Reviews

Science fiction is an extension of art. Art is meant to stir emotions, illuminate new paths and, above all, create resonance. I'm pretty sure all this episode will resonate is a foul aroma.

From beginning to end this one missed the mark. There wasn't even a single good idea here that hasn't been presented elsewhere and more effectively. If Doctor Who is being relegated to nothing more than a live action Captain Planet from the '90s, then I'm out. Last season was just boring. This season has put boring on a soapbox. Please shesplain to me more about how bad plastic is for the environment or how we're destroying the earth, said no one ever. This is making the Colin Baker years seem like a golden age.

Quick synopsis: Lots of people get sick with a plastic eating pathogen (and seriously, who doesn't know that word?) that The Doctor cures after much preaching. Always good and professional to point fingers about a problem rather than spend that energy curing it. That's it. That's what someone came to the writing room with in hopes of creating a multi-million dollar (pound) TV show to air across the world and take its place alongside some of the greatest television ever made. Of course, people with worse judgement affirmed this plan, somehow. If a committee of folks aren't enough to keep such dreck from our screens, wouldn't it save a lot of money to let a single loser with bad ideas exclusively write for the show?

Sorry to say the show is plummeting in creative imagination faster than in ratings.

First let me say, I was so grateful this episode wasn't what it was set up to be at the beginning. When it went meta I was thrilled, because before that it was going nowhere.

Second, once you see the blurry man you'll know exactly who he is and basically, due to a short rant from the main character, what the story is about.

I enjoyed this one. I love it when art gets the well-deserved shot of humility stabbed into it. I knew a girl once who claimed to be a literary writer. She didn't like genre fiction and pretty obviously thought the horror that I wrote was pedestrian and pointless. Say what you will about my writing, but the genre is valid and deserving of respect. The fact is all writing has the potential to be literary. Who knows what will stick in the minds of those treading through the future or what will be prophetic or poignant to generations yet unborn. I mean, Bill and Ted wrote songs that changed the entire universe, so take care to eschew hubris in the nobility of art.

The middle was a bit of a mess. It was mostly Sophie being reactionary to the violent hurtling of objects by her stalking shade. The intent was to frighten her, we understand rather quickly, or more to the point, to show her the value of horror, but that could have been accomplished in much more creative ways. This being The Twilight Zone, we should have expected it to have been.

The performances were decent, the production values pretty good. I liked the feel of the opening as the camera panned up the street to the window. It reminded me of the '80s Twilight Zone. Something very Spielbergian to it.

Rod Serling is a hard man to directly imitate. He was quirky, brilliant and one of the better writers ever to grace the earth. I've seen notes he wrote on scripts. Things like - and this is not a quote because my memory is fuzzy on things from 10 years ago - darkness grabbed her like cold, smoky tendrils, poisoning her with dread. That much thought put into a note to try to get an actor to get the emotion necessary to make the scene work is astounding. To him it was natural.

This episode gave him the credit he deserves for the paradigm-busting work he did in television and writing that forever changed the landscape of the possible and inspired - and still inspires - many to delve into creative pursuits without fretting over labels like genre or literary.

Ironically, this episode attempts to negate Sophie's idea of an artist's social responsibility by teaching her the truth of the possible and the merits of embracing the impossible for the sake of campfire storytelling. In truth, this series has been largely about perceived social responsibility rather than actual, visceral storytelling. So in a way, this episode preaches that the first nine episodes were preachy caricatures of stories rather than actual enjoyable tales that create resonance. There are so many original Twilight Zones that are iconic, including the one shown as a clip in this episode. I can't imagine, however, any of this season's episodes reaching that echelon of greatness. Without resonance, in a week or so, no one cares. In ten years no one remembers. In 50 it might as well not have been. We're 60 years down the line from the original show and people still love it. That's great storytelling. That's resonance. This season will not enjoy that.

This was easily the best episode of this series to date, but there was a lot of filler and timewasting and unoriginality and nothing that truly sparked horror. The ending, while cool and a great tribute, was a bit threadbare cohesively. A ten for the season, but only about a five when compared to what television should be.

I decided to watch the season finale, despite giving up on the show a few weeks back.

To say it was vapid and atrocious camp is an insult to the dignity and honor camp holds in the annals of comedy - which, since it holds, at best, juvenile levels of dignity and honor, is saying a lot. So much contrivance. So much stupidity.

It's sad to see how Ray Palmer has become such a joke. The comics portray him as a competent technician and fighter. Legends rarely has him as The Atom anymore. If this is an effort by DC to dismantle their comics line in favor of more 1966 Batman level quality shows, then uber kudos to them.

