Jor­dan Peele’s The Twi­light Zone is a wor­thy suc­ces­sor to Rod Serling’s original

Gen­er­al­ly regard­ed as one of the great­est anthol­o­gy series ever made, The Twi­light Zone orig­i­nal­ly ran on CBS between 1959 and 1964. The show’s cre­ator, Rod Ser­ling, who also wrote most of the episodes, would deliv­er mono­logues at the begin­ning and end of each episode on themes of fate, jus­tice and free will, high­light­ing the alle­gories and morals of that week’s sto­ry. At a time filled with bland fam­i­ly friend­ly pro­gram­ming, The Twi­light Zone’s sub­ver­sive, grown-up sci­ence fic­tion con­front­ed view­ers’ deep­est fears with­out ever suc­cumb­ing to nihilism.

As with so much of the best sci-fi, it tapped into real pub­lic anx­i­eties of the time: around the Cold War, McCarthy­ism, the Space Race, racism and gov­ern­ment con­spir­a­cies. Down the years sev­er­al attempts have been made to recap­ture the mag­ic of the orig­i­nal show: a 1983 film is unfor­tu­nate­ly most famous for the gris­ly on-set deaths of three actors; a mid-’80s TV reboot last­ed just three sea­sons; and an even less suc­cess­ful 2002 reboot was can­celled after just one.

These adap­ta­tions were not total­ly devoid of artis­tic mer­it though. For­rest Whitak­er brought a nat­ur­al grav­i­tas to the role of the nar­ra­tor in the 2002 series, while the film con­tains a delight­ful­ly unhinged John Lith­gow per­for­mance. The ​’80s series har­nessed the cre­ative tal­ent of Wes Craven, George RR Mar­tin, Har­lan Elli­son, Mor­gan Free­man and Helen Mir­ren for some mem­o­rable moments, with episodes ​‘Shat­ter­day’ and ​‘Dealer’s Choice’ hold­ing up par­tic­u­lar­ly well. But no revival has man­aged to live up to Rod Serling’s lofty standards.

There have been sev­er­al sim­i­lar­ly themed con­tem­po­rary anthol­o­gy series. Elec­tric Dreams and Jor­dan Peele’s own Weird City were both swift­ly for­got­ten but Black Mir­ror has sus­tained its pop­u­lar­i­ty, push­ing the bound­aries of what a tele­vi­sion show can be. The­mat­i­cal­ly, of course, Black Mir­ror is steeped in techno­pho­bia, but more sig­nif­i­cant­ly there is a grim cyn­i­cism in the show that can’t be found even in The Twi­light Zone’s most twist­ed night­mares. Black Mir­ror looks at the world through a warped lens and doesn’t pos­sess the dark whim­sy of Rod Serling’s fifth dimension.

With all that in mind, the lat­est iter­a­tion of The Twi­light Zone has a lot to live up to. It has cer­tain­ly got the right cre­den­tials, with red-hot Peele in Serling’s role as series pro­duc­er and nar­ra­tor, plus an impres­sive­ly diverse, high-pro­file cast. Peele makes for an impec­ca­ble host, adopt­ing Serling’s sig­na­ture cadence while bring­ing a world-weary inten­si­ty to pro­ceed­ings. Unlike his esteemed pre­de­ces­sor, he nar­rates from with­in each piece, appear­ing in din­ers, com­e­dy clubs or and in-flight enter­tain­ment screens.

Pre­mière episode ​‘The Come­di­an’ sees Kumail Nan­jiani play a stand-up come­di­an whose pol­i­tics get in the way of him actu­al­ly being fun­ny. After bomb­ing on stage one night he takes advice from a leg­endary com­ic, expert­ly played by the irre­sistibly charm­ing Tra­cy Mor­gan, which inevitably has Faus­t­ian consequences.

Else­where, ​‘Night­mare at 30,000 Feet’ is a remake of the clas­sic and much par­o­died episode ​‘Night­mare at 20,000 Feet’. In the orig­i­nal, William Shat­ner is the sole pas­sen­ger aboard a plane who can see the grem­lin that’s rip­ping the engine to shreads. The 2019 ver­sion, aside from adding 10,000 feet, has Adam Scott find­ing an Mp3 play­er with a pod­cast detail­ing the dis­ap­pear­ance of the flight he is cur­rent­ly on.

‘Replay’ sees Sanaa Lath­an take her son to a pres­ti­gious uni­ver­si­ty only to run into a racist state troop­er, played by a ter­ri­fy­ing Glen Flesch­er. The encounter ends in tragedy and, despite her camcorder’s abil­i­ty to rewind the inci­dent, it seems impos­si­ble to escape unscathed. Final­ly, ​‘The Trav­eller’ is set at Christ­mas in an Alaskan police depart­ment where a mys­te­ri­ous, sharply-dressed Steven Yeun seeks a par­don from Greg Kinnear’s police captain.

There is much to admire in each episode, name­ly some beau­ti­ful­ly cin­e­matog­ra­phy and sol­id per­for­mances from Yeun, Lath­an, Mor­gan and Dam­son Idris. ​‘The Come­di­an’ is par­tic­u­lar­ly gor­geous, the whole thing seem­ing­ly lit through sap­phires with time­less neo-noir styling through­out. ​‘Night­mare at 30,000 Feet’ and ​‘The Trav­eller’ both make use of their claus­tro­pho­bic set­tings to anx­i­ety-induc­ing effect. The show as a whole works extreme­ly well and the con­tem­po­rary themes seam­less­ly inte­grate them­selves into Serling’s dis­tinc­tive style.

That said, there are some wor­ry­ing ten­den­cies on dis­play. Vir­tu­al­ly every episode feels over­long with unnec­es­sary expo­si­tion slow­ing the pace. ​‘Night­mare at 30,000 Feet’ and ​‘The Come­di­an’ both end on an under­whelm­ing note and could have shed the final few min­utes (and final twists) for more impact­ful con­clu­sions. The series also seems over­ly enam­oured with its own mythol­o­gy, while the abun­dance of East­er Eggs and ref­er­ences to the orig­i­nal series are both dis­tract­ing and self-congratulatory.

Yet this revival hits far more than it miss­es. Future episodes fea­ture John Cho, Tais­sa Farmi­ga, Seth Rogen and, most intrigu­ing­ly, Jacob Trem­blay as a child run­ning for pres­i­dent in a send up of Trump’s cam­paign. The Twi­light Zone remains a safe space to explore the world’s worst nightmares.