review: Twilight Zone (no spoilers)

[cellio]

I watched the first episode of the new (UPN) "Twilight Zone" series a couple nights ago. I'll keep watching.

The best classic TZ episodes had surprise endings -- that is, they were surprises for the viewer and not just the characters in the show. I'm thinking of episodes like "To Serve Man" and "The Invaders" and "Time Enough at Last" here. True, there were also very good episodes where you were pretty sure what was going to happen (one of my favorites here is "A Kind of Stop Watch"), but I always thought the former approach really captured what the show was trying to do.

That said, while I enjoyed watching "Evergreen" (the first new episode), I was disappointed that a minute or two into the episode I knew what the big secret was and how it was going to end. That wasn't me being exceptionally clever; it's the way the episode was designed. I found that a bit unsatisfying. It was, however, very well-done.

The second episode (the one-hour show has two episodes) produced a fairly neutral reaction for me. Meta-knowledge definitely kicked in: oh, this guy claims he's [somebody unlikely]; this is TZ, so I'll bet he really is. Not much they can do about that kind of reaction, though.

I think I'm supposed to have heard of the guy who's narrating/hosting the new series (whose name I'm blanking on now), but the name didn't mean anything to me. I'm not sure if I like him yet. His delivery seems a bit off -- stilted, perhaps.

Comments

[tangerinpenguin.livejournal.com]

The Narrator is Forest Whitaker (http://us.imdb.com/Name?Whitaker,%20Forest). He played the British soldier who was held hostage during the first part of The Crying Game, the lead in Ghost Dog, and the jeep driver/radio tech that befriended Robin Williams' character in Good Morning, Vietnam (among many other roles, just picking some of the ones that got a lot of press). He's also done a lot of hosting work, as well as some direction and production.