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 What is The Twilight Zone? The Twilight Zone is an anthology series that takes sci-fi, horror, the supernatural, comedy, and other genres and melds them with allegorical tales and morality plays designed to challenge the audience’s preconceptions. So far the franchise consists of the original series, the ‘84 movie by John Landis, a TV revival spawned by the success of the movie that ran from 1985-89, a UPN revival hosted by Forest Whitaker in 2002-03, a Disney World ride (it's so great), and a brand new West End play (which I saw last week and was… decent?). This will be the 4th incarnation of the show, produced, hosted, and narrated by Jordan Peele (Key & Peele, Get Out, Us). Well, who’s writing it and who’s in it? Information about the writer’s room has been scarce, but we do know that Peele is writing an episode, as well as Alex Rubens (Key & Peele, Community, Rick & Morty). What hasn’t been scarce is casting info, and the list is huge; Adam Scott, Kumail Nanjiani, John Cho, Allison Tolman, Jacob Tremblay, Steven Yeun, Greg Kinnear, Jessica Williams, Rhea Seehorn, James Frain, Tracy Morgan, Chris Diamantopoulos, Seth Rogen, Zazie Beetz, and Chris O’Dowd, among others. The first season will consist of ten episodes, including a remake of the William Shatner episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, this time starring Adam Scott. “The Comedian” will star Kumail Nanjiani with guest appearances by Tracy Morgan and Chris Diamantopoulos. Tremblay will appear “The Wunderkind”, and O’Dowd will star in “The Blue Scorpion”. Where can I watch it? And now, the bad news. The Twilight Zone will be a CBS All Access exclusive here in the states (If anyone knows how international viewers can see it, let me know and I will gladly add it to the OP), though I’m sure there will be plenty of ways for you to All Access it somewhere else. “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet” and “The Comedian” will premiere on 4/1, with an episode TBD returning on 4/11 and every week after. quote:In Canada The Twilight Zone will be carried by Citytv, it will premiere on Thursday April 4 at 9:00pm ET with the first two episodes, and then a new episode will be released weekly on Thursdays, starting April 11. Trailers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29_gA_GDGvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmCE17h6cO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnRda4EVHkQ This doesn’t air for a week, what am I supposed to do until then!? Well for starters, you should rewatch Get Out and go see Us in theaters, but you should also take a deep dive into the original series while it’s streaming on Netflix. The original series ran from 1959-1964, with series creator Rod Serling and veteran writers Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson writing the bulk of the series. Serling alone wrote or provided the story for 92 of the 156 original episodes, in addition to hosting and narrating. Here’s a few lists of episodes to watch: The ones everyone knows Season 1 Time Enough at Last, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street Season 2 The Eye of the Beholder, Nick of Time, The Invaders, Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?, The Obsolete Man Season 3 The Shelter, It’s a Good Life, Five Characters in Search of an Exit, To Serve Man, The Dummy Season 5 Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, Living Doll, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Lesser-known Gems Season 1 One for The Angels, The Lonely, Third From the Sun, The Mighty Casey Season 2 King Nine Will Not Return, The Whole Truth, Mr Dingle, The Strong, The Rip Van Winkle Caper Season 3 A Game of Pool, Deaths-Head Revisited, Hocus-Pocus and Frisby Season 5 The Long Morrow, The Masks I haven't recommended anything from Season 4 because the format changed from half-hour to full-hour episodes, and as a result they're all full of filler and generally not very memorable. That should get you started though. I've never watched the '85 or '03 shows in their entirety, but if someone wants to toss out recommendations for those two (as well as any streaming availability), I'll gladly add it to the OP. 
Big Mean Jerk fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Mar 30, 2019 |
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Mar 25, 2019 21:16
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Great OP, thanks. I was thinking about hitting the West End Show up, is there any chance you could give a lil more info on how it works and what it adapts?
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Mar 25, 2019 22:14
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Escobarbarian posted:Great OP, thanks. I was thinking about hitting the West End Show up, is there any chance you could give a lil more info on how it works and what it adapts? Sure. The play adapts "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?", "The Shelter", "The Long Morrow", "Nightmare as a Child", "In Praise of Pip", "Eye of the Beholder", "Little Girl Lost", and "And When the Sky Was Opened". It doesn't do each episode at once, it does one scene at a time for each, weaving back and forth between narratives. Some are shortened, some are mostly full length, with Martian serving more or less as a framing device at the beginning and end. There's two songs that I felt were completely unnecessary, but YMMV. There's also (finale spoilers) an attempt at making Serling a character in his own story with mixed results. What I enjoyed most about it were the actual adaptations and how well some of them worked as a stage production. The set design is great and the way they portray the intro visuals is pretty clever. All the actors are dressed in shades of grey and given harsh makeup, so while they aren't literally painted in grey it still gives the feel of watching a B&W tv episode. Overall it was fairly well done, and I suspect some of the hiccups are due to the fact that it's only been running for a couple weeks. If you can see it for a reasonable price, I'd definitely recommend it.
