August 12, 2022 • 38 mins
In the Hellgrammite Method, A desperate alcoholic utilizes a horrifying method in order to get clean. Our Selena is Dying, a remake of an earlier Rod Serling penned Twilight Zone episode.
The Call features William Sanderson as a lonely bachelor who connects over the phone with a potential love unfortunately she's an exhibit at the local art museum.
The Call features William Sanderson as a lonely bachelor who connects over the phone with a potential love unfortunately she's an exhibit at the local art museum.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Good evening and welcome to Night's Gallery. Thank you, Rod, and I
want to welcome everyone to Midnight Viewing, where once a month we talk all
about your follow up to the TwilightZone, Rod Serling's Night Gallery. They
say it's Rod through Ling's Night Gallery, and it isn't really Rod through Las
Night Gallery. It's somebody else's.Oh we know, we talk about it
a lot. Your curators at MidnightViewing are the projection booths. Mike White,
(00:22):
What can happen to human beings whentrust is wife dog by suspicion and
culture casts. Chris Stashue, smallboy incased in the Crystal Ball, and
I'm father Malone, the kind ofthing that usually infest nightmares, joined us
monthly at Midnight Viewing. The NightGallery podcast at weird Ingwaymedia dot Com doesn't
remotely belong to me. I haveno proprietary interest in that at all.
(00:47):
Weird Hi there, I'm Chris Stashu, I'm Mike White, and it's his
(01:27):
father Malone, and we are thehost of Dreams for Sale, a once
a month look at the Twilight Zonenineteen eighty five. Yeah, it's a
show. I mean, I don'tknow. I would say it's our favorite.
It is the best reboot of theshow. But ladies and gentlemen,
the third season of that show isdoing everything it can to give us a
(01:48):
reason not to say that it can't. It can't. Sully the earlier season
stuff that's right, that's fair,that's fair. It cannot, it cannot
undo, it cannot red con quality. However, on this episode, we
are talking about three episodes of thethird season, Episode seven, eight,
and nine, The Helgramite Method,Our Selena is Dying and the Call Miley
(02:09):
Judson and every man who was strayedfrom the path, slipped and fallen many
times. A man who seeks solacefrom his problems at the bottom of a
glass, A good man at warwith himself, slowly drowning in alcohol,
swallow by swallow, pulled down bythe insidious undertow of an endless ocean of
(02:31):
booze, helpless to stop doing theone thing he does better than anything else,
Drink. Lady. Helgramy Method.Aired November fifth, nineteen eighty eight.
It is directed by Gilbert M.Schilton, written by Retten, written
by William Selby and its stars That'sMy Bush, Timothy Bottoms Boy, that
(02:53):
is afraid that is a specific referencefor only a certain age group of people,
because I'm sure he's been in otherbetter things. No, that's my
Bush. No, No, oh, I know you said certain he's probably
been in better things. Yes hehas. He was in Apocalypse Now.
But his role in That's My Bushwas he was top building that though.
(03:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, he wasgood with Joseph Bottoms, by the way,
totally different guy. Um if you'rewondering why I was bringing up That's
My Bush, because Timothy Bottoms doeslook a lot like George Bush in the
right light. Yeah, I cando good Bush impersonation. Yeah. Yeah,
but he plays a struggling alcoholic whoagrees to a unique treatment that will
(03:38):
stop him from drinking and also maystop him from living. It was fun.
You can an episode about alcoholics drinkingworms be fun. It could be
if the right person was directing it. Yeah. I don't think we got
that here, but uh, youknow, as soon as it started,
(04:00):
I just had a flash of Uh. There's a Stephen King short story called
Quitters Incorporated, Thank You, whichthey which they had already adapted into the
film Cat's Eye with James Woods andman. It is great known with stable
genius James Woods, right, Yes, of course he was the name.
By the way, Mike, weforgot on that culture Cast recording we were
(04:24):
naming all the crazy right wing yoos. James Woods was the name we forgot,
which James Woods is more upset aboutthat than we are. I guarantee
you that he wants to king.Yeah, the King of the Nuts.
We did, but we remember JohnVoight, yeah, and Robert Dobby.
But yeah, I was totally thinkingof Quitters Inc. As well, as
well as a little bit Poltergeist too, like that scene, Yeah, Stephen
(04:48):
drinks the tequila the worm, yeah, and then the worm ends up.
Yeah, so our friend Mark Begley, I actually know what you're talking about.
Yeah, it is weird that itwouldn't. Can boltergeistupen a couple of
years around this It was definitely aroundthis time. Yeah, yeah, I
(05:11):
think it came up before. Yeah, okay, okay, So because the
first Boulter gets come out in likeeighty three, so yeah, the next
one was eighty five maybe, um, certainly earlier than nineteen eighty eight.
That's so uh, you know,a side of the fact that it immediately
evoked this other better thing I waskind of into it for a while.
Um, and I like Timothy Bottomsomebody saying that, but I think he's
(05:33):
terrible here, Like I didn't seeany struggle in this guy at all.
And then uh, also, youknow, no one seeks the cure while
they're still happy and goofy, whichis kind of what we got here,
Like he's kind of what do thatdo? Yeah, like a large you're
not down on your luck. Yourwife hasn't even left you yet, right,
(05:55):
And that's kind of the problem withthis episode. This guy like doesn't
hit bottom and seeks this out justsort of as a last resort. I
mean, he mentions that he's triedbefore in the past, but he seems
like an asshole to begin with,so I don't think he was trying too
hard. And then you know,like I liked the idea that they put
this parasite into you that craves thealcohol and if you drink it, it's
(06:16):
going to get bigger and kill you, and if you stop, it's going
to hurt you. Like I kindof I mean that's you know, that's
any addiction, but it's handled sopoorly here, Like you know, I
don't know, like it didn't seemlike there were any steaks, Like I
never I never really believe that thatwife was going to leave him, and
you know, and the sort ofcentral casting child that they had come in
(06:40):
like oh you stick again, daddy, Like, oh my god, it
was just so a child should havebeen aborted, I believe, Yeah,
just like that other child and littleboy. Yes, you know what,
this episode reminded me a little bitof Kentucky Rye. Yeah, where there
you in that one. At leastwe were getting like the fucking con sequence
(07:00):
of this. Right, here's whathappens. If you drink, you die,
You literally die. I will say, what could have fixed this episode?
I enjoyed this episode a little bit. It wasn't great, but it
wasn't terrible. It would have beenfun if this episode had given the audience
the idea that maybe the worm wasn'treal. Oh yeah, that could have
been fun like that, right,Like, I felt like they had this
(07:21):
opportunity and you can, like,when you watch the episode, I think
it's probably around like the sixteen minutemark, which is six minutes before it
ends, they had this moment wherehe's like, well, it's part of
you. Now, there's nothing youcan do. About it, so you
better figure it out. Like tome, I'm sitting there thinking, like,
yo, this guy should just befucking with alcoholics, just like,
(07:45):
like I know that that's terrible,but this is also a fucking TV show,
not real life. So like,if you're making the story of a
guy fucking with alcoholics as it is, he should really fuck with them and
be like at the end of theepisode, be like, oh yeah,
like that the fucking helgrim worm doesn'texist m dums like either that or a
couple of things. I understand thatthe guy who gives him the worm he
(08:09):
lost his daughter because of the family. Yeah, maybe if Timothy Bottoms had
been the cause of that, thatwould have been something and it'd be more
of like a personal motivation maybe that. But at the same time, I
do like how it is kind ofbeing passed from person to person that he's
then helping out this other guy.But at the same time, Okay,
(08:33):
if the worm is real, howdid this guy discover it? And like
what where did this come from?Was there some sort of deal with the
devil to get this worm or howwas it? How did it come into
existence? How did they discover thatthis is going to be the thing to
cure people of drunkenness. But yeah, it felt like there were a lot
of missed opportunities with this one,and to your point, by them alone.
