknesses that make it a lot less successful that the opening story. For a story set in a comedy store, it has very little in the way of laughs. True, the magic means that the comedian doesn't have to actually be funny for the audience to laugh, but that's something of a cop-out. Matters would have been greatly improved with a few funny routines included.

The more significant failing is that almost nobody in the whole story is likeable. Kumil Nanjiani gives a strong performance, but is relentlessly unlikeable, willing to sacrifice others for his own career goals. His lack of remorse at the loss of his nephew is telling. As a result, we care less and less about him and his story.

The final outcome, the final twist, is predictable from about halfway through, which is a shame.

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NIGHTMARE AT 30,000 FEET

A PTSD-suffering investigative reporter on a flight to cover a risk-free story finds an mp3 player with a podcast looking back at the mystery surrounding the crash of that very plane. As the appointed time of the crash approaches, he struggles to convince the crew and other passengers that he is not insane, but only one believes him.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE is the most iconic of all anthology shows, to the point that it has its own Disney park ride and has been rebooted on television and as a major cinema release. It is therefore no surprise to find the show being rebooted now under the leadership of emerging horror maestro Jordan Peele (GET OUT and US. It is also no surprise that one of the original show's classic episodes is referenced in this opening episode.

The story, though, cleverly updates the original concept, abandoning the gremlin chewing on the engine for a more shattered time narrative. The foreshadowing of the imminent disaster is a more believable reason for the increasing panic of the one passenger who knows what's going on. That he can't get anyone else to listen to the podcast and thus understand, and support, him is a weakness in the plotting. However, the tension is ratcheted up nicely, even if the plot twist can be seen coming.

That said, there's another twist in the shape of a coda, complete with cheeky visual call out to the original episode, which turns everything on its head and fails to convince in way that events leading up to it had.

As a welcome to the new show, it's a solid, if not completely successful opening.

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REPLAY

A mother taking her son to college films the journey on an old camcorder. She discovers that the machine can rewind time, which comes in handy when they fall foul of a racist cop. Through a series of GROUNDHOG DAY re-runs, their inevitable interaction with the cop gets worse and worse, leading to the death of her son.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE does Black Lives Matter in this story. The GROUNDHOG DAY scenario is simply a chance to run through a series of scenarios reflecting the reality of black people's experience of contact with racist white police officers in a heightened reality. It's not subtle, but it is timely.

The moral of the story is that we cannot live in fear, no matter how much justification there is, but it's quite a long journey to get there and the face off outside the all-black college doesn't really convince.

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A TRAVELER

In a remote Alaskan police station, set up to police a town serving a secret military listening post, the police chief throws a Christmas party and pardons one prisoner. This year, he has a true stranger to pardon, A Traveler by name and a video blogger who says that the parties are the stuff of online legend, or soon will be. The newcomer starts to play off the partygoers against each other, which is not good when some of them have guns. What, though, is his endgame.

Paranoia lies at the very heart of this story, but the set-up and narrative are too bizarre for it to really work. The sense of place and time is nicely evoked, but the arrival of the stranger and his claims about his purpose are so obviously off that the chief of police's response to that is completely unebelievable. This acceptance from all but one of the characters means that the eventual breakdown of trust and fracturing of the group becomes inevitable and the reason behind the newcomer's mission seems unnecessary considering the final shot.

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THE WUNDERKIND

A Presidential campaign manager suffers a humiliating defeat, but sees a way back to prominence through a child blogger who connects with the public through his posts. As the unorthodox campaign suffers setbacks and highlights, the question becomes who is manipulating who?

For the most part, this is a gleeful satire on the current state of American politics. The idea that a completely inexperienced child could even run for President, let alone get elected has become much less ridiculous considering the current encumbent and throwing in the current obsession with online celebrity just adds to that. Dealing with a child in the White House seems less fantasy than current affairs.

Troublesome kids are not unknown in the Twilight Zone and the Presidential candidate here can be seen as an extension of the child from IT'S A GOOD LIFE from the original series, updated through the lens of a world where child celebrity can be anyone's and child rights are outstripping parental authority.

The story is somewhat episodic and flashes the future twist waiting at the end unbalance it a little, but in the end this is what THE TWILIGHT ZONE does, using an distorting mirror to point out the absurdities of today's society.

