The Twilight Zone, 2002 Version

I was searching online for information on the original version of "The Twilight Zone" after the New Year's Eve/Day marathon and came across a 2002 version that aired on FX. I heard it sucked, but it's a clusterfuck of actors I like--Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Jason Alexander, Linda Cardellini, and Patrick Warburton, just to name a few. I thought to myself, "How bad could it possibly be?" By now I should know that whenever I think that, I should just go ahead and gouge my eyes out right away.

The first episode was called "The Lineman," and it featured Jeremy Piven, who I love because he's BFF with John Cusack. In "The Lineman," Jeremy Piven is a telephone line repairman who is ordered by his boss, a hot woman with a college degree (this will be important later), to go fix a line during the rain because Accuweather says there isn't supposed to be lighting. You can guess what happens next. Mr. Piven gets struck by "special lighting." Cut to an ER scene that makes me wish Eriq La Salle were in this episode so he could kick everyone's ass. Now Jeremy is able to read people's thoughts, but apparently only when it is convenient to the storyline. Jeremy and his friend Buddy use his newfound powers to go gambling, stock trading, etc. Jeremy then wines and dines his boss, and because she went to college, she's only interested in him now that he has tons of money. Then Jeremy sees Buddy hugging hot boss and he goes postal on them. He decides to reverse the effects of the lighting, so he climbs back up on the pole and gets struck again (??) but surprisingly, that doesn't work. Some other stuff happened, but I missed it because I was reading the paper.

The next episode was called "Night Route" and featured Ione Skye, John Cusack's love interest in Say Anything. Basically, she was hit by a car and a bus keeps stopping by her and she thinks the bus is death but it's actually life and she was too scared to really live and was obsessed with her dog or some shit like that. This eppy made no sense; but I think it was trying to copy off the episode in the original where the guy's life sucks and he's on a train and gets off at a station that he dreams up but in actuality is just jumping off the train. I wanted to jump off a train after watching this.

The next episode was "One Night at Mercy." Jason Alexander, playing death, is brought to the ER after a suicide attempt and he decides he wants to quit. The doctor encourages him to do so until he sees how much people are suffering. Eventually the doctor begs Costanza to come back to work and he does and he shows the doctor his notebook and--DUN DUN DUN--the doctor's name is written in it and he dies.

"Cradle of Darkness" features some woman who goes back in time and is supposed to kill Adolf Hitler as a baby, but she keeps wussing out. James Remar (I've seen his penis) plays Hitler's dad, and he keeps going on about the Aryan nation, and I thought this chick would just kill James, because that's what I would have done, but she doesn't realize that Adolf acquired his hatred of Jews, homosexuals, etc. from his father. She eventually takes little Adolf and jumps off the bridge, killing them both. Unfortunately the nanny steals some hobo's baby so all of that girl's efforts were in vain. On a side note, even though World War II and the Holocaust were horrible, don't the people who sent her back in time realize that if she changes history, they will cease to exist? Did monkeys write this script? I'm sorry; I shouldn't offend monkeys like that.

"Dream Lover" was definitely the most ridiculous episode. It featured a graphic novelist who creates Shannon Elizabeth, who can't act her way out of a paper bag, although I realize that isn't why she gets cast. This episode isn't even worth recapping except to tell you about one particular scene, which made me very sad that I was watching this dreck alone. Shannon takes off in the novelist's jeep, and he runs after her and is somehow able to catch up with her at the gas station. The cable guy is inside the store and the novelist is yelling at Shannon and then he figures out that she is cheating on him with the cable guy. Do you know how he figures it out? Because there is a loop of cable in the back of the jeep. I felt my IQ drop a couple points when that happened. Eventually we find out that Shannon was actually the novelist and she created the guy, not the other way around. She then erases him, thankfully ending the episode.

"Evergreen" features Amber Tamblyn as a rebellious teenager. We know she's rebellious because she chews gum annoyingly and has her hair dyed wacky colors. Her family moves to a gated community and they give Amber lemonade that knocks her out and then they take her tattoos off. She meets some guy who has "a stash of MP3s, some Jack, and some weed buried in the woods." That guy gets taken away and turned into mulch, which is put around a tree planted in his memory. Amber tries to run away but tells her goody goody sister where she is going and shockingly her sister tells on her and then Amber is also turned into mulch, which her family spreads under her tree.

In "Shades of Guilt" a man is called a racist because he is driving at night in the city and he doesn't let some screaming guy who happens to be black into his car. The guy is killed and turns out to be a college professor; so, of course, white guy has to feel all guilty. White guy then becomes black (?) and ends up in the same situation the college professor was in, which we learn is being beaten up by skinheads. Fortunately, they don't make him put his jaw on the curb and pull an American History X. When he bangs on the windows, he is let in the car, and then their roles reverse again and they are themselves. Original black guy asks original white guy why he changed his mind, and OWG says it is because he walked a mile in OBG's shoes.

I might give the second disc a try, especially since Usher is in one of the episodes and I want to see that trainwreck. After all, renting movies that I would never spend money on is the main reason why I joined Netflix.