Speaker 1: Day twenty two of the twilight Zone podcast Advent Calendar,
Speaker 1: and Josh Chambers says he's a care ball. Imagine if
Speaker 1: you will, that when Night Gallery debuted on NBC, CBS
Speaker 1: had begun talks to bring back the Twilight Zone for
Speaker 1: the sixth season, seeing how Rod would most likely be
Speaker 1: locked in at NBC. Who would have been your pick
Speaker 1: for a showrunner and or host of a new run
Speaker 1: of twilight Zone, Or would Rod try and leap back
Speaker 1: to CBS, or even crazier, would he have tried to
Speaker 1: have his hands on the throttle of two shows? So wow,
Speaker 1: there's a big hypothetical four year Zach. I mean, it's funny,
Speaker 1: isn't it, Because I think sometimes change is better viewed
Speaker 1: in the rearview mirror, and if you're experiencing it at
Speaker 1: the time, it's quite hard to take. Now looking back,
Speaker 1: you can still have your favorites and stuff. But I
Speaker 1: think of something like Doctor Who you know, where every
Speaker 1: few years it was a new creative team. Every few years,
Speaker 1: it was a new doctor. Now we look back at
Speaker 1: that and yes, we've got our favorite doctors and our
Speaker 1: favorite eras, but we kind of go, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: that's the show. The show was change, but it's hard
Speaker 1: to apply that to something to some other kind of shows.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'll be very interested to see you what
Speaker 1: you come up with for this one.
Speaker 2: Zach Well, I definitely don't think he would have tried
Speaker 2: to do both shows because he was already burned out
Speaker 2: during Night Gallery and that's why he didn't have complete
Speaker 2: creative control, which led to the all the all the
Speaker 2: problems in the higher up to the Night Gallery, because
Speaker 2: you know, he's fighting people that had different ideas, but
Speaker 2: he's you know, I think he said to himself, it's
Speaker 2: a young man's game to run these shows, and he
Speaker 2: didn't want to do it, so he definitely would have
Speaker 2: wouldn't have done too. I don't think he would have
Speaker 2: gone back to CBS. I mean, again, so many hypotheticals, right,
Speaker 2: but like he's got contractor's got his name on Night Gallery, right,
Speaker 2: so that's a whole something. Pointed the show star trek
Speaker 2: Fan here. I'm gonna go with Gene Roddenberry should have
Speaker 2: been the showrunner for the new Twilight Zone and would
Speaker 2: he have been the on camera host. I don't know
Speaker 2: about that. Maybe maybe not, I mean maybe they just
Speaker 2: do the voice right, they go back to the season
Speaker 2: one style where we don't see someone on camera. That
Speaker 2: might be best to kind of soften the blow of
Speaker 2: the change. I mean, I've seen lots of interviews with
Speaker 2: Gene Roddenberry. He's a cool voice, like he could have
Speaker 2: done it, write reg ascript and whatnot. But more importantly,
Speaker 2: he had the ideas right, he was a great ideas guy,
Speaker 2: and he could have brought in people that had worked
Speaker 2: on the original series of Star Trek right. As you know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of a kind of a weird snaking itself, right,
Speaker 2: all these writers from Towy Ight Zone went onto Star
Speaker 2: Trek and they could have come back to Twilight Zone.
Speaker 2: And look, I don't know the innocent and outs of
Speaker 2: who was producing TV at the time, right, but to me,
Speaker 2: it's such a logical fit, I know. I mean he
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time, I know, Roddenberry after the
Speaker 2: original series of Star Trek, a lot of time pitching
Speaker 2: all these sci fi shows that never really took off,
Speaker 2: and then ended up doing the The Star Trek the
Speaker 2: Motion Picture, which was originally going to be a Star
Speaker 2: Trek sequel series to begin with. So you know, he's in,
Speaker 2: he's active, he's out there. He's trying to get work,
Speaker 2: so I think he would have been interested in it,
Speaker 2: and I think he could come up with some great ideas.
