The Twilight Zone (2019)

The four episodes previewed, however, feel a bit more hit-miss than one might have hoped.

This Twilight doesn’t feel like a relic, but it also doesn’t feel vital, or at least consistently excellent, enough to justify dusting off the title yet again.

A bunch of perfectly adequate episodes that range in quality from pretty OK to bad.

Four episodes made available for preview offer an uneven sampling--no surprise for a new series, especially an anthology with changing casts, writers and directors--with a wide gap separating the best, the tense, culturally resonant “Replay” from the worst, a free-falling “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet,” the only one adapted from an original episode.

Without spoiling the central themes or outcomes of any episode, it seems the new “Twilight Zone” is perhaps too fixated on personal damnation and curses rather than straight-on, clutch-the-couch-pillow surprises.

The new “Twilight Zone,” which arrives Monday on CBS All Access, does not lack for talent, big names or production resources. But as for finding its own distinctive place, it’s still looking.

The new “Zone” appears to be uneven, with both some nice tweaks, notably a more acute awareness of bigotry and terrorism, and — at an unmerited hour per episode — some frustratingly muddy storytelling.

Every episode – which run for between 35 and 55 minutes – feels too long. ... Instead of the original series’ bleakly measured contemplation of mankind’s capacity for cruelty and evil, the reboot falls into either preachiness or schmaltz.

Compared to Black Mirror’s spiky nihilism, The Twilight Zone feels tame.

Everything feels safe. In a world so weird that it’s frequently likened to a bad computer simulation, this Twilight Zone is blandness stretched into an hour-long format, storytelling that feels oddly neutered before it even begins.

Throughout, The Twilight Zone casts its ominous action in distinctly modern terms. The problem is that, in three of its maiden four outings (which run anywhere from 36-54 minutes), both the message and the twist--if a stab at the latter is even made--are so obvious that their wannabe-timeliness can’t save them.

In spirit, mood, tone and execution, this somber and sodden series feels more like an attempt to do a Stephen King-like horror series.

Despite all the twists and turns, the journey feels like your boat across the River Styx has snagged itself on the carcass of a ’59 Buick.