As of now, after the first 2 episodes I'd give it a 6.3/10. Definitely not as good as the original currently. I'd assume the whole first season has already been filmed, so I'd hope they adapt to the biggest points of criticism from the fanbase before season 2, if they end up making one. As someone who's seen almost every episode from the original, here are my points of criticism:
- Immediately I was put off by the host of the show, I'm not sure who gave the green light to have a (guessing here) teenage voice with a television set for a head as a host. You don't have to top Tracy Morgan but you can at least shoot for a similar vibe/quality. My guess is they're trying harder to appeal to a younger audience, and we saw how poorly that went with the Twilight Zone reboot. This is a show I would've liked to watch with my mom again, but I think this alone would make me prefer to watch something else.
- As some have mentioned, they aren't letting the scares last nearly as long as they used to. I can understand cutting it down, but only 2 of the 5 segments in the first 2 episodes didn't leave me thinking "that was it?", and even those would've been better if longer. Maybe it's a safety thing, but I don't see this lasting if there are many more of these abrupt endings. My favorite episode from the original was the one where the man asks the target "Do you think I'm pretty?", the tension throughout that whole episode was a masterclass.
A good example of what should change, in my opinion, is in the 2nd segment of the first episode. (I'm remaining spoiler free here) Imagine how much better it'd be if they did more with it after instead of doing the reveal where they chose to. To be fair, I don't think they expected the target to go about things the way he did. So despite me liking the concept for the segment, it almost felt like it was botched, yet I still really appreciate seeing the ones that might not go fully according to plan too. Makes everything feel more authentic. Regardless of what the target did, I think they could've done with having more planned for this to milk the suspense.
