Speaker 1: Will you wait, miss.
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas Midnight viewers, and welcome to our Christmas clip
Speaker 2: show spectacular. We've covered a lot of anthology series over
Speaker 2: the years, and odds are you're going to get some
Speaker 2: holiday themed episodes in there. For this particular holiday. We've
Speaker 2: gone back through our archives and strung together all the
Speaker 2: various segments pertaining to the Fat Man in the Red Suit.
Speaker 2: God bless us everyone. Now, I said, we've gone back
Speaker 2: through the archives, which means in the earliest segments you're
Speaker 2: going to hear evolution at work. We've been at this
Speaker 2: for some time, so I hope you don't shudder at
Speaker 2: the quality as much as I did upon re listening.
Speaker 2: I think I'm calling in over the phone on a
Speaker 2: few episodes. It's not spectacular, but it gets better. So
Speaker 2: what we have on tap for you today, all you
Speaker 2: major dwelling creeps, are a segment from Tales from the Crypt,
Speaker 2: the television series that's and All through the House from
Speaker 2: the pilot. Then we have and All through the House
Speaker 2: from the Amicus anthology from from the nineteen seventies that's
Speaker 2: also called Tales from the Crypt. Next up is a
Speaker 2: Rod Serling special from his series Night Gallery, we spent
Speaker 2: some time with the Messiah on Mott Street, and finally
Speaker 2: we've got an entire themed episode from Twilight Zone eighty five.
Speaker 2: Those segments are Night of the Meek, but can She Type?
Speaker 2: And the Star from Everyone Here at Midnight viewing Mike White,
Speaker 2: Chris Statue, HP Antonio Lapour, Ripley, Jane, Jasmine Williams and
Speaker 2: myself have a wonderful holiday and a matchit crazy New Year, he.
Speaker 3: Kitties chest, your old pal the clip Keeper having a
Speaker 3: little holiday fun. Why else would I be in this
Speaker 3: get up unless there was a clause.
Speaker 4: In my contract.
Speaker 5: In fact, I.
Speaker 6: Got some Christmas goose for you, goose bumps, that is, yes, indeed,
Speaker 6: a little terror tale full of holiday fear. I mean
Speaker 6: dear of course, so good againder of a your tidio.
Speaker 6: Beyond that goes a little Sunday like, Yes, it was
Speaker 6: the night before Christmas, and all through the house.
Speaker 4: All right, and now we're going to talk about and
Speaker 4: all through the house. The episode aired June tenth, nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty nine, the same evening as The Man who Was Deaf.
Speaker 4: It's directed by Robert Zamechis. Yes that Robert Zamechis. He
Speaker 4: actually helped produce the show as well. It's written by
Speaker 4: Fred Decker, who also wrote Predator. It stars Mary Ellen
Speaker 4: Traynor and Larry Drake, along with Marshall Bell pulling his
Speaker 4: best weekend at Bernie's impersonation, and the synopsis for the
Speaker 4: episode is a greedy woman makes a mistake of murdering
Speaker 4: her husband while an escaped mental patient dressed in a
Speaker 4: Santa outfit is on the loose. Mike, what did you
Speaker 4: think of this episode?
Speaker 5: This is another one I really enjoy. This is actually
Speaker 5: one of my favorite comics. And they had adapted this
Speaker 5: previously when they made the film Tales from the Crypt
Speaker 5: back in the early seventies. That particular one star Joan Collins.
Speaker 5: This one is hard to beat story wise. I mean,
Speaker 5: if you want to talk about manuse, death is kind
Speaker 5: of an anomaly in the Tales from the Crypt sort
Speaker 5: of ec universe. This is pretty much what you would
Speaker 5: expect from any one of the any one of them.
Speaker 5: We have a deplorable character who does get their come up,
Speaker 5: and at the end it's an interesting setting and then
Speaker 5: it's a Christmas time and you effectively have Santa Claus
Speaker 5: attempting to kill your lead character. It is pretty fantastically
Speaker 5: directed by Samachis, and I really like it a lot.
Speaker 5: I think it's up there. I do think it suffers
Speaker 5: a bit from the lead performance by mary Ellen Trainor,
Speaker 5: who is who is good in small roles. Watching her
Speaker 5: try and lead this for the entire episode is a
Speaker 5: bit of a stacked deck. I know we're not talking
Speaker 5: about the original movie that I mentioned yet, but there's
Speaker 5: something that in the comic and in the original one
Speaker 5: that they did very well, which is they made the
Speaker 5: she effectively kills her husband in order to get the
Speaker 5: insurance money. And in the original film they made him
Speaker 5: the sweetest man on earth. In this one they have
Speaker 5: turned him into a in two lines of dialogue, a
Speaker 5: total prick where you kind of like concide with her.
