Speaker 1: Weary Way said in.
Speaker 2: Sad Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the horror anthology podcast,
Speaker 2: where this season we're taking a look at Georgia Averramerow's
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties series Tales from the Dark Side. Sharing the
Speaker 2: midnight view with me are the projection booths, Mike White
Speaker 2: It's nineteen thirty five, Everybody out of Nowhere, and the
Speaker 2: culture cast Chris Statue, Yes, I wow.
Speaker 1: I Sometimes even I am left with very little to
Speaker 1: say other than I've heard Taco is putting.
Speaker 2: On the risk Doo Doo. Strange Love and The Unhappy Medium.
Speaker 2: Those are the two episodes from season two that we're
Speaker 2: looking at tonight. Strange Love, Season two, episode twenty one.
Speaker 2: This originally aired on May eleventh, nineteen eighty six, Written
Speaker 2: by Edith Swinson, directed by Theodore Gershuni, and starring hars Nier,
Speaker 2: Marshall Cross and Patrick Kilpatrick. This is an episode that
Speaker 2: asked the question, how do you treat an ailing vampire?
Speaker 2: The answer is love or This is the finest example
Speaker 2: of the f l R lifestyle ever to show up
Speaker 2: on broadcast television. What do you think of this one,
Speaker 2: Chris f l R. That's the female lead.
Speaker 3: Oh, Okay, what.
Speaker 1: A bunch of non up with the times, folks. We
Speaker 1: are as we sit.
Speaker 3: Here, n M C F right naked naked male clothes female.
Speaker 1: You always talk about that.
Speaker 2: What is that?
Speaker 1: You don't know?
Speaker 3: Category on like pornhub and stuff.
Speaker 1: It's like a dude being jerked off by women, huh?
Speaker 2: Or just wait, what is the category again?
Speaker 3: Clothed male naked female c n FF. I had to
Speaker 3: look it up because I was just like, what the
Speaker 3: fuck is it? Like? D D LG. You guys know
Speaker 3: that one no daddy dom little girl.
Speaker 1: I know d d l J.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: I know that. I don't know d dp VD, DVD AV,
Speaker 1: dv DA. Jesus Christ we call it. Yeah. Well, you
Speaker 1: know what they say. Overachievers are always out there there,
Speaker 1: they live amongst them. What were we watching? This is
Speaker 1: not a great episode of Tales from the Dark Side,
Speaker 1: and we are now banging into what feels like clunker
Speaker 1: after clunker at the bottom of the season here, and
Speaker 1: I do not understand it, because this is a show
Speaker 1: that was, I would like to say, almost consistently good,
Speaker 1: to the point of us going on, wow, there's nothing
Speaker 1: bad about this question mark, Because now We're at the
Speaker 1: end of the season and really feels like the show's
Speaker 1: kind of hit a wall.
Speaker 2: It's like a dumping ground.
Speaker 1: Would you say, like a season seven of Tails from
Speaker 1: the Crib?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, But you.
Speaker 1: Said dumping ground. That's all I'm saying. Dumping grounds are
Speaker 1: dumping grounds, regardless of whether or not there's cement over them.
Speaker 1: And it's an atari e t.
Speaker 2: You could say season three of Twilight's on eighty five like.
Speaker 1: It, I would, and I think I would. I would.
Speaker 1: I'm not disagreeing with you. This is these episodes broadly,
Speaker 1: these two are not great, and this one. I just
Speaker 1: don't understand what possessed them to tell this story on
Speaker 1: this show, because this doesn't seem like this kind of
Speaker 1: show's story. This seems like Night Gallery, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you, shockingly, night Gallery in a way that this
Speaker 1: show doesn't and hasn't really felt like in my opinion.
Speaker 3: How about you, Mike, Yeah, I was waiting for Chris
Speaker 3: to say those two magic words, but he didn't. It
Speaker 3: might be three, but I think the first one's a
Speaker 3: compound word lockout skit. That's what this one is. But
Speaker 3: yet it's stretched out to a full episode.
