Although there are only about twenty Twilight Zone episodes left to cover here on the
podcast. If the last month has shown me anything it's that you just don't
know what is around the corner. We had the coverage of Face Squad,
Face Platoon with a wonderful panel of guests and sailing Amy Boyle, Johnston,
Nick Parissi and Andrew Gooley, and I mentioned in the last episode that I
might have pretty great to kind of cap all that off board. I didn't
want to mention it because you just never know how things are going to go.
And while this thing will happen, it's not happening just yet. So
we will return to that in the future. But when those opportunities arise,
you just have to take them. But it does mean that those twenty or
twenty one episodes will take a bit longer to cover. It just so happens,
though, that there are other things around the corner that are going to
take up my time in the common months. Fear and not. The Twilight
Zone podcast isn't going anywhere, and I'll talk more about that in a moment.
So as I said, there are a couple of things that have happened
all at once that are really taking up my time right now. They are
great things, very exciting things. As you know. Recently I recorded the
audio book of the Twilight Zone High Coup, which is available on Audible and
other platforms as well. And this is a thing that I've been building to
behind the scenes, a little bit more work in audio books, and it's
something that I would like to do a bit more going forward. And I
have recently been hired to perform and produce another audio book that is completely disconnected
from the Twilight Zone or anything like that, but in a sense it is
a bit of a step up, not from the Twilight Zone High Q,
but a step up from other audiobook work that I've done. I think it's
going to be something that kind of takes you up to that next level a
little bit. So it's quite exciting, it's quite different, and like I
say, it's very time consuming. Reading a full novel length piece of work
and producing it does take a long time. And when I've completed that working
it out, I will certainly let you know what it is. But as
well as that, and this is the first time that I've actually spoken about
here in September at Sailing Fest, I'm not just going to be an audience
member, but I'm also going to be one of the guests. And on
Saturday, the fourteenth of September, for one time only, I will be
doing the Twilight Zone podcast live on stage in the Forum Theater, Binghamton.
So what will I be doing. Well, I'm not going to speak about
that just yet, but I think it's something a bit different, a bit
special, something that will seem quite ordinary. But you know, this is
the Twilight Zone and sometimes there's a twist in the tail. So again,
i'll speak more about that in the future as well. But also that's new
territory for me, and I need to put together that presentation and really see
if it works. But that's going to take time as well, and then
there's also the possibility that it won't work and I will need to come up
with something else to do, but then have far less time to do it.
So these two things in particular I really need to focus on at the
moment because both of them have deadlines. But if it turns out that I
can get them done in good time, I will go back to work on
the regular Twilight Zone podcast prior to Sailing Fest. So I'm just asking you
to bear with me for the moment, but I won't leave you high and
dry here on the podcast because in the meantime, I have a large back
catalog of literally hundreds of things that I've done on Patreon. So what I'm
going to do is select a few of those things to kind of keep you
going over the summer. Maybe once a week or two weeks, I will
put some of these things out here on the main feed, just to keep
a ticking over. There's all kinds of stuff on there. There's episodes relating
to Night Gallery, the Loner story readings, all kinds of stuff that's never
actually been here on the main feed. So it's things that have been on
Patreon for a while, so the members will have heared them. But if
you're a member of the After Hours Club, you will still get new content
over there because that's a lot less time consuming to produce, and because of
people's generosity over there and supporting the show, I am able to get an
editor to put that stuff together for me, which is something I can't really
do with the main Twilight Zone podcast. So it is a little summer hiatus,
but there will be things to keep you ticking over in the meantime,
and then if all goes to plan, I will come back with that reporting
from sailing Fest, you know, like last time, We're to put together
a kind of big podcast, you know, documenting the whole thing for those
of you who can't go. So I am going to try my best to
clear the decks as much as possible here and then we can head off into
the summer. And one of the things on my list is some audio feedback
from my good friend Uncommon Nasa, who is also going to be at sailing
Fest. Now, Nasa is one of those people who I think you probably
know from the podcast because you'll have heard them a bunch of times. So
it's going to be great to have him at sailing Fest, and you know,
I'm sure he's going to want to meet anyone there who recognizes him as
well. Also, there's just so many people from the kind of podcast world
who are going to be there. It's absolutely great. So Emmy, who
some of you might know from my Patreon stuff, who's been on the main
show a couple of times as well, she's going to be there. Zach
Moore from Always Hold On to Smallville, who's been on the show countless times
a great friend. Now he's going to be a sailing fest as well,
so we're all going to be there and it's just going to be a great
time. So anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. Now, let's go back to
our friend Uncommon Nasa, who sends some audio feedback in about The Long Morrow.
Hey, Tom Houp the Sponge, Well this is on Carbon Nasa.
I just listen to your review of The Long Murrow. And normally I would,
at least these days, I would just comment in your Patreon and give
you some extra thoughts like I did in the preview and others did too,
but there's so much racing through my head. I actually took a stop.