The story was abysmal. A fun park built with wishes and hopes. That's how you stop fear. They even comment how the "trinity" (in DC comics this would be Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but here they don't know that, it seems) was reluctant to do the promo for the park. Hopefully the actors read the script and threw a big yeah-not-sullying-my-name-like-that-for-less-than-a-million-dollars at the studio.

The special effects were special in the way the Special Olympics are special (I apologize to the Special Olympics for bringing such a beloved, classy institution into this review, but know it's for illustrative purposes only). The dragon was pathetic. After watching Game of Thrones, there is a new standard. It was like watching Plan 9 from Outer Space and comparing it to nearly anything today. Did I see it right or did the dragon return to baby size after eating a demon? Is that the secret to eternal life? Just eat a demon when you get older and you'll inexplicably drop the years and revert back to youth. This was an obvious contrivance to remove a powerful ally and allow a little girl to get her pet back. Gotta love wishes and hopes.

Just like the season finale of Supergirl, the resolution to the death of a character is wishes and hopes. A circus tent full of people sang an old James Taylor song and that brought him back. Why not? With Supergirl it was her dead body sucking sunlight from plants that only hold red and blue wavelengths of light (not the yellow she'd need) for short periods of time that brought her back to life. It's like pot smoking hippies wrote out their trip ideas. Dog army. Freezer pants. And wishes and hopes can bring back the dead. Why didn't they wish Mr. Freeze back to life or hope Hawkman alive again by singing "Fire and Rain"?

This is some of the worst writing I've seen in any medium in my life. Cave petroglyphs would be more interesting to watch. The dialogue is nauseating and unmemorable. The only thing that resonates with this show is its stupidity.

And now my watching has ended. There was nothing redeemable here, just further insults on the intelligence of the viewing audience. I'm giving up on this show and, in all likelihood, the CW's and DC's entertainment efforts. It's been too bad for too long. I daresay if anyone actually liked this, it's either because they don't yet comprehend what the medium of television holds in its potential, or they should seriously pick up a book or go out into the real world to understand life, real people and great stories. None of those things will be found here.

I'm done. I've now watched half of the season and I don't care who lives or dies. I don't really care about any of the characters in this show. Each one is cut from the over-used stereotype cloth so none of them resonate. The Druid is only a marginally scary figure. The show has become an excuse for the stupid, brutal and graphic murders. And there is no sympathy for any of the whiny, weak-willed characters. And, you can mostly tell who's going to die by who is featured in a flashback. And the flashbacks, we found in this episode, don't really matter. And if they don't really matter, why am I watching? You see where I'm going with this.

The coroner tells us that the dissected biology teacher was killed by someone with skills in cutting open a body. I just know if I finish this season, it's going to be one of the kids that did it - who else can move about in a school and not send up any red flags. It's going to be someone without the skillset the coroner spoke of. Because at this point no one in the cast has those skills and while throwing in a new character with surgical skills in the 11th hour wouldn't be the worst sin committed in this season, it would almost be necessary for this to make any sense. Either way they go is lame so I'm out. The first two seasons were fun but this one is a cumbersome class in melodramatic overacting from a weak script full of characters no one will remember next week.

However, if a week goes by and, no matter how hard I try, I just can't get these darn characters out of my head, well, then, I'll finish the season and review the last four shows.

Probably not as likely as if I turned out to be The Druid.

I hate it when shows do this. In the first two episodes, Saadia leaned on Jen for support. Jen was emotionally strong and a powerful character. Until the producers decide to tell us how her mom ridiculously committed suicide by immolation in front of them. I know. So now, in this episode, Jen is near crying at every turn because she can no longer handle life and she's leaning on Saadia. It's like they're making this up as they go along.

Same goes here as for the other episodes. This thing is almost unwatchable.

So far my reviews of this show have been extremely negative, but only because the stories themselves have been so incredibly bad. I've seriously seen commercials with more depth. But this one started strong.

This episode had a lot of potential. First, Chris O'Dowd is awesome. The story began as a strong mystery. Then it escalated. The gun seemed alive, indwelt with some sort of sentience or spirit. Then there was the talk of anthropomorphism that aligned with what we knew. Finally, a Twilight Zone, a real authentic Twilight Zone worthy story. And I was happy until... the last few minutes.

It got a bit dopey when he was playing with the gun at the range. Those places discourage trick shots (over the shoulder, behind the back, etc.), but I chalked that up to dramatic license - a non-offensive term meaning filmmakers don't get the real world so we should cut them some slack. Then he started playing with The Blue Scorpion at home. Maybe this is how the son of a hippy would behave if he was suddenly in possession of a firearm. Maybe just more dramatic license. Anyway, since the range experience, he's decided to keep the gun.

Taking it to a divorce arbitration was bad. Not cool. I can only assume the gun was supposed to have power over him, making it more than alive, but somehow controlling.

