Watch: Official Trailer For ‘The Twilight Zone’ Coming To CBS All Access

In April, just as the second season of Star Trek: Discovery is wrapping up, CBS All Access will launch their reimagined version of the classic sci-fi anthology series The Twilight Zone. The first trailer for the show was just released.

Trailer

Oscar winner Jordan Peele (Get Out) is the executive producer of the new Twilight Zone and he will also host and narrate the series. The show will include brand new stories as well as modern takes on some classic episodes, including “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet” starring Adam Scott in an update to “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” which starred William Shatner. Other cast members in the first season include Ike Barinholtz, John Cho, Tracy Morgan, Lucinda Dryzek, Taissa Farmiga, James Frain, Ginnifer Goodwin, Zabryna Guevara, Percy Hynes-White, Greg Kinnear, Luke Kirby, Sanaa Lathan, Kumail Nanjiani, Rhea Seehorn, Alison Tolman, Jacob Tremblay, Jefferson White, Jonathan Whitesell, Jessica Williams, DeWanda Wise and Steven Yeun.

New The Twilight Zone poster

The Twilight Zone premieres with two episodes on Monday, April 1. Following the series premiere, all subsequent episodes will be released on Thursdays beginning April 11, exclusively for CBS All Access subscribers.


Keep up with The Twilight Zone news here at TrekMovie.com.

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Have zero interest in this. The twitlight zone was always a downer. I don’t get the appeal.

Being an anthology series, it had more variety than just downer endings. There were monster stories, ghost stories, hopeful stories, stories where evil characters were punished, and stories with social commentary and without any supernatural or science fiction elements, like “The Shelter.”

And being a major influence on the original Planet of the Apes film, I’d say it was doing something right.

One of the best television series ever made, Period.

Imagine a world, if you will, in which people’s tossed-off, uninformed opinions had some sort of significance to random passers-by.

Ha! Nice. Just pictured Rod standing there, smoking a butt..

LOL!

Whether or not someone likes a piece of entertainment is just that, an opinion. Some people like apples, others oranges. It’s a bit condescending to assume that all the apple eater needs is some ‘informed’ orange person to happen along to get them to see the error of their ways. I like/hate The Twilight Zone. There is no wrong answer, nor is an explanation required.

People are entitled to their opinions, not their own facts. Dismissing TZ as ‘always a downer’ is like saying that Star Track show was always about the captain sleeping with alien babes and punching people. There’s a little more to it than that.

Star Track? Is that the show with Dr. Spock?

Indeed.

Not true at all. I just started rewatching, and the second episode, “One for the Angels,” at first blush is a guy trying to squirm his way out of being taken by Death since he doesn’t want to die. But it has a pretty positive hopeful ending.

If you think it was always a downer, then you clearly haven’t watched a lot of it, because that is not REMOTELY true. There were a lot of happy, optimistic episodes.

Really?! I don’t agree with the poster’s characterization of the series as a “downer” either, but “happy and optimistic” really wasn’t a thing in the Zone. Mostly, it was meant to be weird, and unsettling.

I can remember a few happy endings offhand.

• The one with Jack Klugman as an alcoholic suicidal trumpet player, believe it or not, ends on a happy note.

• The one with Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

• The other Shatner episode, “Nick of Time,” has a happy ending, at least for the Shatner character and his wife.

• That one Christmas episode.

There’s at least a few more, here’s some I can think of to add to the list of episodes that have generally positive endings:
Third from the Sun
Mr. Bevis
A Penny for Your Thoughts
The Fugitive

There are also a number of episodes that end somewhat ambiguously. So those can’t really be classified as a binary “optimistic” or “downer” episode.

Of course there were 156 episodes of the original TZ, so the handful of outright positive episodes we’ve come up here doesn’t exactly make the case for TZ being “happy and optimistic.”

Yeah, TZ definitely leaned toward the darker side of things overall, but I’ve never found it to be a downer or depressing.

Agreed. I find The Outer Limits to be more of a downer, and I’d certainly describe it as “weird, and unsettling” (to borrow Michael Hall’s phrasing from up the comment thread), much more than TZ is.

The Twilight Zone reminds me of Black Mirror

You know it’s originally a show from the late 50’s and early 60’s? There would be no Black Mirror without Twilight Zone. TZ blazed a trail. It influenced a lot of shows that came after.

The appeal is that it was, and is still, one of the best written and produced TV series’ of all time, of any genre. If it’s not for you, move along.

You are absolutely right, Afterburn. A true gem of a series, in every sense of the word, it’s themes still relevant today.

Any idea if these are going to be 30 or 60 minute episodes? I always found the shorter ones to be much more effective.

I’m pretty sure they’ll be 30 minute. I think it’s generally accepted that the 60 minute format doesn’t really work for TZ. Most versions of TZ have been 30 mins.

The CBS 80’s revival was a 60 minute show but it was divided into at least two tales. Sometimes 15 minutes and 45 minutes. But yeah… The shorter ones were better. The hour long episodes of the original weren’t as effective. At any rate, if this one is even 75% of what the 80’s version was, it will be quite good.

And then the 80’s revival changed formats in the second season back to 30 mins ;-)

The revival was wildly uneven, but “Paladin of the Lost Hour” and “Nightcrawlers” were two of the best things I’ve ever seen on television.

For some reason the ones that resonated with me was “Wongs Lost and Found Emporium”, “I of Newton”, “Button, Button”, “A Small Talent for War” and “A Matter of Minutes”. That is just off the top of my head. I know there were a lot of other pretty darn good ones.

