The Twilight Zone: La quatrième dimension

The original Twilight Zone series was full of social commentary and messages that challenged society. With episodes touching on topics like racism, religion, censorship, greed, and corporatism, the show was far from a simple science fiction series. One might suggest the Twilight Zone started Hollywood's tradition of engaging in social and political issues.

So why did this concept work so well in the 1960s while receiving so much backlash today? The answer is simple: politics is more polarizing than it has been in recent history.

Rod Serling, the writer of the original series, set out to challenge viewers by creating content that neither the tv executives nor the regulators felt would make for a positive outcome, but they were wrong. It was a big success.

However, when revisiting old episodes, it's clear that Serling's radical approach to writing was still tame enough to appeal to most average American viewers of that era. Today, writing about social topics that make people uncomfortable while avoiding ideological backlash seems nearly impossible to do.

1964's episode "I Am the Night - Color Me Black" told the story of a town eager to hang an innocent black man after he was wrongfully convicted of killing a racist white man in self-defense. 2019's episode "Replay" tells the story of a woman using a rewind button on a camcorder to protect her son from a racist police trooper. Just read the other reviews and see how today's polarized viewer responds to the latter.

To be fair, many of the ideas conveyed by Serling's original Twilight Zone were deliberately written to not appeal to either side politically. The same probably cannot be said about this current reboot. It would be interesting to see if Serling could take on this challenge today.

Maybe the solution to this problem is to no longer use social commentary in writing. Or maybe the writers could make more obvious right leaning episodes to even things out. One thing is for certain, as long as entertainment seeks to talk about the things that make us uncomfortable, you'll manage to alienate a lot of viewers... here.... in The Twilight Zone.

Too many people are too willing to settle for mediocrity as long as the show is "woke" enough and CBS is exploiting that with shows like TZ and STD. Just watch the originals they were better.

I've just finished watching the first four episodes, and I went from excited anticipation, to disappointed, to fed up enough to bail on future episodes.

Each episode seems to be plot-focused on targeting one identifiable group as perpetual racists, and another group as perpetual victims.

The science fiction is a minor incidental to the series.

Rod is turning in his grave! Shame on this reboot!

The thing that sets the original The Twilight Zone apart is that each episode is expertly filmed, especially in its use of longer takes and slow moving panning shots, that cinematography helps to kick the tension into high gear, the new series doesn't do that and I can't figure out why? The cinematography in the first two episodes just did not draw me in, they explained too much right off the get go.

There is nothing worse than programming that treats its viewers as stupid and ignorant. This series in no way respects the foundations of the original Twilight Zone. It is awful.