I'm not sure what he was planning on doing in his car outside his soon-to-be-ex-wife's house, but that's where the story found him. Crossing the line to hokey. But when the burglar is shot, the story fell back across the line of being at decent Twilight Zone. Even with the few contrivances, things clicked. I thought I was going to like this. Even the denouement seemed promising when excellent things began happening in Jeff's life as the result of The Blue Scorpion. Until the gun was returned.

Had a gun been returned to me that saved my life and helped in my divorce settlement, I'd be inclined to keep that gun. Maybe forever in a vault - with a light on, of course - but the last thing I'd think to do is send it back into the world by tossing it into a lake. I'm not sure what level of mental incompetence the show's producers/writers think we're operating on, but that made no sense.

Then, two kids find it. This speaks to the importance of teaching children gun safety and the proper response to finding any deadly weapon, be it a gun, knife or hatchet. A fist-sized rock is dangerous to an idiot so I suppose the lesson here would be don't teach your kids to be idiots? Beats me. Anyway, the kids figure out how to load it somehow and then start playing with it. It's like we're watching Darwinism in action. We have friends who had a five-year-old that knows better than that. This is more dramatic license than I'm willing to issue.

Then Peele's summing up assaults us with something pointless. I think he was trying to tie America's perceived love of guns to the story somehow. It didn't fit or work on any level so I might be wrong, but his words, paraphrased, stated that if we put things over people, tragedy ensues. This wasn't germane to the story or plot so I'm not sure if he was attempting to throw a liberal slant to the episode or if he missed the point of the story completely. To me the point was a guy had a gun when attacked and it saved him. And his life improved because of it. Which may be the reason they threw in this last segment and off-topic narration. They've had a problem contriving a story line to fit their ideologies. Mostly because those ideologies are off base. It's hard to think up reasonable tales to fit an unreasonable mindset.

Hopefully I'm wrong about the ending. But even if I am, that means it's unclear and had no reason to be tacked on to the end of the show. To be subtle is a virtue, to be vague, a sin. It would have been a much better ending to have Jeff receive the gun back, put it in the lighted vault with a smile on his face, and then go on with his life. Or even let him sell the gun for $100,000. I'd have kept it. If there is a sentient deadly weapon out there, I'd sleep sounder at night knowing it was locked in a vault and not somehow making its way back to me.

So the ending ruined this one. I wish I had stopped watching as soon as he received the gun back from the police. With a closing narration of "Mastery over our tools simply starts with a healthy respect for them. For Jeff, that respect was reciprocated....in the Twilight Zone," this would have easily been the brightest star in this new TZ's universe of black holes.

I watched this show an hour ago and already it's hard to recall what happened. Because it was stupid.

Last episode we unlearned basic botany. This episode we get to unlearn basic storytelling. So much is contrived and shaped to fit the show the writers/producers want to show, that logical common sense doesn't fit. We seem to be in a world where wishes and hopes are enough to make everything work out. It's like we're all six again.

Lex betrays Kaznia to the tune of "My Way". Don't get me wrong, Sinatra's a classic and generally adds value to any production his crooning graces, but this seems more like something the writers and producers have been using as their anthem throughout this entire season. It doesn't work.

So they follow that up with "Kick Start My Heart" during a fight scene. Not the Crüe's best, but it really didn't fit in this lame battle. While actual super powered beings are fighting, Alex is battling with her magic batons effectively - thus, "magic". Forget that these beings can toss trucks about or do any manner of things to her without actually needing to physically touch her. She just keeps going with those batons and they just keep getting beat by them. So clever.

Since the intense vacuum of intellect that is this show is now in full force, why stop there. Supergirl is beaten once more by Luthor, until Red Daughter some how hones in on her exact whereabouts and saves her. Forget that we've watched entire shows devoted to finding people, Red Daughter did it in microseconds. Talk about a super! Wishes and hopes.

For some inane reason, when Red Daughter dies, she's reabsorbed into Supergirl. Again, hopes and wishes win against logic, science and common sense. So now Supergirl is super super powerful so she's able to best Lex. But in her effort to save him, he drops to the island. I guess Supergirl forgot that she's superfast and could have beaten him to the ground to actually save him. But that sort of logic, reason and accountability from her would have messed with the ultimate contrived plot. Either more wishes and hopes or they've decided she's just not that smart.

The place where Lex falls after a chaotic sky battle, just happens to be close enough to a group of people/aliens for them not to be harmed, but still pull together and applaud, bringing this adventure show into a full-fledged camp comedy.

The less said about Brainiac's struggle that led to his departure as Brainy's personality the better. Let's simply leave it as more wishes and hopes.