I'm in downtown Manhattan recording this. Took a break from a commute because I
had so many thoughts on my mind after listening to your great review. So
hopefully this audio comes out all right. I immediately identified with The Long War
when I watched it because as a kid, my favorite comic book was Guardians
of the Galaxy, and it's since been adapted to film, and there's a
different lineup than what I was reading in the nineteen nineties. And that's a
whole long story well, I'll get into you. But there was a character
in the original lineup of the group named Major vans Astro who was known as
like the two thousand year old Hero, and he was an astronaut that was
put into aentertainment suit that prevents you from aging, sent him to a rocket
ship, and by the time he landed on the world he was going to,
humans had already developed faster rockets and were already there mockingly waiting for him
to arrive. And that was sort of the story of his character. So
I immediately, even as a younger person, like identified with the character and
understood what was being done from a science fiction perspective. I have to co
sign you on the fable approach to the Twilight Zone. I think that's a
really important thing. You know, it's less than thirty minutes an episode.
Even the sixty minute episodes, the ones that are good, are still fables
in their presentation. I think you could go down rabbit holes easily in trying
to poke holes and plots, but I don't think that's really a positive or
a great thing to do. I mean, for example, a lot of
comments not just on your show but in general, perhaps talk about well,
how could these people just fall in love in a hallway? And obviously,
one of the big things about fables and one of the figures about the Twilight
Zone is you're supposed to use your imagination to fill in the blanks, and
your imagination filling in these blanks gives much more vitality and color to these stories
than you could ever do on film and on camera. I'll give you an
example. Think about Probe seven over and out, where you're presented in slow
detail the falling in love of the two main characters, and you're presented with
an ending that is they're going to spend the rest of their lives isolated on
this planet together uninterrupted. But yet, because you've been shown so much,
I feel that the heartstrings and the love story aspect of that episode isn't nearly
as strong as Longmorrow. Because think about if they had shown a scene at
the dinner and they're making loving eyes at each other and they're making comments,
and you get to watch that for a soured three to four minutes out of
a twenty six minute run time. I just feel like that would induce a
lot of eye rolling from viewers and just it would make it seem more improbable
because you've seen more in literal sense in front of you as to their quick
falling in love and what these people these characters have fallen in love with is
each other, but also their possibility of what they're going to do together,
and that is one of the most compelling emotions that you're going to ever have
as a human being. So I could totally buy into all of that as
a story. I totally agree with you Tom ninety five percent of the time
we agree. Sometimes you like something more than I do that I like,
and vice versa for something that you dislike more than I dislike it, but
we're usually on the same side of whether it's up or down, and you
successfully once again pulled me on this episode into top tier status. I think
if there's one plot hole, I hate to do this because I'm arguing against
my opinion episode, but just to show how silly it is to kind of
go down poking holes, the plothole in this episode is she goes into a
hibernation chamber to preserve herself. They're both living in this time period, they've
both fallen in love in a month's time. This idea wouldn't have come up.
They wouldn't have discussed this to each other, like, hey, you
know what we could do. That's the thing that nobody's really mentioned that would
be there. But again, like I wouldn't have even thought of that if
we weren't going down this pothole rabbit hole. But in this episode, I
think you really just have to sit back and enjoy the ride. And that's
where I'll leave it. I want to give you another quick shout out for
the radio drama portion of your episode that came out amazing. I didn't not
if that scene existed, and they wouldn't have had the same life without hearing
you play it and kind of on the fence if that would have helped,
I think to some degree maybe it would have. I hopefully don't think that
scene would have hurt the episode. I just don't know if it would have
been absolutely necessary to help it. Again, I think this is top tier,
and I think more people would think it was top tier if it aired
more in the States. It does not air in prominent or sometimes at all
during marathons, and I think if it got the six characters in search of
an exit or you know, even the trade in's treatment where it started to
get played more and more over the years and become more and more popular during
the marathons. I think it would probably rise pretty quickly, So I'll leave
it there. Good luck with the rest of the season. I'm hoping to
see you at Serlingfest. Tom My plan is to be there, and yeah,
you'll hear from me again when it's time for come wander with me.
That is one of my favorites, so looking forward to your thoughts on that.
See soon. Thank you, NASA. You know, I always enjoy
NASA's clips because they always just like podcast quality in themselves, in the analysis
and insight that he does. But I think fact that he jumped off the
subway and you can hear New York bustling away in the background, I think
that was absolutely brilliant. Thank you, Nasamana. I appreciate it. So
why didn't she jump into a chamber when it was decided that he was going
to go into space in one? I mean, the way I look at
it is that when the professor guy, sorry, it's been a couple of
months since I watched the episode, so I can't remember people's names, but
when the professor was saying to our main character that looks you're going into space.
