I hope everyone’s having a wonderful Thanksgiving as I write this. Perhaps a Twilight Zone post would have been better for New Year’s, but here I go:
To elaborate on what I said during my video,
here are episode by episode critiques:
Episode 1: “Meet in the Middle” – A terrific episode! One of those actors whom everyone’s seen somewhere (he’s played young William on Westworld, a McPoyle on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, the hacker dude on House Of Cards, etc.) adds another potential somewhere to the list. He plays a man hearing the voice of his dream woman in his head. Is he crazy or is she real? Either way we’re going to find out as he follows the voice’s directions to where he can meet her. I definitely didn’t see the ending coming! 99/100
Oh hey, it’s…him.
Episode 2: “Point of Origin” – A woman finds out her life is actually a virtual reality for someone who’s a vegetable in the real world. The idea of everyone and everything we know being a technological illusion was so inspired and exciting – WHEN THE MATRIX DID IT TWENTY YEARS AGO! Also, regarding what I said about Black Mirror being the definitive sci-fi anthology of this era, it would have spent a whole hour captivatingly exploring the philosophical issues of when it’s right to sacrifice one person for another, when life begins and ends, and what actually constitutes reality. Instead, The Twilight Zone chose to remove every last bit of dramatic tension by saying the vegetable in the real world died. In that case OF COURSE the main character would want to continue her “life”, if you want to call it that. The episode gets some points from this Arrested Development fan for including Tony Hale briefly, but otherwise it’s complete garbage. 5/100
Buster may as well have written the episode.
Episode 3: “The Who of You”– Out of the whole revival so far, this felt the most reminiscent of the original series. A shady character has a superpower, uses it for nefarious purposes, and experiences a twist ending. Nothing overly ambitious, just a simple, fun little supernatural yarn. 79/100
Retro
Episode 4: “Ovation”– Whatever other skills my brain gives me, I’m not great at guessing twist endings to stories. I actually take it as a sign that something is very pedestrian if I do guess what happens next. Well here I guessed everything and was also not buying the character’s motivations. Pretty flat episode, UNLESS we take it as a metaphor for star Jurnee Smollett’s brother Jussie taking appallingly drastic measures to become more famous and subsequently ending up as garbage in everyone’s eyes. That’s too awesome an interpretation for me to NOT act as if it’s true, so I’ll grade accordingly. 60/100
Racist homophobes…who for some reason watch Empire…walked outside at 2:00 AM during a polar vortex…in the hopes they’d just happen to see someone to attack with a noose and bleach they carried around…and recognized me in spite of how bundled up I was.
Episode 5: “Among the Untrodden” – Very compelling story throughout. A teenage girl at a boarding school seeks to fit in and make friends as she harnesses her supernatural powers. I just said that if I guess an ending I take that as a bad sign – well in this case not only did I not guess it but even after it happened I needed some time to figure it out. It was that clever! Jordan Peele’s ending narration was really on-the-nose but that’s such a minor quibble. 98/100
Episode 6: “8”– I almost want to give it 8/100 to be funny, but even that attempt at a joke would be far too good for this episode. Something about an octopus thing…and I don’t even know or care what the hell happened. 0/100
Episode 7: “A Human Face”– Again, Black Mirror would have handled this brilliantly by asking the philosophical questions and taking us through the characters’ dilemma. Not The Twilight Zone. The alien taking the form of the main couple’s dead teenage daughter gave some on-the-nose pedestrian dialogue about how much they wronged “her” and in the name of a second chance they decided to take the alien as their kid, even though she clearly had nefarious motives. Then they went for a walk, and at the same time every other family in the neighborhood went for a walk with their new humanoid alien kid. Huh? Are they all grieving the loss of a real kid? And why are they all going for a walk at the same time. It wasn’t even the main alien’s idea. Just huh? 0/100
Episode 8: “A Small Town” – What a hit or miss season. We get two bombs in a row follow by two masterpieces in a row. This time we get Damon Wayans, Jr. (what a dead ringer for his dad!) as a man who discovers he can control everything that happens in his town via what he does to the miniature model of the town in his attic. That does lead to complications, due to his and his wife’s enmity with the weaselly mayor, but you need to see it for yourself. Pitch perfect! 100/100
Episode 9: “Try, Try”– I’d have to check this but I’m pretty certain Topher Grace became the first person to guest star on both Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone. More power to him – both episodes are fantastic! Here he plays a guy trying to force a “meet cute” with a girl. Wait until you find out how hard he’s been trying!!!!
Give it up dumbass.
Story keeps you guessing until the flawless ending, and shows The Twilight Zone CAN have riveting discussions about philosophical topics such as free will, destiny, and mortality. 100/100
Episode 10: “You Might Also Like””– For the second year in a row The Twilight Zone ends with an episode that has no coherent narrative and seems to exist simply because the writers think having references to the original show is cute and clever just by its very nature. No, it isn’t. Pass. 5/100
Rounded to the nearest whole, this season averages out to only 55/100. Last season averaged out to 56/100. Even though I said in my video review that this season is so much better than last season, my best friend was right when he later said that even though the best episodes were better than last season’s best, the worst episodes were worse than last season’s worst. I just did a better job blocking out the worst apparently.
Season 1 felt like half of it was episodes that were mostly great but failed to end on a satisfactory note. This season didn’t really have any of those, and it had FOUR episodes superior to last season’s only standout, “Replay”. Yet there was far more worthless garbage this season.
Season 2 felt on par with an average season of Black Mirror, given how hit or miss it was. Of course, the most recent season of Black Mirror had vastly superior overall quality BUT it only had three episodes. If The Twilight Zone cut itself down to an average Black Mirror season-sized six episodes by removing all the hideous stuff from this season, the average rating would skyrocket all the way up to 89! If it similarly cut down to four episodes, the average rating would go up to 99! It would be superior to Black Mirror‘s stellar most recent season despite having more episodes!
The Twilight Zone has regained the mantle of the superior show – provided they feel okay with reducing their output quantitatively.
Bottom Line: Cut the fat and they’re set.
Up Next: A modern successor (NOT Black Mirror).
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