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Mar 25, 2019 22:36
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This looks good! I'll check it out.
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Mar 26, 2019 07:49
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I'm pretty hyped for this. I've always loved the original series and I remember being stoked as a kid when they rebooted this and the outer limits only to find that they kind of sucked. I mean Tales from the Darkside was better than the 80's Twilight zone and that was some really stupid poo poo. Now that we're in peak TV I'm really hoping they can bring this back to its glory.
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Mar 28, 2019 16:00
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There are some great Season 4 episodes. Don't sleep on those. Miniature - Robert Duvall watches a dollhouse come to life, and falls in love with one of the dolls. On Thursday We Leave for Home - A forgotten colony has made a life for themselves on a distant planet, when a rescue ship finally comes. How will the colonists deal with the sudden upheaval in their lives? He's Alive - Dennis Hopper plays a neo-nazi who starts gaining a following. But who is the stranger giving him advice? You guessed it, it's Hitler. Might sound silly, but it takes its message about vigilance against extremism seriously. Printer's Devil - Burgess Meredith helps out a struggling newspaper by writing fantastic stories...before they happen. I also have a particular fondness for Jess-Belle, about a woman spurned by her love who turns to a local witch, and gets more than she bargained for.
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Mar 28, 2019 16:42
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mangler103 posted:There are some great Season 4 episodes. Don't sleep on those. I'll have to give S4 another watch someday, I guess. I vaguely remember the Meredith episode, but I'm drawing a blank on the others. TrekMovie has a writeup of the first four episodes and the consensus is a little mixed on two of them, but in general shows promise. I've also added info on how to watch the show in Canada to the OP.
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Mar 30, 2019 22:06
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Croatoan posted:I'm pretty hyped for this. I've always loved the original series and I remember being stoked as a kid when they rebooted this and the outer limits only to find that they kind of sucked. I mean Tales from the Darkside '80s Twilight Zone had some highs but yeah it was a lowpoint for the series. The 2002 version with Forest Whittaker was a big improvement I thought. While nowhere near as great as the original the '02 series had a lot of really solid episodes. mangler103 posted:Printer's Devil - Burgess Meredith helps out a struggling newspaper by writing fantastic stories...before they happen. This is actually one of my favorite episodes of the original series. My all time favorite, Time Enough at Last, also had Meredith in it. X-O fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Mar 30, 2019 |
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Mar 30, 2019 22:42
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If Jordan Peele is behind it.....then it will probably kick rear end.
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Mar 31, 2019 03:40
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I thought this was going to drop at a set time like Discovery, but it appears that the first two episodes are streaming on the CBS app now. I watched the first ten minutes of The Comedian just to see Peele’s intro and the new theme. Seems decent enough.
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Apr 1, 2019 16:06
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First episode didn’t start with a Peele monologue and I don’t know if I just got a bad rip or what but isn’t that like one of the main elements of the show that they have the host doing an introduction e: there it is Escobarbarian fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Apr 1, 2019 |
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Apr 1, 2019 19:14
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Yea it was weird being 11 minutes in.
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Apr 1, 2019 19:26
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Just finished the free episode. I liked it but it made me realize we already had a Twilight Zone reboot. They just called it Black Mirror.
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Apr 1, 2019 19:36
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I dunno black mirror is kinda limited in scope. It’s like one type of twilight zone episode repeated for seasons.
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Apr 1, 2019 19:41
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I think the “well-regulated” joke is way better than any of the real life stuff Samir says tbh
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Apr 1, 2019 19:43
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Croatoan posted:Just finished the free episode. I liked it but it made me realize we already had a Twilight Zone reboot. They just called it Black Mirror. Nah, Black Mirror owes way more to 90’s Outer Limits than TZ. Black Mirror and Outer Limits are all about how humanity will misuse New Technology [X] or become corrupted by it. Twilight Zone all boils down to “is man inherently good or inherently evil?” or “can man overcome his flaws?” regardless of setting or props. Because of that, Twilight Zone can tell stories dealing with sci-fi, horror, comedy, the supernatural, historicals, etc. BM and Outer Limits are limited in the scope of stories they can tell because of their central premise.
