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InfiniteZero posted:I entirely agree with you about The Comedian -- except that we didn't need to know more about Tracy Morgan's character. The Twilight Zone shouldn't explain everything and should be perfectly fine with being weird for its own sake. Morgan's character exists and his motivation is that he's part of The Twilight Zone. In some cases, yes. I was only talking this particular case. Not all of them. Agree to disagree, however. Maybe the Comedian wasn't a home run, but it was certainty a solid start.
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Apr 2, 2019 17:31
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I wasn't on board with The Comedian until the end, and then something about the ending just clicked the series into place for me and made it feel like the original. It had the unique satisfaction that really only comes at the end of an episode of The Twilight Zone. Once it clicked, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet was great from start to finish. It's overtly political, it's not subtle, its characters are not genre savvy and never understand what's happening to them, and the endings are all "Gotcha!" horror. I think the Peele narration could be a little bit cheekier, but they can build to that, Rod wasn't winking at us right away. Most of the complaints I see are about the length, but that actually doesn't bother me so much as the episodes feel a little rushed. The original show was really big on dwelling on each individual moment, almost excruciatingly so, while this version feels like it has a lot of plot to rush through. They can take an hour as long as at least half of it is spent with the camera framed around someone's sweaty face as they yell things like "No! No, it can't be!!"  e: also, there have been a lot of little Easter eggs that are nods to the old series, which has been fun. It's never intrusive and just part of the set dressing. Bicyclops fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Apr 2, 2019 |
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Apr 2, 2019 17:52
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I liked The Comedian a lot and Nightmare a little less. I loved Kumail, and the fact that none of his bits were funny even when people were laughing was a pretty strong commentary about ambition and his mental state. He makes this big deal about how comedy is supposed to be so cerebral and making a point, but then he's perfectly happy to just be screaming nonsense about whoever as long as people were laughing. The whole thing was a character study about a guy who initially presents as a hero fighting for what he believes in, and we slowly realize what an rear end in a top hat he is. His final act of redemption, accepting how lovely he is, is actually the perfect twilight zone ending. And I thought Tracy Morgan was amazing. I didn't know Tracy Morgan could act like that. Nightmare had an awesome premise that didn't really need to be connected to the original classic episode. A guy listening to a podcast that's predicting his pending doom is an amazing premise and it's a little wasted by trying to piggy back on one of the best episodes of the series. It's strong enough to be its own thing. I know putting it on a plane and making it about paranoia is going to draw comparisons, but I think it would have ultimately been a stronger episode if it had changed out the setting for something else. I hope they have more confidence in their writing in the future so they don't just shoehorn good ideas into classic episode settings. Does anyone know if Jordan Peele is actually doing any writing or directing on the show? Everyone calls it "Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone", but is he part of the creative team, or is he just showing up to host?
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Apr 2, 2019 18:22
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mangler103 posted:
The airplane setting felt pretty essential to me, as most of the point of the paranoia in this case is how it's stapled to security theater over terrorism (with the character's background engineered to make him a prime target for succumbing to it).
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Apr 2, 2019 18:28
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mangler103 posted:Does anyone know if Jordan Peele is actually doing any writing or directing on the show? Everyone calls it "Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone", but is he part of the creative team, or is he just showing up to host? He's an executive producer. So it's anyone's guess as to how much he's involved beyond the intros. Could be a lot, could be not at all.
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Apr 2, 2019 18:31
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Bicyclops posted:The airplane setting felt pretty essential to me, as most of the point of the paranoia in this case is how it's stapled to security theater over terrorism (with the character's background engineered to make him a prime target for succumbing to it). I agree it worked in context, I just think the podcast predicting the future is such a great concept for a modern era Twilight Zone episode that I would have preferred to see an entirely original episode around that premise.
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Apr 2, 2019 19:25
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Comedian was too long, Nightmare was pretty decent, Dan Carlin cameo was the best part.
