When going through Spielberg movies, I had marked the Amazing Stories movie onto my schedule. But, being that I couldn’t find the movie anywhere online, I went through the two episodes that Spielberg himself directed. While I wasn’t expecting much, I was still a little disappointed. Overall, it felt like it couldn’t pick a tone for itself. At times, the show was definitely going for an edgier Twilight Zone take, but, I’m assuming due to network restrictions, it never got worse than seeing a shadow of a landlord choking a kids grandpa, lasting a good second. I did expect not to like the show too much, because I’m not the core demographic. There were just a lot of problems I had with it, mostly in terms of tone.
The first episode Spielberg directed was season 1 episode 1, admittedly the most enjoyable of the two. It focuses on a kid and his grandpa as they uncover the mysteries of a train that used to run right through where their new house is. I would say spoilers, but you’ve had 35 years to watch this one. The way that the episode deals with loss is actually kind of neat. The show handles morals of the story extremely well, in both episode. All of that is wrapped up nicely in a bow of the Spielberg magic, which, while I was watching this, I observed something. So much of what I have been calling “the Spielberg charm” is actually John Williams. The score for the show is great, and that goes for every time Williams and Spielberg work together on a project. The platform of TV also allows Steven Spielberg to experiment different ideas which likely couldn’t be turned into a full movie. That’s the beauty of anthology series, it’s an opportunity to try something, as long as it fits the shows overall tone/message. As for my issues with this episode, the acting wasn’t very good, maybe with an exception of the grandpa. The little kid was quite annoying, but not topping Temple of Doom level. Their relationship suffered from the acting a little bit. Also, due to the fact that they tried to deal with loss in the way they did, there was a plot hole as big as the hole in the wall the train caused at the end of the episode.
Now that I realize how long the breakdown of the last episode was, I’ll try to keep this one shorter. The only other episode Spielberg directed is season 1 episode 5, “The Mission.” I didn’t like this episode. It felt like Spielberg tried remaking 1941, which is better left alone. It’s just trying too hard to mean something, this is all due to the poor characters. The biggest problem with an anthology show like this is that the characters never get a chance to become fleshed out. When the characters are fleshed out, it takes up too much of the episode, wasting time. Personally, I found the characters in this episode to be acting like middle schoolers. If they focused more on the weight of war, the story would have been much more intriguing to me, and I’m sure a wider audience.
Overall, I have mostly negative feelings on this Twilight Zone rip-off. But, there is definitely some good in here. The overall premises and the music is great. However, that can’t save it from bad acting, boring characterization, and inconsistent tone. 6.3/10
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