A non-Trek project at CBS All Access that many of us have our eyes on is the upcoming new take on The Twilight Zone, being executive produced by Jordan Peele, Simon Kinberg, and Marco Ramirez. The series began production in October in Vancouver and ever since, CBS has periodically released new information about the titles and the stars of the episodes.
Start of Production Announcement Video
Principal photography began Monday, Oct. 1 in Vancouver, British Columbia, 59 years after the premiere of the original series. The Twilight Zone will premiere on CBS All Access in 2019. As previously announced, Jordan Peele will host and narrate the new iteration, a role made famous by creator Rod Serling.
Episode Titles and Stars Announced So Far
In August it was revealed that there would be 10 episodes in the first season of the new Twilight Zone. Thus far, CBS has released the titles of three of them, and disclosed the writer and star of a fourth. Here’s what we know so far:
Title: “Rewind”
Cast: Sanaa Lathan (Nip/Tuck, Shots Fired).
Title: “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet” — an update to the classic episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.”
Cast: Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation), in the role played by William Shatner in the original
Title: “The Wunderkind”
Cast: John Cho (Sulu, Kelvin universe Star Trek movies), Allison Tolman (Fargo), Jacob Tremblay (Wonder, The Predator)
Title: unknown
Cast: Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick, Silicon Valley)
Writer: Alex Rubens (Key and Peele, Rick and Morty).
A few more… (added Dec. 13)
Title: The Traveler
Cast: Greg Kinnear (As Good As It Gets), Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead)
Collider reports that Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) will star in the fourth episode of the season titled “The Traveler,” which follows two cops and a mysterious traveler.
They also have word that there is another new episode about to go into production called “Last Shuttle” which concerns a group of astronauts dealing with a crisis.
The Twilight Zone will premiere in 2019 on CBS All Access
Maybe William Shatner will show up as a surprise guest star as the guy sitting next to Adam Scott on the plane, or as the monster on the wing, or something.
Is this the fifth incarnation of Twilight Zone? There was the 1982 movie, the 1980s show revival on CBS, and the 2000s revival on UPN.
That would be a hoot. Shat can have a quick line, something like “I used to be a nervous flyer too” :-)
They actually riffed on this on 3rd Rock when Shatner played the Big Giant Head, since Shatner played the guy in the original story and John Lithgow in the movie.
Oh yeah, they did! I forgot about 3rd Rock :-)
“The same thing happened to ME!!”
I honestly don’t want any in-jokes in a Twilight Zone like this. That particular episode was deadly serious. I mean, Bill got wheeled away on a gurney. It’s become a cliché now, but I feel that it’s become so because Bill’s performance was so memorable. My dad watched the original TZ in the 60s and he said it scared the fertilizer out of everyone.
In all seriousness, I highly doubt they would do such a corny thing as to have Shatner wander by, it would totally distract. It’s just fun to play around with the idea.
And yes the original episode is pretty intense, and like you said the ending is especially unsettling. Shatner really sells it.
From all the promotional materials seen so far, it looks like they are playing it straight. What I’d hope they avoid is turning episodes into super CGI spectaculars. Resist the urge to present graphic detail as a substitute for good storytelling and solid drama.
This needs to happen :))
There was a syndicated version as well in the 90’s.
No, there was no syndicated Twilight Zone series in the ’90s. There have been three series so far: in 1959, 1985, and 2002. There was a TV movie in 1994 called Rod Serling’s Lost Classics, but that was it for the 1990s.
Pretty sure you’re thinking of The Outer Limits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outer_Limits_(1995_TV_series)
The only TZ content made in the ’90s was a telefilm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_Zone:_Rod_Serling%27s_Lost_Classics
EDIT: Looks like Land O’ beat me by a minute :-)
I am certainly not thinking of The Outer Limits. I was pretty sure there was a new syndicated Twilight Zone after the UPN run. It was on the channel that was the local WB affiliate on the weekends before the prime time hours. Not the UPN affiliate. Perhaps something weird happened that forced a season to a different station at different hours?
After that single UPN season there’s been no new TZ made until this new All Access show, you can verify this from IMDB, Wikipedia, etc. It may be that your local WB affiliate decided to run repeats of it, it makes some sense as the show was distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television. Another possibility is that when UPN and WB merged to become the CW it was typically the local WB affilate that became the CW. So maybe your local affilate did some weekend repeats post-merge?
Possible. I have no explanation for why it was on the WB affiliate station. After the merge, locally the UPN affiliate here become the CW station. The WB station sorta became connected to the local CBS affiliate through some sort of corporate connection. They farmed their local news and few other things there. I do recall the single season network run with Forrest Whitiker. But after that it appeared on the syndication station for a short while. And it was not repeats from that season. It was new shows. I suppose this could be wrong but I feel certain I’m recalling this correctly.
I suppose this could be wrong but I feel certain I’m recalling this correctly.
I dunno what to tell ya, no source I can find supports your assertion that there was a mid-2000s syndicated TZ show. Memory is a fallible thing.
The closest that I could find was an homage episode of FELICITY that was filmed in B&W.
Re: Felicity, that was a fun episode, I remember it.
Shat should be the pilot. Looks out the window…’nope, nuttin there’.