Speaker 1: Especially after DVDA, What.
Speaker 3: The hell is going on in this thing? First off,
Speaker 3: she heals because she's a vampire, so she really didn't
Speaker 3: need a doctor because he's just like, oh wow, look
Speaker 3: at how fast you're healing. Okay, maybe a cast, maybe
Speaker 3: something like an ace bandage doesn't require twelve feet a
Speaker 3: change for this guy. Yeah, I don't. I was so confused.
Speaker 3: And like I said at the beginning, why nineteen thirty five?
Speaker 3: They weren't in period costumes.
Speaker 1: They weren't putting on the smile. Is that?
Speaker 3: What's going on? Are they affected by? Like here we
Speaker 3: are in between World War one and World War two?
Speaker 3: Teta what?
Speaker 1: It's a choice. It's a choice, As they say to me,
Speaker 1: they made choices, and you know what, sometimes you make
Speaker 1: choices that don't work.
Speaker 3: Just amit the line It doesn't even need to be
Speaker 3: there because it plays nothing into this episode. Yeah wow,
Speaker 3: this was just it was big old nothing Burger. Don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm waiting for you, father Malone, to tell us how
Speaker 3: much you love this one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell us how much you love Marsha cross from
Speaker 1: such great shows as Desperate housew was.
Speaker 3: And now I do love Marsha Across she's one at.
Speaker 2: Piece A Yeah, I want to hear a word said
Speaker 2: again her marshacross from Melrose Place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but she's not good in this episode.
Speaker 2: I actually think she is. Guess what, guys, I fucking
Speaker 2: this episode? How about wow?
Speaker 1: Oh boy?
Speaker 2: How about that? Okay, listen, let me take it apart
Speaker 2: like you guys were taking it apart because I agree
Speaker 2: with you, Mike. When they said this is nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 2: I was like, it is what what?
Speaker 1: It's the bow tie for me?
Speaker 2: Okay. Other ridiculous things. This woman breaks her leg while
Speaker 2: dancing by herself. She's a vampire? Are they uncoordinated vampires? Also,
Speaker 2: from shot to shot, the episode goes from cinematic descent bound.
Speaker 2: I don't understand why because some shots look beautiful and
Speaker 2: other shots just look like we're standing on a fucking
Speaker 2: community theater. Sat.
Speaker 1: No, it's very minimalist. It's very minimalist. That's you're missing
Speaker 1: how minimalist it is. It's like that episode of Night Gallery,
Speaker 1: but done shitty. That's the problem. I'm with you, But
Speaker 1: I just don't understand how you liked the episode, I guess.
Speaker 2: Is the problem You're with me criticizing it Okay, no,
Speaker 2: I got that. I got that.
Speaker 1: I'm with I'm but I like I guess I don't
Speaker 1: understand what is the part that appeals to you about
Speaker 1: the episode.
Speaker 2: I liked it because because maybe for the reason I
Speaker 2: mentioned a little, the bit of kink at the beginning,
Speaker 2: the fact that this wasn't ultimately which if this was
Speaker 2: Tails from the Crypt, this was a Tales from the
Speaker 2: Crypt episode. By the way, this is a Night Gallery,
Speaker 2: this is vampires. This would be un This would be
Speaker 2: a Crypt episode and.
Speaker 1: Poorly interpreted vampires too, just like Tails from the Crypt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in that case, it would be one or other
Speaker 2: of these male vampires resting control from the other. And
Speaker 2: instead what we have here is more of a noir
Speaker 2: thing where we have the girl. But what I would
Speaker 2: have expected from Night Gallery or Tales from the Crypt
Speaker 2: would be that in the end she kills the guy
Speaker 2: too and haha, there's a third guy, or she goes
Speaker 2: off on her own or something like that, and it
Speaker 2: ended up not being that. It ended up being this,
Speaker 2: like they wanted to be together. Sometimes guys, that fucking
Speaker 2: does it for me. Sometimes just two people finding themselves
Speaker 2: finding each other in an episode like just emmeliately. The
Speaker 2: other problems, Yeah, that we've seen this story one million times,
Speaker 2: not a vampire who takes a doctor and makes him
Speaker 2: heal his wife and then chains him to the wall.