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Apr 1, 2019 20:01
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Nightmare at 30k feet spoiler Having Dan Carlin be the host of the podcast was a spot on choice 1st episode was okay to good, 2nd episode is pretty good.
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Apr 2, 2019 00:50
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This first episode seems pretty bad... I think doing hour episodes for one story was a big mistake. It is just dragging on for too long. Edit : 2nd ep is significantly shorter and was pretty good. I have no idea why they decided to make the first episode an hour long. insider fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Apr 2, 2019 |
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Apr 2, 2019 01:33
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Just finished watching the two episodes. Big fan of what’s going on so far. Looking forward to next weeks eps.
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Apr 2, 2019 01:54
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I forgot one thing Twilight Zone does different than Black Mirror - there's often no explanation for the plot device. Things were normal before, but they're weird now, because the main character just shifted one reality over into the Twilight Zone through no fault of their own.
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Apr 2, 2019 02:04
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The Comedian was a decent premise that absolutely did not need to be spread over an hour. Nightmare at 30,000 Feet was a very solid paranoia thriller with an excellent casting choice in Dan Carlin.
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Apr 2, 2019 03:07
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LifeLynx posted:I forgot one thing Twilight Zone does different than Black Mirror - there's often no explanation for the plot device. Things were normal before, but they're weird now, because the main character just shifted one reality over into the Twilight Zone through no fault of their own. That's what I love about it.
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Apr 2, 2019 03:32
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Finally watched both. - The Comedian definitely ran long and could have easily cut half the disappearances. One little easter egg I noticed was the masks on either side of the stage were the son’s mask from “The Masks”. - Nightmare was excellent, more of that please. - Peele nailed the cadence of the narration and he looks great as the host. - I’m definitely down for more of this, it shows real promise and it looks great for a tv show. It’s already nailed the Twilight Zone tone better than I thought it would. - It’s a little thing, but I love that the outro theme is the same as the original series.
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Apr 2, 2019 05:36
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Just watched The Comedian and it wasn't like the old series, but it's kind of like what the old series would have been if filmed now. It was good but not quite satisfying. I'm hoping that they'll get fully into the feel of the original and i don't forsee any time in the next few decades when The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street wouldn't be relevant.
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Apr 2, 2019 05:53
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He should’ve done standup material about the Tracy Morgan character just to see what would happen.
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Apr 2, 2019 06:30
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What’s the episode where Earth is getting closer and closer to the sun, and then it turns out it’s a dream and the Earth is actually getting further away from the sun? That’s a classic “gently caress you” ending.
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Apr 2, 2019 06:32
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The first episode was pretty obvious and I wasn’t really into it even though I really enjoy Kumail Nanjiani. Second was excellent and I was absolutely enthralled throughout it.
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Apr 2, 2019 06:33
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General Dog posted:What’s the episode where Earth is getting closer and closer to the sun, and then it turns out it’s a dream and the Earth is actually getting further away from the sun? That’s a classic “gently caress you” ending. “The Midnight Sun”
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Apr 2, 2019 06:47
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Second episode was definitely much better than the first. I hope the eps are overall shorter.
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Apr 2, 2019 07:18
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I don't know if it's terminal I'm-too-clever-itis or "The Comedian" just was a miss, but I spent a lot of the runtime exasperated with the main character for not picking up on what were very obvious ground rules. At least he only needed two repetitions to get it, but for gently caress's sake, man, Tracy Morgan could not have possibly been blunter and then your dog is suddenly an unperson, I'm aware that I'm a TV viewer who knows he's watching the Twilight Zone and is thus primed for this poo poo but come on, that's a straight line. Also I guess it was intentional that Samir's act was never funny even when everyone was laughing, because for gently caress's sake how many funny people did you have on that set, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why they made that choice. Did they think the supernatural nature of his sudden success needed underlining? Because I got there with the reality warping, I didn't need the comparatively weak reminder. I'm also annoyed that there was what seemed like, to me, a very obvious solution from both in-universe and out-of-universe logic -- tell the drat story about Tracy Morgan offering you that deal in the first place. Come on, he even comes back right before the final performance to remind you that he's a valid target too, and that's how you end Monkey's Paw stories, you unwish the original wish. The most I can say for it is that okay, given that ending I can see what they were going for and that it's truer to the intended message to have Samir self-immolate, but at least for me they didn't get to where they'd have needed to be for that ending to be earned. General Dog posted:He should’ve done standup material about the Tracy Morgan character just to see what would happen.
