Amazing Stories Series Premiere Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out This is a review for the first episode of anthology series Amazing Stories, which premieres Friday, Match 6 on Apple TV+ [poilib element="accentDivider"] The TV reboot/revival wave has finally washed up on the shores of Steven Spielberg's short-lived (but memorable) '80s anthology series Amazing Stories - which was inspired by the Amazing Stories sci-fi magazine Spielberg remembered from his youth. Striking right at the time of Spielberg's true zenith, 1985, Amazing Stories was a more family-friendly version of The Twilight Zone, complete with a soaring John Williams score. Now the show is back, with Williams' theme intact (yay!) through Apple TV+ -- under the developmental watch of Spielberg himself along with Once Upon a Time's Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. Much like CBS All Access' Twilight Zone revival, the new Amazing Stories has, essentially, doubled the average length of the old show's episodes. What was once a half-hour show, with commercials, now runs over 50 minutes. Usually, this doesn't help the format -- it certainly didn't with The Twilight Zone. But for Amazing Stories' first new episode in 35 years? It works... pretty well. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=amazing-stories-2020-gallery&captions=true"] "The Cellar" is a sweet time travel tale that feels appropriately Spielbergian. One often wonders what kind of decisions the creators of an anthology series have to make regarding which episode to open with: Do you go for the safest option, concept-wise, or do you keep your scariest story for later? "The Cellar" feels like a perfectly traditional love story to welcome fans, old and new, to the show. But it's also not built to grab you in the way that a show has to in this era of Peak TV. Written by American Horror Story's Jessica Sharzer, and directed by The Americans' Chris Long, "The Cellar" features Dylan O'Brien (Teen Wolf, American Assassin) as an aloof lothario who is as non-committal with relationships as he is to his brother's house restoration business. During a once-in-a-century derecho (which I learned is a strong storm that sticks around longer than usual), O'Brien's Sam is transported back in time a hundred years and meets young Evelyn (The Haunting of Hill House's Victoria Pedretti), a woman who's being forced into a loveless marriage. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-tv-show-coming-to-apple&captions=true"] Once the two fall in love, the story softly morphs into the final act of Back to the Future, where the duo must evade those who seek to separate them while timing their dimensional exodus via atmospheric anomaly. It's a storm-crossed lovers tale that sends the dating app-swiping millennial back to a time when most people, especially, women, had very few choices in life, without feeling too preachy. The end result is the discovery that Sam needs to minimize his life while Evelyn needs to expand hers. And there are enough time travel hooks to help the story play out over an hour... just barely. "The Cellar" is soft and simple and very much tracks as an "Amazing Story," fitting the gather-round-the-hearth brand of genre TV that the '80s original transmitted into living rooms. In 2020, however, it might not be enough to lure viewers back in for more. Maybe, like Sam, that's the lesson we're all meant to learn as an audience. We need to simplify our television viewing habits. Probably not, though.

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