I remember watching day-long marathons of original The Twilight Zone episodes on the Sci Fi Channel on hot summer days. The wild premises and shocking twists of nearly every episode made it endlessly enjoyable for binge-watching. Countless episodes are embedded deep into my brain. When most of the original show was dumped onto Netflix a while back, I watched through a random selection of episodes and was surprised at how many I still remembered.

When a reboot of the series was announced with Jordan Peele as host and producer, I knew I would have to check it out eventually. But mixed initial reviews and an exclusivity to CBS’s online streaming services (fucking really?), meant I didn’t get around to giving it a try until this week when I saw that Season 2 had been released. Jordan Peele’s two films as director, Get Out and Us, are like double length pilot episodes for this show. Peele’s distinctive directorial style, of combining sharp social commentary via high concept science fiction, seems like a perfect fit for a new Twilight Zone. Indeed, Peele has said in interviews that Us was directly inspired by the Twilight Zone episode Mirror Image.

So, I watched the 10 episodes of the first season, and then ranked and reviewed them all. It’s a mixed bag, and I had to grapple with both the successes and failures of the new show.

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10. The Comedian (ep.1, 54m)

The pilot episode of the new series demonstrates the core problem with nearly every episode of the series - these things are too damn long. Whereas the original series kept the majority of its episodes at a tight 24m, the new series is a streaming exclusive with no strict time limitations. The episodes range from 37 minutes on the low end to 54 on the high end, and very few of the episodes feel like they use there length effectively. Stories in the Twilight Zone, both the original series and this reboot, are typically trying to convey one powerful idea through a relatively simple setup. The extended runtimes of the new series tend to do little more than delay the payoff for the setup by dragging in the middle.

The Comedian is easily the worst offender in this regard, though the same issue plagues many of other episodes. The pilot starts off promising with a classic Twilight Zone setup - Samir, a struggling comedian, enters into a Faustian bargain with a mysterious, devilish figure, in which he trades in his personal connections for success. Samir retires his woke but dry set on the 2nd Amendment and instead gets huge laughs by targeting people he knows personally. However, when the set is over, those people vanish from existence as though they never existed, with only Samir’s memory of them remaining. Within the first ten minutes, this is established and I immediately foresaw how the episode would play out. Samir would realize his new power and target people he saw as clearly deserving, but over time would lash out more at innocents and those close to him. Ultimately, he must reckon with his actions and make a final choice that decides his final impact upon the world. But between the initial setup and final conclusion, the episode spins its wheels for over half an hour. A string of characters are introduced and erased by Samir, neither showing a new aspect of Samir and his powers, nor escalating the tension.

For how much time is spent unraveling the plot, the episode has little to say about the costs of success, or compromising in one’s art, or the responsibility of comedy. The episode sketches out a simplistic binary - either endure failure while speaking truth in your art, or compromise your values to create shallow, mean-spirited, and broadly appealing work. The episode has many shots of the audience sleepily ignoring Samir’s weak jabs at the 2nd Amendment, and it feels from another dimension in a time when many comedians and TV show hosts are doing socially-conscious and politically-minded comedy to wide acclaim. A shorter, snappier story might have gotten away with a weak moral core, but The Comedian belabors the point for nearly an hour and overstays its welcome two times over. It’s a shame that the first episode is also the worst, but it’s only up from here.

9. A Traveler (ep.4, 50m)

In a tiny Alaskan town, a Christmas Eve celebration at the police precinct is disrupted by the mysterious arrival of the charming yet enigmatic stranger, A. Traveler, who disrupts the festivities by sowing mistrust in the small community. It’s another classic setup, one that recalls two classic Twilight Zone episodes - Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up, and The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street, both stories about how a fragile community trust can be broken and manipulated by malevolent outside powers. This episode is clearly going for a similar angle, but the execution is botched. This episode a long and slow drag that never builds tension properly, nor can it keep its focus on any coherent social critique.

