Jordan Peele’s ‘Twilight Zone’ is a Fitting Return to a Classic Series

CBS All Access’s new version of The Twilight Zone has a lot to live up to. After all, for 60 years, The Twilight Zone has represented the apex in speculative storytelling on television. Rod Serling’s anthology series challenged our prejudices by spinning stories that forced us to reconsider our perception of our own reality. The storytelling was tetchy, deep, and at its best, absolutely devastating.

The “new” Twilight Zone actually doesn’t feel all that new at all. In fact, the storytelling style is downright regressive. The four episodes sent to critics — “The Comedian,” “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet,” “Replay,” and “A Traveler” — all have a surprisingly simple structure in line with the original series. High concepts are introduced early, and there are no shocking “Black Mirror” like twists. Instead, Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone is an homage to Rod Serling’s, and if it’s regressive in its style, it’s progressive in its diverse casting and sharp focus on civil rights issues.

A lot of this is thanks, of course, to Jordan Peele’s involvement. The comedian-turned-mastermind auteur was brought on board to the project after the success of his Oscar-winning film Get Out. Between that film, The Twilight Zone, and his latest project, Us, it’s becoming abundantly clear that Peele is concerned with who has the right to take up space in our society. That has to do obviously with issues of race, but also class, religion, gender, and talent. All of these issues bubble up in the course of The Twilight Zone episodes I screened, with “Replay” being the most overt about its messaging. Sanaa Lathan plays an upwardly mobile single black mother trying to shepherd her talented son to college, only to be stymied by a racist white cop.

That’s how Peele’s voice affects the storytelling of CBS All Access’s The Twilight Zone, but how does he do onscreen as the literal storyteller? Peele makes an unnerving host, simultaneously channeling Serling and creating something new. He’s carefully adjusted his speech to mirror Serling’s famous cadence, but when he stares straight into the camera, there’s a cruel blankness in his eyes. The actor’s physical stillness only makes you feel more uneasy. Peele comes across as less of a narrator, and more like a bored god, playing with people as though they were toys.

Peele’s good, and so is the rest of the cast. Kumail Nanjiani doesn’t really get a chance to be funny in “The Comedian,” but he does have the opportunity to show his capacity for stark desperation. As much as he was able to show off his dark side in The Big Sick, here he shows the depth of what he can do as a dramatic actor. Adam Scott makes for a pitch perfect neurotic writer spiraling out of control on a plane ride to hell in “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet,” and Lathan puts forth a profound performance that almost made me forget about that gossip about how she bit Beyoncé. (It’s a hard biographical detail to forget about an actor, guys!)

More importantly, though, The Twilight Zone features a bunch of unknown actors and rising stars in juicy roles, guaranteeing them a showcase to illustrate all they can do. I was particularly impressed by the performance of Marika Sila in “A Traveler.” The episode’s been touted as a Steven Yeun/Greg Kinnear two-hander, but Sila’s cynical Inuit cop is a dazzling protagonist, and I want to see more from the actress onscreen.

As for the episodes themselves, I personally found the last offering in the mix to be the best. “A Traveler” is dark, mean, and imaginative. It also has the benefit of being anchored by a spectacular performance from Steven Yeun, an actor who’s star continues to rise and should be bracing for major things. I would also recommend starting your April 1 screening with “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet,” over “The Comedian.” The Adam Scott episode is zippier than the Kumail Nanjiani one, and features a number of Easter Eggs for the future of the series.

Overall, CBS All Access’s The Twilight Zone succeeds as a reinterpretation of Serling’s original anthology series. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it is a poised and technically perfect return to the unsettling truth-telling of the original series.

The Twilight Zone premieres with two episodes — “The Comedian” and “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet” on CBS All Access on Monday, April 1. “Replay” premieres on Thursday, April 11, and new episodes roll out on subsequent Thursdays after that.