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Apr 2, 2019 19:31
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X-O posted:He's an executive producer. So it's anyone's guess as to how much he's involved beyond the intros. Could be a lot, could be not at all. He has a story credit (the script seems to be by someone else) on the second episode but honestly I would assume he’s mostly an actor on this. Which is fine. That dude is busy.
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Apr 2, 2019 19:45
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It is a little too bad he's not heavily involved in the writing, because the parallel with Rod Serling would be fun there, but yeah, I think he just sort of assembles the talent and does the intros, and maybe touches up some of the teleplays. He just made a wildly successful (and pretty drat good IMO) movie, he's going to be swamped.
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Apr 2, 2019 19:47
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The Comedian is on Youtube, just watched it, it started out pretty neat. Then about part-way through my brain put it together and went "oh, this is just Death Note, but standup" and I got super tuned out of it. I don't even think they took it anywhere that interesting, the ending was such an easy out. It should have played on the Trump thing early on - like Samir works his way up through his act into the upper echelons of society, gets invited to the White House or whatever so he does know all these awful people personally, and then goes just full scorched earth, and exploring the consequences of that. I dunno, maybe Nightmare is better, but I have no interest in CBS All Access.
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Apr 2, 2019 20:07
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drat I was so sure that Samir was gonna start talking about JC wheeler in his last set to just "reset" everything. The actual ending was better though, and made more sense.
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Apr 2, 2019 20:14
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Taintrunner posted:The Comedian is on Youtube, just watched it, it started out pretty neat. Then about part-way through my brain put it together and went "oh, this is just Death Note, but standup" haha I thought this exact thing. try and pirate Nightmare, it’s better
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Apr 2, 2019 22:50
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With the Comedian, I mostly didn't buy the transition of Kumail's character from wanting to give up on his standards to "gently caress it, I'm going to rise to the top of stand up but erasing people from existence". It honestly seemed in the story that maybe a week or two had passed before he just was consumed by greed and willing to just start naming people en mass that slighted him. I think within a half hour show they could have had the same impact storywise and gotten there faster by just having him immediately erase his girlfriend, and he questions what he's done then Satan Tracy Morgan comes out to sow the seeds of how to solve it all if he's willing to sacrifice himself, and then boom...mic drop. Instead it's just then slow creep leading to a weird character swerve to epiphany over an hour without much in the way of anything super engaging.
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Apr 3, 2019 00:06
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Escobarbarian posted:haha I thought this exact thing. try and pirate Nightmare, it’s better It is better, but I think my enjoyment of it was maybe hampered by the fact that I had just heard Iron Man on the radio before watching it.
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Apr 3, 2019 01:43
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Found neither particularly good. There's a reason the original show's least acclaimed season is the one that had hour long episodes.
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Apr 3, 2019 03:52
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I didn't find either one to be particularly good either, though I'm not writing it off just yet because it could just be a shaky startup. I love the original series but every reboot makes the same mistake of trying to recapture its magic, but they just can't. Without the fact that the original was literally the first to do these type of concepts, and also the class, style, and restraint of classic television, it comes off as cheesy, familiar, and overly safe. I'm also a big fan of Black Mirror, and so far I feel that it runs circles around this, despite being limited by the technology angle. Black Mirror is very much right at home in the modern landscape of "prestige TV" (not a fan of that term but you know what I mean). With this, though, almost everything about it says "carefully constructed to be safe for modern american network television." It's even shot and edited in a very standard, boring, familiar way. I could also do without the forced vulgar language that is only there to state "this isn't your dad's Twilight Zone, it's 2019 and in this Twilight Zone we say "lick my vagina" (or whatever she said), which ironically only made the show feel more calculated and safe in going out of it's way to not be. I agree with all of the complaints already said about The Comedian. Nightmare surprised me with it's unique premise instead of rehashing the original, but failed to provide any surprises once it's confirmed that, yes, the podcast is talking about this very flight. It's pretty obvious to anyone familiar with The Twilight Zone that he was going to cause the crash, so an actual twist would have been something other than that. It also absolutely should have ended without showing the crash aftermath. I was expecting to see Peele at the opposite end of the plane as the camera pulled away from Adam Scott's character to deliver his closing statement, but instead the camera flew out the window and the episode continued with in a very, very strange direction that negates the weight of everything we just saw. It had to be some network meddling because they felt that killing the whole plane was too dark. Also, if every single passenger survived, why would they still kill him? They don't know he gave the hijacker the code and the hijacker took control of the cockpit on his own while Adam Scott guy stayed in his seat. "Hey, that guy tried to warn us that something was wrong, and he was right! A terrorist hijacked the plane and crashed it! KILL HIM!" Side note though, Peele is great as the narrator.