Speaker 2: You know, because the original series of Star Trek is
Speaker 2: it has been said, and I agree with this, it
Speaker 2: was an anthology show with standing sets. Right, you have
Speaker 2: the same characters, but they're going from planet to planet
Speaker 2: in your new situation, and you just tweak that a
Speaker 2: little bit, right, because some of my favorite Toilet Zone
Speaker 2: episodes are like three astronauts land on a planet. Right,
Speaker 2: you know how many of them are like that? Right?
Speaker 2: And you could do something like that, and you could
Speaker 2: jump all around and I could see him doing it,
Speaker 2: because everything is a response to something else, right, Like
Speaker 2: you know, I mentioned the Star Trek, the motion picture
Speaker 2: that was a response to Star Wars. There was originally
Speaker 2: gonna be a TV show and like, oh no, the
Speaker 2: Star Wars. Well, let's break Star Trek a movie. Right.
Speaker 2: CBSC's Rod stillings doing a Twilight Zone show again. But
Speaker 2: do we have the rights of that still? Bring it back?
Speaker 2: You know? So I mean that's not out of the
Speaker 2: realm of possibility, right, So that would be I know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of an easy choice coming from Star Trek
Speaker 2: fan zach Over, but I think he would be a
Speaker 2: very appropriate fit.
Speaker 1: It would have been a fascinating thing to look at. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: It's like what if Stan Lee wrote Superman, you know
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. It would have been absolutely definitely
Speaker 1: worth a try. I'm probably going with something a little
Speaker 1: bit more obscure. So Rod Sailing wrote Requiem for a Heavyweight,
Speaker 1: which was an episode of Playhouse ninety. It was also
Speaker 1: made into a movie version a couple of years later.
Speaker 1: The original Playhouse ninety had starred Keenan and ed Wynn,
Speaker 1: who were both in the Twilight Zone as like, you know,
Speaker 1: people involved in the boxing world if you like now
Speaker 1: in a really kind of ahead of its time and
Speaker 1: meta a carence. I suppose there was a show, an
Speaker 1: episode of the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, which was actually where
Speaker 1: Rod Sailing's proto Twilight Zone face took place the time element.
Speaker 1: It was also an anthology show. But this episode of
Speaker 1: Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse was called The Man in the Funny
Speaker 1: Suit and it was about the relationship of Keenan and
Speaker 1: ed Wynne while they were filming Requiem for a Heavyweight.
Speaker 1: So it was this real world kind of drama based
Speaker 1: on this fiction, and Rod Sailing is in it. He
Speaker 1: has a small role in it and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and it's an absolutely brilliant piece of television. I would
Speaker 1: recommend anyone trying to find it. But the guy who
Speaker 1: wrote and directed The Man in the Funny Suit was
Speaker 1: a guy called Ralph Nelson. Now he went on to
Speaker 1: be a person in the business of some note, clearly
Speaker 1: a very clever guy. He worked on he directed the
Speaker 1: episode A World of his own, which isn't one of
Speaker 1: my favorite Twilight Zones, but you know, it's all right.
Speaker 1: But you know, he went onto I think some of
Speaker 1: his films One Oscar and so on and so forth,
Speaker 1: and he looks quite a dapper fellow, but just in
Speaker 1: a very different way from Rod Sailing, you know. He's
Speaker 1: a bit more slightly more awesome welsy, you know. So
Speaker 1: it would have been a different take. And I don't
Speaker 1: think any of his other output is particularly Twilight Zone,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean he couldn't do it if he
Speaker 1: turns his attention to it. So I think it would
Speaker 1: have been an interesting choice, you know, And maybe it
Speaker 1: would have crashed and banned. And that's the thing. It
Speaker 1: could have crashed and banned with Rodenberry. It could have
Speaker 1: crashed and banded with anyone because people just wouldn't accept it.
Speaker 1: But I think, yeah, Ralph Nelson would have been an
Speaker 1: interesting shout to take on the show.