Try, Try

Season 1 tried hard with the message-heavy episodes, but sometimes spectacularly failed to deliver a good story, too. Season 2 seems to have mastered the art, and pretty much all the episodes have had really good stories. This one certainly did. It takes a much-loved sci-fi trope and conceals it perfectly, so that it's quite far into the tale before you're clued in to what is really happening. And then the script goes on to make some points very relevant to the world we live in today. Exactly what The Twilight Zone should do.

This "TZ" episode called "Try, Try" is one that's kind of hard to follow and a little strange. As the story involves a man named Marc(Topher Grace) who tries to connect with a lady, and it seems as if though he has special powers only things change and seem strange it's like he is not who he seems. Overall hard episode to get interested in not really much entertainment or drama it's like just basically a game of characters guessing at each other with thoughts.

Brilliant take on the concept, maybe even the most believable take I've seen. Great casting really lends to the scenes with characters connecting and the juxtaposition of those characters completely disconnecting. Addressing concepts like entitlement, consent, morality and immortality.

This season of "Twilight Zone" appears to have taken some of the criticism for being heavy handed in their social commentary to heart. So much so that most haven't even approached it. So, kudos to Alex Rubens, responsible for two weeks ago' s awful "A Human Face" to bounce back with a much stronger episode that takes a sci fi trope and gives it a darker spin.

Claudia King (Kylie Bunbury) and Marc Wheeler (Topher Grace) have a nice meetcute scene before going to a museum together. Their chemistry is palpable, and the day becomes an impromptu date with Marc showing an uncanny understanding of both Claudia and the routines of the museum. When it develops into almost precognition, Marc confesses that he is stuck reliving the same day over and over and has been using his repetitive life to win Claudia over.

Where the episode drifts away from "Groundhog Day" is that it explores the idea that Marc tricking her is not some charming expression of love, but more a deceitful lie, to trick her into accepting that he's someone he isn't and falling for him. The episode, and Marc is a facsimile for every "good guy" that pretended to be a girl's friend before making a pass at her, or worse. There is an added darkness to this episode though that Marc can make any choice he wants, or carry out any action, knowing that everything will reset when he wakes up the next morning. Topher Grace is great at playing both sides of the Marc character, the charmer and then the menacer. Kylie Bunbury is excellent too, I haven't seen any of the other shows she's been in yet and was interested to learn she's the daughter of former footballer Alex Bunbury, but I'll definitely try and catch her again.

I'd accept that the ending was slightly anticlimactical. I was hoping for more of a visceral comeuppance but in many ways this resolution is worse for Marc. In a series of more lows than highs, this was a good story and one of the better episodes.

This is one of those episodes that makes you missi the original series or the one from the '80s. It's just one more politiced episode. "Men are pigs and mistreat women". If I want to see something like this, I go watch a drama. They are raping and distorting the twlight zone.