The Twilight Zone Returns . . . . Sort Of

I have no doubt that Jordan Peele has an earnest love and respect for the original Twilight Zone, and that that love and respect served as his motivation for reviving the series. After the artistic, commercial, and critical success of the brilliant Get Out, Peele could have chosen any project he wanted, and the one he chose was The Twilight Zone. I have a great deal of respect for Peele as a comedian, director, and writer. All of that being said, I just watched the premiere episode of Peele's Twilight Zone (the fourth iteration of the TV series), and I have to say that not only does it not stand up to the groundbreaking original series, but it doesn't stand up to the under-rated 80s and 2000s versions either. More to the point, even if you eliminate the comparisons, it doesn't even hold up as basic good material.

The premiere episode of Peele's version of The Twilight Zone is entitled "The Comedian," and stars Kumail Nanjiani as Samir Wassan, a struggling stand-up comic whose routine is painfully unfunny. Then one night, he meets legendary comedian J.C. Wheeler, played with  a likable confidence by a grinning Tracy Morgan. Samir asks Mr. Wheeler for advice, and the next thing you know, Samir is hailed as the next big thing in comedy -- but at a supernatural price.

I don't want to give away too many details -- that's just the set-up -- but I do have to address how completely writer Alex Rubens misses the point of the original Twilight Zone. Television critic Noel Murray once summarized the entire original series by pointing out the same 14 gimmicks the show used again and again. "The Comedian" seems an obvious case for points 9 and 10 -- "be careful what you wish for" and "with great power comes a lot of hassles." So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if I found out that Rubens was very familiar with the original series. But what he somehow completely failed to notice is that the original show almost always used the Twilight Zone itself to address some sort of cognitive or moral flaw in the protagonist. If the protagonist was more or less a bad guy, he'd get a just punishment. If he or she was more or less a good person but needed to learn a valuable lesson, disturbing things would happen, but he or she'd always end up a little wiser at the end.

Yet "The Comedian" presents Samir as a decent person, and the only real lesson he has to learn is how to actually be funny. Mr. Wheeler's advice to open up to his audience, to share something of himself, seems legitimate enough, but nothing in Samir's actions or personality indicate that he deserves anything that follows. If he is temporarily corrupted by the mysterious power Mr. Wheeler gives him -- well, that's on Wheeler, not on Samir. Rubens doesn't seem to care or possibly even understand the moral centers of his own narrative and protagonist.

Something also has to be said about how all of this is presented. Rubens surrounds Samir with a supporting cast of mostly unlikable characters. You could argue that that's a legitimate method of storytelling, but it does make it a little less enjoyable to watch. But Rubens also unnecessarily peppers the dialogue with curse words, and with insults that depend on crude sexual humor minus the, you know, humor. I used the word "unnecessary" intentionally, because none of the crude language adds anything of value to the characters or story, as crude language sometimes can when utilized properly. Here, the only purpose of the foul language seems to exist for one reason and one reason only, to show to the audience, "see, this is The Twilight Zone, but it's not your father's Twilight Zone, we're edgy, see?!!" If anything, this aspect of the dialogue is just too self-conscious, too blatantly agenda-based rather than story-based. It is, frankly, jarring, a taut reminder that you're watching a show. It takes us out of the experience rather than pulling us further in.

You may have noticed that I've mentioned writer Alex Rubens several times in this review, and there's a reason for that. The failure of this episode is very much at the writing level. The actors can't be blamed. The cinematography and production values are top-notch, surely, due to budget and advances in digital technology, superior to any previous Twilight Zone. But the pathos of the previous versions is sorely lacking. Rubens's only interest in writing "The Comedian" seems to be to create a good person, and put him through hell for no reason other than Rubens's own very mistaken belief that that's what The Twilight Zone is all about.

So yes, I blame Rubens, not Peele himself -- at least not yet. As producer, Peele surely has a great deal of say about what The Twilight Zone presents and what it doesn't, but I'd stop short of blaming him for the writing itself, unless this poor choice of material turns out to be a trend. Peele himself is listed as one of the writers of the upcoming episode, which fills me with hope that there might be a significant increase in quality between episodes One and Two. I hope so. This show really needs it.