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Regarding newest episode: I don't know if it's the actress' acting skills or the character she's supposed to be but goddamn was she stone cold and dead in her delivery. It reminds me of how I was when I was taking antidepressants.
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Apr 18, 2019 17:14
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Bruceski posted:This one had the same original premise as Rewind from the 2000 series, but took it in a different direction. In Rewind a compulsive gambler uses a time-traveling tape recorder to finally beat the house, gets roped into a high-stakes game against the pit boss that his pride won't let him back out of even though by that point he's set for life, and then loses because the boss also has a recorder. That’s fair. I’ve seen all the Twilight Zone episodes from all 3 series, but I don’t remember most of the 80s or 2000s ones. I should probably rewatch then again. Nightmare was clearly a reference to the previous episode, and I’m not convinced Replay isn’t just an independent idea that steps on already trodden ground. I did like how Replay referenced “Nick of Time” though.
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Apr 18, 2019 18:11
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garthoneeye posted:That’s fair. I’ve seen all the Twilight Zone episodes from all 3 series, but I don’t remember most of the 80s or 2000s ones. I should probably rewatch then again. Whether the seed concept came from the old episode or not Replay is definitely its own thing. Didn't intend to frame it as a copy or something.
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Apr 18, 2019 18:55
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New episode is up and it’s decent. It’s nice to see Steven Yeun enjoy a role after sleepwalking through all those terrible Walking Dead seasons. Not sure what to make of next week’s episode.
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Apr 18, 2019 20:58
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The acting was great but the plot made no sense. They knew where the shed was. He didn't need the cop to lead them to it. The message of the episode was to not believe in obvious manipulation just because it sounds good and supports your beliefs, which is great in the Fake News era... except that had nothing to do with the aliens' plans. They'd take out the shed and disable the base anyway, so did AliYeun just want some pie? I like trying to guess the plots from the previews. This episode I thought was going to be: Yeun's character is a time traveler who came to that point because some disaster was going to happen to destroy the town, and the main cop would try to prevent it only to realize she couldn't. Would've been a commentary on the culture of the intense coverage of tragedies and people almost gleefully watching them. Next one looks like a combination of "It's a Good Life", that one episode of Black Mirror where a cartoon character became prime minister, and that one really long episode of this Hell Reality where a cartoon character became President of the United States.
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Apr 18, 2019 21:14
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That episode was my least favorite of the 4 so far, it felt like it had a bunch of threads but nothing really paid off in a meaningful way? I was expecting the traveler to be a time-traveler and for the town to be on some precipice of disaster or something to make the location something worth traveling to. The reveal that he was an alien just didn't feel that interesting, no other motivations than I guess they decided to invade now? I thought they'd maybe just have him disappear at the end after stirring about divisiveness in the town, leading them to just destroy themselves, kind of a voyeuristic "let's mess with the humans" sort of deal. I've been enjoying the show so far but it hasn't felt easy to recommend yet, maybe if it wasn't tucked behind CBS All Access. I'm hoping the next episode winds up being more interesting than the trailer makes it look.
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Apr 19, 2019 04:50
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This is pretty much the synopsis of the last episode: aliens
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Apr 19, 2019 05:30
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Welp, apparently you guys are in the same state I'm in. I checked the thread thinking someone would have some explanation that I missed. Nope, it's just spooky aliens the whole time? I thought Steven Yuen was supposed to be the devil at first, and he was riling up everyone's darker emotions and causing the fight at the police station. Guess not? Or maybe he did, but it was just weird alien mischief, not actual Satan sowing discontent among the mortals or anything. Just kind of a weak episode.
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Apr 19, 2019 14:52
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Phenotype posted:Welp, apparently you guys are in the same state I'm in. I checked the thread thinking someone would have some explanation that I missed. Nope, it's just spooky aliens the whole time? I thought Steven Yuen was supposed to be the devil at first, and he was riling up everyone's darker emotions and causing the fight at the police station. Guess not? Or maybe he did, but it was just weird alien mischief, not actual Satan sowing discontent among the mortals or anything. Just kind of a weak episode. Most of what you say here is true, it's just that it was an alien doing it and not Satan. It was still his goal to sew discontent. He plays on the fear of Russia, but also on some racial tension. I think the heart of the episode is the difference between Officer Yuka and her brother; she plays along with her oppressors because she fits in and can live a fairly normal life. In the end, her brother sees which way the wind is blowing and decides "What's the difference between living under the rule of space aliens and living under the rule of these weird-rear end white people?" There's an extent to which he's less of a collaborator than his sister is.
