Anthology shows are something that I have always looked forward to after randomly discovering Black Mirror way back when the third season hadn’t even arrived. To be clear, I loved the concept of a show that was centered around a theme rather than a story or characters. Black Mirror’s theme of technology and we using it in fucked up ways was a very realized theme which was fascinating to me, I was excited for every new episode to see what they would explore next. To be honest, that is still the best anthology series I have seen yet but we’re not here to talk about tech because later on I did end up watching a few other anthology series and in this post I just wanna talk about those and maybe get to know a few more from you guys

First one was The Twilight Zone, not the old one but the 2019 reboot by Jordan Peele. I wasn’t a fan of it and only watched the first episode but it did have something that I hadn’t seen before: somebody coming on screen to explain a bit about the show’s story or make a comment on it before it started. As it turned out that’s very common but back then I just forgot about this show for some reason.

Then somehow I started watching Tales from the Crypt (70’s one) and Cabinet of Curiosities together and man it was a lot of fun comparing the two. Both are clearly very different: Tales from the Crypt is adapting stories from comic books so it has more of that one-off shocking gorey spectacle of an edgy teenage comic book and I was very pleased that it delivered so much of that even though the later half of the first season was mostly boring to me especially that episode where they stay at the old castle and just have sex and then the guy gets killed lmao

Cabinet of Curiosities on the other hand atleast says that these stories have much more purpose to them. The themes are more mature, there’s a lot of drama and it frequently dips into the the themes of grief, redemption, madness but it was also very boring. The episodes are so much more longer than they need to be and often times not much happens in them and when something does happen it’s often fragmented and very poorly paced that I can’t feel attached to any of it. The most realized episodes in the series are “The Autopsy” and “The Viewing” as they bring a sense of real suspense and mystery to it along with a lot of gore. I really liked the visuals and the production element of the show as well, many of the gore and the monsters all look really good.

I do feel like it deserves a second season because I think the first season of any anthology series is about discovering itself, especially since most shows these days don’t even have full ten episodes a season. I also recently watched Tales from the Crypt’s season 2’s first episode Dead Right with Demi Moore in it and that was just the whole show doing everything perfectly right. It was so good that I want CoC to come into it’s element properly but sadly that doesn’t seem to be happening.

If you haven’t seen the show, I highly recommend giving it a try or atleast watching some of these episodes: “The Autopsy”, “The Outside”, "The Viewing and “The Murmuring” (not a fan but letterboxd really likes it) The show also has a really good cast, some surprising people made it there that wouldn’t have thought I would see again haha

Finally, is Star Trek (TOS) an anthology series? I have seen like nine episodes and it’s been good so far

  • tripartitegraph [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    I mentioned this somewhere else recently, but I’ve recently gone back and rewatched the first season of the original Twilight Zone, Rod Serling’s version, and I’m continually blown away by how good it is. Some episodes are better than others, but they all are solid in their own right. If you haven’t watched any of it, I’d definitely recommend it. The camera work is incredible, the pacing always has you just slightly on edge, Rod Serling’s narration is magical. The twists still hit hard, even today, over 60 years later.

    • Legendsofanus@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      It’s a classic that I would love to, any idea where I can watch these?

      Some awesome soul remastered and uploaded the entirety of Tales from the Crypt in 4K on YouTube that’s how I have been watching that

  • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    Cabinet of Curiosities is great and I was hoping we’d see more of it to allow for del Toro to show us his side projects and ideas. I thought it’d be a great opportunity for the Mountains of Madness film stuck in development hell for years, doing it instead as a longer episode of a miniseries anthology.

    Have you seen Channel Zero? Brand New Cherry Flavor was basically the fifth season. It ran for four seasons originally on Sci-fi, then moved to Shudder, then the show’s writers and crew moved to Netflix. Each season is a seperate story of 6 episodes, based around creepypastas from various corners of the internet. They tracked down the original authors, too, to give them credit and ask for further input.

    • Season 1: Candle Cove - A man returns to his home town to search for missing children, seemingly connected to a mysterious local TV show known as “Candle Cove.” However, there are no records of Candle Cove ever existing.

    • Season 2: The No-End House - A group of teenagers visit a performance art haunted house on Halloween. One of them finds something sinister hidden inside.

    • Season 3: Butcher’s Block - Search and rescue teams scour a local park where people have gone missing, finding odd staircases and doors within attached to nothing.

    • Season 4: The Dream Door - A young married couple move into a new house, only to discover a strange door in their basement not on the floor plans.

    What’s cool is fans can’t agree on which season was the best, nor are the ratings in a consistent order. Personally, I thought 2 > 4 > 1 > 3, but then I’ve seen people say 3 > 1 > 2 > 4, with others arguing 1 and 4 are great while 2 and 3 are weaker.

    Another cool anthology series is Darknet (2013). It’s a Canadian anthology of internet-based horror stories. Might be hard to track down.

    Fear Itself from 2009 I thought was hit-or-miss. Some of the stories were good, some were kinda bad.

  • SevenSkalls [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    2 days ago

    I really enjoyed this series. I would agree with your criticisms, especially that they get too long sometimes, and are a bit inconsistent. But still, it was a fun concept and I’d love to see a second series.

    • Legendsofanus@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      I would love to see more of the freaky stuff we see in the beautifully made opening credits, especially the mermaid

    • Legendsofanus@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      I got the same feeling from 2005’s Doctor Who, though that gets more narrative focused as it goes