Lena's cold-blooded fratricide of Lex finally shows us who she really is - a Luthor. And apparently a sick one at that since at least a day after his murder, Lex is shown to be in the same place. She didn't even have the decency to bury him. After murdering him, all she can think about is how her best friend betrayed her by keeping a secret. Logic and reason go whistling by in this little train of wishes and hopes.

The finale winds down with America once more invaded by illegal aliens. This doesn't feel like a good thing. The only thing super about this show was Haley's public, melodramatic, sycophantic, sappy, campy thank you to Supergirl. And the continued inability to successfully draw a convincing male character for the show. The Superman lore didn't even save this one as it was perverted and contrived by the wishes and hopes of the writers instead of by plausible story constructs and meaningful plot.

This season was intellectually repulsive. I'm certain I've called it vacuous before, but it just fits. The show deserves to be cancelled. If there was any truth and justice out there, it would be. It doesn't excite or stimulate mentally. It doesn't explore the boundaries of storytelling and plot. It doesn't pay homage to the art it came from as much as mocks it. There is nothing redeemable here. But I'm certain it will go on, despite the wishes and hopes of most of its audience.

This one lacks the IQ of a 4th grade life science student.

Supergirl dies. She's killed by her clone at night so there's no sun to keep her charged. So Alex wishes her alive by dumbsplaining to her and, painfully obviously, the rest of us that, hey, there's sunlight in everything. The plants, the grass the trees. And suddenly, by magic, Supergirl starts sucking sunlight in the form of luminous wormlike strands from the surrounding flora. Eye roll. Eye roll. Coma.

To the writers of this mess, photosynthesis involves the conversion of sunlight and carbon dioxide into chemical energy and oxygen. Now, chlorophyll will trap light energy to facilitate this, but it only traps red and blue light, neither of which would help Supergirl. I don't recall how long the energy is trapped, but I'm certain it's not for hours. Not that it can be extracted anyway - at least not by a DEAD PERSON.

The only good thing about this episode is we finally see Brainiac.

Had it not been for the flaunted stupidity of the reverse photosynthesis induced Kryptonian resurrection, this would have only been a bad episode instead of a complete, mind-numbing waste of time.

Well the bar keeps dropping for this series and this episode hurled it ever downward to new depths. To begin with, it was just bad. Poorly executed from production to acting to directing to - last and truly least - writing. It's nearly unwatchable. Here's why.

It opens with a nice little mystery, but then the narration comes in and it's just not working with Peele. He sits with a festive Christmas present and looks as blank and deadpan as bricks in a wall. Nice contrast, I guess. The last episode gave me some hope but he's just not working for me. Then he precedes to alienate most of his viewers by implying Christmas is a myth. That's not going to help this series.

This was a portent of the sinusoidal dive this episode was going to take. Just cutting to the chase, the guy who couldn't stand non-Inuits ends up embracing an alien race taking over. That's pretty shameful and doesn't fit with the racist tirade the character spewed in the opening minutes of the show.

Then there's the basic point of the show - that these invading aliens needed to take out an Air Force base in Alaska in order to invade the planet. Or is it just Alaska. Of this there is no clarification. Now, this might have played well in the 1950s original Twilight Zone, but it doesn't work 60 years later. First, people in general have a better understanding of defense systems. Not the intricacies, but how they work in general. So we know there are satellites and radar and all manner of other advanced equipment that would detect a threatening invading force. But here's the clencher: the original mystery was a man was suddenly in a jail cell. So how'd he get there? We're to assume advanced tech. Thus, any alien invading force that can do that can put him and others inside the Air Force base and disable it with ease, making this plan obsolete. If only.

Way too many other plot holes to cover (ironic that I'm too lazy to write about all the lazy writing going on here).

And this grand alien invasion, visually, was a collection of ships, each consisting of three lights forming a triangle. I think I can make that effect on my phone.

So the new TZ has substituted controversy with banality, enlightenment with divisiveness, creative stories with tired tropes, signature narration with robotic delivery and - the greatest of all sins for a show like this - solid, quality writing with lazy, weak and hackneyed scripts.

And this episode is the absolute worst of all. Well, so far.

In the spirit of Llyod Bentsen, I close with this: I watched the Twilight Zone. I grow up with the Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone was friend of mine. Whatever you are, you're not The Twilight Zone.

The family housekeeper is picked up for her illegal alien status. As a parallel, the white employers are abducted by the government. I'm sure this was a dream come true for the producers.

Peele mentions in his self-righteous opening remarks that the lead character views the world from a bubble of comfort, safety and privilege. Unlike Peele, who is worth a mere $12 million. There's no comfort, safety and privilege there, right?