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Apr 19, 2019 15:04
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Bicyclops posted:Most of what you say here is true, it's just that it was an alien doing it and not Satan. It was still his goal to sew discontent. He plays on the fear of Russia, but also on some racial tension. I think the heart of the episode is the difference between Officer Yuka and her brother; she plays along with her oppressors because she fits in and can live a fairly normal life. In the end, her brother sees which way the wind is blowing and decides "What's the difference between living under the rule of space aliens and living under the rule of these weird-rear end white people?" There's an extent to which he's less of a collaborator than his sister is. Well yeah, but an alien doing it and not Satan kinda kills the premise. If he was the devil, then it's a classic story where he corrupts the townsfolk and inflames their emotions to claim their souls or bring hell to earth or whatever. If he's just an alien, then it's just the story of how he's a bit of a dickhead and had himself a laugh. Like, in the end, his fleet of ships showed up and presumably went about whatever they had planned irrespective of anything he did at the police station. It didn't feel like anything he did was all that meaningful.
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Apr 19, 2019 15:54
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Phenotype posted:Well yeah, but an alien doing it and not Satan kinda kills the premise. If he was the devil, then it's a classic story where he corrupts the townsfolk and inflames their emotions to claim their souls or bring hell to earth or whatever. If he's just an alien, then it's just the story of how he's a bit of a dickhead and had himself a laugh. Like, in the end, his fleet of ships showed up and presumably went about whatever they had planned irrespective of anything he did at the police station. It didn't feel like anything he did was all that meaningful. Well, you have to remember that the setting is a strategically important location to the US military that rely on support from an extremely small town of people. It's admittedly unclear why it's a target because the person telling us about it is unreliable, but I think it's actually important to the plan that the townspeople are all distracted.
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Apr 19, 2019 16:17
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But then like thirty UFOs appeared in the sky. Obviously we don't know exactly what they were up to, but it's hard to imagine how pissing off a handful of people at the police station is going to make much of a difference. The aliens already knew about the power issues and the cabin, and I'm not sure what other "support" the air force base was going to get from a few small-town cops and officials having a Christmas party. Maybe if Steven Yuen was by himself and had to discover and disable the shed to allow the big fleet to show up? But that big show of force at the end, before they even disabled the power, meant that anything he was doing was kinda trivial. Why bother sending an agent in to stir up the townsfolk when you could have just blown up the police station with a lot less trouble? Like, I thought the ending was going to go along the lines of "alien tricks sheriff into showing him where the shed is, then destroys it to allow an invasion." It woulda been a lame, by-the-numbers plot, but it at least would have told a coherent story. As is, it was more like "alien tricks sheriff into going to the shed, then has a nice slice of pie while, coincidentally, his people invade Earth." Phenotype fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Apr 19, 2019 |
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Apr 19, 2019 16:30
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Yeah, I don't know if it was just a "win more" situation or if disabling the air force was an important tenet of the plan, we don't really know. The only one who could give us the information is an established liar, so it's tough to say.
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Apr 19, 2019 16:36
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Been thinking about it, and the only reasoning I could think of for the plot was the alien wasn't lying about the lead character taking over the town, as in he was looking for someone with a sort of pliable mind like hers. Someone who would force themselves to help the alien overlords and truly go along with whatever they said as long as it kept her in power. Like presumably she'd rush back to the police station and the alien would be there to congratulate her on her promotion and she'd have everything she ever wanted, and the aliens would have a willing puppet governor of Earth Sector 7G-1009, formerly known as Middleofnowhere, Alaska, United States. All his tricks were to find the right person. The power shed was just a ruse, if he found someone who would consciously let them "find" what that person believed was the sole defense the planet had against an alien invasion, they could make that person do anything.
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Apr 19, 2019 17:23
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So far this series has been a bunch of 20 minute short stories stretched into an hour. I really hope they have something better in store than what we have seen so far.