(08:56):
I did just keep thinking about Quittersinc And I was just like,
we did that one go and whatabout the fingers and what about the wife
in the cage with the electricity?And I'm just, yeah, I'm just
being constantly reminded of better stuff.And in Quitters Incorporated, like you got
the sense that he's like desperately tryingnot to do it and our audience tell
us because I haven't read it ina while. Quitters Incorporated is a Stephen
(09:18):
King short story about It's about aman that is addicted to smoking, if
memory stairs right, and it's verymuch the same kind of idea, like
desperate, desperate to stop smoking andends up going to this mysterious corporation and
they're like, hey, we canhelp you out. You just have to
follow our program completely. And Idon't remember all the ins and outs,
(09:41):
but they basically end up like torturinghis wife, put her in a room
with like electricity on the floor,and she's there like dancing on this electrical
grid and just like screaming, andit's like, oh, you smoked a
cigarette again, this is what youget kind of thing. And there's this
like implicit threat that you know,he has a young daughter that they'll they'll
(10:03):
you know, treat her poorly.Now, oh good if he does that,
or and not only that, likeso he has the sort of looming
threat, but then he's actually beingfollowed and they're like, you know,
everywhere he looks, there's somebody likekeeping up keeping tabs on him. And
he thinks he's being like really furtiveand secretive about attempting to smoke, but
(10:24):
there's always someone around. So it'slike nothing but tension the entire time.
And you know, I mean,it's not fair to compare the two,
but if you're gonna play in thisfucking sandbox after that thing exists, then
do something better. And we didn'tget it here. When he walked out
the door at the bar at theend and the fucking credits come up,
I came up. I was likewait, wait what I was waiting?
(10:46):
No? Ups? Good? Yeah, I mean I know I rail against
the sort of uh, the writerlynecessity here in the Twilight Zone, like,
well, we gotta get a twistin there, but like this one
needed the fucking twist there to havebeen something way too straightforward. Yeah,
and on top of everything else,it did that like really cheesy, cheap
(11:07):
thing of like cut to like aweek later. Yeah, fuck you,
fuck this bullshit trope. This isfucking lazy. You have written yourself into
a corner. A scream is notyour way out. But that's all we're
gonna get. That's that is allthat is. It is a screams,
right, It's like the same sortof sound over the for like twenty minutes
(11:33):
and he's like, come on,man, he's doing his best impersonation of
a cowboy. So I forgot thefinger thing. I just looked up the
story, and the finger thing isthat, um, if the main character
strays from his goal, they threatenedto cut off his wife's finger. And
then the very last part of thestory is he and his wife at a
(11:56):
party and he shakes the guy thehost wife's hand and realize that she's missing
a finger. And so apparently Kingeven went on the record to say that
he was inspired a little bit byRoald Dolls, the Man from the South
episode which was famously turned into aAlphaditchki Presents and then famously recycled by Tarantino
(12:18):
in Four Rooms. No no,no, no, no, no,
you don't understand Tarantino came up withit first. He wrote the goddamn novel
in nineteen o one that everybody elsereferences. Okay, he traveled back in
time and did it that way.Why do you hate him so much?
You hain't good movies that elevate thecraft and just make us all better film
(12:43):
goers? Okay, Yeah, apparentlythere's a two thousand and seven Bollywood film
which is also based on the samestory, and now I'm very curious to
see that. I mean, thisstory is a cool idea, which is
why Stephen k I was on borelythe most story better than this. William
(13:03):
Selby is not Stephen King. Yeah, I wanted to like it a lot
more. Like you said, Iwas on board for it as well,
and it was just like, okay, like Miney's pouring out all the liquor
and stuff and then like smelling hishands and licking his hands, and then
he's just like washing his hands.I'm like, yeah, okay, yeah,
this is all right, but yeah, it just didn't necessarily go far
enough, no, no, andit again. Honestly, this could have
(13:28):
been an hour long. Yeah noquick right? Oh my god, Well
you want to talk about quick Waituntil we get to the call brother.
Then we're gonna talk about five minutesin the ring with me. Dude,
that's all you're gonna get. That'swhat it felt like. Oh my god.
I have not come down on verymany of these episodes for being too
(13:48):
short. Most of the time,it's like, thank god, it's over,
we're getting it out of the way, we're moving on to something else.
This episode was way too short.If they had given it time to
breathe, I genuinely think that wecould have had add some things like what
Stephen King's short story talks about somesort of some sort of punishment. I
mean, the punishment is just he'sgonna die. That's not very creative,
Like what stakes of those whether you'regonna yeah, I mean I that was
(14:11):
the thing about Quitters Incorporated was,you know, he assumed that the threats
were toward him, but it wasn'tthat. It was they were going to
hurt everyone around him, which iswhat addiction is. You know, the
great bugaboo with addiction is you're you'rekilling everyone in around you and not yourself.
So um, yeah, this isa This is a very interesting concept.
I really wanted to like it.Ah. Well, do you think
(14:33):
if they had focused on his familyinstead of him it would have been a
better episode if they had written bettercharacters for him to interact with. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I agree.So let's talk about the next episode.
Our Selena is Dying. Your attentionis drawn to the residence of the
Brockman Clan, an ancient mansion.It's paneled walls punished by darkness, a
(14:56):
lightless, soundless place upon which agreater darkness, says fallan. The object
of the death Watch, Selena Brockman, grand dam of the Menagerie, who
lies in her bed in an inchby inch battle with death, trying somehow
to reach a compromise instead of acapitulation. So Our Selena is Dying air
(15:18):
November twelfth, nineteen eighty eight.It stars Terry Garber, Jennifer Dale,
and R. H. Thompson.It is directed by Bruce Pittman, with
a teleplay by Jay Michael Straczynski,who has been doing great work on this
show so far. It's just fantastic, and it's actually adapted from a Rod
Serling story, which means this isonly one way to go, which is
(15:41):
not well. This episode focuses ona doctor who becomes suspicious that a young
woman is losing her youth to heraunt, who is the titular Selena,
who is dying. This is areally bizarre episode. Did you say bad?
Bizarre? Ha? You know,sometimes we use other words to be
(16:06):
it's it is. It is notgood though, no, it is remarkably
bad, like uh in all theways. The previous episode had been kind
of intriguing, so you yeah,Like I wanted to keep watching and see
where they went here. It waspretty clear from the fucking get go what
was going on, and it wasjust a slow grind to get there.
(16:26):
I too, like to rip offDorian Gray. Well, this even felt
like the at least one, ifnot two episodes of Cold Check the Nice
Stalker that we watched. I thinkit reminded us of reminding me of the
one with Kathy Lee Crosby. Itwas that her name, and then she
was the succubus. Yeah, thenlike had the Eternal Youth, and then
(16:48):
there was the Eternal Youth episode thatwas in the Cold Check reboot and it
was like, okay, yeah,but we get it. You need to
stay young, and by you stayingyou make other people around you old or
suffer. And this one is youmake other people old so that you can
be young. And it even remindedme a little bit of The Night Strangler,
(17:10):
this whole thing where they go throughthe newspapers. You know, I'm
thinking, like, you know,a little Wally Cox in the in the
the the morgue of the newspaper withlike oh yeah here, And then in
eighteen forty four there was this generaland then in this year there was this,
which was again kind of almost aVictor Tombs type of thing. Yeah.
(17:30):
So it's like, but you know, like done better by a better
show. Yeah, And I wouldbe curious. I'd like to go back
and see the Queen of the Nileepisode that this was based on, because
I think that would probably be alittle bit better than this, so it
certainly would look better. I thinkI've said this before in previous podcasts,
(17:51):
but like once they moved to Canada, the previous seasons, whether or not
the quality of the writing was good, it always felt like a little movie
And now I feel like we're justwatching some cop procedural from the mid eighties.
It just it looks flat and uninterestingand the direction is just like it's
so workman like. It's actually anoffense work like like, yeah, you
(18:15):
can do the job and do itcompetently, and that should be the definition
of workman like. This is justlike there's no style to it whatsoever.
It's just like, oh, wegot two people talking, I'll cover it
with a two shot and then twosingles and moving on. Yeah, it
is it's almost like soap opera typeof ye film. That is. Yeah,
(18:36):
that is the best comparison that thatanyone has said as about this episode
that I've heard so far. Andit is a soap opera. It feels
like it like and you know,just sort of story wise here, So
this old woman, she has thispower that she can sort of suck your
youth out of you, and thenshe becomes young. Why did she get
to the age that she was atthat she was so infirm that she needed
a doctor? Wait, okay,you know you're logic out of this equation,
(19:03):
then ask your question again. Okay, no, it isn't a question.
