Why Didn’t CBS Premiere ‘The Twilight Zone’ On Their Linear Network, Like They Did With ‘The Good Fight’ And ‘Star Trek Discovery’?

Jordan Peele’s new take on The Twilight Zone debuted today, but chances are, not everyone who wants to watch it will get to see it. That’s because, in an almost Twilight Zone twist, it’s exclusively available on CBS All Access. It’s even especially strange when you consider that not every CBS All Access original has premiered exclusively on the streaming service. The first two CBS All Access originals, The Good Fight and Star Trek: Discovery, both got linear premieres, but not this major show. CBS might have spent the money on a plum Super Bowl spot and pushed tons of ad dollars behind The Twilight Zone, but it’s holding back on using its biggest promotional weapon: the CBS network. But why?

The simple answer is strategy. By hyping the bejesus out of The Twilight Zone, but then only making it available with a CBS All Access subscription, CBS is hoping to push subscriber numbers up. However it’s a risky gambit that banks on the strength of The Twilight Zone fandom. Is love for the classic series enough to sell the average viewer on all of CBS All Access?

Last year, CBS Interactive President Marc DeBevoise told Decider that it “made a ton of sense” to give The Good Fight and Star Trek: Discovery splashy debuts on CBS. He added that the network declined to give No Activity, Strange Angel, Tell Me A Story, and One Dollar debuts because, in his words, “To be frank, those are very specific moments and I don’t think the others necessarily have that moment or specific place.” The understanding was that The Good Fight and Star Trek: Discovery were big shows with ties to CBS legacy content.

However, you could say that The Twilight Zone is CBS All Access’s most ambitious project since Star Trek: Discovery. It is a legacy title, and there’s a lot of interest in how auteur Jordan Peele is going to reinterpret Rod Serling’s universe for the modern age. So a linear debut wouldn’t be so out of line. In fact, would it be so bad to bump Magnum P.I. one week for one of the two new Twilight Zone episodes that are now streaming on CBS All Access? Couldn’t the people of America live without a new Bull this one time? THIS ONE TIME!?!

CBS All Access is showing a fair amount of cockiness in The Twilight Zone‘s ability to drive up subscriber numbers on its own. Especially since last summer, DeBevoise revealed to Decider’s Kayla Cobb, that the service was seeing its biggest subscriber growth thanks to live events, specifically sports. “They really do drive some spikes and sign ups when those things happen. And then when we can convince those people to stay, to watch more of that content across devices or to sample one of our originals, that’s like part of the great mousetrap that we’ve built here that’s working really well,” said DeBevoise. So CBS knows that it needs to create “mousetrap” programming to drive subscriber growth, but again, is The Twilight Zone big enough bait?

We’ll never know if CBS All Access would have been better served premiering “The Comedian” or “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet” on CBS primetime, but it will be interesting to see if their bold move works. Especially since they’re not helping themselves by debuting the show on Monday, April 1 and holding the next episode for Thursday, April 11. That’s a programming decision straight from the proverbial Twilight Zone.

Where to stream The Twilight Zone