Photo of Rod Serling courtesy of Screen Rant
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The Twilight Zone is slated for another reboot this year, on the CBS All-Access Streaming Service. Jordan Peele, who wrote and directed the smash-hit horror film Get Out (2017), will do hosting and producing duties. From the IMDb entry, Rod Serling is listed as a writer for 10 episodes, so it looks like the series might be recycling some of Serling’s old TZ scripts. Interestingly, Carol Serling--Rod's widow--is also listed as a producer on the new series.
I’m not that familiar with Peele’s work as an actor, and of course no one can replace the inimitable Serling as host. I do hope that Peele will speak his intro and exit monologues in a distinct, unmistakable voice with a unique delivery, and that he will make punchy, emphatic gestures with a lit cigarette in hand. Note: I don’t expect him to actually smoke the ciggie, I just expect him to wave it around with conviction. I also hope he uses the phrase “submitted for your approval” at least once; preferably more often. It would be nice if he also wore a blazer and button-down shirt with a pencil-thin tie. These things are important.
With that in mind, here are my thoughts on previous attempts to reboot the series.
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), directed by John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, and George Miller. This big-screen, Spielberg-produced effort was ridiculously hyped in its day. It features four rewritten stories from the original series, each directed by a big-name director who had done famous horror or fantasy films in the past.
Unfortunately, this film will forever be known by the horrible accident that occurred on the set of the John Landis segment, in which veteran actor Vic Morrow and two child actors were killed. The Landis segment is by far the weakest, filled in with already existing footage of Morrow, and it's hardly coherent, for obvious reasons.
The Spielberg segment, a reboot of the famous kick Kick the Can episode about elderly nursing-home residents who magically turn into children, is overly sentimental and not nearly as good as the original. Worth watching are the segments directed by Joe Dante and George Miller. Dante reboots another famous episode, It’s A Good Life, which, in the original, starred Billy Mumy as Anthony, a six-year-old who terrorizes a small town with his supernatural abilities. In this version, Anthony forces random strangers to live as his “family” in a cartoon-like house populated by bizarro replications of television characters. It’s pretty good, although a tacked-on “happy ending” (which was probably forced on Dante by Spielberg) isn’t faithful to the much-darker original.
The final segment, directed by George Miller of Mad Max fame, features John Lithgow in a reboot of the uber-famous William Shatner episode, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, about a former mental patient who sees a gremlin dancing on the wing of his airplane. It’s the best of the lot, with some truly creepy scenes of the gremlin.
One of the nice things about this film is that it features a lot of actors from the old series, like Kevin McCarthy, Murray Matheson, Patricia Barry; even Serling's widow, Carol, gets a bit part. The Dante segment features a cameo from a grown-up Billy Mumy.
The Twilight Zone (1985-1989); the first television reboot was a vanity project, at which CBS threw tons of money, until the network got bored with it. The series features intelligent, erudite scripts from the likes of sci-fi legend Harlan Ellison and George R.R. Martin; some pretty big-name actors like Helen Mirren; and segments directed by A-list horror directors Wes Craven, Joe Dante, and William Friedkin. Actor Charles Aidman, who starred in two of the original series’ episodes, is the host, although he is only heard, not seen. The Grateful Dead wrote and recorded the new theme song, which incorporates elements of the old famous theme from the original series.
The pilot episode features a hot new actor named Bruce Willis (with hair!) in an Ellison story called Shatterday, a kind of reverse version of Fight Club. A fair amount of the segments were dogs, especially in the final season, but overall, this series was a total class act. It maintained much of the spirit of the original, without verging on parody.
Unfortunately, it only lasted for two seasons and change; a third season was added in 1988-89 but not aired, solely for the syndication package. Her Pilgrim Soul, written and directed by Craven, is one of the best episodes; the Friedkin segment, entitled Nightcrawlers, is a bona-fide exercise in expertly directed terror. Shadow Man, the Dante segment, is another standout. Sadly, this series never got the respect it deserved, even today after being available on disc for more than a decade. Some episodes are posted on YouTube if you want to check them out.
The Twilight Zone (2002-2003). This second television reboot was a half-hour cable series produced in Canada for the cable network UPN, hosted by Forest Whitaker. It’s not nearly as bad as its reputation, but it suffers from terrible writing and cheap production values.
Whitaker is an actor whom I normally love to bits, but he’s sadly subpar as the host. He delivers the intro and exit monologues in a dull monotone; it doesn’t help that the monologues themselves are boring and completely lacking in punchy, Serlingesque soundbites. Many of the stories are good, but they are often sunk by horroble dialogue, cheap sets, and pedestrian direction.
Even the best episodes just don’t have that patented TZ “zing”. They could be stories from Tales From the Darkside or any other halfway-competent anthology series. However, the best of the lot include: Evergreen; One Night at Mercy and The Collection. A sequel to It’s a Good Life brings back Billy Mumy as an adult Anthony, and it’s fairly decent up to a point, but ultimately unsuccessful. On disc; almost all of these episodes are also currently posted on YouTube, albeit in terrible VHS transfers.
The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics (1994). I reviewed this television film here.