The Twilight Zone: Season Two

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In case you haven’t seen the intro from my entry dated 1/26/19 (it’s in my archives whenever you want to read it), I’m no longer going to review every single movie I see.  I’m going to review one, with the occasional bonus, and just give ratings for the rest from now on (unless I decide to pick it up again in the future).  You can always ask me why I gave the ratings for the films without reviews though (via comments or the e-mail addresses under the ‘About Me’ section).

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The Twilight Zone:  Season Two                                 G

I generally liked this second season of the newest Twilight Zone, produced and narrated by Jordan Peele, better than the last one enough to recommend it (you can read my review for the previous season in the archives---www.abcreviewarchive.blogspot.com).  Since it was only ten episodes, like last season, I’m simply going to briefly discuss each one in the order they were presented, even though you don’t have to watch them in order (being it’s an anthology series).  First, we have “Meet in the Middle” which imagines two people falling in love with each other’s voice inside their heads instead of going crazy.  Given the title, they do attempt to meet and, in a somewhat clever turn of events, things don’t turn out so well for at least one of them.  “Downtime” follows a fairly common storyline for the series, involving mistaken identity of sorts wherein someone questions their entire existence after a big reveal.  We’re given a different type of body-swapping tale in “The Who of You” that isn’t quite like Freaky Friday where a man can somehow trade bodies via eye contact;  contains a twist of sorts at the end that should’ve been easy to figure out before being revealed.  “Ovation” was the weakest entry for me which was baffling considering Ana Lily Amirpour (one of the only directors I actually knew of this season), who made a name for herself with the “different” vampire tale, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, helmed it.  It pretty much emphasizes that fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially if you suddenly transition from being invisible to stardom visible, and the title refers to a rather silly concept; there’s a twist at the end that isn’t even too shocking (I really didn’t care by that point anyway).  “Among the Untrodden” involves a girl at a boarding school learning she has special powers after a new girl informs her so.  It’s fairly straightforward but corny fun in a similar way The Craft is, and there’s a twist at the end I didn’t expect.  A team of scientists at the bottom of the world try capturing a special kind of octopus in the episode appropriately titled “8.”  It’s a decent creature feature helmed by the directing duo (Justin Benson/Aaron Moorhead) behind Resolution, Spring, and The Endless; the octopus does kill people and is eventually disclosed to have quite a sinister agenda of its own.  In “A Human Face,” a married couple encounter an alien in their basement that gradually transforms into their deceased daughter.  I wasn’t a fan of the CGI and the story itself ends up being rather sappy, yet it simultaneously could be viewed as something that could’ve led down darker paths given the alien’s intentions.  A man discovers a replica of the exact same small town he resides in in “A Small Town” and learns he can play God, originally for the better given the town hasn’t been doing so well following the death of his wife, but naturally having “the whole world in your hands” can lead to disastrous consequences, especially if others hear of this ability.  Topher Grace is in his own version of Groundhog Day in “Try, Try,” but I don’t remember Bill Murray trying to severely harm anyone other than himself while in his time loop.  Lastly, “You Might Also Like” is a decent segment involving aliens subtly trying to take over the world, but it felt a bit underdeveloped.  All in all, I really only disliked one of the ten episodes, ranging from 31 to 46 minutes (I don’t understand why they can’t all be 30 minutes or less like the original series), available on CBS All Access wherein you have the option of watching all ten in color or black & white (like the original series).  None of them truly felt too original, which is nearly an impossible feat anymore, but many of them felt unique momentarily, if that makes any sense.  To make myself clear, there were more hits than misses this round, and that’s always a good sign for an anthology show/movie.  9/23/2020

Other movies I've seen and their ratings (see above):

The King of Staten Island  >>>OK

Let It Snow (2020)  >>>EH

Yes, God, Yes  >>>OK/G

---Sean O.
9/29/2020