Never mind, don't question our logichere. It is just lazy,
right, Yeah, the worst kindof speculative fiction. The well, this
is the Twilight Zone, so you'llgo with it, like, no,
you still gotta give us something,don't you love how every intro for this
season so far has been like,and it's happening in the Twilight Zone,
(19:25):
so you know, uh huh whatever, whatever can happen. We don't even
need narration for this. Fuck it, just throw them into it now.
They're like, I got to remindthem up from where in the Twilight Zone
then kind of reaffirm it again atthe end. Yeah, And it is
so different than how chilling the originalnarration, the broad Sterling narration would be,
where you're just like especially when itwas like the camera would just move
(19:48):
over and they're Sterling standing there andyou're like, oh shit, it's like
things are about to get really realhere. In this one, it's like,
uh, she learned a lesson,gotta go like that's what it is
like, Robin Ward, no faultof his own. They just like didn't
give a fucking shit. They're justlike, you know what, you know
(20:10):
what, Robin, why don't youwatch the episode and you write like that's
what it feels like that is whatthat is, how lazy, and when
we get to the call it's evenworse. But these, like the intro
out narrations are just so bad thatI'm getting to the point listening to them,
or I don't even want to includethem in the episodes anymore, because
like normally I include them before wetalk about it. It's like, oh,
(20:32):
a little interesting segue, and I'mjust like, what's the fucking point?
Yeah? Yeah, I mean,look, I prefer Charles Aidman in
the first two seasons, and hepassed away, right, I mean,
that's why they got a new narrator. M But you know, I do
like the new guy's voice, andI like how gentle it is. And
if the stories were like as brutalas they should be, then that could
(20:53):
be like a fun kind of ironyto it, a little bit of a
wink. Yeah, but they're they'renot doing that. And I've noticed that
every single episode we watched for thisparticular podcast, the opening intro like tells
us everything we need to know,you know what I mean. It's just
like it's so far afield from someof the earlier episodes where they're like,
(21:15):
hey, here we are, checkit out and now it's just like spoon
feed us the fucking things that weneed to know, so we won't ask
too many questions along the way.Imagine, if you will, a woman
in bed who can suck the powersfrom everyone around her. Wouldn't that be
fun? Welcome to the Twilight Zone. Been drawn to the residence of the
Brockman Clan, an ancient man mansion. It's paneled, walls polished by darkness,
(21:40):
a lightness, soundless, place uponwhich a greater darkness has fallen.
I mean it's almost up there withlike it was a dark and stormy night,
not quite that cliche night warehouse nightexterior exter cut two exterior night warehouse,
(22:04):
A man stands alone? Fuck you? And you know what's really sad,
the saddest probably the biggest problem here. J Michael Strazinski is really good
at writing comic books. Yeah,yeah, I liked Babbalan five. Yeah,
he's written some good stuff. Yeah, but yeah, this is this
ain't it? No? No,this is not it times ten Like,
(22:27):
I mean, you know, it'sgot to be daunting if somebody hands you,
like, hey, here's the lastoutline Rod Sterling ever wrote. Make
this good? But this does riseto that, yeah, man, because
you know what we saw in previousseason's Rockney abandon He did Night of the
Meek, which was a sterling episodeand it fucking he was really I liked
(22:48):
it better than the original, soit can be done. But I don't
know, Well, brother Rockney waskeeping the show on calm Waters when it
was having problems, so yeah,his episodes were good. I mean,
that's the kind of real sad thingabout the show at this point, is
there. It doesn't seem to beanybody in the control room with half of
a brain in their head pulling thecontrols like well, we need to do
(23:10):
this, and it's like, ah, slam it all to the ground.
Who cares? Yeah, I meanI gotta wonder, like, you know,
clearly the show got canceled and thenthey're like, no, we're just
gonna bring it back. And I'msure there's a level of well, I'm
just happy to keep working and I'mhappy to keep working on the Twilight Zone,
but they're not the I'm gonna haveto listen to the studio, you
(23:30):
know, so like, who knowshow many fingers were in the pie here?
They all stink, I know thatmuch stinky fingers, folks, I
don't know, I really I wonderwhat that Rod Sterling outline looked like.
I wonder what Rod Sterling's initial ideafor this episode was. Here, here's
the here's the whole treatment. Oldwomen can suck powers out of people.
(23:52):
That. I mean, what doyou think, CBS are you sold?
Yeah? Yes, mister Sterling's wecan say a very special twilight Zone from
Rod Serling himself like that. Idon't think I know that they did that.
Whenever they've remade an episode, theadvertising would be like, oh,
a special recreation of the original TwilightZone. Keep that in the back.
(24:18):
Yeah, for the special customers.Oh god, you guys ready to talk
about the final episode? Kind ofyeah? Could it be worse than this
one? No? Actually, now, so let's talk about that episode.
We're going to talk about the callNorman Blaine, whose greatest fear is that
if he were to vanish from theearth tomorrow, no one would notice or
(24:42):
mourn or question, and whose greatestsadness is the realization that he is probably
right. Sofa, coffee, tablechair, and pet, solitary decorations,
(25:07):
and a life noted chiefly for itsisolation, point of origin, and point
of destination for Norman Blaine, whosedays and nights are routinely swallowed into unhappy
silence. So The Call aired Novembernineteen, nineteen eighty. It is once
again directed by Gilbert M. Shilton, is once again written by Jay Michael
(25:29):
Spezinski. This time it is writtenby Jay Michael Spazinski, as opposed to
teleplay by mister Spazzinski. It does, however, star a fantastic actor fellow
gentleman named William Sanderson. You mayknow him from such films as Let's Go
Around the Table. I know himfrom The Rocketeer, Blade Round Her Baby,
Oh Yeah, and a New Heart, which was not a movie but
(25:51):
a TV show, And he wasexcellent in each of these things. And
I believe on your podcast of ProjectionBooth, Mike, you have spoken with
mister Sanderson. Yes, got himto talk about his career and talk about
Blade Runner, and was such anice man and was so appreciative of us
talking to him, Like it wasalmost like, oh, you guys,
(26:11):
nobody ever wants to talk to meabout things. So it's like, really
shame, yeah, fucking shame.He seems like he seems like a genuinely
nice guy. Super nice, andhe was telling us all about his wife
and how much he loves his wife, and just like you could tell he
was like in New York City,was a little lonely, just wanted somebody
to talk to, and he wasjust like, yeah, sure, I'll
(26:32):
talk to you guys about Blade Runner. Yeah, let's let's do it.
So that's the only thing is hisperformance in Blade Runner, Like without him,
everyone is really cold and distant inthat movie. He's the actual human
heart of that movie. Yes,his death is like it's it's like they
don't show it or anything. Theyjust kind of mention it. It's such
a blow when you hear it.Yeah, yeah, really, I mean
everybody else is acting like a robot, but he's the one that makes the
(26:56):
robots and he's the only one thatyou know, he's making his friends.
You know, he's so lonely inthat movie. It's just like, Okay,
he plays lonely better than anybody thatI know. It's the look.
It's just his look. It's somethingabout it's the way yeah, yeah,
it's the way he holds his face. And guess what we have in this
episode, William Sanderson playing a manwho's alone. Yeah, who dials a
(27:21):
phone number in error and the personpicks up. They have a conversation,
and then he goes to work andhe works with the biggest dickhead on the
planet. Oh my god, isn'the go That guy is lucky that William
Sanderson didn't walk over to the papercutter, tear the blade off and just
whack the dude over the head withI have five kids and I need quiet.
You will have quiet permanently here momentarily. The one time the guy wants
(27:45):
to talk and it's just like,whoa, what are you doing? But
William Sanderson's a phone call and theyend up calling each other a couple of
nights. William Sanderson, I guessis calling her. She's calling games.
Yeah, it seems like after awhile they're calling each other. So he
goes and looks for the phone numberand it turns out done and it's a
(28:07):
bronze statue in a museum. Nobodysaw that coming because it literally makes no
sense, makes no sense. SoI gotta say with all that I liked
this episode. I'm always in thetwilight Zone. I enjoyed this episode.
I don't know. I'm a suckerfor the lonely person finding love, just
like Saucer of Loneliness, which ismuch more skillful obviously than this one.