Speaker 5: They kind of stacked the deck in her favor. Other
Speaker 5: than those things, those two things that I have against
Speaker 5: the episode, I think it's really good. And I think
Speaker 5: Larry Drake as these stranged man dressed in a Santa
Speaker 5: Claus outfit is a really scary.
Speaker 4: I like parts of this episode, but I think overall,
Speaker 4: mary Ellen Trainer falls really flat. I think her scream
Speaker 4: queen thing that she's going for doesn't work very well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm yeah, No, I'm with you. I mean, I
Speaker 5: I think I just made that point, like she's she's
Speaker 5: she's not great, Like she doesn't really she doesn't engender
Speaker 5: this kind of sympathy that you got from William Sadler,
Speaker 5: who is also doing horrible things. Like, uh, she's so
Speaker 5: shrill in the role that I'm kind of waiting for
Speaker 5: Santa to kill her, and that's not something you want.
Speaker 5: Like you can have an anti hero who does horrible
Speaker 5: things and as long as they're a bit charming, you
Speaker 5: know you'll go with them and you know, follow them
Speaker 5: to the end. Not only is her performance like really shrill,
Speaker 5: but her character as written is a dummy. She kills
Speaker 5: her husband and then the first thing she does is
Speaker 5: get the will and Testament and then call her lover
Speaker 5: and spill that she killed him onto his answering machine.
Speaker 4: In an affectation that is so hokey it's it's beyond hoki.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it is exposition as dialogue, which is
Speaker 5: the number one crime in in films, like don't have
Speaker 5: the character tell us what they're doing, Let's see what
Speaker 5: they're doing, and like completely superfluous. We didn't need it
Speaker 5: at all. Like if she's just killing this guy and
Speaker 5: then we see her with the will, yeah, we know
Speaker 5: what's going on.
Speaker 1: Don't do that.
Speaker 5: And it should be noted that the guy that she's
Speaker 5: calling is answering the machine message I think is something
Speaker 5: to the effect of leave me your name, number and measurements.
Speaker 5: Like okay, so she's leaving. She's killing this guy to
Speaker 5: get the money to go with. Obviously a douchebag, and
Speaker 5: she's doing it in the stupidest way possible.
Speaker 4: But he's the nick monster. That's what the that's right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's yeah. So the thing is with this episode, there
Speaker 4: seems to be a bit of a disconnect in my
Speaker 4: mind between why she's doing what she's doing and the
Speaker 4: rest of the episode, like I didn't need I don't
Speaker 4: know the jex'aposition with her killing Marshall Bell and then
Speaker 4: the killer Santa played by Larry Drake coming around the house.
Speaker 4: There's like a disconnect in a way that the comic
Speaker 4: plays up way better, because in the comics she's like
Speaker 4: dragging the body around in the house trying to figure
Speaker 4: out what she's gonna do with it. In the episode,
Speaker 4: she like drags him outside and then he somehow survives
Speaker 4: having an ice pick or a fireplace poker driven through
Speaker 4: his skull.
Speaker 5: Well. I kind of like that, Shaka. I like that
Speaker 5: in that one moment that you know, I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: you talk about brain injuries. Who knows that the person's
Speaker 5: actually dead, They might not be. That was fine as
Speaker 5: far as I'm concerned. Her plan to throw him into
Speaker 5: the well, however, negates her plan of him being dead
Speaker 5: and her collecting the money because he was just a
Speaker 5: missing person. It's gonna take like a year or two
Speaker 5: for her to collect, like in the comic and again
Speaker 5: in the sort of Joan Collins original film. She's got
Speaker 5: a plan and she's affecting it. In fact, in the
Speaker 5: Joan Collins once she takes his body and just throws
Speaker 5: it down the basement stairs, like that's what happened. He
Speaker 5: fell down a flight of stairs. This one. You know,
Speaker 5: did she have a plan? I don't know, and she
Speaker 5: goes about it in like a really lame way. I
Speaker 5: will say, however, yes, these are problems. Nevertheless, once Santa
Speaker 5: shows up and is menacing her, I think it works
Speaker 5: really good as like a nice sort of a snowy
Speaker 5: cat and Mouse episode.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's that's my thing. Like I said, parts
Speaker 4: of the episode don't work, but parts of it do.
Speaker 4: I really like, Like you said, Larry Drake is great,
Speaker 4: but the way that they did it in the comic,
Speaker 4: I actually liked it a little bit more than in
Speaker 4: the episode. For in certain respects, I like what Larry
Speaker 4: Drake did with his serial killer Santa. But in the
Speaker 4: comic you've got this dread of her just looking outside
Speaker 4: and seeing him. Yeah, and then you see him right
Speaker 4: at the end. The final panel is the final shot
Speaker 4: of the episode. They're minuted, and I think that would
Speaker 4: have worked better in some respects. I mean, I get
Speaker 4: why they didn't do it, because showing is better than telling.
