Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone 2019 on CBS serves humor with his existential nightmares – Quartzy



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Kumail Nanjiani standing up. Adam Scott ran maniacally around the cabin of a commercial plane. Recognized for their comedic roles, these actors are probably not the first ones you would call to create existential terror – but they do so impressively in the world. blurred area restart on CBS.

Executive produced and commented by We and get out director Jordan Peele, The twilight zone updates the legendary 1960s science fiction anthology series by Rod Serling. Each episode of the Serling show reflected the anxieties of the Cold War era: city dwellers turn to an anti-extraterrestrial paranoia to express the horrors of McCarthyism; Another city is plunged into darkness as it will not fight its racist practices.

This new blurred area Likewise, explore the problems of our present age – young black men targeted by white policemen, global political turmoil, deciphering the truth against misinformation – through dystopian underworld and Kafkaesque nightmares. Since Peele is involved, there is also a little deliciously black humor.

In the four episodes that CBS has made available to critics, one thing is perfectly clear: Black mirror that's not it. The Netflix anthology series, focused on technology, to which the new The twilight zone will inevitably be compared, desperate traffics. It rarely has happy ends or provides a lot of humor or hope.

The twilight zone shows that it is possible to maintain the sense of humor by accompanying the viewers in terrifying tests. Fans of Peele We and get out will be happy to know The twilight zone, though not realized by Peele, presents his mix of comedy and horror.

"We take ourselves seriously, but never too seriously," Peele told the New York Times (Paywall). "It can not be so dark that it makes us want to lose ourselves in a ball." (Peele told The Times that he's a fan of Black mirrorbut said that "it's okay darrrrrrk. Dark dark. As dark as anything I've ever seen – and I love it. ")

It is perhaps not surprising that one of the episodes of the premiere of this Monday (April 1st) is called The comedian, about a comedian (Nanjiani) who spends a market with the equivalent of the devil in the comedy club (Tracy Morgan). Realizing that the public does not react positively to his political comedy (a failed gun control joke points out that the second American amendment begins with the words "A regulated good"), the comedian decides to start using real people of his personal life as a line of force. The episode is a lot funnier than it's scary – unless, of course, you're a comic aspirant.

The other episode, which debuted on April 1, is a pseudo remake of "Nightmare at 20,000 feet," one of the most memorable episodes of Serling's original series. Adam Scott replaces William Shatner as a confident air pbadenger that the plane in which he is will fall. Scott, of Parks and Recreation and Half brothers Glory around the plane trying to tell indifferent pbadengers that they are about to die is very tense, of course. It's also very funny. Another highlight is the fourth installment of the show, starring Steven Yeun as a mysterious traveler in trilby suit and cap who loves karaoke. Beyond that, the less you know, the better.

In Serling's original series, the characters usually had to look inward and become aware of their fate before they could discover the truth about the strange situations that awaited them. Despite its moments of lightness, the restart of CBS is true to the original in this fundamental respect. Each episode is a race against the clock to see if the protagonist will recognize a fatal flaw in his life, before it's too late.

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