The Twilight Zone’s Super Bowl ad takes us to another dimension
The Twilight Zone is coming and Jordan Peele showed us last night that none of us are ready for it.
Every year, the Super Bowl is full of companies competing to have the best or most clever commercial of the night. Last night there were some good ones, but Jordan Peele might have taken the cake with his broadcast interruption to take us all to The Twilight Zone.
CBS seemed to be coming back from a commercial break, announcers were talking and an aerial shot of Mercedes-Benz Stadium where the Super Bowl was being played was shown.
But then the broadcast glitched and cut out. The black screen was met with “CBS Is Off The Air.” And then Peele took over.
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Cut to inside the stadium. The people glitch and disappear. A sign drifts as it falls from the top of the stadium. There’s only Peele now. Wearing the classic simple black suit that was synonymous with Rod Serling back in the day. He’s a man “both nowhere and everywhere at the same time.”
Peele sits in the stands while simultaneously crossing the football field (now devoid of any yard lines or markers typically seen). He looks straight at the camera and says, “when truth is not the truth, what dimension are you even in?”
He then opens a white door—like the one that has welcomed fans into the Twilight Zone for decades during its intro sequence—and he disappears. The Twilight Zone theme music plays.
According to Deadline, the commercial was shot overnight at the stadium last month.
Now, what’s so amazing about this commercial is Peele’s command of the tone of The Twilight Zone. It’s slightly off putting, a little unsettling, but also somehow utterly engrossing.
If you watch back through old Twilight Zone episodes you’ll notice Rod Serling’s even keel, his calm tone and his sly smile—like he knows something you don’t. Peele has all that, as if he’s taken personal lessons from Serling on hosting this show. There’s an ability that both men have to make you lean in and want to hear the story they have to tell.
And it’s chilling.
It’s been heavily reported that Peele is a fan and his work in things like Key and Peele and Get Out show his ability to pay homage to genre’s he enjoys. But this is the first time people have had a chance to see what he’s doing with his version of The Twilight Zone.
Peele’s ability to marry a spooky tone with razor sharp societal commentary means we could all be in for something special when the revival of The Twilight Zone debuts on Monday, April 1 on CBS All Access (CBS’s new streaming service).
Following the two premiere episodes, The Twilight Zone will have a new episode available weekly on Thursdays, starting April 11.
Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone gets CBS All Access premiere date. dark. Next
In addition to Peele’s company, Monkeypaw Productions, The Twilight Zone is produced by CBS TV Studios with Simon Kinberg’s Genre Films. Executive producers for the show are Peele, Kinberg, Win Rosenfeld, Andrey Chon, Glen Morgan, Carol Serling (Rod Serling’s daughter), Rick Berg and Greg Yaitanes.
What did you think of the Super Bowl spot for The Twilight Zone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.