The Twilight Zone‘s latest revival premieres season 2 soon, but fans of the franchise owe it to themselves to give the 1980s revival a chance. When it comes to TV royalty, there are few shows in the league of The Twilight Zone, created by Rod Serling. The original Twilight Zone was never a huge ratings hit, but its influence on pop culture and the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres is almost immeasurable, and it’s often deservedly held up as one of the greatest TV shows ever made.
With that in mind, it’s no wonder there’s now been three attempts to revive The Twilight Zone for TV, and also a theatrical movie. Each time though, there’s a lot of pressure involved for the new creative team, as Serling is such a towering figure in TV history that any attempt to live up to the original magic he created is seemingly doomed to fail. Still, while it’s unlikely anyone would try to argue that Twilight Zone: The Movie or any of the small screen revivals tops the original, each possesses at least a few noteworthy episodes.
It’s still a bit early to tell where on the quality scale Jordan Peele’s CBS All Access version of The Twilight Zone will ultimately land, but if it manages to equal the 1980s rendition, that wouldn’t be too bad a thing. The Twilight Zone 1985 is often unjustly overlooked, when it actually has quite a bit to offer.
Why The Twilight Zone’s 1980s Revival Is Seriously Underrated
While The Twilight Zone‘s 1980s revival certainly didn’t possess the hit to miss ratio of the original show, when it hit, it hit hard. Take for example one of the earliest episodes, entitled “Nightcrawlers.” The story sees a Vietnam vet cursed with the ability of making his dreams bleed over into real life, which when those dreams are terrifying war memories, is a pretty terrible thing. He stops at a diner, gets hassled by a smug cop, gets knocked out, and then everyone there is in for an intense night of fright.
There’s also the extremely creative “Dead Run,” in which a trucker gets hired for a mysterious job that ends up being driving damned souls to Hell, which is actually run by other dead human beings, as God is out the picture. In a provocative move, some of the damned don’t deserve to be there, and one is even seemingly headed to Hell simply for being gay. That’s not a common story for 1985 network TV. To that end, much of what makes the 1980s Twilight Zone as good as it can sometimes be is a willingness to go dark with both subject matter and endings, including an infamous instance where a fascist government murders a small child. It happens offscreen, but audiences of the time were still shocked.
Part of this creative bravery came due to a formidable writing staff, including literary heavyweights Richard Matheson and Harlan Ellison. Beyond the stories themselves, the casting department for the revival deserves commendation, as future A-list stars like Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, and Helen Mirren all appeared, as did screen veterans like Dean Stockwell, Fritz Weaver, and Martin Landau. While seasons 2 and 3 of Twilight Zone 1980s weren’t as good as season 1, the revival as a whole is well worth discovering or revisiting, even 30-plus years later.