He was telling them about this technology for the first time. As far
as I kind of understood it, it's like, look at what we can
do now. It wasn't like he was talking to him about, oh,
yeah, we you know, we'll put you in one of our suspended animation
pods. That's how I remember it. So if I'm remembering it wrong,
then forget I said any of this. But that's the way I kind of
feel about it, that this was new technology. They were putting it on
this ship because it was, you know, the one that was going into
space, and it was going further than they'd ever been, so they needed
to develop this thing for it, you know, and especially seeing as sometimes
technology is available, especially in a kind of militaristic or you know, government
kind of organization like that, it's available for a particular reason, and it
was available for that. It was available for that mission. Now. I
can't remember whether they mentioned how long it is after he's gone that she goes
into suspended animation, whether it's a matter of weeks or months or whatever.
But I guess the way I see it is that in that intervening time,
like you said, it doesn't take much for us to use our imaginations.
There, it doesn't take much for us to use our imaginations and think what
kind of scenario could have happened for another one to become available, you know,
like another one was built for another mission that didn't happen, or you
know, something along those lines. I don't know, but I think that's
the thing, and I'm glad you kind of agree with me that on most
of these. I guess if you're generally going with the magic of it and
what it's really trying to tell you, then none of this really matters to
me. Now if you're not enjoying the episode, or the thing is just
so totally out of left field or strange, I'm trying to think of a
good example of that, but I can't think of one right now. Then,
of course, I think everyone's lines on that are different, but for
me, there was nothing in this one that really took me out of it.
So thanks again, NASA. I can't wait to see you at Sailing
Fest, and everyone who's going seek him out spend some time talking with Uncommon
NASA because he's great. Now, speaking of sailing Fest, I just want
to say thank you to a couple of people who sent over donations for my
trip. Now. One of them is a guy called Hollis and he is
going to be at sailing Fest. Now, Hollis is a great collector things,
but he just doesn't collect you know, well, he does collect your
your basic stuff. Boy. He has an amazing knack for getting you know,
rare things or custom made things, and you know the stuff that he
showed me over the years, there's been a couple of things that just really
great and unique. So he's a great guy to talk to. So I
can't wait to meet Hollis at sailing Fest. And thank you, Hollis for
your donation. I really appreciate it. And also a longtime friend of the
show, Cassie, who was actually at sailing Fest in twenty nineteen while I
was there, but I never got to meet her. She sent me over
a donation as well. Thankfully, she's going to be at sailing Fest this
year and I'm going to make sure that I seek her out and say thank
you in person. So thank you, Cassie. I look forward to meeting
you there. Now I'll just say thank you to the new members over at
the after hours club, and sometimes I lose track of who I have said
thank you too or not. So I'm going to start at a particular point.
If I were already mentioned you in a previous episode, then thank you
again. So I want to thank Colleen Brosnahan, Colleen, thank you,
and welcome. And Nick Wakeling, Nick, thank you so much. Alan
Flitter, Alan, it's good to have you here. Patrick Pace, Patrick
Welcome. Cara, Cara, Welcome to the After Hours Club. Johnny Clark,
it's good to have you. Man, Mike Mayo three, make yourself
comfortable, my friend, Matthew Cox, Welcome to the After Hours Club.
Andrew, Hey, and Andrew, it's good to have you. Please make
yourself a home. Peter, Nice, Wonder, Nice Wonder. I hope
i'm saying your last name rights, what a great last name. It's like
a detective or something. I might have mentioned you before, because I certainly
remember your great sayer name. But welcome, Wallstitch, Welcome back to the
After Hours Club. Kyle Davis, Kyle, it's good to have you.
Angie Gus Welcome, It's good to have you here. And then finally,
Chris Paulman, Chris, Welcome to the After Hours Club. So sailing fest
itself please follow the twilight Zone Podcast on Instagram and the username is simply twilight
Zone Podcast and I'll be posting pictures and things from Sailing Fest there. But
I've also set up a special Instagram for people who've supported me with donations or
the Patreon people. I will make you aware of it as well, So
if you're a Patreon member, closer to sailing Fest and I will send you
a link to that special private one which I will put things on. I'm
thinking of doing things like lives as well, you know where people do these
live broadcasts and things. If I can figure that out, I think that'd
be quite a cool thing to do. Speak to a few people while I'm
there. So we'll see if that happens. We'll see if that happens.
So thank you for your understanding. You know, I want to get on
with the Twilight Zone episodes as well, but it's just these two things that
really taken up all my time at the moment. But like I say,
you'll have some of those things from the archives here just to keep your ticking
over over the summer. And I think it'll be quite different as well,
because because there's a broad cross section of stuff there and I think it'll be
nice to change you up, and then Sailing Fest will be done and we'll
get back to our regular episodes. Okay, I will leave it there,
thank you once again, and I will speak to you soon