Revived 'Twilight Zone' rivals the original

'Twilight Zone' Airs: 8 tonight, UPN (Channel 29) Stars: Forest Whitaker Nutshell: Remake of Rod Serling anthology feels true to its creator. The original "Twilight Zone" came out in 1959, which if you believe Ken Burns was one of the last great years of jazz. It was the year Miles Davis released "Kind of Blue," and Rod Serling's television masterpiece was, in its own way, a jazz classic that riffed on American life like no one had before. Serling could take a perfectly mundane scene - a woman shopping in a department store, a man reading a book, a routine power outage - and alter it, ever so slowly but relentlessly, so that by the end he had fashioned an entirely different reality, a variation with as much integrity and credibility as the original. There would even be times - as with the neighborhood where a blackout quickly degenerated into a McCarthy-era witch hunt - when it seemed, for just a moment, that the Twilight Zone and that realm we call "the real world" were not so far apart. By that measure, these first two tales from this latest "Twilight Zone" revival are stories the master himself would have approved. In one, Jason Alexander plays an emergency room patient who claims to be the Grim Reaper. 'Fastlane' Airs: 8 tonight, Fox (Channel 4) Stars: Bill Bellamy, Peter Facinelli, Tiffani Thiessen Nutshell: Cops go deep undercover in this mindlessly entertaining action hour. Fast cars, expensive accessories, a seemingly endless bank account - and it's legit! That's the premise of this free-wheeling detective show, which opens with a story as flimsy as Tiffani Thiessen's halter top. "Fastlane" has everything TV haters love to hate about TV: supersized guns a-blazing, worship of material things, trash talk, sex scenes as a substitute for dialogue and so on. It's all wrapped up in an exciting package that's admittedly fun to watch, a hallmark of screenwriter John McNamara (whose credits include the short-lived guilty pleasures "Profit" and "Vengeance Unlimited"). Just make sure you check your morality at the door. 'Cedric the Entertainer Presents' Airs: 7:30 tonight, Fox (Channel 4) Stars: Cedric the Entertainer, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Shaun Majumder, Amy Brassette, JB Smoove Nutshell: Enjoyable sketch-comedy show featuring the comic doing a variety of characters. Star of the "Original Kings of Comedy" tour and movie, as well as three hilarious Bud Light commercials, Cedric the Entertainer pulls out all the stops in this fast-moving half-hour. In one scene he's Barry White, marriage counselor; in another he's the take-no-prisoners Cafeteria Lady, a sort of Miss Cleo in a hairnet who shames her customers while doling out whipped potatoes. And he's a cool fool on the dance floor. Variety shows are notorious for low Nielsen ratings, but since every sketch here is built around the lovable Cedric - and the show is shrewdly paired with his "Original Kings of Comedy" co-star Bernie Mac's at 7 - this one just might make it. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. @ART CAPTION:"Cedric the Entertainer Presents" @ART:Photo (color)