Speaker 5: And they needed twenty two minutes. Like the comic is like,
Speaker 5: you know, it's snapped your fingers and it's gone kind
Speaker 5: of a thing where there's not too much meat to it.
Speaker 5: So I mean they had to add in these other
Speaker 5: little beats and stuff like you know, which she has
Speaker 5: to like go get the gun which she can't really reach,
Speaker 5: and she accidentally locks herself in the in the in
Speaker 5: the closet or like when she's outside, And I actually
Speaker 5: really like this beat where she has the keys to
Speaker 5: the house and she drops them onto the stairs and
Speaker 5: it falls into the snow, and then she discovers that
Speaker 5: there's actually a knothole underneath the snow and it's fallen
Speaker 5: all the way through and she can no longer retrieve
Speaker 5: those like those little moments that that I think work
Speaker 5: ultimately it is. I like it. I think it's a
Speaker 5: good episode.
Speaker 7: I think I.
Speaker 5: Appreciate what's going on, even though some of the major
Speaker 5: elements are flawed.
Speaker 4: And what I guess the biggest disappointment for me is
Speaker 4: is you've got Robert Zemeckis who's directing, Fred Decker who's writing,
Speaker 4: and this episode isn't like a superstand now, It's not
Speaker 4: like The Man Who Was Dead.
Speaker 5: They rely a little too much on the setting and
Speaker 5: the twist of it. I'll definitely give you that. Lately,
Speaker 5: there have been a lot of like Christmas horror movies,
Speaker 5: you know, other than Black Christmas and maybe Silent Knight
Speaker 5: Deadly Night. In the early eighties, like, there hadn't been
Speaker 5: too many takes on that shiny, kind of brightly colored
Speaker 5: holiday and the horrors that can sort of lurk or
Speaker 5: come loping out of the night for you. And I
Speaker 5: think this really worked. I mean I liked it a
Speaker 5: lot more when I was, you know, fifteen, I didn't
Speaker 5: not enjoy it while I was watching it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and again I think Larry Drake is great and
Speaker 4: he's kind of the saving grace of the episode.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's real scary. Man.
Speaker 4: If you're a fan of the dark Man series, you
Speaker 4: know that he plays Durant in the dark Man series.
Speaker 4: He was Doctor Giggles in that movie.
Speaker 5: The eponymous Doctor Giggles.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's you know, he was a great actor. He's
Speaker 4: one of the he's one of the better character actors. Again,
Speaker 4: to me, that's the one thing about this show that's
Speaker 4: very similar to a show like Twilight Zone or even Kolchak,
Speaker 4: another show that I talk about once a month. They
Speaker 4: got a lot of really good character actors from the
Speaker 4: eighties and nineties.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it did, and it allowed them to maybe play
Speaker 5: against like, you know know what he was going to.
Speaker 5: I mean, obviously with Layer Drank the cast him, but
Speaker 5: just a couple of years later as a psychonic killer.
Speaker 5: But at the time he was mainly known as a
Speaker 5: like a basically an autistic character on La Law. Like
Speaker 5: we've gotten to know him only as sort of this
Speaker 5: gentle giant character. And I think this pre dates Dark
Speaker 5: Man as well, where he played a villain. Yeah, that's
Speaker 5: that's that's a pretty good hallmark of the series where
Speaker 5: they allowed these people to sort of jump in and
Speaker 5: play and actually sort of like expand the public's perception
Speaker 5: of what they were as performers. I don't think anyone
Speaker 5: was expecting that performance from that guy when this episode aired.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, definitely not again looking at it now twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: different story, but then completely out of the kind of
Speaker 4: blue for him as an actor.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, he's real good in the episode Mary Ellen
Speaker 5: Trainer Not so that should be pointed out that that
Speaker 5: was Robertson Meckis's wife at the time, not go well,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: I you know, smacks a little bit of Kate capsh
Speaker 4: to me a.
Speaker 5: Little bit, But you know what, Kate Capsure is fucking
Speaker 5: great in Indiana Jones's Sembl of Doom. I mean, that
Speaker 5: character is shrill and awful, but that's what it's supposed
Speaker 5: to be. So that that worked, And you know, I
Speaker 5: don't I don't necessarily believe in dismissing out of hand
Speaker 5: like a filmmaker casting their spouse in something, because sometimes
Speaker 5: it works, fucking like Gangbusters, like I loved Adrian Barbo
Speaker 5: and The Fog and then Escape from New York when
Speaker 5: she was with John Carper at that. Those are good
Speaker 5: performances from her.
Speaker 4: Emily Blunt in a Quiet Place.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she's really good in that movie, Like why wouldn't
Speaker 5: he cast her? And she's fucking really good actress. In
Speaker 5: this case, it speaks to Mary Ann Trainer not being
Speaker 5: that great, although he put her in smaller roles in
Speaker 5: a lot of his movies and she appeared in that.
