The Twilight Zone review: “Try, Try” is a fail, fail

The penultimate episode of The Twilight Zone season 2 is basically Groundhog Day if Bill Murray was a creepy stalker psycho.

I enjoy visiting museums, but that doesn’t mean they’ve earned a reputation for being boring for no reason at all. “Try, Try” takes place pretty entirely in a museum, and it was a total snoozefest from start to finish.

At the start, we’re introduced to Claudia, who’s talking on her phone in public about her dissertation on indigenous masks. And just when you thought she couldn’t get any more obnoxious, she almost walks in front of a truck like a moron only to be saved by a good samaritan named Marc, spelled with a “C.” So right off the bat, viewers know they’re entering the Twilight Zone will two less-than-likable characters.

“Try, Try” — Pictured: Kylie Bunbury as Claudia of the CBS All Access series THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Photo Cr: Dean Buscher/CBS 2020 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Claudia makes her way into the museum while Marc keeps finding ways to get her attention. She can’t help but be impressed with his intelligence and intrigued by their chemistry. Meanwhile, the audience feels like the third wheel on a very unnerving blind date with creepy stalker vibes. It’s almost like he knows everything that’s going to happen before it happens, as though he’s done all of this before.

Eventually, Claudia starts to get freaked out by how much Marc knows, not only about what’s going on at the museum but also about her personal life. Things get really weird when he offers her a piece of gum before another patron drops a pack that he picks up. When she presses him for answers, he reveals that this has indeed happened before, and he is stuck in a time loop. Every day he wakes up and lives the same moments again and again, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. He explains that he has had a lot of practice in making sure this day goes perfectly so the two can fall in love.

Claudia claims she can’t fall in love with him because they can never spend enough time together before the loop resets. When he still won’t back off, she tells him that this is wrong because she is a person. Marc claims that she kind of isn’t, since all of this will just reset tomorrow and he’ll do this all over again.

At this point, the plot is starting to gain some traction, but things come to a screeching halt when the two begin a sleep-inducing conversation about philosophy and life.

Regardless of everything Claudia does, Marc still thinks this is all happening for a reason and remains convinced he is in love with Claudia, so she threatens to beat him into yesterday. But Marc takes an eye-rolling turn and starts going on about how men are dominant and that he is a godlike puppet master of the universe who can do whatever he wants.

He puts on a mask from an exhibit and taunts Claudia, daring her to strike him. In probably the only enjoyable part of the entire ordeal, Claudia starts wailing on him until he goes down like a punk. After losing the fight rather quickly, guards come to take him away, but he isn’t worried because he’ll just get to do it all over again tomorrow. But when he gets the chance, he chickens out and doesn’t approach Claudia.

“Try, Try” — Pictured: Topher Grace as Mark of the CBS All Access series THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Photo Cr: Dean Buscher/CBS 2020 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Hollywood, please stop trying to make Topher Grace into a crazy evil villain. It didn’t work in Spider-Man 3 or in Predators and it doesn’t work here. There are plenty of other roles Eric Foreman can play.

The filmmaking is also noticeably off in this one. Long before Claudia bloodies Marc up, you can clearly see his bloody makeup under the mask he’s wearing, clear as day. That is just lazy, the kind of mistake you’d expect from a film school project, not a CBS All Access original series.

From the poor execution to the dull story, being forced to watch this episode on a loop would be more diabolical any Twilight Zone’s twist, from the old show or the new.

Episode Grade: F

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