(28:29):
I mean, I like the ideaWilliam Sanders are finding companionship is always good
and there are worse ways to spendtwenty two minutes then with William Sanderson.
Oh yeah, yeah, we alreadyspent twenty two minutes with the folks of
our Selina is dying. Oh right, yeah, man, Like this was
a cooling bomb after the last one. So again, I don't know if
this is by comparison or whether theepisode stands on its own, but ultimately
(28:53):
I enjoyed this one. Yeah.I enjoyed this one as well. I
didn't mind the twist of her beinga statue, m I kind of,
I guess I didn't necessarily see itcoming, like when he went to her
work and then you know, shecalls him up and was like, hey,
I saw you today, you know, looking for me, and I
(29:15):
like, oh shit, she wasa statue. Okay. I mean,
it wasn't like a major shocker,but I was like, okay, yeah,
this works and doesn't make any sense, but I'm cool with it,
and that he joins her forever.I was like, Okay, yeah,
he really doesn't have anything else.It's not like that piece of shit coworkers
gonna turn suddenly turn nice. Right. So the only thing that I think
(29:38):
could have really put the episode overthe top would be showing williams Anderson's replacement
at work, who was a nonstop chatterbox. That would have been that
would have been felt, That wouldhave felt pretty good. I know,
I liked the episode. I justwhen the episode ended, I believe I'm
trying to remember what I said outloud verbata, but it was like,
(30:00):
Oh, come the fuck on,episode, are you for real? That's
how you're gonna end. It's justit's pretty cornball. Oh yeah, will
this lonely man who's now sitting ona bench forever and no one questions it.
There's just this new thing in thein the museum that just looks like
the guy who was there the daybefore, or maybe who knows. It
was really hard to tell. Iactually thought about that too, and I
(30:22):
thought like, because that that curatorwoman's got to come and look and go,
wait, what the fuck? Butit actually made me happy because he
put his hands on her, soit wasn't just like he was a statue
sitting next to Early. It's likelike one statue, So it wasn't like
they were going to remove him.I guess I was bringing more to the
episode. I mean, that's Imean giving me. But and you know,
look, as soon as I realized, you know, like you said,
(30:45):
Mike, when you realize that it'sthe statue, right, of course,
my brain starts reeling with thoughts oflike, what did she just pick
up the phone? Like is shewandering around at night? Numbers telepathic?
Yeah? Yeah, I mean Idon't know the sort of the logical questions
that came up with earlier episodes.I knew that this one made even less
(31:08):
sense. But it's it was sucha genial episode, and William Sanderson is
so likable, but I'm willing toforgive the rest of that. I mean,
this episode pretty much survibes on WilliamSanderson's performance. Oh my god,
if Timothy Bottoms had been in thisrole, yeah, I'd be saying past
right now, yeah, and makingas strange noises the entire time. You
(31:32):
don't want that, don't you know? Hey, everybody, I'm a little
bit of ronky. I think forme, I like this segment, but
I think for me, this segmentjust kind of feels very samey. It's
(31:52):
just like, I mean, we'vehad a couple of these like lonely people
looking for love episodes. Yeah,oh yeah, Now it's just a lonely
man looking for love. He findsit. It just happens to be a
inanimate object. And I guess Ilove with the nanimate objects all the time,
just as my wife. You're aninanimate fucking object. So did you
(32:14):
guys catch the thing about the artist? Why the artist? I was trying
to figure out if this was whythe artist was stuck in the statue.
Was she stuck in the statue becauseshe killed herself? I think so.
I think that's some fucked up punishment. Man, Like I want a story
about that character. The characters likeI'm gonna fucking make in this art and
(32:35):
I'm gonna fucking kill myself. Ohshit, I'm stuck in my statue now.
Like, but we got that,I know, right in this episode.
Yeah? Sorry, you're right,we did. I mean, you
know, they could have dramatized it. I suppose it is a visual medium.
Why yeah, ye is that?Fuck you? He was? Okay?
Yeah, better than Arcelina is dying. It felt more like one of
(32:59):
the earlier seasons. Yeah, attemptsat this kind of uh god, I
don't want to it is cornball,but like it does seem to have more
of a heart than that. Youknow, if you told me that this
was the reboot of the original show'sepisode, not the last one, I
would have believed you totally. Yes, this feels feels really old Twilight Zone.
(33:20):
Yeah, which is which is whyI'm kind of sitting here like,
oh, this is kind of quaint, you know what I mean, Like
I don't expect this from this show. I expected from the original show.
So maybe that's kind of where I'mcoming from. It's still a good episode.
I mean, like you guys havesaid, William Sanderson, he just
does that hang dog better than anybodyelse does not hound dog. That's the
other guy, right, Yeah,that was the ones Elvis. Yeah,
(33:43):
yeah, not the hang dog.The hound dog impaled on a guitar right
back in time. Nonetheless, hekilled Elvis, and then he became Elvis,
and then he committed all the sameyrehis bloody clothes. Yeah, and
then he committed all the problems thatElvis did. Because the King would he
did this I gotta I gotta followit to the letter I got. I
don't want to improve Elvis his life. Yeah, I gotta trust that piece
(34:07):
of shit Colonel Tom Bark. Yeah, he's not just trying to make money
off of me. I swear,wouldn't that be the first thing you would
do if you were Elvis is firethat motherfucker. I wouldn't kill him.
I would go out a gun andjust shoot him. Who's gonna send Elvis
to jail? Not Nixon? NotNixon? Thats who I've seen that picture
(34:27):
with them shaking hands. I knowthe truth. Two movies based off Yeah,
that's true. So on the nextepisode of Chronicles from the crypt oh,
whoa, whoa? Not the showthat we are on, Yeah,
bringing it back for one night onlyto talk about Twilight Zone on the next
I know it's just it cuts cutsdeep to my core um. On the
(34:50):
next episode of Dreams for said,we're gonna be talking about the Trance,
Acts of Terror, acts acts,and twenty twenty vision. I got on
the twenty one vision. I wasabout to say, I'm living in a
twenty twenty world. Yippee. Untilthen, where can people find you?
Father Malone? Are you still fightinginternet trolls now, I cooled my jets
(35:14):
on that. The people have justbeen ridiculous lately. But no, if
you want to check anything that Ido out, please head over to father
Malone dot com. I have apodcast called Dark Destinations, which is like
a half hour radio drama. Checkme out on that. And there's also
a link to my YouTube channel whereI've got a movie review show called You've
(35:35):
Never Seen But Oh Stop? Ifpeople have seen those movies. Is there
a temail? Yeah? Is therean email email address that they can send
an email to you about. Yes? Yeah, please don't harass Father Malone
online, harass them in person.Yeah, I don't want to give them
(35:57):
any more airtime than they deserve.So now you have to go ahead.
Come on. I had I hada guy who U He watched my gold
Diggers of nineteen thirty three episode andhis comment was, turn your microphone down,
you idiot, I think. Whichis which is at least like it
all the way down to off?Yeah? Yeah, so I just I
(36:21):
wrote back in all caps, thanksfor watching, exclamation point, but like
you know, I don't know that'smoving on, Mike. Where can people
find you? You can find meover at the Projection Booth which is available
at Projection Booth podcast dot com.And you can also find Chris and I
are talking about ranking and Bass specialson the Ranking on Bass podcast, and
(36:45):
Chris and I also talk about BarneyMiller, which is available at the Life
and Times of Captain Barney Miller,which is also a podcast that you should
put in your ear holes. Youshould. And I like how you said
Ranking on Bass Specials because we can'tclaim to be a Christmas podcast anymore beyond
that, and then some you know, when you talk about ranking a bassas
(37:06):
Lord of the Rings, you kindof lose the ability to say you're a
holiday show anymore. But adays,no, I don't know, I'm trying.
They may have. I was justtrying to help. As for me,
you can find me on the internetat c stashu dot com. That's
my link tree that goes to allthe things that I work on. The
other thing that I work on thatMike hasn't mentioned is the Culture Cast,
(37:28):
which comes out once a week.We talk about movies, Yeppie. Sometimes
Father Alone's on there, sometimes Tomorrowthere, sometimes other people are on there.
Sometimes nobody's on there, and wedon't do it? Who knows?