Speaker 5: It should be pointed out that the Tales from the
Speaker 5: Crypt themselves this series, like the executive producers behind it
Speaker 5: were in fact Robert Semkis and Walter Hill and Joel
Speaker 5: Silver who was like v mega producer in the mid
Speaker 5: to late eighties, and Joel Silver used her a lot too.
Speaker 5: She's in all the legal up in movies and of
Speaker 5: Richard Donner and that's the other guy who is sort
Speaker 5: of behind this series. Was nice of him to like
Speaker 5: let her play the role, but like it's it was
Speaker 5: the wrong It was the wrong way to go, like
Speaker 5: Joan Collins in the original one, like John Collins is
Speaker 5: kind of like, you know, her character is kind of
Speaker 5: like the bitch character and we're not supposed to like her,
Speaker 5: but as horrible as a human being is who's killing
Speaker 5: their nice husband in order to get the money. Like
Speaker 5: through with her in that original take on it, like
Speaker 5: from beginning to end, like one dance shows up, like
Speaker 5: I don't care what she's been doing, Like she as
Speaker 5: a person like draws me in and has that bit
Speaker 5: of charm that we were sort of discussing like an
Speaker 5: anti hero needs Marion trainor just maybe it's a combination
Speaker 5: of what we were saying where the character is so
Speaker 5: dumb and she's portraying it so shrilly that like I
Speaker 5: can't wait for Santa to put an axe in her head.
Speaker 5: That is a terrible thing for your lead character for
Speaker 5: the audience to want. Nevertheless, there it is.
Speaker 4: I agree. It's it feels like a missed opportunity for
Speaker 4: her in the in the episode, it's just one. It's
Speaker 4: very one dimensional and very flat.
Speaker 5: Right And now having said that, I do think the
Speaker 5: direction in the episode is really spot on. Uh, you know,
Speaker 5: obviously Robert Beakers is a great filmmaker. I don't care
Speaker 5: what anyone says, like, you know, when he's on, he's
Speaker 5: really on, and I thought he was on in this episode.
Speaker 5: And he indulges in something at the beginning, which I
Speaker 5: really like that he does in a lot of his movies,
Speaker 5: and nobody does this as well as him. He'll take
Speaker 5: a credit sequence where he just pans a room and
Speaker 5: just showing you the artifacts that people have in their home.
Speaker 5: He tells you their entire story, which he does at
Speaker 5: the beginning of this episode, not to the degree he
Speaker 5: will in some of his other movies. No one does
Speaker 5: that better.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I I completely I completely agree. I mean again,
Speaker 4: I agree with Uzebacas is a good film film director,
Speaker 4: So you're not going to get any complaints set of
Speaker 4: me on that one. So I mean, come on, back
Speaker 4: to the future, come.
Speaker 5: On, and he will direct in one of the later episodes.
Speaker 5: Uh is also one of my favorites. And obviously we'll
Speaker 5: talk to that about that when we get it. But
Speaker 5: so you know, he had his hand in a couple
Speaker 5: of other episodes that I thought were a little more
Speaker 5: assured than this one. But I did like coming off
Speaker 5: of Man who is death who? You know, there are
Speaker 5: horrific elements too, but it's not a horror tale specifically.
Speaker 5: I like this one sort of coming on the heels
Speaker 5: of it and diving kind of head on into what
Speaker 5: the horror genre is supposed to be, which is Stephen
Speaker 5: King always said, like you chase the character up a
Speaker 5: tree and then you start cutting down the tree like that.
Speaker 5: I think this works on that level of horror, and
Speaker 5: so I would recommend this episode ultimately.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would not. Oh, I would say that the
Speaker 4: Larry Drake stuff is good, but the Mary Ellen Trainer stuff.
Speaker 5: Is so Yeah, it's hard to get fast, I know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, her character is so unredeemable and so boring. Unfortunately, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 4: it's yeah, it's just kind of a it's a skip,
Speaker 4: it's a soft skip, but it's not downright atrocious like
Speaker 4: some of the episodes we're gonna watch, even some of
Speaker 4: the episodes later this season.
Speaker 5: So yeah, well we're not my friend right off the bat.
Speaker 4: There we go.
Speaker 5: This episode is not garbage.
Speaker 8: By the way we're introduced to the characters.
Speaker 4: They meet the criptkeeper after wandering off from a tour
Speaker 4: in the catacombs, even though they're told not to, and
Speaker 4: so the first story is the original telling. The first
Speaker 4: screen telling of a story that is very near and
Speaker 4: dear to your heart, and all through the house. Instead
Speaker 4: of Mary Ellen Traynor, it is Joan Collins.
