Twisted Metal team is more than happy to make TV’s deranged underdog
As Twisted Metal fans well know, PlayStation’s seminal car combat series only loosely follows two story arcs: One is that everyone is a contestant in a kind of bloodsport demolition derby staged in the Los Angeles underground on Christmas Eve. The other, the basis of the most recent Twisted Metal game 11 years ago, vests the tournament’s mysterious organizer with occult powers to ensure that the victorious driver has a lifelong wish granted — but only in the worst and most ironic way.
Twisted Metal, the television series premiering Thursday on Peacock, blazes a third trail, one that might be a little more understandable to a less familiar audience: a post-apocalypse world of fortified city-states, murderous outlaws, and up-armored couriers called “milkmen” traversing the deadly wastes in between.
“We truly believe you’ve never seen an apocalypse like this before; it’s just fun,” executive producer Marc Forman told Polygon. “Everything John Doe faces, he does with a sense of humor, and we hope that resonates with fans.”
John Doe is, literally, the name of the empty-vessel character players control in 2001’s Twisted Metal: Blackfor PlayStation, the amnesiac driver of the Roadkill vehicle on a quest to discover who he really is. In the TV series, Doe is portrayed by Anthony Mackie (the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s new Captain America), who likewise has no memory of his family. In the show, John Doe also makes a bargain in hopes of securing a peaceful and happy life, which leads to a deadly cross-country adventure.
Showrunner Michael Jonathan Smith (a writer and story editor for all episodes of Cobra Kai’s first two seasons) has raved about playing Twisted Metal: Black as a teenager, most recently in a statement accompanying
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