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Scottish paper describes Trump inauguration as return of “The Twilight Zone”

Satirists and late-night comics have not spared President-elect Donald Trump -- and neither has a Scottish newspaper’s TV critic.

Sunday Herald reviewer Damien Love’s writeup for this Friday’s broadcast of the inauguration of the reality TV star as the 45th President of the United States characterized the proceedings as the return of “The Twilight Zone.”

The satirical TV review has since gone viral:

President Trump: The Inauguration
4pm, BBC One/STV

After a long absence, The Twilight Zone returns with one of the most ambitious, expensive and controversial productions in broadcast history. Sci-fi writers have dabbled often with alternative history stories – among the most common is the “What if The Nazis Had Won The Second World War” setting – but this huge interactive virtual reality project, which will unfold on TV, in the press, and on Twitter over the next four years, sets out to build an ongoing alternative present.

The story begins in a nightmarish version of 2017 in which huge sections of the US electorate have somehow been duped into voting to make Donald Trump president. It sounds far-fetched, and it is, but as it goes on it becomes more and more chillingly plausible. Today’s feature-length opener concentrates on the gaudy inauguration of President Trump, and the stirrings of protest and despair surrounding the ceremony, while pundits speculate gravely on what lies ahead.

It’s a flawed piece, but a disturbing glimpse of the horrors we could stumble into, if we’re not careful.”

Twitter users praised the description as “brilliant,” and “genius,” and noted the paper’s “terrifying sense of humor.” 

Rod Serling’s classic series, which aired on CBS from 1959-1964, and which has been shown in syndication ever since, was renowned for presenting stories of science fiction, the supernatural and the uncanny, often with a twist ending.

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