‘The Twilight Zone’ (2019) Recap: ‘Nightmare at 30,000 Feet’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

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If there’s one element that’s supremely polarizing when it comes to film and television, it’s the remake. Because there are so many people out there, that firmly believe a classic should remain untouched in every sense of the word in order to allow for audiences everywhere to enjoy the tale in question in its purest form, and on the flip side to that, there are others that welcome a do-over for classic tales in order to keep the story going and give other creatives a chance to offer their perspective on the story's meaning and message. If anything, I am a firm believer that technically, both sides to this argument are right, for vastly different reasons. For there are stories out there that transcend time and are just fine staying in their original form. But there are other ones out there that almost require an update, due to the fact that they feel dated and out of place in the modern era and one such story that meets that criteria is The Twilight Zone classic, ‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet’.
 
In fact, this iconic story is so encapsulated and limited by the era in which it was originally released, that it actually managed to receive a remake in 1983 when it was featured as the finale segment in Twilight Zone: The Movie, and the facelift it received in the 80s allowed for quite the terrifying upgrade for the gremlin hanging out on the wing of a commercial airliner. Yet, despite that ‘facelift’, the story still feels dated after all of these years for one reason and one reason alone; we no longer believe in monsters. Gone are the days of gremlins and boogeymen and things that go bump in the night. Instead, those monsters have been replaced by conspiracy theories and misinformation that make us ponder upon new horrific possibilities when it comes to what lurks behind the scenes in our world and this paradigm shift in our beliefs allowed for Jordan Peele’s new iteration of The Twilight Zone to update this story by way of its second episode, ‘Nightmare at 30,000 Feet’, and let me say it now, this refreshed version of this iconic tale is downright brilliant when all is said and done.
 
Because this iteration of this classic tale, fits the times perfectly, in large part due to the fact that our main character, Justin Sanderson, is a product of our modern era. For Justin is an investigative reporter who has seen horrors untold, and it’s inherently clear he’s suffering from PTSD early on in this episode and is untrusting of mankind due to what he’s seen in his travels and let’s be honest; that makes him supremely relatable. Because we too have seen some volatile things in our world in the past fifteen years and the consistent infighting in America and the threat of violence hanging over our heads has left us all of us rattled like Justin and the brilliance of this episode doesn’t there. For once Justin boards his flight, he happens to find an MP3 player in the front of his seat that just so happens to have a podcast downloaded onto it, and this ‘special episode’ revolves around the flight he is on and how it disappeared without a trace while it soared over the Atlantic, putting Justin in a strange position since now he’s racing against the clock to save his own flight from doom, and this where the show’s biting commentary comes into play.
 
Because there is nothing to back up or prove what Justin is hearing, but the perfect blend of coincidental moments he runs into on the plane, helps to lend credence to the podcast’s content in his mind, and the parallels to that simply cannot be ignored. For Justin’s immediate need to believe everything he heard on this podcast as gospel, speaks volumes to the birth of the new monsters in our society that I made mention of a moment ago, since there are plenty of people out there who see conspiracy theories and ramblings and movements grounded in fantasy, as fact, and believe they are now experts on a particular topic and push their wild agendas in the belief that they are making the world a better place when in fact, their ‘beliefs’ are doing the opposite. And in many ways that’s what we witness as Justin tries to save the plane from disappearing, and his panicked quest for salvation also reminds us that the only real monsters in the world are people and when they’re properly enabled to cause trouble, they’re happy to do so, as evidenced in the closing moments of this story.
 
Yet, what’s equally as impressive is that there some lingering ambiguity when it comes to the overall storyline, because we never really know if the Podcast is real, or a figment of Justin’s imagination, drummed up to give him purpose and a story since we know he’s not well and desperate for a story, and it also makes one wonder if his buddy, the only man who believed him, is real or not, and the mysterious air hanging over this story, only lends credence to the sheer darkness present here. In fact, that’s what truly impressed me about this episode, in that, it had no problem going to the darkest and bleakest of places, or showing us what people are like when they are pushed to edge and the fact that it didn’t sugarcoat the story in the slightest, both commentary and structure wise, is a bold and dynamic move that lets us know that this iteration of the series isn’t messing around and I couldn’t be happier to know now, that this series is going to hold nothing back in the weeks to come. Until next time. 

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