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SIX DEGREES OF FREEDOM

When World War III starts during the launch countdown of the first manned mission to Mars, the crew decide to carry on and face death as the first humans on Mars rather than amongst the soon to be dead millions of Earth. As the mission continues, tempers fray, grief threatens to overwhelm them and one crewmember fantasises that it's all test.

Possibly the best episode so far, this is a tense and realistic story about a group of people in an impossible position, dealing with daily tests and a bigger tragedy that is too great to bear, all for a goal that may mean nothing at all.

It's nicely acted and never overplays its hand as to which of the potential scenarios as to what is happening is the true one, until the final twist is revealed, of course.

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NOT ALL MEN

After a date turns into an encounter with a meteorite and an assault, a young woman notices that the men in town are starting to act dangerously.

Gender politics goes under the spotlight in this week's episode with the reasonable women being threatened by unthinking man beasts, except the cerebral and the gay, who have the willpower to choose not to be beasts. As a social commentary, it is about a subtle as a sledgehammer to the face and the message that almost all men can choose to turn into monsters at the drop of a hat whilst all women are always reasonable, sane individuals lacks any shade of subtlety at all.

It works as an action piece, though, with some impressive scenes of destruction and some nervy action moments. The slow increase of violence in the background makes for a nicely paranoid sense of impending doom.

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POINT OF ORIGIN

A wife and mother in a comfortable suburban home, whose thoughts never turn to those who serve her needs, suddenly finds herself incarcerated and accused of being an alien immigrant from another dimension./p>

Immigration is the hot topic of the week and the general thrust of the piece is that immigrants are people and should be treated as such. Those in authority who treat them as animals to be caged are tortured are bad. Again, subtlety is somewhat lacking.

It doesn't help that the world in which the story plays out is a highly stylised almost 50s setting, removing it from the world of today and muting any horrifying effect, because it isn't happening here.

What does help is that the Kafka/Orwell mash-up features two strong performances from Ginnifer Goodwin as the housewife and James Frain as the tormentor out to prove that she is really an illegal alien. Any real strength to the horror of what is happening comes through them rather than the obvious plotting and even more obvious message.

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THE BLUE SCORPION

Jeff, a soon to be divorced professor discovers a gun in his late father's property, a gun that comes with a bullet that literally has his name on it. He then goes on to encounter his wife's divorce lawyer, also called Jeff, her new boyfriend Jeff and any number of other Jeffs. As his sanity begins to unravel, he becomes obsessed with the gun and carrying out its mission to kill Jeff.

America's gun culture is the subject of this episode of the new TWILIGHT ZONE and it is a muddy affair. Yes, the messages of a reasonable man who becomes completely obsessed with a gun and that every bullet has somebody's name on it are fairly clear, but that all gets muddied by the introduction of all the Jeffs. That muddies the waters. Had it just been the new lover, then the conflict between suicide and murder would have been much more effective, but by having effectively everyone else in the episode suddenly be called Jeff, things are made unclear.

That said, Chris O'Dowd can do hangdog like nobody else and the coda is chillingly effective.

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BLURRYMAN

A lifelong fan of the original TWILIGHT ZONE series is living her best life as a screenwriter on the new series of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. The opening monologue isn't going well, but is then transposed to being about her instead of the episode and then she is pursued by a shadowy figure around the empty sets.

A TWILIGHT ZONE episode about a TWILIGHT ZONE fan writing THE TWILIGHT ZONE - could it get any more meta? The concept is very neatly introduced, switching from traditional episode opening to the on-set scenario very smartly. The concept then evolves to bring the Blurryman into previous episodes, making you want to go back and rewatch them to see if he was there the first time around. The threat gradually increases and there are some scary moments at the Blurryman chases the heroine through dark and empty sets, into the world of a classic episode from the original show, and then onto brightly-lit sets where nobody else can see her, or the chaos being wrought around them.

Unfortunately, when the truth about the Blurryman is revealed, it is done so through such a poor special effect that it is never convincing, which is unforgivable. Worse, it makes absolutely no sense at all narratively. Why all the threat and danger? Considering the screen writer's connection to the Blurryman, why would he treat her to all the threat, danger and fear.

Blurryman is very smart and accomplished as it plays out, but in retrospect is all style over substance and that is an accusation that can be levelled at this first season as a whole.

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