The actual message is OK: if you enter a country - nearly any country - illegally, then there will be consequences. Don't expect those countries to welcome you. For instance, good luck getting into New Zealand even if you're comfortable, safe and privileged. Their immigrations laws are extremely strict. Canada too. They'll even give you a hard time if you're crossing the boarder to do some work there much less trying to move there and take Canadian jobs.

To their credit, this episode was quite a bit shorter than previous. That was an enormous plus. However, the idiocy of the episode lies in the way the story is told. At the grocery store there are many customers waiting in line and only one lane open. It happens, but it's rare. The customers are verbal and complaining about a mother and her two children. Seldom are people that impatient and rude. A Guatemalan housekeeper knows about secret doors in the ladies' room that lead to secret hallways that eventually lead to exits. Weak. The lead character gets help to escape, they take her home and she's immediately found out. And her husband and kids turn on her. Pretty unbelievable from the kid perspective.

In closing, Peele sums this broken narrative up by saying we're all immigrants from somewhere. If you've ever moved from one place to another, that's true. But, since the show tied this to the Guatemalan illegal, what we're talking about here is not immigration, but illegal immigration. So his point is pointless.

Kudos, though, on James Frain cast as the US official. First of all, he's an incredible actor whose back catalog deserves perusal if you're not familiar with him. Second, he's English, which proves that America does welcome immigrants, as long as they come legally.

Unfortunately, even with a decent message, it comes down to storytelling skills, which this show has proven over and over it does not have. This could have been told inside of 20 minutes and it would have been tighter and better. Dragging it out, even to just 41 minutes, was close to painful since the writing is so weak. I doubt they intended the message to be strongly against illegal immigration, but it was. The writing was just so bad that, even with the heavy-handed narrations, it's hard not to see the truth rather than what they intended.

Finally, bald misandry rears its hideous head in this series. At this point it's hard to believe it took 7 episodes.

I've tried to review this show fairly. I've made a serious attempt to ignore the overtly political agenda this show seems bent towards. I've tried reviewing it on the merits of good art and comparing it to the revolutionary concept of the original Twilight Zone. I've tried to like it. But the agenda has finally overstepped any art this show might claim as its own.

On the surface, this show thrives on two bigoted stereotypes - men, at their core, are violent killers and blonde women are stupid. I understand we all know those two things aren't true. I'm a man who's made peace and is known for it. My wife is blonde and brilliant. So there you go; we render those two stereotypes null and void.

This episode, initially, purports that meteors cause men to go wildly insane and violent, attacking everyone from loved ones to strangers. OK, kind of a Lovecraftian theft, but fine. Then we see the two blonde female protagonists do absolutely asinine things. This includes having a discussion in their car instead of getting inside to safety, antagonizing an infected husband and running into town in the middle of a riot instead of keeping to the shadows or going to the next town for help. No one. Ever. Is that stupid.

The ladies attempt to harness the power of the meteor to no avail. Eventually the military saves them and their young gay male friend who somehow escaped the change. The doctors find nothing abnormal in the young man's blood. So the anti-brilliant lead actress reveals that the meteor was simply a placebo. Super interesting since men who weren't aware of their exposure to the meteor showed symptoms. Also, those infected showed physical symptoms including red eyes and bulging veins. Yet it was a placebo. This is the final straw in the dumb blonde stereotype. The blood isn't the sole holder of information for infection or disease, particularly from a space virus. It would take a full body dissection and even then, something alien could take any form of illusive marker. Maybe they were supposed to be in shock and so the stupefied remark can be overlooked, but that's not the way the final minutes of this long onslaught on intelligence plays out. The young man says he made a choice not to change. So now the message is some, but not all, gay men are OK, thus the title of this episode. Or, is this an assault on the theory that sexual preference is not a choice? The character is gay and he said he chose. Are the writers saying sexual preference is a choice? Maybe? Like the reasoning in this episode, it's not clear.

As they leave the military tent, the MP asks for IDs. Why? They're leaving, not entering. So he looks at them and tells the younger blonde woman that she would look cuter if she smiled. First of all, a professional and well-trained soldier would never instigate chit-chat with a civilian while on duty. This show really does like to insult the military. Secondly, this girl wears clothes, jewelry and makeup throughout the show in an attempt, I assume, to look cute. So why does she look so offended by this comment? When walking the halls at work, I get lost in thought sometimes so I've had a number of women tell me I should smile. I've never looked defiantly at them and given them the sourest face I could muster and said, "No." I simply smile, sometimes even chuckle. It's not an emotional rollercoaster for me. I would be willing to concede the fact that it's different for women, but I'm constantly told we're all the same so I feel a concession would be sexist.

So the show is trying to say that men are violent creatures that are one "placebo" away from killing everyone they care about and destroying their lives, their loved ones, their towns and each other. Oh, and the subtext that blondes are dumb.

