Submitted For Your Approval, The Twilight Zone - Take 4

[D.A. Ridgely]

So the fourth iteration of The Twilight Zone premiers on April Fool's Day, albeit only for those of use who get CBS All Access or resort to less scrupulous sorts of access.

Everyone here knows my view that Rod Serling was over-praised as a writer, per se, but there's no denying the cultural importance and lasting influence of TZ:TOS. Again, just my opinion, but the 1980s revival was pretty good and the 2000s revival was pretty lame. Now Jordan Peele gets both the show runner and narrator job. I'd like to be optimistic, but reboots like remarriages tend to be the triumph of hope over experience.

Predictions?

One irony of our Second Golden Age of Television is that the hardest genre to make a go of it is the anthology series, ironic because our attention spans have approached that of ADHD goldfish. People tune back in to shows with characters they've decided they want to watch again, not so much because they want to watch an entirely new independent scripted drama or comedy. Even Black Mirror, which has not fared well with the U.S. demand for more episodes per season, has at least tried to catch viewers by planting Easter Eggs from prior episodes in each new episode.

So I'm already depressed that I'm not more optimistic. That said, a challenge: come up with a TZ episode you'd like to see, either the log line or something more developed. Any budding screenwriters among us?

[Ellie]

The main problem with the original TZ, at least for the most "classic" episodes, was they were maybe 5-minute ideas padded out to a full show. There's SO much footage just killing time waiting for the big reveal. I hope the new version can improve on that.

[JasonL]

I think it’s been mined pretty thoroughly. Black Mirror was a good contemporary update.

Thematically I think I’d spend some time on the culture wars devouring us, performative virtue replacing actual virtue, retarded simple identities making us stupid, and the diseases of wealth.

[Painboy]

I think it’s been mined pretty thoroughly. Black Mirror was a good contemporary update.

Thematically I think I’d spend some time on the culture wars devouring us, performative virtue replacing actual virtue, retarded simple identities making us stupid, and the diseases of wealth.

NO. THINGS ON WINGS.

[Ellie]

NO. THINGS ON WINGS.