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Apr 3, 2019 08:50
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Just sitting down with this -- starting on episode 2 after skimming some of the comments in this thread. Adam Scott's in this! I would always get nightmares when I was a kid, so I never watched Twilight Zone or Outer Limits or any of these kinda shows. It's just a new story every week, there's never anything connecting them, right? I guess that's an easy way to get good actors, just sign on for a day or two of filming with no real commitment. Keeyan Peele is the only one who's in this week to week, and he'll never play any actual roles? I'm surprised you guys seem to think he's not writing this, I thought he was big into these weirdo horror(ish) stories.
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Apr 4, 2019 14:11
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Phenotype posted:Just sitting down with this -- starting on episode 2 after skimming some of the comments in this thread. Adam Scott's in this! We think that he's not writing it because he isn't taking writing credits, mostly. But yes, it's an anthology show, and the only role of Jordan Peele is to introduce and conclude each story with some narration (Rod Serling filled this role for the original Twilight Zone).
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Apr 4, 2019 14:16
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I was so certain the Comedian would end with a 'You weren't the only one' twist. Where the show can only have one cast member, both Samir and Didi are going for it, and when Didi goes up, Samir realizes she's doing a set about him too late.
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Apr 4, 2019 14:25
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Well, that was pretty good! Was that a remake of an old Twilight Zone episode? I kept being reminded of that Simpsons Halloween episode where there's a gremlin destroying the school bus and Bart was the only one who ever saw him, and I always thought it was a Twilight Zone parody. The only thing that seemed a little weak to me was the last minute or two, when Adam Scott wakes up on the beach and immediately finds Part 2 of the Flight 1015 story, where it turns out everyone was discovered alive on an island a little while later. If that's the case, then Part 1 doesn't make any drat sense -- it's not a spooky story about a flight that mysteriously went missing, it's a mostly open-and-shut case of how a guy beat the poo poo out of the pilots and crashed the plane. I think it would have been stronger overall to just leave it out, and end on the passengers acting spooky and killing him. I really appreciated the irony of Adam Scott being the one to let Russ Hanneman into the cockpit to crash the plane. I feel like I should have expected it, but for some reason it caught me by surprise.
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Apr 4, 2019 14:39
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Nightmare at 30,000 Feet The podcast said that Adam Scott's character was the only one to go missing. What about the pilot dude who tried to kill everybody? So the passengers are gonna kill the paranoid dude but the dude that tried to actually kill them, they're fine with?
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Apr 4, 2019 15:05
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Phenotype posted:Well, that was pretty good! Was that a remake of an old Twilight Zone episode? I kept being reminded of that Simpsons Halloween episode where there's a gremlin destroying the school bus and Bart was the only one who ever saw him, and I always thought it was a Twilight Zone parody. Yup. It's a remake of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, and the original features a gremlin tearing a plane that only William Shatner's character can notice. The new version is obviously a big departure from the original.
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Apr 4, 2019 15:14
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Croatoan posted:Nightmare at 30,000 Feet The podcast said that Adam Scott's character was the only one to go missing. What about the pilot dude who tried to kill everybody? So the passengers are gonna kill the paranoid dude but the dude that tried to actually kill them, they're fine with? Or the other pilot was entirely in Adam Scott’s head and he was the one who actually crashed the plane. I can’t remember if anyone else interacts with the other guy at all.