Speaker 2: But nevertheless, there was so much character and dialogue, and
Speaker 2: I enjoyed all of the character and dialogue in it,
Speaker 2: so I was rating it that way. I do agree, like,
Speaker 2: why do you need a fucking doctor at all? It's
Speaker 2: a vampire. Just pop her leg back into place and
Speaker 2: off we go. Bob's your uncle. Unless they were just
Speaker 2: planning this from the beginning, I don't know. So anyway, overall,
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it. I think others might drop some enjoyment
Speaker 2: from it. I know if you're a fan of physical effects,
Speaker 2: like the physical effects guy on Teessima Dark SyES having
Speaker 2: a fucking field day this season. We had that one
Speaker 2: with I'm forgetting her name right now, Carol Cain and
Speaker 2: Budcore where it was all popping balloons and everything. Here
Speaker 2: now we have harsh Ny are doing all these physical
Speaker 2: effects as a as a vampire. I thought those were
Speaker 2: all disappears. It's hardcore effects there, and the chain fight
Speaker 2: is totally ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, especially pulling apart those links. I don't
Speaker 3: even know how they had the strength to.
Speaker 2: Do that, my God, So listen. Ultimately, gentlemen, I agree
Speaker 2: with you. This is a bad episode, but I love it.
Speaker 3: I just I can't forgive Harshneier for killing Gandhi. Ever
Speaker 3: since then, it's just been like, sorry, dude, Wow, you're
Speaker 3: a bad.
Speaker 1: Guy, all right.
Speaker 2: Our next episode is The Unhappy Medium. This is season two,
Speaker 2: episode twenty, air originally on May the eighteenth, nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 2: Written by Edith Swinson, directed my Dusty Nelson. This one
Speaker 2: stars Connie Stevens, Carolyn Clark or, Richard Coleman, and Peter Miller.
Speaker 2: This is about the children of the family of a
Speaker 2: recently deceased televangelist who have gathered to divide his fortune
Speaker 2: though their benefactor and might not be done with this world.
Speaker 2: What do you think of this one, Mike.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, Yeah. Chris said, we're betting a thousand here,
Speaker 3: and I tend to agree. We're in a room and
Speaker 3: then we're in hell, and we're possessed. Sometimes the devil's
Speaker 3: coming for you. We've seen this play out, not this
Speaker 3: whole devil thing, but like the greedy relatives at the
Speaker 3: will reading, and then something bad is supposed to happen
Speaker 3: to the worst of the bad relatives, but does anything
Speaker 3: happen to Connie Stevens. At the end of this one,
Speaker 3: she freeze pray.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think the implication is that she's about to
Speaker 2: be dragged off to hell as well. Oh, okay, dragged.
Speaker 3: Me to hell. Yeah, but it took a long time
Speaker 3: to get there. It took a long time. Yeah, I couldn't.
Speaker 3: I also had trouble just understanding some of the relationships,
Speaker 3: like the family stuff. And then yeah, pass.
Speaker 1: Circle takes the square. Yes, I like the idea. I
Speaker 1: like where they were going. I wish that to Mike's point,
Speaker 1: I wish that they're wes had been clear or defined,
Speaker 1: because I think that would have helped the episode. I
Speaker 1: do think also maybe casting a woman who's also not
Speaker 1: You've got blonde woman, brown headed guy. I don't know.
Speaker 1: The two blonde women are indistinguishable from one another at
Speaker 1: times in what they're both doing because neither one of
Speaker 1: them seems great. All of these characters are all terrible,
Speaker 1: and so they're all getting their just desserts, which I like.
