I just mentioned how I need to start utilizing the “Streaming” section of my blog. What better way to start than with the remake of my favorite TV show in history!
I alluded to the panel I attended about this show. What I didn’t mention is that I asked a question at the end. At every WonderCon panel I attended the number of people who lined up to ask questions was much larger than the number of people who actually got to ask them so during this panel I sat up front and made a beeline for the microphone when the Q&A started, as I had an extremely inspired question to ask.
Specifically this: “The Twilight Zone is my favorite TV show ever but I wasn’t initially excited about this reboot since it’s been attempted before. What makes you confident this version will succeed where the mid-80s and early 2000s versions failed?” The panelist who answered told me that without being able to speak specifically about those versions, he spoke for all the people onstage when he said he has a passion for The Twilight Zone, understands what makes the original so special, and was bringing that quality to the new show.
When asked their favorite episode, multiple panelists said “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” and added that as homage they created the new episode “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet”. They added that they almost wish they hadn’t used that title though, as people thought it was a remake. When I later read the Entertainment Weekly preview of the new show, though, it did refer to that episode as a remake, even quoting one of the people who worked on it.
Which is it? Might most accurately be described as a “reimagining”.
In any case, when my neighbor whom I regularly watch this show with suggested we combine the two versions, I decided to take it further and throw in the remake made for 1983’s theatrical release Twilight Zone: The Movie and even the “Terror at 5 ½ Feet” parody from the “Treehouse of Horror IV” episode of The Simpsons. A quadruple feature, if you will.
Given how short they all are I’ll combine them into one post. Without further ado:
“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (1963) – This is subjectively one of the best and objectively one of the most famous episodes of the whole classic series. A former mental patient, just released from the hospital, boards a plane with his wife and sees on the wing what he can only describe as a “gremlin”. When the gremlin keeps vanishing before anyone else would catch a glimpse of it, the hero first has to convince himself that he’s not losing his mind again. Once that happens he tries to convince others, such as his wife and the crew, of the imminent danger everyone is in and when that doesn’t work he summons the courage to take matters into his own hands.
The character’s inner struggle is beyond riveting, and the claustrophobic tension coming from the setting multiplies the terror many times over. Written by the legendary sci-fi/horror writer (and very frequent Twilight Zone contributor) Richard Matheson and starring legendary actor (and star of another classic episode) William Shatner, this is not to be missed.
“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (1983) – This was one of the three episode remakes in the four-segment Twilight Zone: The Movie and the only good one. I alluded here and here to having made IMDB user comments in the past. I actually wrote the very first one for this film if you want my thoughts on the whole thing. Note: Rereading that just now I’m impressed at how well I could write for a 17-year-old!
As far as this segment, I’ve read the criticism from Marc Scott Zicree, the author of The Twilight Zone Companion, that since the main character is not a former mental patient we’re missing out on the struggle he has with his own sanity. I understand the sentiment, but it became clear to me early on (although it might not have been to audiences at the time) that the he is a high-functioning autistic (how appropriate that I’m talking about this here!) from the way he stores data in his head and rattles it off. Even if he’s never been hospitalized, you’d expect that the sensory overload he deals with being on a crowded airplane would make him question what’s real and what’s not and get him hysterical. While I didn’t care for how the other two remakes in this movie used overly flashy cartoonish direction and sucked the tension out of the stories, here it made sense as we experience what it’s like to be in this character’s unique head.*
“Terror at 5 ½ Feet” – Although I kept watching The Simpsons long after season 10 (when the common sentiment is that it lost its magic) I gave up after season 15. However, I’ve still seen every Halloween episode since then; that’s how much I love their “Treehouse of Horror” episodes. This particular one I’ve seen, wholly or partly, far more times than I can count as it’s from their golden age. “Treehouse of Horror IV” was actually the last one to have wraparound sequences and, very appropriately, they parody Night Gallery, Rod Serling’s second anthology show.
This particular segment, the middle of the three featured in the episode, is one of the many times over the years one of the best shows in TV history, The Simpsons, parodies one of the other best, The Twilight Zone. The premise is the same as the TZ episode, except instead of the gremlin looking like a furry monster it looks like a creepy lizard (hmm, I guess there’s no accepted definition of what a “gremlin” really is) and it’s on a school bus instead of an airplane. Even though it’s a parody, it actually delivers some chills with the ample humor, especially with Bart’s nightmare at the beginning!
“Nightmare at 30,000 Feet” – Now the current attraction. “Reimagining” is the best word because although this is about an airline passenger who recently had a nervous breakdown and starts bugging crew members and other passengers saying something bad is about to happen, and the credits say it’s based on Richard Matheson’s original script, there is a huge difference in that the bad thing isn’t a gremlin (whatever that is) on the wing but rather the plane’s impending disappearance. The main character hears about that while listening on the plane to a podcast that was apparently made in the future.**
The tension during the episode is incredible but I got completely lost at the end. After talking to my neighbor and to my best friend (who was also watching with us) I got a better sense of what might have happened. *SPOILER* I believe the guy who flew the plane at the end was a figment of main character’s imagination and it was really the latter who crashed the plane *SPOILER*
That actually makes for a compelling interpretation, but if you’re gonna have a twist ending you need to make that explicit and then inspire viewers to go back and search for clues that have been there all along. The other option is allow the twist ending to be an alternative take, but have a more straightforward ending be the readily apparent one. Here I simply felt baffled about what had just happened and that’s not okay – instead of being able to put pieces together I was clueless about whether random details like the guy’s giving up his first-class seat mattered or not. The lack of coherence dragged down an otherwise amazing episode.
Still, I’m gonna rate the overall value of the night’s entertainment. Out of 100, I’d give the first story a 97, the second a 95, the third a 99, and the fourth an 81. You don’t have to average that; I can do it in my head. 🙂
*This character is played by John Lithgow. Later came the coolest pop culture reference in the history of pop culture references. On a 3rd Rock From the Sun episode where the The Big Giant Head (Shatner) landed at the airport, he explained that he was late because a gremlin was on the wing of his plane. DIck (Lithgow) said “Hey the same thing happened to me!”
**I was about to say “This time the main character is played by the always likable Adam Scott”. Now I feel the need to mention that years ago when I watched “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” I told my friend Seth “Campbell Scott is just as talented as his dad and much better looking. It’s too bad he’s never experienced a fraction of the stardom of George C. Scott” and Seth said “I like Adam Scott from Parks and Recreation.”
Bottom line: Fun times.
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