Speaker 9: Joan Collins, who is one billion percent better than Mary
Speaker 9: Ellen Trayer in this role, represents a level of sophisticated
Speaker 9: evil in all the ways that Mary Allen Traynor was
Speaker 9: kind of a bumbling fool. It completely lacks any of
Speaker 9: the sort of boring expositional dialogue that was peppered through
Speaker 9: the American version of Roberts Ecca's version. The story is
Speaker 9: effectively exactly the same. It is a wife murders her
Speaker 9: husband on Christmas Eve. She has a young daughter. There
Speaker 9: just so happens that a mental patient has escaped from
Speaker 9: an asylum and has donned a Santa Claus costume, although
Speaker 9: in this case it's Father Christmas. Because these stories all
Speaker 9: take place in England, this movie is an English production.
Speaker 9: Amics was in the English company. All the acting, in
Speaker 9: all the settings are all in England. However, where it
Speaker 9: differs from the American one is how skillful and stylished
Speaker 9: the whole thing is, particularly the set design. Let's sort
Speaker 9: of point to that it's sort of that retro fuere
Speaker 9: tourist early seventies, sort of passing out of the mod
Speaker 9: phase in England and into a more contemporary design.
Speaker 2: I love the look of the house in this one.
Speaker 9: When we talked about the American version, they I said
Speaker 9: that they kind of stacked the deck in favor of
Speaker 9: the heroine or the villain, if you will, because they
Speaker 9: made her husband to be kind of a prick, like
Speaker 9: from the get go, and in this case they don't
Speaker 9: do that. They go in just in the opposite direction.
Speaker 9: They make him like really really sweet, like he's bought
Speaker 9: her this brooch, and like he's written this sweet card.
Speaker 9: This line always sort of sticks in my head where
Speaker 9: they're showing you the note and at the bottom he's
Speaker 9: written like an X, like for a kiss, and he
Speaker 9: narrates it in his head to us and he says
Speaker 9: and a big kiss at the very end.
Speaker 2: What does you think of this version of it?
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously it's much better than the Mary Ellen
Speaker 4: Trainer one, but again that's not really hard, like you said,
Speaker 4: it's You've got Joan Collins who is much more of
Speaker 4: an evil character, which I think works in this telling
Speaker 4: of the story. And it also helps that they downplay
Speaker 4: the idea that her husband is an asshole. I think
Speaker 4: playing up the fact that she's just really mean spirited
Speaker 4: and a murderous and downplaying that he's just kind of
Speaker 4: like an asshole works in its favor, which is a
Speaker 4: lot of fun for kind of flipping the original shows
Speaker 4: or the show's premise on its head, because it's not
Speaker 4: what you're expecting if you're going into this expecting it
Speaker 4: to be similar to the show. Everything else is the
Speaker 4: same a century pretty much, which is good. And it's
Speaker 4: also feels shorter than the episode, which is also good.
Speaker 2: I believe it actually is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was one of the problems I had with
Speaker 4: the episode is that it feels like they were padding
Speaker 4: it out for time, and in this it's pretty straight
Speaker 4: to the point. There's not a whole lot of dicking around,
Speaker 4: there's not a whole lot of wheel spinning. Straight to
Speaker 4: the point, really straightforward. I liked it a lot. I
Speaker 4: thought it was really good, and Joan Collins is really good.
Speaker 4: Joan Collins definitely is the standout.
Speaker 9: The character in the American version, like she kills her
Speaker 9: husband and then doesn't really seem to have a place
Speaker 9: beyond that, whereas this character has thought it through. She
Speaker 9: knows that she's going to hit him in the head
Speaker 9: with this thing, and then she's going to make it
Speaker 9: look as if he tumbled down the stairs. Now, I mean,
Speaker 9: obviously she gets some blood everywhere and that was unforeseen. Nevertheless,
Speaker 9: she's ready to scoop it all up into a champagne
Speaker 9: flute and then pour it at the bottom of the
Speaker 9: stairs so it looks as if he had just fallen
Speaker 9: down and died, Whereas the Mary Allen Trainer characters was
Speaker 9: going to take his body into the backyard and then
Speaker 9: dump him into a well, thus ensuring that she would
Speaker 9: never get the insurance money because he would just be
Speaker 9: a missing person for a couple of years. So a
Speaker 9: much more devious character in this case. And I gotta
Speaker 9: say because of that fact, I'm actually on her side
Speaker 9: as the episode progresses, whereas the Mary Allen Trainer, I
Speaker 9: was kind of like, man, if she gets killed, she
Speaker 9: gets killed.
Speaker 2: She's kind of an idiot. Anyway, I'm not on her.