Speaker 1: I don't mind terrible people, terrible things happening to terrible
Speaker 1: people is not something I dislike. Go watch Game of Thrones,
Speaker 1: House of the Dragon, that's literally that show in a nutshell.
Speaker 1: Bad Things happening to bad people, that is that show.
Speaker 1: And Tales from the Dark Side, Tales from the Crypt,
Speaker 1: Night Gallery, those are all shows that share that kind
Speaker 1: of DNA of being mean to people that deserve to
Speaker 1: be mean to. And I just I feel like this
Speaker 1: episode called its Punches a little bit. I feel like
Speaker 1: we just see the concept of hell we are hell
Speaker 1: watching them. We don't see anything, which is so fucking cheap.
Speaker 1: But that's because it's a cheapness thing, which is fine. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm not complaining about the cheapness of the show. I
Speaker 1: understand having a budget. I'm just saying, don't make it
Speaker 1: so goddamn abvious because you did it like three times.
Speaker 1: But again, at the end of the day, I like
Speaker 1: the setup the executions a little flawed, But I like
Speaker 1: the setup of this episode a lot more than I
Speaker 1: like the setup and execution of the last episode. But
Speaker 1: you bought them alone.
Speaker 2: I think it punked out. I think exactly what you're saying,
Speaker 2: pulling its punches, My god, this is a night Gallery episode.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be surprised to see if Ron Serling wrote
Speaker 2: this episode. Nobody gets punished at the end of the
Speaker 2: it implies that Connie Stevens will get hers, but not even.
Speaker 2: And the fact is the antagonist of the episode, the televangelist,
Speaker 2: who has been sucked off to hell, is still making
Speaker 2: an appearance. So is he even being punished. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Farley Farley Flavors. I will say that I thought of
Speaker 2: that the.
Speaker 1: Whole goddamn Sorry.
Speaker 2: Flavors, Baby fabulous fast food. Peter Miller, who plays Farley
Speaker 2: in the episode, when he becomes a disembodied voice, he
Speaker 2: sounded uncannily like John asked.
Speaker 3: I guess I can hear that it was.
Speaker 2: I know because I've had I had to watch this
Speaker 2: episode any number of times, and there were a couple
Speaker 2: of times where I couldn't bear to watch it and
Speaker 2: it was just on and I swear to god, it
Speaker 2: sounded like Gomes. Maybe that's cementing the night gallery of
Speaker 2: it all. This is an episode about three relatives of televangelists.
Speaker 2: Now I will applaud that in nineteen eighty five eighty
Speaker 2: six that they were taking on televangelism like the people
Speaker 2: hadn't really started taking them down yet, but this was
Speaker 2: the one of the first salvos I thought, so Tammy
Speaker 2: fabe good for them about that. There was a movie
Speaker 2: came out around the same time called Past the MMO
Speaker 2: with Bill Paxton when Tim Curry is televangelists. Great anyway,
Speaker 2: I liked the idea of taking that organization down. But
Speaker 2: the three lead characters are fucking dunes man. We've got
Speaker 2: the basically the Tammy Fay character, who is the lead
Speaker 2: character's sister and her daughter. Her daughter is a liberal
Speaker 2: who has she's so left leaning she wants to get
Speaker 2: all the money and just donate it to charity. And
Speaker 2: then we have the guy's Farley's protege, who is who
Speaker 2: wants to take over the ministry like that's his thing,
Speaker 2: but then come to find out that he and the
Speaker 2: daughter had a relationship beforehand. This is a very complicated
Speaker 2: episode for twenty two.
Speaker 1: Fuck it is, yes, it sure is.
Speaker 2: Hey, it had a relationship beforehand which didn't work out.
Speaker 2: But it turns out he only got into the ministry
Speaker 2: to make money so he could impress her. So we're
Speaker 2: supposed to buy this fucking bullshit romance, right, because that's
Speaker 2: where we're going to end up, because this is somehow
Speaker 2: not a Towns from the fucking dark Side episode. Nevertheless,
Speaker 2: this guy has been swindling people out of their fucking
Speaker 2: money for this organization this whole time, and she's like
Speaker 2: the liberal peacenick running around with the missions and stuff.