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Apr 4, 2019 16:22
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Adam Scott was in cuffs, though, I don't think he could have beat the hell out of both pilots if it was just him the whole time.Croatoan posted:Nightmare at 30,000 Feet The podcast said that Adam Scott's character was the only one to go missing. What about the pilot dude who tried to kill everybody? So the passengers are gonna kill the paranoid dude but the dude that tried to actually kill them, they're fine with? I don't know that I'd treat the podcast narration as ultimate truth, though, especially given that the mysterious first half contradicts the idea that all the passengers besides Adam Scott were found safe and sound. I thought the passengers showing up at the end might not have been quite right, though, they seemed like they were in a trance or something, all of them repeating the same words. I just chalked it up to mysterious Twilight Zone magic possessing them.
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Apr 4, 2019 19:13
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First two eps have been kinda quaint with the twists. "Faustian bargain has unexpected downside" and "Acting to prevent prophecy fulfills said prophecy" aren't just old-fashioned, they're ancient. There's a certain charm to that, but I'm hoping there's some proper mind-benders in the pipeline. I do wonder whether it was the right choice for Samir's successful comedy to remain absolutely terrible post-bargain. On one hand, it underlines that he's not getting anywhere on his own merit, but it also feels like it weakens the stakes. His audience kind of become these automatons, and you don't really care if he impresses them or not. If he were gaining real talent and telling jokes that were genuinely good enough to make the viewer laugh, I feel like that would pull you in and make his dilemma more compelling. mangler103 posted:Nightmare had an awesome premise that didn't really need to be connected to the original classic episode. A guy listening to a podcast that's predicting his pending doom is an amazing premise and it's a little wasted by trying to piggy back on one of the best episodes of the series. It's strong enough to be its own thing. I know putting it on a plane and making it about paranoia is going to draw comparisons, but I think it would have ultimately been a stronger episode if it had changed out the setting for something else. I hope they have more confidence in their writing in the future so they don't just shoehorn good ideas into classic episode settings. I think an essential aspect of Nightmare is the idea that everyone is trapped and in danger, but nobody wants to be told that they are. I can't think of another analogous scenario with that same claustrophobia/paranoia combo as "We're going to crash, none of us can get out, and I'm the only one who knows or cares".
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Apr 4, 2019 19:15
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Big Mean Jerk posted:Or the other pilot was entirely in Adam Scott’s head and he was the one who actually crashed the plane. I can’t remember if anyone else interacts with the other guy at all. I've been thinking on this and I definitely think this is the case. It was definitely weird that once the air Marshall gets up after having Adam Scott cuffed, the guy just sits down like it's no big deal and NO ONE on that plane seems to mind. Pair that with "No one was missing except Adam Scott" bit.
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Apr 4, 2019 20:40
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Phenotype posted:Adam Scott was in cuffs, though, I don't think he could have beat the hell out of both pilots if it was just him the whole time. IIRC the podcast at the end is part 2, released after all the passengers were found alive. Part 1 was what he/we were listening to the whole time, and it would've been recorded when it was assumed the plane vanished without a trace.
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Apr 4, 2019 22:58
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Huh, that makes sense. Maybe it was Adam Scott the whole time. But I still don't see how he overpowered both pilots with his hands cuffed. I really liked that transition, when the "pilot" goes through the cockpit door, and it's triumphant at first and then... man, that's a lot more violence than I pictured. Hm.
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Apr 5, 2019 03:11
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Phenotype posted:Huh, that makes sense. Maybe it was Adam Scott the whole time. But I still don't see how he overpowered both pilots with his hands cuffed. I really liked that transition, when the "pilot" goes through the cockpit door, and it's triumphant at first and then... man, that's a lot more violence than I pictured. Hm. Just use a good ol’ fashioned Kirk doublefist slam to the back. Instant knockout.