Speaker 4: Side because she's obviously a very malicious character. But I
Speaker 4: think that again, the only thing that is lacking is
Speaker 4: the performance by the Father Christmas. But again, kind of
Speaker 4: cutting it for time means that you don't have to
Speaker 4: really go out of your way to really play it
Speaker 4: up like they did with Larry Drake in the Tails
Speaker 4: from the Crypt TV show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they just need the outside threat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a really good kind of opener to the movie.
Speaker 4: I think it's definitely better than the original or the
Speaker 4: TV show, which again works in its favor because you
Speaker 4: know that I'm not a huge, huge fan of the
Speaker 4: TV shows version.
Speaker 9: I think it's interesting that they started with this, like,
Speaker 9: you know, ordinarily Christmas at the end of the year
Speaker 9: and you think this would be sort of the Kappa
Speaker 9: at the end, but they sort of they launch with it,
Speaker 9: which I like. And it's not a supernatural tale necessarily.
Speaker 9: We get a little bit of both or rather, you know,
Speaker 9: supernatural and not throughout the thing.
Speaker 2: But it's a.
Speaker 9: Good, nice intro to the tone that Tails from the
Speaker 9: Crypt sort of likes to balance. So yeah, no, I
Speaker 9: think this particular story is a winner.
Speaker 10: Of course, you're all here by invitation, but don't let
Speaker 10: it disturb you if these paintings per se don't happen
Speaker 10: to be you a thing. These are rather special paintings.
Speaker 10: The kind of hanging generally put up with a noose.
Speaker 10: This painting, for example, is of a rather special world
Speaker 10: what has become perpetual in the language as the ghetto,
Speaker 10: that dismal realm of pushkins and poverty, where hopes are
Speaker 10: stamped down like dirty shoes on snow. Death is a
Speaker 10: commonplace visitor to these somber alleys, but occasionally someone else visits.
Speaker 10: Our painting is called The Messiah on Mott Street. And
Speaker 10: this place, should you not already know, it, is the
Speaker 10: Night Gallery.
Speaker 2: Well boy worried for Rod Sterling. Kind of an evening.
Speaker 2: The Messiah on Mott Street is written by Ron Sterling
Speaker 2: and directed by Don Taylor. He is a returning director
Speaker 2: to Night Gallery. Guys, you know the other episode he directed,
Speaker 2: They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar. This one stars This
Speaker 2: is the.
Speaker 4: Moment I wish I had the soundboard for He's a
Speaker 4: jolly good Fellow because really.
Speaker 2: I mean literally, the only thing missing from us.
Speaker 4: Wow, you know what, You're right?
Speaker 2: This one stars Edward G. Robinson, the original Little Caesar,
Speaker 2: yathat Coto, Tony Roberts, and Joseph Ruskin as a fanatic.
Speaker 2: He was the man in the bottle in the original
Speaker 2: Twilight zone. He was a genie in that he was
Speaker 2: so goddamn scary. This one's a period piece set in
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties. Oh no, wait, this is contemporary. This
Speaker 2: is a contemporary tale of a young boy looking for
Speaker 2: the Messiah on the streets of New York to help
Speaker 2: his ailing grandfather. What'd you think of this one, Mike?
Speaker 11: Was that a mistake that it's nineteen twenties? No, it's
Speaker 11: contemporary because I couldn't tell what the hell year this was,
Speaker 11: What the hell was going on? I mean, it does
Speaker 11: feel like it feels like Grandpa's apartment building is from
Speaker 11: a whole other era as well as a lot of
Speaker 11: the people out on the street. But not everybody, because
Speaker 11: nobody seems to have any sort of issues with this
Speaker 11: little kid just going out and bringing the off at
Speaker 11: Codo home. It just seems a little weird that there's
Speaker 11: a black guy in the living room. Are you aware
Speaker 11: of this? It takes so long for the kid to
Speaker 11: find the Messiah, like just like for him to leave
Speaker 11: the apartment. There's just so much of all of the
Speaker 11: stuff in Yeah, I did not mind this episode at all.
Speaker 11: In fact, it felt like there was a lot more
Speaker 11: to it. That had I read this as a story
Speaker 11: or even a novella, that I would have picked up
Speaker 11: a lot more. It just felt very literary with the
Speaker 11: its construction. I was really happy to see Tony Roberts
Speaker 11: show up in this. I mostly know him. We talked
Speaker 11: a little bit about Woody Allen recently. I mostly know
Speaker 11: him from his work with Woody Allen, like Andy Hall
Speaker 11: and played against him, I mean, especially Annie Hall. So
Speaker 11: I was very happy to see him. But he feels
Speaker 11: very nineteen seventy two seventy three, And yeah, I Coto
Speaker 11: feels very nineteen seventy two seventy three. And then the
Speaker 11: rest of the story feels like it is in the
Speaker 11: nineteen twenties or thirties.
Speaker 4: Was I was waiting for Tony Roberts to ask Edward G.