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Apr 2, 2019 07:39
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The Kumail one should have ended with him making a choice to stop erasing people by performing his original routine for the talent scout. But then his routine wipes the second amendment from the US constitution and it ends with the English invading.
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Apr 2, 2019 08:03
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Professor Dog posted:The Kumail one should have ended with him making a choice to stop erasing people by performing his original routine for the talent scout. But then his routine wipes the second amendment from the US constitution and it ends with the slaves revolting. Ftfy
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Apr 2, 2019 08:08
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mangler103 posted:He's Alive - Dennis Hopper plays a neo-nazi who starts gaining a following. But who is the stranger giving him advice? You guessed it, it's Hitler. Might sound silly, but it takes its message about vigilance against extremism seriously. Serling liked this script so much that he wrote a second version that was long enough to be made into a movie, and even tried to get some of the extra scenes filmed while the episode was being made, but the budget wasn't there to spare for anything intentionally not going to broadcast. And he's right, it's really drat good and as with so many of the best episodes, (unfortunately) still relevant to this day.
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Apr 2, 2019 08:41
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Surprisingly great performance from Tracy Morgan
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Apr 2, 2019 12:25
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The 80's series may have been the weakest of all the incarnations, but there were still some good episodes in there. Also it's a crime that the 80's and 2002 versions aren't also streaming. BigBallChunkyTime fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Apr 2, 2019 |
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Apr 2, 2019 15:11
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bring back old gbs posted:Surprisingly great performance from Tracy Morgan It actually made me happy to see him playing a character different from his regular persona and doing a great job at it.
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Apr 2, 2019 15:30
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GWBBQ posted:Just watched The Comedian and it wasn't like the old series, but it's kind of like what the old series would have been if filmed now. It was good but not quite satisfying. I'm hoping that they'll get fully into the feel of the original and i don't forsee any time in the next few decades when The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street wouldn't be relevant. That’s the goal of the new series, from what I’ve read all of the first seasons episodes are based on classic episodes updated to resonate with current times. The Comedian is an update of Take My Life...Please!
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Apr 2, 2019 16:10
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I had a day to think over the episodes. The Comedian was too long, like other people said - it was all figured out and then he just kept doing "routines" that added nothing to the story except extra padding for time. I like the somewhat-subtle joke that he couldn't just erase Trump just by doing a bit about him; Tracy Morgan's character said people aren't interested in politics, they want something that makes them feel connected to him, so it only worked on people he met. I disagree that the "way out" was to do a bit about meeting Tracy Morgan's character - Samir hated himself so much at that point, thought he was going to gently caress up his girlfriend's life and/or lose her with or without supernatural powers, that he got desperate and wanted to un-exist. People who are asking "Well why didn't he just wish the wishes away?" are missing the point about how desperate he in his position must have been... though maybe it's the episode's fault for not hammering that home enough. Or being too long so viewers were tired of it by the end. I was pleasantly surprised that Nightmare at 30,000 Feet wasn't just a rehash. It had nothing in common with the original 20,000 version except the most important part: the overwhelming sense of paranoia the main character put out. It would have been so easy to just do a modern version of it and simply tie it in to the post-9/11 paranoia that people still feel on planes and make it a commentary on airport security at the same time, but it went in another direction. It made me feel confident in the series the way The Comedian didn't.
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Apr 2, 2019 16:29
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I liked The Comedian more than a lot of you. I thought it was a great commentary on greed, ambition, and vengeance. Though I know it wasn't always explained in most of the other Twilight Zone episodes, I'd have liked to seen Tracy Morgan's character's motivation. Was he afflicted by the same thing in his career by another mysterious figure, and his punishment is to afflict the same thing on others for eternity? I do like that it's open-ended to a degree, but I think disclosing that would have added to the story. Your opinion may vary.
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Apr 2, 2019 16:41
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BigBallChunkyTime posted:I liked The Comedian more than a lot of you. I thought it was a great commentary on greed, ambition, and vengeance. I entirely agree with you about The Comedian -- except that we didn't need to know more about Tracy Morgan's character. The Twilight Zone shouldn't explain everything and should be perfectly fine with being weird for its own sake. Morgan's character exists and his motivation is that he's part of The Twilight Zone. It's refreshing to NOT have everything explained. I'm so goddamn tired of movies and television giving me the complete history from childhood to adulthood of every character. Stories are not necessarily biographies and relying on biography to actually BE the story is huge writing crutch for bad writers.
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Apr 2, 2019 17:14
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