Why The New CBS Twilight Zone Doesn’t Work

Have you seen the new twilight zone on CBS all access yet? If not, you’re not missing much. If you ask anyone why it doesn’t work, they’ll site bad directing, unsubtle politics, and a myriad of other reasons it doesn’t work.

But while all these are factors, few people are talking about the real reason it doesn’t work. The length.

So why does the length matter?

Find out.

So this isn’t the first Twilight Zone remake. And who can blame them, the original was a masterpiece. They did a remake in the 80’s that was alright, and a remake in the 90’s that was far better than the one from the 80’s, but of course, not as good as the original.

This new one isn’t even as good as the one from the 80’s. And it would be easy to blame the director for that, but the truth is, it’s not really his fault.

It’s the length. The first Twilight Zone and all it’s remakes are a half hour format. This new one is an hour, and therein lies the problem.

To build up so much suspense with a big reveal in such a short amount of time is an art, but to build it up over a longer period is an impossibility.

Twilight Zone, and similar shows like Alfred Hitchcock presents, are meant to be short. They are the short stories of the TV world. However, when forced to fit into a longer format, where they clearly don't’ belong, they simply become a ‘long short story’.

And the problem with Long Short Stories is they are unable to hold the suspense over such a long time.

This is in part because of how physiology work. We are incapable of being ‘on edge’ for longer than thirty minutes. 90 plus minute movies balance this out with highs and lows, putting us on edge, letting us drop, then pulling us back at the last second.

Short suspense stories don’t do this. They hold your attention from the first sentence to the last. There are no highs and lows, just one steady ascension.

The easiest way to compare the two is through thriller rides. A long story format, or a movie, is made up of a series of highs and lows with ‘calm’ spots in between. It’s like your typical roller coaster.

But a short story is like a drop ride. It takes you up as high as it possibly can and just lets you fall, enjoying both the ascent and the plunge.

But in the same way you can board with a drop ride that keeps going up for too long, you can also get bored with the long short story that does the same. After a point, no matter how high the drop, or how big the reveal, it will never make up for the tediousness of getting there.

This was actually proven by both the original Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Due to their popularity, the original runs of both these shows were eventually ‘rewarded’ with an hour format. And canceled the following season. Not even the original Masters of Serling and Hitchcock could make a long short story work

This is where CBS has gone wrong. And it’s where most new writers go wrong too. They try to take their great ‘short’ idea and develop it into a full length book.

And it NEVER works.

A short story needs a different treatment than a longer work, even if they start with the same concept.

So if your story isn’t working, it’s probably the wrong length. Look at it and see. If it has many highs and lows, it should be a longer story, not a short one. And if it has one big buildup and drop, then it needs to stay a short story.