The episode focuses on an indigenous woman, Yuka, who works as an officer for the local police, somehow the only person who distrusts A. Traveler from the outset. Bits of dialogue between Yuka and A. Traveler, and Yuka and her brother, suggest that episode has an interest in spotlighting continued tensions between Native Americans and the society they are forced to assimilate into. Yuka dislikes her boss, the police chief, who loves talking about how his ancestors tamed the wild land they now inhabit, and valorizes his role in protecting the nation - the small town police force assists with the protection of the nearby military base. But the story meanders to and away from that focus, as A. Traveler first befriends the townsfolk with karaoke, then pokes at petty small town grievances like how the mayor is allocating funding. Ultimately, the story ends with a frustrating anticlimax, as whatever alien race A. Traveler is revealed to be descends from the sky in flying saucers, prompting the question of why he bothered to go through all the trouble of sowing discord. It’s messy, and the parallels to classic Twilight Zone episodes are not favorable.

8. Blurryman (ep.10, 38m)

If nothing else, I appreciate this episode’s ambition. This season finale tries to go for an ambitious metanarrative about the very show it is a part of. The opening is brilliant. A false start to the episode plays out, featuring Seth Rogan as a struggling writer, but Jordan Peele’s opening narration ends abruptly when he asks for a rewrite. The camera pulls back and shows the set and crew working on the in-universe episode. The story turns to follow a different struggling writer, Sofie, who is working on the in-episode reboot of the Twilight Zone. Jordan Peele plays himself, and talks with Sofie about what The Twilight Zone means to her and what their reboot should mean. They discuss the distinction between art and entertainment, and whether their show must choose between them or if they can find a balance. It’s a fun way for the creators to grapple with the weight of carrying the legacy of a beloved cultural institution.

The episode runs out of ideas pretty quickly though. Sofie begins to investigate a weird blurry figure that was spotted in the background of some footage they recently shot for the show. The investigation quickly devolves into Sofie running around the set being chased by the titular Blurryman, and continues for nearly half of the runtime. When the show decides to get back on track, the shadowy figure shows Sofie her own past, watching The Twilight Zone on TV as a kid to escape from her own frustrating reality. It’s a touching moment that feels authentic, particularly to someone like me who experienced the original show in much the same way. The shadowy figure in the back of her show was her need to return to what enraptured her about fantastical storytelling in the first place, so when Sofie returns to reality she writes a new opening narration that feels true to herself. And then a stiff-looking CGI Rod Serling shows up for some reason. This episode is not good, but I appreciate the intention behind it.

7. The Wunderkind (ep.5, 39m)

Political satire in the age of Trump is difficult to do. The Black Mirror episode that this reminds me of, The Waldo Moment, has the distinction of predicting an absurd Trump-like rise to power back in 2013, but even that felt quaint and dated by 2017. The Wunderkind has a weak premise - what if a literal child ran for president?! How crazy would that be?!? - but some decent execution spares it from being a total drag.

A failed campaign manager, Raff, seeks redemption by trying to get a young YouTube viral sensation elected president. The kid, Oliver, has earnestness and wild proposals that get media attention, and when paired with sappy pandering and high production video ads, he gets elected. When in office, Oliver’s latent brattiness and mounting frustration at having to actually accomplish the things he promised lead to him becoming increasingly unhinged. Raff tries to intervene, but it is too late and he pays the price. It is not particularly insightful political satire, but it is at least true. The main target of the story is the disconnect between the skills needed to get elected and the skills needed to actually run an effective government. Media savviness and a well-crafted public persona are not enough to run a country properly.

Sadly, like most contemporary political satire, this episode feels toothless. Oliver ran on a platform of free video games and being nice to animals; Trump ran on a platform of racist nationalism. American politics are horrifying, and this episode feels cute. Still, the pace of this episode is nice and quick, and the framing device of Raff recalling the events of the episode while lying on an operating table is effective at keeping tension up. It’s weak, but inoffensive.