Yeah, yeah, those miss tweeksYeah right uh And and for this show,
you can find us at twilight Zoneeighty five dot com, twilight Zone
eighty five on Twitter, and asalways, big thanks to roxy Drive and
(37:52):
Neutron Dreams for the music for theshow. And we'll catch on the next
episode. I think that works.Are you still here listener? M
Good evening and welcome to Night's Gallery. Thank you, Rod, and I
want to welcome everyone to Midnight Viewing, where once a month we talk all
about your follow up to the TwilightZone, Rod Serling's Night Gallery. They
say it's Rod through Ling's Night Gallery, and it isn't really Rod through Las
Night Gallery. It's somebody else's.Oh we know, we talk about it
a lot. Your curators at MidnightViewing are the projection booths. Mike White,
(00:22):
What can happen to human beings whentrust is wife dog by suspicion and
culture casts. Chris Stashue, smallboy incased in the Crystal Ball, and
I'm father Malone, the kind ofthing that usually infest nightmares, joined us
monthly at Midnight Viewing. The NightGallery podcast at weird Ingwaymedia dot Com doesn't
remotely belong to me. I haveno proprietary interest in that at all.
(00:47):
Weird Hi there, I'm Chris Stashu, I'm Mike White, and it's his
(01:27):
father Malone, and we are thehost of Dreams for Sale, a once
a month look at the Twilight Zonenineteen eighty five. Yeah, it's a
show. I mean, I don'tknow. I would say it's our favorite.
It is the best reboot of theshow. But ladies and gentlemen,
the third season of that show isdoing everything it can to give us a
(01:48):
reason not to say that it can't. It can't. Sully the earlier season
stuff that's right, that's fair,that's fair. It cannot, it cannot
undo, it cannot red con quality. However, on this episode, we
are talking about three episodes of thethird season, Episode seven, eight,
and nine, The Helgramite Method,Our Selena is Dying and the Call Miley
(02:09):
Judson and every man who was strayedfrom the path, slipped and fallen many
times. A man who seeks solacefrom his problems at the bottom of a
glass, A good man at warwith himself, slowly drowning in alcohol,
swallow by swallow, pulled down bythe insidious undertow of an endless ocean of
(02:31):
booze, helpless to stop doing theone thing he does better than anything else,
Drink. Lady. Helgramy Method.Aired November fifth, nineteen eighty eight.
It is directed by Gilbert M.Schilton, written by Retten, written
by William Selby and its stars That'sMy Bush, Timothy Bottoms Boy, that
(02:53):
is afraid that is a specific referencefor only a certain age group of people,
because I'm sure he's been in otherbetter things. No, that's my
Bush. No, No, oh, I know you said certain he's probably
been in better things. Yes hehas. He was in Apocalypse Now.
But his role in That's My Bushwas he was top building that though.
(03:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, he wasgood with Joseph Bottoms, by the way,
totally different guy. Um if you'rewondering why I was bringing up That's
My Bush, because Timothy Bottoms doeslook a lot like George Bush in the
right light. Yeah, I cando good Bush impersonation. Yeah. Yeah,
but he plays a struggling alcoholic whoagrees to a unique treatment that will
(03:38):
stop him from drinking and also maystop him from living. It was fun.
You can an episode about alcoholics drinkingworms be fun. It could be
if the right person was directing it. Yeah. I don't think we got
that here, but uh, youknow, as soon as it started,
(04:00):
I just had a flash of Uh. There's a Stephen King short story called
Quitters Incorporated, Thank You, whichthey which they had already adapted into the
film Cat's Eye with James Woods andman. It is great known with stable
genius James Woods, right, Yes, of course he was the name.
By the way, Mike, weforgot on that culture Cast recording we were
(04:24):
naming all the crazy right wing yoos. James Woods was the name we forgot,
which James Woods is more upset aboutthat than we are. I guarantee
you that he wants to king.Yeah, the King of the Nuts.
We did, but we remember JohnVoight, yeah, and Robert Dobby.
But yeah, I was totally thinkingof Quitters Inc. As well, as
well as a little bit Poltergeist too, like that scene, Yeah, Stephen
(04:48):
drinks the tequila the worm, yeah, and then the worm ends up.
Yeah, so our friend Mark Begley, I actually know what you're talking about.
Yeah, it is weird that itwouldn't. Can boltergeistupen a couple of
years around this It was definitely aroundthis time. Yeah, yeah, I
(05:11):
think it came up before. Yeah, okay, okay, So because the
first Boulter gets come out in likeeighty three, so yeah, the next
one was eighty five maybe, um, certainly earlier than nineteen eighty eight.
That's so uh, you know,a side of the fact that it immediately
evoked this other better thing I waskind of into it for a while.
Um, and I like Timothy Bottomsomebody saying that, but I think he's
(05:33):
terrible here, Like I didn't seeany struggle in this guy at all.
And then uh, also, youknow, no one seeks the cure while
they're still happy and goofy, whichis kind of what we got here,
Like he's kind of what do thatdo? Yeah, like a large you're
not down on your luck. Yourwife hasn't even left you yet, right,
(05:55):
And that's kind of the problem withthis episode. This guy like doesn't
hit bottom and seeks this out justsort of as a last resort. I
mean, he mentions that he's triedbefore in the past, but he seems
like an asshole to begin with,so I don't think he was trying too
hard. And then you know,like I liked the idea that they put
this parasite into you that craves thealcohol and if you drink it, it's
(06:16):
going to get bigger and kill you, and if you stop, it's going
to hurt you. Like I kindof I mean that's you know, that's
any addiction, but it's handled sopoorly here, Like you know, I
don't know, like it didn't seemlike there were any steaks, Like I
never I never really believe that thatwife was going to leave him, and
you know, and the sort ofcentral casting child that they had come in
(06:40):
like oh you stick again, daddy, Like, oh my god, it
was just so a child should havebeen aborted, I believe, Yeah,
just like that other child and littleboy. Yes, you know what,
this episode reminded me a little bitof Kentucky Rye. Yeah, where there
you in that one. At leastwe were getting like the fucking con sequence
(07:00):
of this. Right, here's whathappens. If you drink, you die,
You literally die. I will say, what could have fixed this episode?
I enjoyed this episode a little bit. It wasn't great, but it
wasn't terrible. It would have beenfun if this episode had given the audience
the idea that maybe the worm wasn'treal. Oh yeah, that could have
been fun like that, right,Like, I felt like they had this
(07:21):
opportunity and you can, like,when you watch the episode, I think
it's probably around like the sixteen minutemark, which is six minutes before it
ends, they had this moment wherehe's like, well, it's part of
you. Now, there's nothing youcan do. About it, so you
better figure it out. Like tome, I'm sitting there thinking, like,
yo, this guy should just befucking with alcoholics, just like,
(07:45):
like I know that that's terrible,but this is also a fucking TV show,
not real life. So like,if you're making the story of a
guy fucking with alcoholics as it is, he should really fuck with them and
be like at the end of theepisode, be like, oh yeah,
like that the fucking helgrim worm doesn'texist m dums like either that or a
couple of things. I understand thatthe guy who gives him the worm he
(08:09):
lost his daughter because of the family. Yeah, maybe if Timothy Bottoms had
been the cause of that, thatwould have been something and it'd be more
of like a personal motivation maybe that. But at the same time, I
do like how it is kind ofbeing passed from person to person that he's
then helping out this other guy.But at the same time, Okay,
(08:33):
if the worm is real, howdid this guy discover it? And like
what where did this come from?Was there some sort of deal with the
devil to get this worm or howwas it? How did it come into
existence? How did they discover thatthis is going to be the thing to
cure people of drunkenness. But yeah, it felt like there were a lot
of missed opportunities with this one,and to your point, by them alone.