Speaker 2: Fuck both of them. She's a I don't know. I
Speaker 2: love that, by the way, that this guy, who is
Speaker 2: as bad as Farley's far as I'm concerned, like moralizes
Speaker 2: to Connie Stevens, you just want the money. You just
Speaker 2: here for the money. It's like you just gave us
Speaker 2: a speech where you said you only took this job
Speaker 2: for the money. Anyway, I know, I'm like, I'm picking
Speaker 2: apart things that I shouldn't just because it's a fucking
Speaker 2: terrible episode overall. But I had to watch the seven times.
Speaker 2: So here's my thing.
Speaker 1: Edith Swinson wrote three of the last four episodes of
Speaker 1: this season, and she sure did.
Speaker 2: There may be a reason they're all at the back
Speaker 2: end of the season. Carolyn Clark very monotone as an actress.
Speaker 2: Right after she gets possessed A Farley was here. I
Speaker 2: can feel him.
Speaker 1: Not a single not a single Edith Swinson episode Outside
Speaker 1: of the Chess.
Speaker 2: So y'all know I told you before. Season three contains
Speaker 2: my favorite episode of Telles of the Dark Sides.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm talking about just season two. I can't speak
Speaker 1: to season one or season three. I'm just saying season two,
Speaker 1: why do we need a third if they're all going
Speaker 1: to be terrible? Why not just have two? And then
Speaker 1: you've made simpler. Why have the Tammy Fay character. Just
Speaker 1: have these two going back and forth. They're diametrically opposed enough.
Speaker 1: You don't need a third person in there to just
Speaker 1: add into the pile of asshole.
Speaker 3: It was not good. I thought that the actress did
Speaker 3: a good job when it came to lip syncing, but yeah,
Speaker 3: the rest of her performance, I was like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was just it was frustrating. It was just frustrating.
Speaker 2: I thought the sound designed for Hell was really good
Speaker 2: if we weren't going to get to see hell. But
Speaker 2: I thought it sounded really Then she goes to another
Speaker 2: door and opens it. It's all laughter, and that's meant
Speaker 2: to represent Heaven. So we discover that our characters are
Speaker 2: three characters now trapped in this limbo literally between Heaven
Speaker 2: and hell, one door to one and one door to another.
Speaker 2: Go to heaven?
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, what the fuck are you doing? This is
Speaker 1: a binary fucking choice, yo, yo's what are you stupid?
Speaker 1: Come on?
Speaker 2: No, I want to wait around and hope I go
Speaker 2: back to Earth, or I could step into literal heaven.
Speaker 1: Just go Dante's Dante says no. Dante says, before one
Speaker 1: goes up, one must go down. That's what Virgil said.
Speaker 2: This episode almost made me hate creep show lighting with
Speaker 2: their very clumsy red and blue light on something good.
Speaker 1: What a stylistic choice, huh, echoing such better things.
Speaker 2: It basically made her look shiny and purple instead of
Speaker 2: this duality within her.
Speaker 3: And I loved Connie Stevens and was super happy when
Speaker 3: she showed up in here. I was like, oh, cool, great,
Speaker 3: And when she starts to get unhinged, I was like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: go for it, but just did not pay off.
Speaker 2: I like that when we meet her, they're showing us
Speaker 2: a bit of the program, the television program that the
Speaker 2: ministry has been putting on, and they do her in
Speaker 2: close up and she says, I have the power, just
Speaker 2: like a home. The last line that both our hero
Speaker 2: or heroin and the villain both throw at Connie or
Speaker 2: ain't it wondrous? As if that's like her catchphrase or something,
Speaker 2: And that was the first I heard of it. What
Speaker 2: was that about? They bothered to put the third character in.