How is this a Twilight Zone? Where's the twist? Where's the truth revealed in the story? This is a full-on excuse for misandry and follicle pigmentation-targeted misogyny. I'm guessing this putrescence emanated from deep-seated grade school resentments from the writer and director. Mostly because that's the level or writing we're looking at here.

Peele lacks as a narrator. I've tried to like him, give him the benefit of the doubt, but his stiff delivery and long, overly-dramatic pauses prove him an incompetent speaker with which to bookend thoughts about a tale. Even an awful piece of dreck like this.

The concluding remarks from Peele close the trunk on the misandry baggage he, the writer and director have brought with them in the "story". It's a poorly packaged mess of cross-purposed messages that they desperately want you to see only as men are evil, except some gay men. Imagine if they'd made the women Stepford wives, ultra-submissive, brainless caricatures, and concluded that all women are simply a placebo away from wanting all men to lord over them and tell them what to do. Judging by the rampant sexual harassment suits in the entertainment industry, that might be a little too close to what Hollywood actually believes.

This show has accomplished something no other superhero show has: it's made me root for the "bad guys".

The crux of the show is the aftermath of an ideologue's wife. He's grieving and uses his authority to capture his wife's murderer. Not the best way to do things but it works in tons of cop shows and Supergirl's done it a time or two so we can't balk at that. He captures her, legally, and simply wants to incarcerate her and all the other illegal aliens that harbored her. So, they're unregistered and in the country/on the planet illegally. And they commit a heinous crime of harboring a fugitive. Most of us have never done this because it has dire consequences - pretty much in any country around the globe. So he's justified in detaining them. And that's when they get attacked by a band of outlaws, the supposed superheroes. Legally, James and Nia - and later J'onn - have no leg to stand on. So morally we have to hope they lose. The rule of law must prevail or it becomes OK for anyone to do anything illegal simply because they choose to disregard a law. Martha Stewart should never have gone to prison. Murderers and drug dealers should be left alone to plunder our lives and infect our children with crippling chains that never let them be free. Oh, and child molesters. I'm sure they disagree with the laws that put them in prison. Picking and choosing the laws we obey is our choice, but we need to be prepared for the consequences. Therefore, the ones the writers have tried to paint as morally grey or evil are actually in the right here. I was actually hoping James, Nia, "Brainy" and J'onn would get their clocks cleaned for making the wrong, emotion-charged decision of siding with the illegals. Sort of like when they had the US President secretly be an alien. That was wrong on so many levels so who could possibly have sympathy for that? Well done "writers".

Meanwhile, Kara and Lena jet away in a plane that can't possibly hold enough fuel to get them to Russia. Oh, and it's autonomous. "Humans make mistakes," Lena quips. "My technology doesn't." And then lightning proceeds to knock out the power. Genius. No generator in this infallible tech she's so proud of. Lightning knocks out my power and I've got 3 hours of UPS backup for my computer. But you wouldn't put that on anything as unimportant as a jet. And any pilot who can read an instrument panel would understand there was something else controlling that plane. One eyeroll after another.

And then there's the Alex portion. If suicides were up when this aired, this explains it. This was so incredibly bad. A woman Alex has known for, what, a few months at best, tells her she's the most nurturing person she's ever met? That is not how I'd describe Alex - and I've known her for over three years now so I'm a bit more of an authority. Whiney would be one apt description. Nauseating. Pouty. High schoolish. None of which makes her a candidate for a good mother. She's not self-sacrificing, which any good mom will tell you is one of the first characteristics a mother needs. She's not nurturing. At all. She's headstrong. I like that, but not necessary to be a good mother. She loves her family. That's really her best qualification and, that's not really enough. So the whole drama of will she get a baby or won't she get a baby is played out here and no one's life was changed for the better. Certainly not ours.

To be fair, it wasn't all bad. Andrea Brooks did well. She's a talented actress who played lots of quirky parts well. And Bruce Boxleitner. What happened, man? You're so much better than this. Find something worthy of your talents.

This is easily the worst show on television. It makes me pine for the days of reality TV. Almost. The writers have no concept of real life and the characters make illogical decisions based on where the writers want the plot to go. For instance, someone at Lena's level would never befriend a reporter and maker her her best friend in such a short time. People at that level are guarded and trust very few. I've known several CEOs of large companies and they don't let people in easily. Especially reporters. Because at that level, everybody wants something from you. It's sad but it's the truth. Lena wouldn't audition or trust a new best friend by the time she ran her company. If she didn't have one by then, she simply wouldn't have one at all.

It's sad that for years I've wanted to see superheroes on the screen. And this is what we're given. Not good stories. Not intriguing new art and multidimensional thinking. We're assaulted with paper-thin political agendas that have to fit into a very contrived, unrealistic plot to get to a point that said contrivance simply proves is wrong.