Speaker 4: Robinson if jew eat jew? Did jew eat? I distinctly
Speaker 4: heard him call me a jew. I I do not
Speaker 4: understand what in God's name the point? Excuse me, what
Speaker 4: in yf at Koto's name is going on? Here was
Speaker 4: this segment forty minutes, and somehow Rod Serling went into
Speaker 4: the tartis with it and added another forty I've never
Speaker 4: seen a segment take so long like thirty So I'm
Speaker 4: not so I was feeling hyperbolic, but more or less
Speaker 4: correct like it. It's fucking insane. I cannot believe that
Speaker 4: somebody thought that anybody would be compelled by this. I
Speaker 4: think we all know the story that they're getting it
Speaker 4: and the message that it's trying to I guess attempt
Speaker 4: to get out, but wrong way to go. I mean,
Speaker 4: if if Camera Obscura was a little long, if the
Speaker 4: last episode had some segments that were a little long,
Speaker 4: holy shit, this is like, this is just this is
Speaker 4: probably the worst segment I've seen on this show in
Speaker 4: terms of the length, feeling double what it actually is.
Speaker 2: It is a sensitive take on the Jewish experience centered
Speaker 2: around Christmas time. Way to go, Rod, I don't know
Speaker 2: who Santa is. Wow, this segment is worse to me
Speaker 2: in every way than Tim Riley's bar except for the
Speaker 2: aforementioned lack of for He's a jolly goodfellow. But you
Speaker 2: know why because Tim Riley at least wasn't precious. And
Speaker 2: this is thanks to the adorable subplot of grandson Mikey
Speaker 2: wandering the streets alone to find the Messiah. By the way,
Speaker 2: when he's not doing that incredibly dangerous thing. Evidently, this tiny,
Speaker 2: tiny child is taking care of his ailing grandfather. Is
Speaker 2: he taking himself to school as well? Is he doing
Speaker 2: the grocery shopping? That's what I'm getting out of it.
Speaker 2: Why is Tony Roberts not intervening? By the way Tony
Speaker 2: Roberts I think of him, I always think of taking
Speaker 2: a PILLM. One two three, just trying to make that
Speaker 2: ailing mayor get out of bed and come deal with
Speaker 2: the subway situation. This episode, I get where he's coming from.
Speaker 2: It's yet another the downtrodden man. We also get this
Speaker 2: really false happy ending where the check from his long
Speaker 2: lost brother arrives and everything's gonna be okay. And you
Speaker 2: know what, yeah, fokoto. He might have been the Messiah,
Speaker 2: but he might have just been the mailman. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a bit ambiguous because we know most mailman are
Speaker 2: delivering packages at fucking one o'clock on the morning on Christmas.
Speaker 11: Thank you, thank you, thank you. This whole thing where
Speaker 11: they had to make suit to point out the clock
Speaker 11: and that it was just about midnight, and then everything
Speaker 11: else basically contradicting that it was anywhere near midnight, and
Speaker 11: especially that the kid was just outside and it was
Speaker 11: daylight and now it's pitch black and midnight, and I'm like,
Speaker 11: what is going on? Thank you for bringing that up?
Speaker 2: Day for another and the back lot? What a combination.
Speaker 4: I was so confused at the I just I felt
Speaker 4: like I felt like I had fallen asleep for a
Speaker 4: minute and like missed it. It's what a choice. Let's
Speaker 4: just put it that way, as if, as if thirty
Speaker 4: six minutes wasn't enough, you needed to have a time
Speaker 4: jump inside of your segment, a couple hour time jump,
Speaker 4: Like yeah, and the story that they're telling is not
Speaker 4: that interesting. It's just we've seen these, We've wasn't there
Speaker 4: a Twilight Zone eighty five thing where the guy was
Speaker 4: Santa Claus and it was the drunk guy with Santa
Speaker 4: Like this is that has that same just like Sacker.
Speaker 11: Which was a remake of a segment from the original
Speaker 11: Twilight Zone.
Speaker 4: Right night of them, it seems feels like that same
Speaker 4: saccarin bullshit that's this.
Speaker 2: This is just so like, this is not a night
Speaker 2: Gallery segment. This is a Twilight Zone segment.
Speaker 4: There's hat in hand, poor man bullshit constantly.
Speaker 2: Having him having Edward g Robinson think he's like, facing
Speaker 2: the Angel of Death for two seconds does not equal
Speaker 2: a horror tale. This is a tale, fantasy and it
Speaker 2: has no place. I don't care if this is their
Speaker 2: Christmas episode, and it is because it's the aired on
Speaker 2: December the fifteenth, but I don't care if it is
Speaker 2: their Christmas episode.