Speaker 2: They gave her a scene where she gets to freak
Speaker 2: out in all, but they don't even lay her in
Speaker 2: like that. Maybe that's her catchphrase, that's her tammy fay whatever.
Speaker 2: I don't know this episode, man, oh boy.
Speaker 1: They like I said, I think their heart was in
Speaker 1: the right place, but I'm not sure that they I
Speaker 1: don't think they're competent enough to land this plane because
Speaker 1: they worked themselves right into a corner and then they
Speaker 1: were just like, it's fine, it's fine, we just worked
Speaker 1: ourselves and look, Hell, Hell got all of them. It's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: why what if they had a choice, why did they
Speaker 1: choose anything other than heaven? You've made this quite possibly
Speaker 1: the stupidest episode of this fucking show that I can't
Speaker 1: understand why you unless there was a trick involved, which
Speaker 1: they never even said, no one in the right mind
Speaker 1: would be like I'm going to Hell just because I can.
Speaker 1: It makes no fucking sense zero.
Speaker 2: To be fair, they do go back to Earth. The
Speaker 2: two lead characters walk off to Earth. But I hate
Speaker 2: them and I don't want them to have that money,
Speaker 2: and I don't want them to give it a charity.
Speaker 2: I want Connie Stevens to have it, and I wanted
Speaker 2: to get that ministry fifteen percent of nothing. She says,
Speaker 2: what are you talking about? That ministry? We must be
Speaker 2: raking in the bucks. Everyone wants to take it over
Speaker 2: fifteen percent? Yeah, fucking good, go retire. What are you
Speaker 2: talking about?
Speaker 1: She just wants to go to hell on the med
Speaker 1: that choice, and she's freeze framed.
Speaker 2: Like a seventies. On the next episode of Midnight Viewing,
Speaker 2: we'll be taking a look at the last two episodes
Speaker 2: of season two. Those are Fears Floating and The Cassavin Curse.
Speaker 2: Midnight Viewing the Horror Anthology podcast is a proud member
Speaker 2: of Weirdingway Media Group and the theme song was composed
Speaker 2: by HP with an assist Mike Donald Rubinstein. Until next time?
Speaker 2: What are you doing? Where can people find it? In
Speaker 2: such and such?
Speaker 3: Mike White, Well, you can find just about everything I
Speaker 3: do over at wheredoemedia dot com, except for the one
Speaker 3: show that we do that's a Patreon exclusive which you
Speaker 3: can find at patreon dot com slash Projection Booth or
Speaker 3: patreon dot com slash Culture Cast, which is ranking on
Speaker 3: Bond where every month we talk about a different James
Speaker 3: Bond film, and we recently have Father Malone on talking
Speaker 3: about Live and Let Die, which was a lot of
Speaker 3: fun back when I still was okay with Roger Moore
Speaker 3: as James Bond. But the bloom is off the rose.
Speaker 3: Let's just put that out there now, how about you, Chris.
Speaker 1: I have also heard that every rose has its thorn.
Speaker 2: It's like every cowboy.
Speaker 3: A sad, sad song.
Speaker 1: Well, if you want to hear more of the things
Speaker 1: that I work on, you can find it at weirding
Speaker 1: Way Media. Like these fine gentlemen have already mentioned, that's
Speaker 1: where all of the assorted audio diversions can be found,
Speaker 1: including this and so many other great audio programming that
Speaker 1: has very little, if anything to do with me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you all know where you can find me. Listen.
Speaker 2: If you want to support, if you want to support
Speaker 2: the midnight viewing, go over to Patreon dot com slash
Speaker 2: and Father them alone. There you're gonna get episodes early
Speaker 2: in commercial free and some bonus content starting pretty much
Speaker 2: well by the time this airs will have already started.
Speaker 2: If money's tight and do you want to just help
Speaker 2: out anyway, give us a five star review, subscribe, like share,
Speaker 2: tell someone else to listen. Thank you all for joining
Speaker 2: us here at midnight viewing. Until next time, go ahead
Speaker 2: and try try to enjoy the daylight as