6. Six Degrees of Freedom (ep.6, 54m)

A space exploration episode is an essential part of any good Twilight Zone season, and this episode combines that with another favorite Twilight Zone theme - the threat of nuclear war. A 5-person crew is on the launchpad, about to leave on a 4 year voyage to explore and begin to settle Mars, when nuclear war begins. They escape into space just in time, but with no ground contact, they are left to assume that they are some of the few survivors of total nuclear annihilation. As one crewmember somberly muses, space colonization is the final test for humanity, as their continued survival as a species was dependent on successfully reaching the new frontiers of other planets. They all understood that when they chose to embark on this journey, but the stakes of their mission just got as high as possible.

It’s a fun setup, but the writers do not have a clear idea for where to take it. There are any number of interesting dilemmas and conflicts a crew could encounter on a lonely year-long journey to Mars, but the main thing that happens is simple interpersonal conflicts. One crewmember is too talkative at dinner, annoying the captain. Two crewmembers are having sex even though it is forbidden, as getting pregnant would be too dangerous. These feel lazy, and somewhat unrealistic. Sure, the stakes of their journey are higher and they have no contact with anybody from Earth which is terrifying, but I would have to imagine that crew members for a four year journey would have already ironed out any obvious potential personal conflicts well ahead of time. Did they not make any plans for relieving sexual urges? I’m at a loss.

The episode is partially salvaged when it takes a wild turn in the final third. In a great scene, one of the crewmembers, Jerry, seems to have a psychotic break, believing that they are in a simulation, and throws himself out of the airlock to prove it. The remaining four crew members soldier on and eventually reach Mars, but in the final shot, the fifth crewmember is revealed to be alive and proven correct. Aliens discuss how humanity has passed the test and are thus worth saving. It’s a pretty goofy twist and doesn’t really square that well with the previous parts of the episode. Like, the buildup of the episode is implicitly condemning how insular the crewmembers are at the start of the journey, particularly the captain, as they forcibly restrain their emotions. Only as they open up more to each other about their feelings do tensions on the ship begin to ease. But Jerry does open up, showing the rest of the crew his obsessions, and they utterly fail to calm him down and save his life. They even make fun of him and his delusions after he’s gone. And yet, in the final moments of the show, the aliens decide that humanity is worth saving based on the actions of these characters. The morality of the episode is bit confused. It’s a very inconsistent episode, but in concept at least it feels quintessentially Twilight Zone-y.

5. Point of Origin (ep.8, 42m)

This one is about how we should abolish ICE and I like that. This is another episode in which I saw what was going to happen a mile away, but solid execution and a strong, clear message make this one a winner. A wealthy suburban stay-at-home mom is shocked when her housekeeper and nanny, Anna, is taken by ICE in her own home. A few days later, Eve herself is taken into the same detention camp for unknown reasons. It quickly becomes clear that Eve is not who she thought she was, and is neither originally from this country, nor from this world. It’s a simple “How would you feel if YOU were an undocumented immigrant?!” sort of set up, and as is common in this season, the episode drags in the middle by needlessly prolonging the period in which Eve is imprisoned. Still, two things make the story work.

First, Eve is not a racist asshole at the start. The really obvious move would make this a karmic justice sort of situation, in which a mean housewife gets her comeuppance for not treating her hired help well. Instead, Eve is actually a fairly sympathetic figure, who calls Anna part of her family and works to get Anna freed after she is captured. Or rather, Eve says these things, and it’s not actually clear to the extent she believes any of it. Eve also clearly relishes telling her tea group the traumatic and heart-breaking story of how Anna got captured by those mean, brutish government agents. The ladies all compassionately gasp at the story, but when one of them says that illegals have to know the risks when they come here, none of them push back with any force. So the episode chooses its target appropriately. It is not simply about an active racist, but rather a passive one. Eve performs empathy, but does not practice it.