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Apr 19, 2019 18:44
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I pride myself on "getting" a lot of things, but wow, this episode lost me. Maybe it was just that simple of a plot, but I just couldn't find any deeper underpinnings.
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Apr 19, 2019 21:55
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What bothered me the most about the latest episode was nothing looked/felt like Alaska and all the names were fictional, until they mentioned Anchorage.
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Apr 19, 2019 22:02
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TheDon01 posted:What bothered me the most about the latest episode was nothing looked/felt like Alaska and all the names were fictional, until they mentioned Anchorage. without even checking anything I'd make a guess it was filmed in Vancouver because that's where they all go to film for cheap
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Apr 20, 2019 02:14
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Darko posted:I pride myself on "getting" a lot of things, but wow, this episode lost me. Maybe it was just that simple of a plot, but I just couldn't find any deeper underpinnings. It was a life lesson. If someone offers you a slice of pie at some future unspecified time then they are loving lying to you. Did you see the size of that pie? There was definitely not going to be enough left over for the drunk dude.
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Apr 20, 2019 06:27
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I really like this show, but yeah. Everybody here's right. There was no clear throughline in that episode. Just things happening.
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Apr 20, 2019 06:52
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I liked the episode, but the only way I can figure the plot makes sense is if you take Traveler at his word and he really is a popular YouTuber with a weird location bucketlist who knew the invasion was coming but just wanted to gently caress with some dumb humans before it began.
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Apr 20, 2019 06:58
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Oasx posted:So far this series has been a bunch of 20 minute short stories stretched into an hour. I really hope they have something better in store than what we have seen so far. Pretty much. I think the show would be a hell of a lot better if they split the hour up into two separate stories. Seems to be the way a lot of TV shows go these days. They all want to get have hour long "prestige" eps, and yet very few have enough story for that amount of time. 10 minutes of interesting story, and 40 minutes of padding. It's so bad with some shows that you could condense an entire season down to a single hour long ep, and very little would be lost.
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Apr 20, 2019 09:46
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I just want to know if the alien enjoyed the pie.
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Apr 20, 2019 15:05
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TheBizzness posted:I just want to know if the alien enjoyed the pie. He didn't. Pie is actually their biggest weakness, they all really want to try it, but they immediately die if they have any. The brother is a veteran fighter from the star wars and it was his plan the whole time.
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Apr 20, 2019 15:35
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Bicyclops posted:He didn't. Pie is actually their biggest weakness, they all really want to try it, but they immediately die if they have any. The brother is a veteran fighter from the star wars and it was his plan the whole time. Trump was right to start the Space Force
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Apr 20, 2019 16:26
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idk I liked it. i think the ending. Would have been redeemed if one of the ships landed and peele walked out of it doing the monologue
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Apr 20, 2019 16:52
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I think that so far, they've nailed the tone in a way that the other reboots haven't. Glen Morgan who also wrote some of the best episodes of the X-Files wrote this last one. I kind of hope he convinced his brother to do an episode, too.
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Apr 20, 2019 17:44
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I think part of what muddied the episode was that the guy's initial spiel, coupled with the episode's title, primes you to place a lot of importance on the "A. Traveler" backstory. I was thinking "oh, he really is a traveler, but he's a time traveler visiting an event, not just a place". And then the phone thing reinforced that. Then it turns out that was just a regular lie and not a twisty lie, and the episode's actually just about how he's good at manipulation, and also an alien. Basically, the episode suggested a premise that had my imagination going, but then did some other, less intriguing thing.
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Apr 21, 2019 05:19
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It felt like this episode really wanted to be a spiritual successor to “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”, but the writer didn’t fully commit and instead spent the additional 30 minutes allotted teasing two other, more interesting explanations. If they’d given the script one more pass and a leaner 22-30 minute runtime we’d have had a solid contender for ‘best episode thus far’.
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Apr 21, 2019 05:42
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That was such a boring plot that made no sense at all. Here's how I understand it: The Aliens needed to confirm where the shed that powered the airforce base was located. The Alien is also clairvoyant and has infinite god power so he doesn't necessarily need to talk to anyone or interact with anyone. He then sends the two cops out towards the shed for ~reasons~ as the Aliens invade anyway. So what was the point of the plot? There was 45 minutes of interaction with the people in the police station for no reason. There was no underlying message that I could discern besides don't trust strangers? I dunno. Absolutely awful that might have been the worst hour of television I ever watched.