(08:56):
I did just keep thinking about Quittersinc And I was just like,
we did that one go and whatabout the fingers and what about the wife
in the cage with the electricity?And I'm just, yeah, I'm just
being constantly reminded of better stuff.And in Quitters Incorporated, like you got
the sense that he's like desperately tryingnot to do it and our audience tell
us because I haven't read it ina while. Quitters Incorporated is a Stephen
(09:18):
King short story about It's about aman that is addicted to smoking, if
memory stairs right, and it's verymuch the same kind of idea, like
desperate, desperate to stop smoking andends up going to this mysterious corporation and
they're like, hey, we canhelp you out. You just have to
follow our program completely. And Idon't remember all the ins and outs,
(09:41):
but they basically end up like torturinghis wife, put her in a room
with like electricity on the floor,and she's there like dancing on this electrical
grid and just like screaming, andit's like, oh, you smoked a
cigarette again, this is what youget kind of thing. And there's this
like implicit threat that you know,he has a young daughter that they'll they'll
(10:03):
you know, treat her poorly.Now, oh good if he does that,
or and not only that, likeso he has the sort of looming
threat, but then he's actually beingfollowed and they're like, you know,
everywhere he looks, there's somebody likekeeping up keeping tabs on him. And
he thinks he's being like really furtiveand secretive about attempting to smoke, but
(10:24):
there's always someone around. So it'slike nothing but tension the entire time.
And you know, I mean,it's not fair to compare the two,
but if you're gonna play in thisfucking sandbox after that thing exists, then
do something better. And we didn'tget it here. When he walked out
the door at the bar at theend and the fucking credits come up,
I came up. I was likewait, wait what I was waiting?
(10:46):
No? Ups? Good? Yeah, I mean I know I rail against
the sort of uh, the writerlynecessity here in the Twilight Zone, like,
well, we gotta get a twistin there, but like this one
needed the fucking twist there to havebeen something way too straightforward. Yeah,
and on top of everything else,it did that like really cheesy, cheap
(11:07):
thing of like cut to like aweek later. Yeah, fuck you,
fuck this bullshit trope. This isfucking lazy. You have written yourself into
a corner. A scream is notyour way out. But that's all we're
gonna get. That's that is allthat is. It is a screams,
right, It's like the same sortof sound over the for like twenty minutes
(11:33):
and he's like, come on,man, he's doing his best impersonation of
a cowboy. So I forgot thefinger thing. I just looked up the
story, and the finger thing isthat, um, if the main character
strays from his goal, they threatenedto cut off his wife's finger. And
then the very last part of thestory is he and his wife at a
(11:56):
party and he shakes the guy thehost wife's hand and realize that she's missing
a finger. And so apparently Kingeven went on the record to say that
he was inspired a little bit byRoald Dolls, the Man from the South
episode which was famously turned into aAlphaditchki Presents and then famously recycled by Tarantino
(12:18):
in Four Rooms. No no,no, no, no, no,
you don't understand Tarantino came up withit first. He wrote the goddamn novel
in nineteen o one that everybody elsereferences. Okay, he traveled back in
time and did it that way.Why do you hate him so much?
You hain't good movies that elevate thecraft and just make us all better film
(12:43):
goers? Okay, Yeah, apparentlythere's a two thousand and seven Bollywood film
which is also based on the samestory, and now I'm very curious to
see that. I mean, thisstory is a cool idea, which is
why Stephen k I was on borelythe most story better than this. William
(13:03):
Selby is not Stephen King. Yeah, I wanted to like it a lot
more. Like you said, Iwas on board for it as well,
and it was just like, okay, like Miney's pouring out all the liquor
and stuff and then like smelling hishands and licking his hands, and then
he's just like washing his hands.I'm like, yeah, okay, yeah,
this is all right, but yeah, it just didn't necessarily go far
enough, no, no, andit again. Honestly, this could have
(13:28):
been an hour long. Yeah noquick right? Oh my god, Well
you want to talk about quick Waituntil we get to the call brother.
Then we're gonna talk about five minutesin the ring with me. Dude,
that's all you're gonna get. That'swhat it felt like. Oh my god.
I have not come down on verymany of these episodes for being too
(13:48):
short. Most of the time,it's like, thank god, it's over,
we're getting it out of the way, we're moving on to something else.
This episode was way too short.If they had given it time to
breathe, I genuinely think that wecould have had add some things like what
Stephen King's short story talks about somesort of some sort of punishment. I
mean, the punishment is just he'sgonna die. That's not very creative,
Like what stakes of those whether you'regonna yeah, I mean I that was
(14:11):
the thing about Quitters Incorporated was,you know, he assumed that the threats
were toward him, but it wasn'tthat. It was they were going to
hurt everyone around him, which iswhat addiction is. You know, the
great bugaboo with addiction is you're you'rekilling everyone in around you and not yourself.
So um, yeah, this isa This is a very interesting concept.
I really wanted to like it.Ah. Well, do you think
(14:33):
if they had focused on his familyinstead of him it would have been a
better episode if they had written bettercharacters for him to interact with. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I agree.So let's talk about the next episode.
Our Selena is Dying. Your attentionis drawn to the residence of the
Brockman Clan, an ancient mansion.It's paneled walls punished by darkness, a
(14:56):
lightless, soundless place upon which agreater darkness, says fallan. The object
of the death Watch, Selena Brockman, grand dam of the Menagerie, who
lies in her bed in an inchby inch battle with death, trying somehow
to reach a compromise instead of acapitulation. So Our Selena is Dying air
(15:18):
November twelfth, nineteen eighty eight.It stars Terry Garber, Jennifer Dale,
and R. H. Thompson.It is directed by Bruce Pittman, with
a teleplay by Jay Michael Straczynski,who has been doing great work on this
show so far. It's just fantastic, and it's actually adapted from a Rod
Serling story, which means this isonly one way to go, which is
(15:41):
not well. This episode focuses ona doctor who becomes suspicious that a young
woman is losing her youth to heraunt, who is the titular Selena,
who is dying. This is areally bizarre episode. Did you say bad?
Bizarre? Ha? You know,sometimes we use other words to be
(16:06):
it's it is. It is notgood though, no, it is remarkably
bad, like uh in all theways. The previous episode had been kind
of intriguing, so you yeah,Like I wanted to keep watching and see
where they went here. It waspretty clear from the fucking get go what
was going on, and it wasjust a slow grind to get there.
(16:26):
I too, like to rip offDorian Gray. Well, this even felt
like the at least one, ifnot two episodes of Cold Check the Nice
Stalker that we watched. I thinkit reminded us of reminding me of the
one with Kathy Lee Crosby. Itwas that her name, and then she
was the succubus. Yeah, thenlike had the Eternal Youth, and then
(16:48):
there was the Eternal Youth episode thatwas in the Cold Check reboot and it
was like, okay, yeah,but we get it. You need to
stay young, and by you stayingyou make other people around you old or
suffer. And this one is youmake other people old so that you can
be young. And it even remindedme a little bit of The Night Strangler,
(17:10):
this whole thing where they go throughthe newspapers. You know, I'm
thinking, like, you know,a little Wally Cox in the in the
the the morgue of the newspaper withlike oh yeah here, And then in
eighteen forty four there was this generaland then in this year there was this,
which was again kind of almost aVictor Tombs type of thing. Yeah.
(17:30):
So it's like, but you know, like done better by a better
show. Yeah, And I wouldbe curious. I'd like to go back
and see the Queen of the Nileepisode that this was based on, because
I think that would probably be alittle bit better than this, so it
certainly would look better. I thinkI've said this before in previous podcasts,
(17:51):
but like once they moved to Canada, the previous seasons, whether or not
the quality of the writing was good, it always felt like a little movie
And now I feel like we're justwatching some cop procedural from the mid eighties.
It just it looks flat and uninterestingand the direction is just like it's
so workman like. It's actually anoffense work like like, yeah, you
(18:15):
can do the job and do itcompetently, and that should be the definition
of workman like. This is justlike there's no style to it whatsoever.
It's just like, oh, wegot two people talking, I'll cover it
with a two shot and then twosingles and moving on. Yeah, it
is it's almost like soap opera typeof ye film. That is. Yeah,
(18:36):
that is the best comparison that thatanyone has said as about this episode
that I've heard so far. Andit is a soap opera. It feels
like it like and you know,just sort of story wise here, So
this old woman, she has thispower that she can sort of suck your
youth out of you, and thenshe becomes young. Why did she get
to the age that she was atthat she was so infirm that she needed
a doctor? Wait, okay,you know you're logic out of this equation,
(19:03):
then ask your question again. Okay, no, it isn't a question.
Never mind, don't question our logichere. It is just lazy,
right, Yeah, the worst kindof speculative fiction. The well, this
is the Twilight Zone, so you'llgo with it, like, no,
you still gotta give us something,don't you love how every intro for this
season so far has been like,and it's happening in the Twilight Zone,
(19:25):
so you know, uh huh whatever, whatever can happen. We don't even
need narration for this. Fuck it, just throw them into it now.