Second, the episode smartly handles how one’s identity can be scrubbed away, if not entirely erased, once the state deems you to be an unwanted element. Eve manages to escape from the detention camp and return home, but her family is not excited to see her. Stone-faced, her husband tells her, “you are not who you are… you never were.” It doesn’t matter whether or not Eve knew about her point of origin. It doesn’t matter that she and her family enjoyed many happy and peaceful years together. It doesn’t matter that, inferring from the striking black-and-white flashes to the alternate universe Eve hails from, the land she came from was in ruins and she had no where else to go. She is not from here, and so the entirety of her life is forfeit. Her neighbors watch silently is she is dragged away.

4. Nightmare at 30,000 Feet (ep.2, 37m)

This is a good one. A sort of loose remake of the classic episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, this story also tells a tale about a man who recently recovered from a mental breakdown, who boards a dangerous flight. In this version, investigative reporter Justin Sanderson discovers an MP3 player in his front seat pocket loaded up with a podcast from the future that details the curious case of Flight 1015 that went missing over the Atlantic - the very flight that Justin is on!?! It’s a zippy thriller of an episode with a dark twist that feels justified. Ultimately, Justin’s efforts to save the plane only end up creating the very catastrophe he hoped to avoid. On reflection, it’s clear his failure is due to some small implicit biases that Justin, a white man, carried. He gets frustrated with the air stewards, a young white woman and black man who do not happily entertain Justin’s erratic behavior and meddling with other passengers. He assumes some eastern European men are the mobsters mentioned in the podcast and pokes around in their belongings. And he ultimately puts his faith in the shady, heavily drinking, white ex-pilot who hears him out, over the many other well-qualified officials on the flight, like the black female air marshal who has alertly been monitoring everyone on the flight and restrained Justin with zip-ties after he got out of control. It’s a surprisingly subtle examination of bias, wrapped up in a fun, thrilling premise.

It’s just a shame that the ending is odd. Everybody miraculously survives the plane crash, and then collectively beat Justin to death. That is somehow both too hopeful and too dark for what came before. Also, when there are so many survivors, why did the podcast frame everything that happened as an unsolved mystery?

3. The Blue Scorpion (ep.9, 40m)

A magical or cursed object is another classic Twilight Zone setup, whether that means we’re dealing with a cursed camera the shows photos of the future, or a magic mirror that reveals your enemies. The reboot’s take on this concept is a legendary pistol known as The Blue Scorpion. The weapon falls into the hands of Jeff after his father kills himself with it. The golden bullets that accompany the weapon have names inscribed onto them, indicating their next victim. And the next bullet says Jeff. But which Jeff? As the story progresses, our main Jeff meets several additional Jeffs, including his nearly-divorced wife’s new lover, her divorce attorney, and the man who wants to buy The Blue Scorpion off of him. It’s good hook - where will the bullet eventually land?

I HATE guns. The sight of them in real life unnerves me. I’m used to media portraying guns in a cool or glamorous or heroic way, so I love how this episode leans into the inherent horror that accompanies guns. In one early scene, the gun suddenly fires a chambered round unprompted and it is the best jump-scare of the whole series. Though intending to sell the gun at first, Jeff gets increasingly enamored with The Blue Scorpion after testing it at a firing range. He grows obsessed, keeping it on him at all times, holding it under his pillow, playing and posing with it. The camera frequently positions itself directly in the line of fire, making the audience stare down the barrel of the cursed thing. Jeff even buys into the myth that the Blue Scorpion is scared of the dark, so he keeps a little flashlight on with the gun wherever it is tucked away. It’s a creepy touch, and makes for great visuals of Jeff peering into glowing boxes, drawers, and bags, admiring his hidden weapon.

