Greetings,
I can already tell that there may be some confusion with this post. Why am I including The Twilight Zone in my One Seasoner's Club? It did, after all, run for several glorious years. Well, we are not discussing that today, nor the revival from 1985, which I don't believe I ever saw and, therefore, cannot comment on. Rather, we will be talking about the revamped version of the show from 2002. It does, indeed, exist.
When this show started, I was fair and curious enough to give it a chance. I do, after all, like to work off of the assumption that "You never know" Well, I quickly knew that this was not even in the same, shall we say, zone as the original. Yeah, it was not that great. Thinking back, though, I'm not certain if this show was a fail because of the expected and obvious comparisons or just because it was simply not good. I suppose it could have worked had it been a stand alone series with no connections to its famous predecessor, but I don't know. And I guess we never will know.
Okay, let's get to the actual show. Now there were a few changes from the original. First of all, it was in color, of course, and it was an hour long. That meant that for every episode we got two stories. Also, we obviously got a different host. This time it was Forest Whitaker, and if I had to mention one good thing about this show, it would be him. Not only because he is a fantastic actor and an all-around enjoyable person, but because they didn't just get some convincing clone of Rod Serling for the part. Maybe a pre-Mad Men Jon Hamm or something. Seriously, he does kind of remind me of Serling a bit. Honestly, I do think that Forest Whitaker did a good job really capturing the mood of what the show was supposed to be.
One thing that did not change was the constant barrage of celebrity guest stars. In the 50's and 60's version, we were treated to the likes of such luminaries as Burgess Meredith, Telly Savalas, Julie Newmar, and, the man, William Shatner, and even Robert Redford and Robert Duvall. The list of actors who were guests is unbelievable. But then, we get to 2002 where we have to suffer through such acting train wrecks as Katherine Heigl, Shannon Elizabeth and, I kid you not, Jessica Simpson. Sorry, not a fan. However, if I am being completely honest, they did have some great guests as well, like Jeremy Sisto, Amber Tamblyn, Robin Tunney and Jeremy Piven. Having them, in turn, ended up giving us a few good moments for the series. But even they couldn't save this thing from cancellation.
So did this show deserve a second season? Not really. I'm not even sure it deserved a first. I mean, I appreciate the effort, and I'll assume that some of the reasoning behind making this was to get a younger generation to recognize the original. That is a very good thing. But even if the remake had been absolutely excellent, I still don't think it could have survived all the comparisons. The original was near flawless, and I don't know how they thought they could improve on that. I've said this before. Don't take something good and make it bad; take something bad and make it good.
The bottom line is that some things should be left to stand alone with their own legendary status. The Twilight Zone of 1959 is one of those things. It shouldn't be placed in danger of being forever attached to an inferior remake. Still, since this 2002 version was pretty forgettable, I think we need not worry about that happening.
Love and full moons,
Becky the Writer
