Not vintage enough to be a throwback and not bold enough to be cutting-edge peak TV, CBS’s The Twilight Zone wades in sleepy ambivalence. Producer and narrator Jordan Peele, fresh off his horror hit Us, takes Rod Serling’s place and leads a star-studded cast in the reboot, but the show’s languid narratives and glib messaging get in its own way. This review encompasses the first two episodes of the new anthology, which are now streaming on CBS All Access. Minor spoilers ahead…

The last man on Earth undone by a pair of broken glasses, a lesson in hubris disguised as a ghostly game of billiards, a fateful reconstructive surgery with a horrifying twist - the original 1959 The Twilight Zone is a master class of Kafkaesque storytelling and ahead-of-its-time social commentary, an anthology of modern-day fables renowned for their Shyamalan-before-Shyamalan twists and genre narratives. As writer and creator Rod Serling puts it in his now-iconic opening voiceover: “It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. It is an area which we call...The Twilight Zone.” CBS’s new reboot sees Serling replaced by writer and producer Jordan Peele of Get Out and Us fame; a far cry from his sketch comedy days, Peele’s steely baritone and measured cadence that accompanies his ominous interludes are a perfect fit for the new Zone - but unfortunately, the stories his narrations bookend don’t live up to the punchy greatness of the classic series.

Much of the first spate of episodes suffer from the same issue: they’re just not that interesting or fun. Netflix’s Black Mirror has proven that the modern era can inspire a whole slew of gripping stories revolving around the social and technological zeitgeist; the new Twilight Zone, however, is unable to find the words or the means to convey anything captivating. The first two episodes work more as thought experiments rather than cohesive stories: predictable thought experiments complete with clichés and seen-it-before character beats.

Bafflingly enough, the season-opener, “The Comedian” starring Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley, The Big Sick), fares the worst out of the new anthology’s opening salvo. Coming in at a mind-boggling 55 minutes, it’s about half an hour too long, and while Nanjiani is a great comedic and dramatic actor, the gravitas for our protagonist just isn’t there. Centering around struggling funnyman Samir Wassan, “The Comedian” is a classic interpretation of a Faustian bargain. After continually bombing onstage with an excruciating joke about the Second Amendment (a painfully stilted joke that is repeated multiple times in the padded episode), Samir runs into mysterious comedy-legend-in-hiding, J.C. Wheeler (an oddly miscast Tracy Morgan). Waxing poetic about comedy and success with Wheeler, Samir begins to find a fame-bound footing with his subsequent sets after applying the advice to perform with more personal material. However, as he basks in riotous laughter and standing ovations, Samir is shocked to find that the subjects of his more personal jokes are summarily erased from existence. It’s an interesting conceit and an apt metaphor for fame, especially in the comedy world, but by the time Samir realizes his horrific predicament, we’re already knee-deep in the episode and half asleep. It also doesn’t help that “The Comedian” hits some fairly predictable turns, culminating in a self-flagellating non-twist anyone who has ever seen a Twilight Zone or Black Mirror episode could see coming a mile away.