This show is reaching unwatchable status. Iris is ruining it. She's intensely annoying with little to no redeeming qualities. She's really more of a political pawn for feminists than anything useful (notice how often the other characters' last names are mentioned as compared to West-Allen, repeated at least 2-3 times per episode). She gripes at Barry for putting their daughter back in her own timeline - something that should have been done from the beginning. Did we learn nothing from Flashpoint? They were stupid to keep her there anyway.

She was wrong in this episode. Wrong in everything she did. Interestingly enough the only right thing she did was listen to her husband's nemesis. Maybe being a political pawn for feminists means she can't listen to her husband. Unfortunately she comes across as a spoiled brat who didn't get her way. Wasn't that supposed to be Nora's role? Oh, right. It is.

And then they have the temerity to make Barry apologize. For being right. For doing the hard thing. The right thing. There needn't be any discussion. It's not a group decision. It's right. Send the girl back to her time. They can visit the future but Nora should stay there. Which, her meeting back up with Thawne just proves that Barry was right. She cannot be trusted.

So yeah, super annoying episode. Super uber mega gonzo annoying. The Snow Pack side story felt like an afterthought. Sad to see Danielle Panabaker's talent wasted like this. She's an exceptional actress but she's stuck in this overly dramatic superhero farce.

And on that note, do the writers understand they're writing for a superhero show, not Degrassi High or Days of Our Lives. Really, the drama is flying way too high and the action and fun are relegated to homogenized banality.

This show used to be good. It is no longer. But as long as Supergirl is airing, it won't be the worst thing on TV.

This was a tricky one. There were obvious, likely intentional parallels to what some people believe happened in the last US election. And, honestly, if the show is simply following the Hollywood bandwagon of Trump bashing, that would make it incredibly trite and vapid - or fodder for Saturday Night Live rather than anything as prestigious as The Twilight Zone. However - and it's likely unintentional due to the poor excuse for what passes as writing in this series - there is a better lesson here.

I noticed at some point that this could also be an indictment on millennial privilege. I've worked with and hired a number of millennials and the minority are strong workers willing to take the time to learn and seek out mentoring and wisdom. Unfortunately, the majority have this entitlement idea. They expect to make salaries comparable to their parents immediately. They also have other unreasonable career and life goals. I'm not saying every millennial matches the dozens I've known, worked with and hired, but even media reflects this trend. Back in the day it took three movies and a ton of training for Luke Skywalker to eventually defeat his father and the Emperor. And along the way he lost to both a time or two. Yet in Episode 7 (AKA Episode 4, retold) a total Force novice , Rey, defeats Kylo Ren, who has been trained and practicing for years. This girl who's had the force for like a few hours, is good enough to suddenly, and without any training or practice, beat a master. She never had to work for it.

So, from this point of view, this episode nails that by showing the true folly of trusting in youth over wisdom. You put someone young and inexperienced in charge of a country and you get what you get. Spoiled children are selfish, impudent and void of moral conscience. Even if they can connect to people via YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, this in no way qualifies them to make decisions any more important than which shoe they put on first.

The acting was great, though John Larroquette hammed it up a tad as defeated incumbent President seeking a second term. John Cho was great as always and Allison Tolman turned in a strong and believable performance. I really like her in everything I've seen her in. But Jacob Tremblay is the real star of this one. He embodies that entitled, confident millennial I've worked with so often. High on confidence, low on ability. The show was worth watching just to see him land his role perfectly.

I don't think Jordan Peele is ever going to get better as the narrator. He's stony, stoic and as interesting to watch as I would be trying to deliver the poorly written dialog. I think Samuel Jackson or, as I stated in a previous review, Quentin Tarantino would be phenomenal at this. Peele is barely there.

So, as a social indictment against millennial snowflake syndrome, this is pretty good. Even so, Black Mirror is the current reigning champion of this sort of social commentary and they do it so much better than this current incarnation of TZ. Sadly, this episode didn't change that paradigm.

Admittedly hopes were high for this, the fourth iteration of a beloved series. I enjoyed all previous installments and hoped this series would be rife with fresh ideas and strong, thought provoking stories. We are living, after all, in the age of Doctor Who and Sherlock - both of which offer imaginative TV at its finest - and even the revitalization of Twin Peaks. The bar is set high, but it was the Twilight Zone that basically created the bar in the first place, so hopes were indeed high.

Unfortunately, we are treated to a safe, mundane and wholly predictable story with a cop-out ending that's worse than the oh-it-was-all-just-a-dream ending. Even though there's no real plot to spoil, I'll only site two obvious plot holes, or, as I like to call them, poor writing.