I wish I could like your above comment, Michael. I would add “Her Pilgrim Soul” in addition to the two stories you mentioned as one of the greatest stories I’ve ever seen on television.

Well I’m interested in this.

Certainly agree on the 1960’s series, but TV has changed a lot in 60 years, I could very easily see this being more effective in 2019 as an hour-long drama. Black Mirror does it well.

Pretty sure that little devil head is the one from the other William Shatner episode when he keeps feeding the forutine teller thing pennies in that diner.

It is. I saw a number of other callbacks to the original series in that trailer, too. Makes you wonder how many of these are going to be ‘re-imaginings’ of past ideas as opposed to new writing.

The trailer has callbacks because it’s a first trailer for a nostalgic show. From the titles announced so far, only 1 episode is a remake, “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet” with Adam Scott. Admittedly CBS has only announced 5 out the 10 episode titles for the season so far. But I’m hoping they stay away from doing a bunch of remakes.

Thanks, Matt. Me too.

“But I’m hoping they stay away from doing a bunch of remakes.”

Here too. I still plan on dumping AA once Trek ends. Unless TZ is so very good it will get me to want to hold on for a little longer. But I think I will be able to wait until the next Trek comes out.

Is TZ going to become another “adopted” show for Trek Movie to cover?

Is TZ going to become another “adopted” show for Trek Movie to cover?

Yes. A lot of us involved with TM have interest in it. Not sure of the level of coverage, but we will cover it in some manner.

Great to know Matt!

Trek, Orville and now TZ will get more people interested for sure.

I think that’s fine, but if the site will be covering so much more than just Trek moving forward, perhaps a site rebrand is in order. Even just having “movie” in the title is well outdated.

Who cares, its just the title of a website. As you said the original name has been outdated for awhile, especially since it looks like the movies might be done for good. At least the Kelvin movies.

TM has been covering other sci fi projects for years now and since the first Kelvin film. It didn’t start with The Orville.

Very glad to hear that, Matt.

I’m staying to watch the Zone.

And even the clips from the Adam Scott one in the trailer make it seem like it’ll be different from the original story (and the remake in the movie)

My only issue with remaking this is that it’s already been remade once before. Why not pick one that hasn’t been remade?

They seem to have a few on the agenda.

I don’t see the point of remakes in the era of streaming services. If people like a Twilight Zone series that tells new stories enough, they’ll likely seek out the originals on that service.

Churning out remakes is something TV networks can get a way with. Unless streaming services are making a major overhaul – say Lost in Space – remaking short films like many of those in the Twilight Zone is pointless. Certainly remaking Nightmare again is silly. Pick on a story that wasn’t a classic and make that into something better.

I would not call this a “remake”. It’s more of a revival. It seems Nightmare at 20,000 Feet is getting a redo. But that is just one episode out of ten or so. At least I hope…

It is. That episode is my wife’s favorite.

Great trailer that keeps you in suspense.

Peele is a knowledgeable horror & sci-fi nerd and has made a career from playing with genre tropes, he looks like the right man for the job. He’s seems smarter than [redacted] who oversees [redacted] on CBS All Access.

Note the gremlin from “Terror ar 20,000 Feet” (1963) washing up on the shore at 0:21.

Love it.

Yep. On a coast line that looks like British Columbia.

It’s filmed in Vancouver, so you are correct.

Vancouver locations are starting to become like SoCal locations. They are getting easier and easier to spot as they are getting used so very much.

With CGI you can make Vancouver look like NYC.

CG cost money. And money is one of the big reasons for production in Vancouver.

I’ve had AA for over a year and a half now and in all that time outside of watching Discovery and a few reruns of some of the other Star Trek shows I’ve literally watched nothing else on that site the entire time. This FINALLY looks like something I am interesting in watching outside of Star Trek. I was planning to actually just cancel my subscription after the second season ended but it looks like I will keep it a bit longer now. I was interested when it was announced and the trailer sold me at least. We’ll see about the actual show but I’m tuning in the first few episodes.

But man it really does prove how much AA sucks for me outside of Discovery lol.

I signed up for CBS All Access Tiger2 on my phone tonight because of Star Trek. I like The Twilight Zone so I will keep it for now. Jordan Peele is brilliant. I watched The Twilight Zone on Netflix already.

Remember when Netflix had just that one show everyone wanted to watch?

CBS AA will never be the Star Trek channel.

Honestly I’m not even watching Discovery right now – going to binge it at some point later, hoping it works better for me – so I’m about to cancel AA until…some point later this year? Agreed Tiger, I was browsing through the menu last night, and it does suck. Hulu, for the same money per month, offers a ton of CBS product, as well as, well….all of Hulu. AA just isn’t worth it, to me.

Considering that CBS AA is new to the game, it will take a few years to get original programming and be able to compete with the likes of Netflix and Hulu. When they started, they only had a show or 2 you had to watch. Give it time. They are off to a good start with 3 original series and more to come.

Great trailer.

Looks great. That year-long subscription to All Access is seeming more and more like a good deal.

I agree

I’m looking forward to seeing it, however I hope it’s smart and not just horror-shock-screechy-boom, here’s the shock ending, every episode. That’s kind of the vibe I’ve gotten from this trailer at least. Twilight Zone made you think, was melancholy, funny, fun, contemplative,…and most of all smart. Hope that’s what this is too.

He blew up. He making a name with great projects. Can he write and direct a horror sci fi Star Trek episode ?