They're like, I got to remindthem up from where in the Twilight Zone
then kind of reaffirm it again atthe end. Yeah, And it is
so different than how chilling the originalnarration, the broad Sterling narration would be,
where you're just like especially when itwas like the camera would just move
(19:48):
over and they're Sterling standing there andyou're like, oh shit, it's like
things are about to get really realhere. In this one, it's like,
uh, she learned a lesson,gotta go like that's what it is
like, Robin Ward, no faultof his own. They just like didn't
give a fucking shit. They're justlike, you know what, you know
(20:10):
what, Robin, why don't youwatch the episode and you write like that's
what it feels like that is whatthat is, how lazy, and when
we get to the call it's evenworse. But these, like the intro
out narrations are just so bad thatI'm getting to the point listening to them,
or I don't even want to includethem in the episodes anymore, because
like normally I include them before wetalk about it. It's like, oh,
(20:32):
a little interesting segue, and I'mjust like, what's the fucking point?
Yeah? Yeah, I mean,look, I prefer Charles Aidman in
the first two seasons, and hepassed away, right, I mean,
that's why they got a new narrator. M But you know, I do
like the new guy's voice, andI like how gentle it is. And
if the stories were like as brutalas they should be, then that could
(20:53):
be like a fun kind of ironyto it, a little bit of a
wink. Yeah, but they're they'renot doing that. And I've noticed that
every single episode we watched for thisparticular podcast, the opening intro like tells
us everything we need to know,you know what I mean. It's just
like it's so far afield from someof the earlier episodes where they're like,
(21:15):
hey, here we are, checkit out and now it's just like spoon
feed us the fucking things that weneed to know, so we won't ask
too many questions along the way.Imagine, if you will, a woman
in bed who can suck the powersfrom everyone around her. Wouldn't that be
fun? Welcome to the Twilight Zone. Been drawn to the residence of the
Brockman Clan, an ancient man mansion. It's paneled, walls polished by darkness,
(21:40):
a lightness, soundless, place uponwhich a greater darkness has fallen.
I mean it's almost up there withlike it was a dark and stormy night,
not quite that cliche night warehouse nightexterior exter cut two exterior night warehouse,
(22:04):
A man stands alone? Fuck you? And you know what's really sad,
the saddest probably the biggest problem here. J Michael Strazinski is really good
at writing comic books. Yeah,yeah, I liked Babbalan five. Yeah,
he's written some good stuff. Yeah, but yeah, this is this
ain't it? No? No,this is not it times ten Like,
(22:27):
I mean, you know, it'sgot to be daunting if somebody hands you,
like, hey, here's the lastoutline Rod Sterling ever wrote. Make
this good? But this does riseto that, yeah, man, because
you know what we saw in previousseason's Rockney abandon He did Night of the
Meek, which was a sterling episodeand it fucking he was really I liked
(22:48):
it better than the original, soit can be done. But I don't
know, Well, brother Rockney waskeeping the show on calm Waters when it
was having problems, so yeah,his episodes were good. I mean,
that's the kind of real sad thingabout the show at this point, is
there. It doesn't seem to beanybody in the control room with half of
a brain in their head pulling thecontrols like well, we need to do
(23:10):
this, and it's like, ah, slam it all to the ground.
Who cares? Yeah, I meanI gotta wonder, like, you know,
clearly the show got canceled and thenthey're like, no, we're just
gonna bring it back. And I'msure there's a level of well, I'm
just happy to keep working and I'mhappy to keep working on the Twilight Zone,
but they're not the I'm gonna haveto listen to the studio, you
(23:30):
know, so like, who knowshow many fingers were in the pie here?
They all stink, I know thatmuch stinky fingers, folks, I
don't know, I really I wonderwhat that Rod Sterling outline looked like.
I wonder what Rod Sterling's initial ideafor this episode was. Here, here's
the here's the whole treatment. Oldwomen can suck powers out of people.
(23:52):
That. I mean, what doyou think, CBS are you sold?
Yeah? Yes, mister Sterling's wecan say a very special twilight Zone from
Rod Serling himself like that. Idon't think I know that they did that.
Whenever they've remade an episode, theadvertising would be like, oh,
a special recreation of the original TwilightZone. Keep that in the back.
(24:18):
Yeah, for the special customers.Oh god, you guys ready to talk
about the final episode? Kind ofyeah? Could it be worse than this
one? No? Actually, now, so let's talk about that episode.
We're going to talk about the callNorman Blaine, whose greatest fear is that
if he were to vanish from theearth tomorrow, no one would notice or
(24:42):
mourn or question, and whose greatestsadness is the realization that he is probably
right. Sofa, coffee, tablechair, and pet, solitary decorations,
(25:07):
and a life noted chiefly for itsisolation, point of origin, and point
of destination for Norman Blaine, whosedays and nights are routinely swallowed into unhappy
silence. So The Call aired Novembernineteen, nineteen eighty. It is once
again directed by Gilbert M. Shilton, is once again written by Jay Michael
(25:29):
Spezinski. This time it is writtenby Jay Michael Spazinski, as opposed to
teleplay by mister Spazzinski. It does, however, star a fantastic actor fellow
gentleman named William Sanderson. You mayknow him from such films as Let's Go
Around the Table. I know himfrom The Rocketeer, Blade Round Her Baby,
Oh Yeah, and a New Heart, which was not a movie but
(25:51):
a TV show, And he wasexcellent in each of these things. And
I believe on your podcast of ProjectionBooth, Mike, you have spoken with
mister Sanderson. Yes, got himto talk about his career and talk about
Blade Runner, and was such anice man and was so appreciative of us
talking to him, Like it wasalmost like, oh, you guys,
(26:11):
nobody ever wants to talk to meabout things. So it's like, really
shame, yeah, fucking shame.He seems like he seems like a genuinely
nice guy. Super nice, andhe was telling us all about his wife
and how much he loves his wife, and just like you could tell he
was like in New York City,was a little lonely, just wanted somebody
to talk to, and he wasjust like, yeah, sure, I'll
(26:32):
talk to you guys about Blade Runner. Yeah, let's let's do it.
So that's the only thing is hisperformance in Blade Runner, Like without him,
everyone is really cold and distant inthat movie. He's the actual human
heart of that movie. Yes,his death is like it's it's like they
don't show it or anything. Theyjust kind of mention it. It's such
a blow when you hear it.Yeah, yeah, really, I mean
everybody else is acting like a robot, but he's the one that makes the
(26:56):
robots and he's the only one thatyou know, he's making his friends.
You know, he's so lonely inthat movie. It's just like, Okay,
he plays lonely better than anybody thatI know. It's the look.
It's just his look. It's somethingabout it's the way yeah, yeah,
it's the way he holds his face. And guess what we have in this
episode, William Sanderson playing a manwho's alone. Yeah, who dials a
(27:21):
phone number in error and the personpicks up. They have a conversation,
and then he goes to work andhe works with the biggest dickhead on the
planet. Oh my god, isn'the go That guy is lucky that William
Sanderson didn't walk over to the papercutter, tear the blade off and just
whack the dude over the head withI have five kids and I need quiet.
You will have quiet permanently here momentarily. The one time the guy wants
(27:45):
to talk and it's just like,whoa, what are you doing? But
William Sanderson's a phone call and theyend up calling each other a couple of
nights. William Sanderson, I guessis calling her. She's calling games.
Yeah, it seems like after awhile they're calling each other. So he
goes and looks for the phone numberand it turns out done and it's a
(28:07):
bronze statue in a museum. Nobodysaw that coming because it literally makes no
sense, makes no sense. SoI gotta say with all that I liked
this episode. I'm always in thetwilight Zone. I enjoyed this episode.
I don't know. I'm a suckerfor the lonely person finding love, just
like Saucer of Loneliness, which ismuch more skillful obviously than this one.
(28:29):
I mean, I like the ideaWilliam Sanders are finding companionship is always good
and there are worse ways to spendtwenty two minutes then with William Sanderson.