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Apr 5, 2019 03:15
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It's all come full circle.
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Apr 5, 2019 06:24
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BigBallChunkyTime posted:I liked The Comedian more than a lot of you. I thought it was a great commentary on greed, ambition, and vengeance. The whole thing was like a faustian deal, right? I just assumed Tracy Jordan's character was the devil. Everything that happened was totally a classic devil's trick and he's doing it again at the end with the other comedian. Getting desperate folks to trade their souls/life for mortal success.
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Apr 7, 2019 01:56
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I just finished watching "The Comedian" and I liked it quite a bit! But I found some of the writing to be clunky in a way that was really confusing. For example, when Samir decides to erase the loud mouth comedian, and is saying that he crashed into a bus stop killing a mother and child, I thought he was making that all up as a joke. But then it actually erases the mangled bus stop... so... the club was employing a comedian that killed two people right outside in a recent drunk driving accident? Really?
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Apr 8, 2019 03:07
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Bucswabe posted:I just finished watching "The Comedian" and I liked it quite a bit! But I found some of the writing to be clunky in a way that was really confusing. The world of entertainment is hosed up my dude.
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Apr 8, 2019 03:15
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Nightmare at 30k: I think the idea was really cool but they went off the rails after the rainy take off. Dan Carlin describing how the plane goes down over the course of 30 minutes would have been great. Instead they tried to introduce this mystery that didn't have enough time to be substantial. Him telling a deranged pilot how to get in the cockpit was a lame ending and ruined the bird in the wing/russian hitmen/us marshall/original pilot plot they were trying to work up. I don't like Jordan Peele as the narrator either. His voice isn't deep enough to be the creepy Twilight Zone narrator.
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Apr 9, 2019 23:41
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Taintrunner posted:The Comedian is on Youtube, just watched it, it started out pretty neat. Then about part-way through my brain put it together and went "oh, this is just Death Note, but standup" and I got super tuned out of it. I don't even think they took it anywhere that interesting, the ending was such an easy out. It should have played on the Trump thing early on - like Samir works his way up through his act into the upper echelons of society, gets invited to the White House or whatever so he does know all these awful people personally, and then goes just full scorched earth, and exploring the consequences of that. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Apr 10, 2019 |
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Apr 10, 2019 03:53
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Third episode is definitely my favourite so far.
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Apr 11, 2019 13:59
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Third episode: I already see "more woke than thou" screaming matches online about "this episode was way too on-the-nose" vs. "yes that was the point!". People who are aware that Twilight Zone is a commentary on society probably don't need something this blunt. And although there are way, way too many people out there who need the message bashed into their heads about racism especially in regards to minority interactions with police, let's face it, they're not going to get anything out of it. At least I can get schadenfreude from the comments from closet racists promising to boycott the show because they feel personally insulted by the streaming episode about the magic camera and T-1000 police man. Next episode looks promising - my guess is Steven Yuen plays a time traveling alien who's there because he wants to watch something horrific happen to the town that day.
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Apr 11, 2019 22:07
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I really enjoyed the first two episodes. I only watched the odd rerun of the original series, though, so maybe I don't have as much invested in a reboot as some of you guys.
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Apr 11, 2019 22:58
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I'm really liking this show, like a lot. It feels very true to the pointed (if not heavy handed) political commentary of the original and its managed to run a chill down my spine every episode so far! I'm irrationally annoyed that people are hating on it so much in online rating places. Weird that only the episodes starring brown people seem to be getting review bombed. It just makes me laugh when these shitheels are like "its too political" or "its just not scary enough." Like have they never actually watched the original? It's thing never was outright terror, but more like chills and "weird" fiction. Bah, I just don't want the show to get canceled.
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Apr 12, 2019 01:19
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Third episode was way too on the nose and completely predictable. It wasn't spooky or weird. Most of all, the story could've been told in half the time. Commenting on society is cool and good but I'm watching the show because I want to be entertained, not looking at the clock.
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Apr 12, 2019 01:39
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