Ha! And Lithgow his co-pilot.
I understand the need to have shorter seasons for serial shows but why are they using 10 episode formats for anthology series? The original anthology shows like Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits had nearly 30 episode seasons. I know people are more impatient these days but I think anthology shows need to be at least 20 episodes.
Hell, I think ALL series’ should be at least 20 episode seasons.
It seems like shorter seasons deliver better quality. And who has time to watch 22 hours of television anymore?
8-10 is pretty much the ideal amount for me. Even Discovery felt padded.
Yeah, I used to think that. Then I saw the new run of the X-Files…
Heck, why stop at 30? Why not 40, 50, or 100?
Maybe because these things cost money and they have to set budgets that align with expectations for revenue.
The other thing to remember is that TZ was not truly the incredible series we all remember. I’ve watched the entire series over and over because I do love it, but while we tend to associate the series with it’s best moments, there are many lame attempts at comedy that fell flat, boring episodes that just plodded along going nowhere, and many downright stinkers. But back then most episodes were cheap to produce (by todays standards, I am aware that it was a higher budgeted show for its day); they were filmed on the studio lot with largely unknown talent and existing sets… so if they could churn out a script in a few days they could film 30-40 episodes and still see a good return on their investment.
As for the new show I’m sure it’s about the cost of production given the standards audiences expect in 2018. And i’m fine if they produce 10 truly excellent episodes every year, or at least put their best into each episode, rather than just trying to churn out 26, 30, or more episodes.
Quality over quantity, please.
I would take quality over quantity as well. But just because there are fewer episodes doesn’t mean you are going to get quality and stinkers are still VERY possible. It STILL happens. With more episodes, you get a greater chance to get more of the great episodes. And with superior shows you often do. The fact is, a good show’s season can never be too long and a bad show’s season can never be too short. Example… Game of Thrones feels super short and we have to wait forever to get the next “season”. Yet Discovery on the other hand, we just couldn’t wait for the season to get over with. Original Twilight Zone did have a number of dog episodes. But it had quite a few more good ones and even a number of great ones. Yes, their attempts at comedic episodes often failed. But there weren’t THAT many attempts at it. And a huge mistake was when they went to hour long episodes. For some reason they had a tough time with that. But back on point, short seasons are not immune to garbage or even “filler” episodes.
I never said that shorter runs means no bad episodes, but that longer runs nearly guarantees it. Production teams can’t churn out 25+ episodes a year without sacrificing quality. Writing, designing, filming, and crafting each episode to a high standard takes TIME.
From this point of view, unless the show is exceptional (very rare) the ratio of good to bad episodes remains the same no matter how long the season is. If the show is bad, there are going to be more stinkers. If it’s good, there will be less. Since I prefer to be a ‘glass is half full’ kinda guy… I like the longer seasons as there is a greater chance for more good episodes on a good show.
That should have a dual cameo with Shatner and John Lithgow seated across the aisle from Adam Scott.
Post-modern self awareness is what kills so much modern television and cinema. The show needs to focus on the story at hand, not rely on people’s knowledge of past incarnations to ‘get’ injokes…
Personally, I’m dubious about this entire enterprise. I understand that the Twilight Zone is a name ‘brand,’ but it was a thing of its time – an anthology show with a pretty decent hit rate that succeeded more often than it failed. I completely understand why CBS would want to create yet another version, but I wish they wouldn’t.
Very disappointed that they’re doing remakes, especially of the stories that were already good. Better they rework episodes that failed the first time around if they insist on remakes.
Hmm… The CW version of The Twilight Zone ended up remaking a number of the original episodes. The 1985 CBS version didn’t, and it was pretty good more often than not. Obviously I’ll reserve judgement but I really hope the 30K’ episode is not a remake or “re imagining” of the original one. That would not be a good sign.
Yeah, I liked the CW version of the Twilight Zone. Forest Whitaker was a good narrator. Of the 44 stories, I think only two were remakes and one was a sequel.
The CW version was only OK. The 80s version was pretty darned good.
We agree on something, Afterburn. The ’80’s CBS version was quite good. It was much better than the more slickly produced “Amazing Stories” that was on NBC around the same time.
It was on UPN… The CW didn’t exist then.
UPN: The network that couldn’t even survive a whole year without Star Trek.
I hope it’s in black and white.
I still watch the originals. Love the atmosphere in the classics. Should be interesting to see how this turns out. It’s all about the writing.
I’m in. I thought “Get Out” was basically a TZ movie, and a damn good one.
Yeah it really was, come to think of it. Good point.
Do we know the international availability of this yet?
No, CBS has not announced anything about international partners. They probably won’t until it’s close to ready.
Well CBS launched All Access here in Australia this week, so that’s probably where it’s going here
Seems logical.
Tell good stories, and you’ll have a winner on your hands.
I am sure that this Adam Scott is an OK actor, but I was rather expecting Chris Pine in this role… ;-)
So no one has actually mentioned Adam Scott’s cameo appearance in Star Trek First Contact as the Defiant’s helmsman yet? He also has a Trek connection.
Yep. I actually meant to include that in the article, but it slipped my mind as I was finishing it up.
FYI: If folks are still following the comments here, I added a few more episode details that come out today to the end of the article.