The central hook of who will get shot keeps you guessing by making the two most likely options thematically coherent. If Jeff shoots himself, the gun takes on a metaphorical role as the continuation of hereditary mental illness. At the spreading of his father’s ashes, Jeff wonders how a man who accomplished so much in his life could have taken his life. Was it not enough?, he says exasperated, looking out at the lake. I can feel the inner reflection in that line - if my father, who lived such an interesting life and I admired so much could take his own life, where does that leave me? In an eerie scene later, Jeff holds The Blue Scorpion in a dazed state, in the very room his father killed himself, and nearly turns the gun up towards his own head.

If Jeff shoots either his wife’s new lover or her divorce attorney, the gun takes on a different metaphorical role, as the enabler of a particularly American brand of frustrated masculine violence. Jeff is from Ireland, and moved to the US when his mother married his American father. As the Scorpion passes from father to son, from natural-born citizen to naturalized immigrant, the gun-obsessed culture of America is passed along as well. Jeff’s life is fracturing, as the pressures from his job and failed marriage and dead father mount. Just like many frustrated white men in this country have done, Jeff is tempted to regain control of his life in a violent show of force. He nearly does towards the end of the episode, as he drives to his wife’s house, spying on her with her new lover, and hyping himself up to go in.

In a twist, a serial burglar assaults Jeff before he can even get out of the car. In a struggle, Jeff shoots the man in self-defense, and when the police arrive on the scene, the burglar is revealed to have been named Jeff too. In the aftermath, the main Jeff is named a local hero. He gets promoted, and his wife goes easy in the divorce settlement. This ending caught me off guard and left me a bit dissatisfied. It feels strangely happy, and a bit like a cop out of the central hook of the episode. Reflecting on it though, it works on a darker level. The dark urgings of The Blue Scorpion were true. Jeff’s life was meaningfully improved by executing violence. The people around Jeff rewarded him for succumbing to his worst impulses. All that mattered was that he find an acceptable victim for his violence, and there are many that American society deems appropriate. Tellingly, Jeff tosses away The Blue Scorpion into a lake, but a kid finds it washed up on the shore. The cycle of violence continues.

2. Not All Men (ep.7, 41m)

This one is another well-paced thriller. A strange meteor shower covers a small town in strange red rocks that cause the men of the area to turn violent. A woman, Annie, and her sister, Martha, must survive a crazy night of escalating terror as they try to survive and save Martha’s teenage son. The setup provides a venue for an exploration of a handful of different displays of toxic masculinity, only slightly exaggerated by the sci-fi premise. Annie nearly escapes being assaulted while on a date with a coworker. Men at a bar pressure a man to consume more alcohol than he is comfortable with, leading to a bar brawl when the bartender refuses to continue serving them. A man stalks the sisters home from the bar, and Martha’s husband violently confronts the stalker when he shows up at their house. These situations are uncomfortably familiar, and though the women successively encounter increasingly unhinged men, the magnitude of the crisis takes a while to fully dawn on them. They must then brave a night of violent men to find and rescue Martha’s son, Cole, hoping that he too hasn’t been affected. I appreciate the note of positivity this one ends on. When the sisters find Cole, he has already been affected by the meteor, but his strong relationships with his sister and aunt help him control his anger and stop him from going feral. It’s notable that Cole was the first person Annie felt comfortable telling about the terrible date she went on; women being open about their experiences and men listening empathetically can provide a solution to toxic masculinity.

1. Replay (ep.3, 44m)

This is the one, the best episode of the season. Another magical object episode, this time focusing on a camcorder that can playback time. The camcorder is used by Nina, a black woman who is taking her son, Dorian, to start his first semester of college at a HBCU. On the drive there, Nina finds herself and her son trapped in a time loop in which they cannot escape an aggressive cop who follows them after they leave a diner. It doesn’t seem to matter what Nina does differently each time, the cop always seems to find them and hurt or kill Dorian. It’s a powerful setup, with a carefully crafted and clear metaphor - can this mother get her son to college, to his future, by escaping from the racist institutions that work to limit the progress of black people? The Groundhog Day style premise functions to encapsulate the long fight for black civil rights within the journey of this small family.

