Twilight Zone: TV Shows and Movies

[HarleyQuinn]

Couldn't find a thread as all I saw was one about the reboot. The original TV show is a classic and I know they've tried rebooting it at least 3 times I believe in the late 80s, mid 90s, and now with Peele's attempt not including the movies which hit theaters.

Watching on Amazon Prime Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics from May 19th, 1994 with narration by James Earle Jones. It's two stories, "The Theater," and "Where the Dead Are," connected as a TV Movie from 1994. The first story definitely has the feel of stuff like The Hitchiker whereas the second story can definitely be seen as a Rod Serling written story given the dialogue and pacing itself.

Robert Markowitz directs a solid cast for both and he's done a lot of TV Movies prior. It showed. It often felt like the direction lagged well behind the scripts despite the actors trying their best with the material.

 

[snuffbox]

I think the original is one of the greatest tv shows of all time. I've watched marathons of it on/around New Years Eve every year for the last 20 years. And I'll watch a random episode whenever I get a chance.

I recently gave an 80s version episode a chance ("A Message from Charity") and loved it. Now I'll have to watch more of that run as well.

Only seen one of the current show. I think it loses something to contemporary production quality. If that makes any sense.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Only seen one of the current show. I think it loses something to contemporary production quality. If that makes any sense.

Prime has black/white versions of the episodes as well but I don't know how well that's pulled off. Depending on the direction, the black & white can help highlight shadow play and such.

One of the factors that tends to hurt most of the reboots are that they try to do the episodes over 40-45 minutes. There's a reason that Sterling only had 1 season with an hour length and I think the conciseness of the writing helped a ton in making many memorable classic episodes. Tacking on 10-15 minutes to some of those 22-24 minute episodes would've made them a slog IMO.

 

[snuffbox]

Yeah, some of my favorite episodes, like "100 Yards Over that Rim," would've been ruined with more time.

I think "A Msg from Charity" from the 80s is helped by not being overly long.

 

[Epic Springs]

"To Serve Man" is the best episode form the original series.

The only episode I remember from the 1980s reboot is the one with the giant spider in the elevator. Watched that at my grandma's house as a child and was pretty traumatized. I prefered "Tales from the Crypt" to the 80s Twilight Zone.

I never watched the '02 reboot with Forrest Whitaker but I'll just go ahead and assume there was nothing worthwhile there.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

"To Serve Man" is the best episode form the original series.

The only episode I remember from the 1980s reboot is the one with the giant spider in the elevator. Watched that at my grandma's house as a child and was pretty traumatized. I prefered "Tales from the Crypt" to the 80s Twilight Zone.

I never watched the '02 reboot with Forrest Whitaker but I'll just go ahead and assume there was nothing worthwhile there.

I've seen some eps of the 2002-03 reboot and they aren't bad but again the 42-44 minute run time can drag. The episode, "Cradle of Darkness," was one of the few I really liked dealing with going back in time to Hitler's birth. It stars Katherine Heigl in a role post-Roswell!

 

[Baby Shoes]

SyFy has released the schedule of what will air during their New Year’s marathon, if anyone was seeking out a specific episode

SYFY Reveals Full Twilight Zone New Year's Marathon Schedule

The Twilight Zone will host a New Year's Day marathon on SYFY, beginning at 6 a.m. ET on Dec. 31 and concluding the evening of Jan. 2, 2021.

www.cbr.com

 

[snuffbox]

I plan to watch my usual shitload.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Thursday, December 31st: 11:50 p.m. ET – "The Man in the Bottle"

Friday, January 1st 12:15 a.m. ET – "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room"​

How I'll be celebrating my New Year's when I get home from work!

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Been catching some of the Jordan Peele episodes via SyFy and it runs into the same issue as most of the 90s/00s remakes in that the stories don't... work as strongly over a 50-minute runtime for the most part. They are solid ideas but the episodes just drag on too long for what is generally "one note" concepts. That's largely why the original TZ has worked IMO is the writing was forced to be tight. You couldn't have much excess in a 20-23 minute episode so you were forced to have a tight opener/Serling intro/middle/ending even if you just broke it into 4 minute blocks that's almost an entire episode's run time.