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Apr 21, 2019 22:54
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I'm not surprised most of us had the idea from the start that he might've been a time traveller visiting a catastrophic event. Almost seems like that was the original idea and the other plot was tacked on in a rewrite, huh? I still think the episode was tense until the ending, but it makes more sense if he was looking for someone he and his group could count on to be a puppet leader rather than the shed.
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Apr 21, 2019 23:45
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I think the whole thing was an allegory for news channels inciting distrust and someone on reddit pointed out that the Traveler's home address was Facebook's address. I'm just not sure there was an actual well thought out plot around the allegory. This has been the problem for every episode so far. It just feels like social messages in a shell of awful writing and directing.
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Apr 22, 2019 00:18
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So far I give this show a C+ or a B-. All very watchable stuff that I don't regret watching, but definitely not living up to the hype I felt during the Superbowl commercial announcing the show.
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Apr 22, 2019 01:02
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I really have no idea what the point of any of that was. Not only did the alien know where the shed was before the events of the episode even started, he didn't need to even interact with any of the townspeople to figure it out, and the aliens probably could have destroyed the military base even without the power being shut off. So the entire plot of the episode was just the alien loving around with people for no reason? I think there was a lot of potential with the way this episode was set up, but they went in the least interesting direction possible
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Apr 22, 2019 03:49
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There's a really good Imaginary Worlds podcast about Rod Sterling and The Twilight Zone. It's pretty short and to the point, but its thesis is actually a really interesting one. Basically it argues that despite being an anthology, The Twilight Zone is a lot more singular in its motifs and themes then it's given credit for. Specifically it presents The Twilight Zone as being a lot of Sterling processing his grief, sense of loss, and the horrors he saw in World War II as well as his general politics. It predisposes that's the thing that actually makes the revivals seem lacking. There's a sense of consistent voice in the original that the new ones lack.
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Apr 22, 2019 03:58
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I think a lot of people just forget the bad episodes from the original, of which there were a lot, to be honest.
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Apr 22, 2019 04:01
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I watched it a second time and, while still a mess, Traveler’s plan made a bit more sense. - He ingratiates himself at the party so they’ll believe everything he says later - He lies about Yuka’s brother to exploit the existing divide between her and Pendleton and pit them against each other - He sets the townsfolk against each other to get them (and the other deputies) out of the station - He knows there’s a shed somewhere but he doesn’t seem to know the exact location, so he threatens Pendleton to scare him into driving right to it He doesn’t seem to know where the shed is, only that it exists, and he could easily have just deduced that from what he already knew about the Air Force and the town sharing a power grid. The plot makes sense if you squint and stare and assume these powerful invading aliens can’t just scan for the power grid connection.
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Apr 22, 2019 04:02
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Darko posted:I think a lot of people just forget the bad episodes from the original, of which there were a lot, to be honest.
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Apr 22, 2019 04:10
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Big Mean Jerk posted:I watched it a second time and, while still a mess, Traveler’s plan made a bit more sense. Or that a fleet of interstellar ships would give a poo poo about one air base in the arctic circle. So far every episode suffers from Stephen King novel syndrome. The episodes go too long so the weird/unsettling becomes normal and then the writers can't think of a good ending. I still want to watch because I love horror/scifi anthology series but I have a feeling this show will just be a disappointment week after week as long as the current writers/directors stay on the project.
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Apr 22, 2019 04:19
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Big Mean Jerk posted:I watched it a second time and, while still a mess, Traveler’s plan made a bit more sense. Nope because they invade without anyone ever touching the hidden power station. He's looking for someone who'll tow the company line when they're led to believe it's convenient for them. Like people who vote against their self-interest because they're told convenient lies that it's actually in their self-interest. The plot makes perfect sense when you look at it that way*, but it's still kind of badly written. * Except that he'd do this just a few short hours before the invasion, but that's probably a storytelling conceit.
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Apr 22, 2019 04:28
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