1) During Samir's last set, Rena heckles him. In the middle of the set. The rule laid down thus far told us that everyone laughs during his set when he's riffing on people. This was even true of previous hecklers. So does Rena have a magic bean in her pocket or a get-out-of-a-spell-free card that allows her not to fall under the thrall of Samir's act? This was pure laziness.

2) Samir had an obvious out. All he had to do to keep all of his pain and sorrow from ever happening was talk about J.C. Wheeler during his act. Then, boom, he's back to being a failed comedian with a loving girlfriend. It would also keep Wheeler from ruining anyone else's life. However, I'm guessing the obvious choice all the world would have made did not fit the ending the writers were mapping to so they threw in the choice no one would have made. This is dishonest at best, incompetent at worst.

The acting wasn't bad. The characters were thin and underdeveloped by the writers so I'm guessing the actors did their best with what little they had to work with. Jordan Peele would not have been my first choice to host the show. His delivery is beyond dry. It's almost like he doesn't care and just wants to get through it. Rod Serling had personality but you don't get that here. Quintin Tarantino would have been an interesting choice, to me. Like Serling, he's a cinematic innovator with the gravitas to pull it off.

The original Twilight Zone began with incredible writing that moved into transforming television into an artform with strong actors/characters and ended with something no one could see coming. It was television that made you think. It wasn't politically correct or safe of anything that this new series is. Or at least the first episode is.

For these reasons, I was disappointed. I understand writing is hard work. But good writing and well-executed ideas are like seeing your kid graduate summa cum laude or knowing that your research was key in vaccinating millions against a malicious bug. It's The Twilight Zone of old. It is not this. I'll watch one or two more. Probably. But at this point, the show seems less about pushing the boundaries of thought and imagination and more a money grab.

You should know, I truly wanted to like this episode. It was better than the pilot. It was predictable, but the story was still better, if not contrived now and again. The acting was stronger and the names of former Twilight Zone writers continue to pepper the character's. The title homage to the original Matheson story was gratifying to see. Still not thinking Justin Peele was the best choice - his last bit of narration felt on par with high school drama productions. It feels very much like the writers have an ending in mind - in both this and the pilot so far - and no matter what happens in the story, they're getting us to that ending, by God. Sort of like driving towards Dallas from Oklahoma City and then waking up the next morning in St. Louis. Not even close to where we were promised we were heading. I mean, St. Louis is nice, but it makes no sense how we got there. Pretty much the same in these little teleplays. So yes, the writing still proves the bane of this series. I realize most of the story is homogenized through executives, producers, possibly even censors - though that shouldn't be the case here. Committee writing is always a pale saturation of what individual writing can evoke. And maybe that's the issue here. But all passengers surviving a plan crash? OK, fluke but maybe. All of them deciding to murder the one person that was trying to help? I think the writers are taking the "people are stupid, many people are really stupid" idea and building on it beyond its ability to support a plot. The ending could have been satisfying, but instead we're left asking why and are people truly capable of such extreme acts from such a shallow premise without the highest levels of rational thought removed from them? Lord of the Flies portrays the slow descent of children into animalistic behavior over a long period of time. Sadly, these writers figured adults could get there in seconds. And I thought the writing in the pilot was bad.

The movie was not good. It was a lot of things, but good is absent from the pile of what it was.

Idris Elba did a great job with what he had to work with. The entire cast did, actually, though some of the casting seemed too Hollywood pretty. But that's what Hollywood does, right? Visually the film was gorgeous. The creative ammunition loading was fun. The action sequences looked good even in a few spots where the editing was choppy.

If you've read and loved the books, spoiler alert, there's really nothing for you here. You'll catch glimpses of images you'll recognize, scents on the wind that strike familiar, but overall you'll be looking more for what's not there than what you'll actually see.

So why can't Hollywood make a good adaptation of this 8-book source material? I think it boils down to lack of vision and screenplays written by committee. It feels like the best films are made by the Coen brothers or David Lynch or even the Duffer brothers on the small screen. Scrubs was a hit TV show because it was filmed away from the studio so the execs didn't make it out there much. Twin Peaks was its strongest before the suits got involved. There is compelling evidence that Hollywood ruins its products by simply being involved with them. Maybe that's what happened here. I'm not in the business so I don't know. But as an outsider, Babylon 5 was largely written by one man and it had an intricate, cohesive story. Why, then, can't something as epic as The Dark Tower universe be brought to the screen with as much care? Maybe the Coen brothers should have made it. Maybe David Lynch. Or even Joss Whedon. I'd go see that movie or watch that Netflix Original. I know a lot of people who would. And isn't that really what Hollywood should be shooting for?

By the way, I'm giving it two stars solely because the acting was strong and that deserves one up from the lowest possible.