The way Nina and Dorian eventually find success is great analogy for ongoing civil rights struggles. First, Nina has to give up trying to humanize herself in the eyes of the cop. No matter how politely she treats the cop, he is approaching them with the intent to cause harm and no kind words can circumvent that. Even when she approaches him at the start of the loop in the diner and explains her story to him, he still engages violently shortly afterward. These people cannot be reasoned with.

Second, Nina has to use her trust in her family by explaining her situation, time shenanigans and all, to her son and estranged brother. I love that when Nina tells them about her magic camcorder and the killer cop, both her son and brother are just like, “we got you fam, let’s solve this,” no further explanation needed. In a great touch, Nina’s brother, who lives in the town near the HBCU, knows the history and layout of the town because he is working on a historical mapping project to preserve the area’s history as gentrification threatens to overtake the neighborhood. With his knowledge, the three of them navigate back alleys and underground tunnels to reach the front gates of the university.

Even that is not enough though. Third, fear of witnesses and cameras are the only way to keep police in check. At the gates of the university, the cop shows up with back to stop Dorian from entering. But the crowd of new arrivals surround the family with dozens of smartphones recording the scene. Nina uses the magic camcorder for it’s non-magical purpose, as just a recording device, and gets the officer to finally retreat, allowing Dorian to walk through the gates.

Even with this hard earned success, the episode ends on an appropriately somber stinger. Jumping forward in time, Dorian is now a father and he and Nina play with his daughter. Nina’s camcorder accidently breaks to her horror, to which Dorian says to finally let it go. He’s made it, he’s succeeded. But when he steps out to run a quick errand, flashing police lights can be seen approaching. The struggle is ongoing and they have to stay vigilant.

Barring some heavy-handed dialogue towards the end, this episode is pitch-perfect. I love the little shout outs to contemporary black nerd culture too - Dorian wants to be a filmmaker and the next Ryan Coogler, and Dorian’s uncle offers him a mint-condition Black Panther #1 comic by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Everything about this episode feels lovingly crafted.

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This is a very inconsistent season of television that is, sadly, weighted towards the negative. I feel overall positively about only the top 5, and I feel like I can only call the top 3 episodes successes without qualification. The over-long runtimes are the most frustrating part of this show. None of the episodes really benefit by going over 40 minutes, and even some of the shorter episodes, like Blurryman and Point of Origin, struggle to fill up their time. In theory, longer runtimes would allow the stories to explore their concepts in greater nuance than the tightly-paced tales of the original series. In reality, the episodes tend to spin their wheels for a while in the middle, filling time until they can move onto the conclusion.

The other main issue is that these episodes are just not very strange. They have none of the wild ideas and zany twists of the classic series, opting instead for a very grounded approach. That’s not inherently wrong, but makes for a flat season of television. All the episodes are targeting a very obvious problem in American society, all set in a fairly realistic version of contemporary America. When it’s pulled off well, with a good premise and suitable nuance, we get Replay. When not, we get Wunderkind. Classic Twilight Zone certainly had its fair share of episodes directly targeting social problems, but it was also happy to tell stranger stories that functioned as new folklore without direct parallels to modern life. The strangest episode in this batch is probably Six Degrees of Freedom, and even that is set in a near future, realistically styled version of space exploration, with a strange twist only coming in the final moments. I think it’s notable that this season’s version of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet ditches the monster in the original for a more subtle supernatural element. I’d love to see a modern equivalent of a truly surreal premise like Five Characters in Search of an Exit, or Stopover in a Quiet Town.

If they intend to stick to the more grounded approach in season 2, I hope they follow the model of my favorite two episodes, Replay and Not All Men. These fit the overall template of slightly exaggerating contemporary social or political problems, but go beyond simply spotlighting a problem to also trying to present a solution. Neither episode ends on a totally positive note, as there are lingering dangers at the end of both episodes, yet the characters manage to escape their respective crises. The added nuance makes it more interesting, and I could use the positivity.