Oh yeah, yeah, we alreadyspent twenty two minutes with the folks of
our Selina is dying. Oh right, yeah, man, Like this was
a cooling bomb after the last one. So again, I don't know if
this is by comparison or whether theepisode stands on its own, but ultimately
(28:53):
I enjoyed this one. Yeah.I enjoyed this one as well. I
didn't mind the twist of her beinga statue, m I kind of,
I guess I didn't necessarily see itcoming, like when he went to her
work and then you know, shecalls him up and was like, hey,
I saw you today, you know, looking for me, and I
(29:15):
like, oh shit, she wasa statue. Okay. I mean,
it wasn't like a major shocker,but I was like, okay, yeah,
this works and doesn't make any sense, but I'm cool with it,
and that he joins her forever.I was like, Okay, yeah,
he really doesn't have anything else.It's not like that piece of shit coworkers
gonna turn suddenly turn nice. Right. So the only thing that I think
(29:38):
could have really put the episode overthe top would be showing williams Anderson's replacement
at work, who was a nonstop chatterbox. That would have been that
would have been felt, That wouldhave felt pretty good. I know,
I liked the episode. I justwhen the episode ended, I believe I'm
trying to remember what I said outloud verbata, but it was like,
(30:00):
Oh, come the fuck on,episode, are you for real? That's
how you're gonna end. It's justit's pretty cornball. Oh yeah, will
this lonely man who's now sitting ona bench forever and no one questions it.
There's just this new thing in thein the museum that just looks like
the guy who was there the daybefore, or maybe who knows. It
was really hard to tell. Iactually thought about that too, and I
(30:22):
thought like, because that that curatorwoman's got to come and look and go,
wait, what the fuck? Butit actually made me happy because he
put his hands on her, soit wasn't just like he was a statue
sitting next to Early. It's likelike one statue, So it wasn't like
they were going to remove him.I guess I was bringing more to the
episode. I mean, that's Imean giving me. But and you know,
look, as soon as I realized, you know, like you said,
(30:45):
Mike, when you realize that it'sthe statue, right, of course,
my brain starts reeling with thoughts oflike, what did she just pick
up the phone? Like is shewandering around at night? Numbers telepathic?
Yeah? Yeah, I mean Idon't know the sort of the logical questions
that came up with earlier episodes.I knew that this one made even less
(31:08):
sense. But it's it was sucha genial episode, and William Sanderson is
so likable, but I'm willing toforgive the rest of that. I mean,
this episode pretty much survibes on WilliamSanderson's performance. Oh my god,
if Timothy Bottoms had been in thisrole, yeah, I'd be saying past
right now, yeah, and makingas strange noises the entire time. You
(31:32):
don't want that, don't you know? Hey, everybody, I'm a little
bit of ronky. I think forme, I like this segment, but
I think for me, this segmentjust kind of feels very samey. It's
(31:52):
just like, I mean, we'vehad a couple of these like lonely people
looking for love episodes. Yeah,oh yeah, Now it's just a lonely
man looking for love. He findsit. It just happens to be a
inanimate object. And I guess Ilove with the nanimate objects all the time,
just as my wife. You're aninanimate fucking object. So did you
(32:14):
guys catch the thing about the artist? Why the artist? I was trying
to figure out if this was whythe artist was stuck in the statue.
Was she stuck in the statue becauseshe killed herself? I think so.
I think that's some fucked up punishment. Man, Like I want a story
about that character. The characters likeI'm gonna fucking make in this art and
(32:35):
I'm gonna fucking kill myself. Ohshit, I'm stuck in my statue now.
Like, but we got that,I know, right in this episode.
Yeah? Sorry, you're right,we did. I mean, you
know, they could have dramatized it. I suppose it is a visual medium.
Why yeah, ye is that?Fuck you? He was? Okay?
Yeah, better than Arcelina is dying. It felt more like one of
(32:59):
the earlier seasons. Yeah, attemptsat this kind of uh god, I
don't want to it is cornball,but like it does seem to have more
of a heart than that. Youknow, if you told me that this
was the reboot of the original show'sepisode, not the last one, I
would have believed you totally. Yes, this feels feels really old Twilight Zone.
(33:20):
Yeah, which is which is whyI'm kind of sitting here like,
oh, this is kind of quaint, you know what I mean, Like
I don't expect this from this show. I expected from the original show.
So maybe that's kind of where I'mcoming from. It's still a good episode.
I mean, like you guys havesaid, William Sanderson, he just
does that hang dog better than anybodyelse does not hound dog. That's the
other guy, right, Yeah,that was the ones Elvis. Yeah,
(33:43):
yeah, not the hang dog.The hound dog impaled on a guitar right
back in time. Nonetheless, hekilled Elvis, and then he became Elvis,
and then he committed all the sameyrehis bloody clothes. Yeah, and
then he committed all the problems thatElvis did. Because the King would he
did this I gotta I gotta followit to the letter I got. I
don't want to improve Elvis his life. Yeah, I gotta trust that piece
(34:07):
of shit Colonel Tom Bark. Yeah, he's not just trying to make money
off of me. I swear,wouldn't that be the first thing you would
do if you were Elvis is firethat motherfucker. I wouldn't kill him.
I would go out a gun andjust shoot him. Who's gonna send Elvis
to jail? Not Nixon? NotNixon? Thats who I've seen that picture
(34:27):
with them shaking hands. I knowthe truth. Two movies based off Yeah,
that's true. So on the nextepisode of Chronicles from the crypt oh,
whoa, whoa? Not the showthat we are on, Yeah,
bringing it back for one night onlyto talk about Twilight Zone on the next
I know it's just it cuts cutsdeep to my core um. On the
(34:50):
next episode of Dreams for said,we're gonna be talking about the Trance,
Acts of Terror, acts acts,and twenty twenty vision. I got on
the twenty one vision. I wasabout to say, I'm living in a
twenty twenty world. Yippee. Untilthen, where can people find you?
Father Malone? Are you still fightinginternet trolls now, I cooled my jets
(35:14):
on that. The people have justbeen ridiculous lately. But no, if
you want to check anything that Ido out, please head over to father
Malone dot com. I have apodcast called Dark Destinations, which is like
a half hour radio drama. Checkme out on that. And there's also
a link to my YouTube channel whereI've got a movie review show called You've
(35:35):
Never Seen But Oh Stop? Ifpeople have seen those movies. Is there
a temail? Yeah? Is therean email email address that they can send
an email to you about. Yes? Yeah, please don't harass Father Malone
online, harass them in person.Yeah, I don't want to give them
(35:57):
any more airtime than they deserve.So now you have to go ahead.
Come on. I had I hada guy who U He watched my gold
Diggers of nineteen thirty three episode andhis comment was, turn your microphone down,
you idiot, I think. Whichis which is at least like it
all the way down to off?Yeah? Yeah, so I just I
(36:21):
wrote back in all caps, thanksfor watching, exclamation point, but like
you know, I don't know that'smoving on, Mike. Where can people
find you? You can find meover at the Projection Booth which is available
at Projection Booth podcast dot com.And you can also find Chris and I
are talking about ranking and Bass specialson the Ranking on Bass podcast, and
(36:45):
Chris and I also talk about BarneyMiller, which is available at the Life
and Times of Captain Barney Miller,which is also a podcast that you should
put in your ear holes. Youshould. And I like how you said
Ranking on Bass Specials because we can'tclaim to be a Christmas podcast anymore beyond
that, and then some you know, when you talk about ranking a bassas
(37:06):
Lord of the Rings, you kindof lose the ability to say you're a
holiday show anymore. But adays,no, I don't know, I'm trying.
They may have. I was justtrying to help. As for me,
you can find me on the internetat c stashu dot com. That's
my link tree that goes to allthe things that I work on. The
other thing that I work on thatMike hasn't mentioned is the Culture Cast,
(37:28):
which comes out once a week.We talk about movies, Yeppie. Sometimes
Father Alone's on there, sometimes Tomorrowthere, sometimes other people are on there.
Sometimes nobody's on there, and wedon't do it? Who knows?
Yeah, yeah, those miss tweeksYeah right uh And and for this show,
you can find us at twilight Zoneeighty five dot com, twilight Zone
eighty five on Twitter, and asalways, big thanks to roxy Drive and
(37:52):
Neutron Dreams for the music for theshow. And we'll catch on the next
episode. I think that works.Are you still here listener? M
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