About midway by the primary episode of the splashy new AppleTV+ reboot of the ‘80s anthology sequence Amazing Stories, it started to sink in that nothing very wonderful was going to occur. You’re ready and ready for some killer Black Mirror whiplash twist that by no means comes. As an alternative, all that you simply’re given is the form of dopey, tapioca time-travel romance we’ve all seen earlier than. The place’s the Spielbergian sense of mischief and surprise that we had been promised?

You possibly can’t fault the brand new Amazing Stories for holding onto John Williams’ rousing opening theme. Like every little thing else Williams was cranking out through the Reagan years, it’s a killer. However this time round, its call-to-adventure rings like a false alarm. Which is a disgrace. As a result of with the world going to hell exterior, and the very actual prospect of being locked indoors in some form of COVID-19 quarantine nightmare for the following month, I needed (perhaps even wanted) to really feel a few of that childlike Amblin awe—all of these warm-and-fuzzy prime notes of ‘80s nostalgia to drown out the cable-news ticker and its harrowing portents of our imminent apocalypse.

Perhaps that’s an excessive amount of to ask of 1 TV present. Then once more, Amazing Stories was by no means simply any TV present. In case you had been a child again when it ran on NBC between 1985 and 1987, it was a weekly date you wouldn’t consider breaking. It was the place you went when you waited for the Indiana Jones sequel. It was like The Twilight Zone for teenagers who grew up within the age of Alex P. Keaton as a substitute of Rod Serling. And for Steven Spielberg, its creator and patron saint, it was the supernatural sandbox wherein he and his friends (Joe Dante, Robert Zemeckis, Martin Scorsese) might play each week.

Sadly, the brand new Amazing Stories goes to want much more of that Peter Pan pixie mud if it’s going to enchant a brand new era of children. Judging by “The Cellar” (the primary of 5 episodes streaming on AppleTV+ on Fridays), the present doesn’t know what it desires to be but—and even get who it’s supposed to be for. Written by Jessica Sharzer (American Horror Story) and directed by Chris Lengthy (The Individuals), the episode stars Teen Wolf’s Dylan O’Brien and Micah Inventory as Sam and Jack Taylor, Iowa brothers who restore outdated homes. Whereas engaged on their newest renovation, a freakish storm hits, a barometer within the basement begins to go loopy, after which—wham—O’Brien’s Sam is zapped again in time by way of some sub-SYFY f/x.

When Sam comes again upstairs, it’s 1919, and the derelict outdated home is vibrant and lively—within the type of a younger lady performed by The Haunting of Hill Home’s Victoria Pedretti. Naturally, after a little bit of Again to the Future slapstick (both an excessive amount of or not almost sufficient), it’s love at first sight. Pedretti’s Evelyn is about to married off to a humorless widower, and she or he’s about 50 years too early to have any say within the matter. However as Sam slowly convinces her that he’s, actually, from the long run, she begins to consider that there could also be a method out for her in spite of everything. Between stolen kisses within the rain and a visit to a jazzy speakeasy, they make plans to escape to 2019 when Sam’s time-travel portal-whatzit opens up once more through the subsequent storm.

I want I might say that there was extra to the story than that, however there isn’t. Which looks like an odd factor to say a couple of present known as…Amazing Stories. I haven’t gone again and watched many episodes of the unique present recently, however I keep in mind them being extra and thrilling and fewer predictable than “The Cellar.” Then once more, perhaps, I’m unsuitable. Perhaps the present was by no means nearly as good as I assumed it was. Nostalgia tends to cowl up the crappy tin beneath its shiny gold plating.