Speaker 4: I mean, they do point out that Jewish children do
Speaker 4: not know who Santa Claus is per Rod Serling. It's like,
Speaker 4: we're fucking the no, Like, that's not how that works
Speaker 4: at all. It's not how that works at all, Rod,
Speaker 4: and we know that, and you know that.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 4: I just it's so masturbatory at this point with Rod Serling,
Speaker 4: like just like I need forty minutes of this fifty
Speaker 4: minutes show to tell this story.
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 4: Whatever, Ron, Fine, Fine, sure we'll go and shoot our
Speaker 4: segment with Josha Goodbor. Whatever.
Speaker 11: Ron.
Speaker 4: It's just at some point it's like when is enough
Speaker 4: too much? And where it's like thirty minutes is a
Speaker 4: little much for this show, frankly, but it's.
Speaker 2: Good to see Ethic Codo.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean he's got like three lines, but the man
Speaker 2: is walking gravity and just that the last interaction between
Speaker 2: him and Tony Roberts's pretty good. It doesn't redeem anything.
Speaker 4: So. This episode aired December twentieth, nineteen eighty five. It
Speaker 4: is ostensibly the first season of the show's Christmas episode
Speaker 4: and the first segment, Night of the Meek, is a
Speaker 4: a remake of the original episode also titled The Night
Speaker 4: of the Meek from the original run of the show.
Speaker 4: That episode had Art Carney in it, and it is
Speaker 4: a very similar in tone and structure to this episode.
Speaker 4: This episode, however, is written by Rockney O'Bannon, adapted from
Speaker 4: the original story by Rod Serling, and it stars everyone's
Speaker 4: favorite lovable asshole William Atherton and Richard Mulligan from a
Speaker 4: sitcom that I am way too young to have any
Speaker 4: idea about.
Speaker 11: Oh, I sure watch a lot of soap at me too.
Speaker 4: But Richard Mulligan replaces the Art Carney character from the
Speaker 4: original episode, which is a man a down on his
Speaker 4: luck mal Santo, who ends up becoming real Santa for
Speaker 4: an evening and then for life, apparently, because that's the
Speaker 4: way this episode airs. Forever you didn't even have to
Speaker 4: push anybody off of a roof. Isn't that weird? So
Speaker 4: what did you guys? Think of this segment.
Speaker 11: I was happy to see Richard Mulligan. I always liked
Speaker 11: him as Bert on soap and uh, we should make
Speaker 11: sure that people do not confuse him for the Captain
Speaker 11: on the Police Squad movies, even though there is a
Speaker 11: little bit of a similarity between the two guys. And yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Was gonna say or confuse him for Donald Moffatt from
Speaker 4: The Thing, who actually happens to be in an episode
Speaker 4: of this show on this episode, because that's who I
Speaker 4: thought he was for Like the first couple of minutes,
Speaker 4: I was like, that's the guy from the Thing. Oh wait, no,
Speaker 4: it's not. And then when Donald Moffatt shows up later
Speaker 4: in the episode, I was like, no, that's the guy
Speaker 4: from the Thing.
Speaker 11: Holy shit, and the guy from the Reanimator, Holy cow?
Speaker 4: Is that not the guy from Reanimated? Oh is it?
Speaker 2: No, that's not David Gaile. That was Fritz Weaver.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I thought fittz Weaver was in wasn't he in
Speaker 11: one of those the Reanimator phone?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: No, man, he's in creep Show. He's not in Reanimator.
Speaker 2: David Gail is the is Jesus Chris?
Speaker 4: So guess what I totally thought the same thing.
Speaker 11: Wow.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so lots of lots of misidentification.
Speaker 2: Yeah, however, this episode was out to confuse us.
Speaker 4: I will tell you I liked this segment a lot.
Speaker 11: It wasn't bad, as did I. It was pretty predictable.
Speaker 11: I was just like, Okay, yeah, some point Athoton is
Speaker 11: going to show up and he's going to fuck stuff up,
Speaker 11: and then oh there's going to be the fur code
Speaker 11: is going to be in the bag. Blah blah blah
Speaker 11: blah blah. So I was like, Okay, I see every
Speaker 11: turn before it happens. And this is without necessarily being
Speaker 11: that familiar with the Art Curney one, but I mean
Speaker 11: it was it worked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's standing in contrast to
Speaker 2: the last episode we watched it. There's a way to
Speaker 2: do Heartfeldt without being smallcy, and I think this kind
Speaker 2: of achieved that. I think rock New Abandoned script is
Speaker 2: actually superior in every way to Alan Brennerd's take on
Speaker 2: her Pilgrim Soul. Yeah, I you know, I found this
Speaker 2: episode to be kind of rousing and the you know,
Speaker 2: actually I leave it to be an improvement on the
Speaker 2: Rod Serling original. I liked this one a whole lot more.
Speaker 2: The big selling point with that original one was that
Speaker 2: they got Urt Carney to do the Santa part. But
Speaker 2: I think Richard Mulligan is so much better than him here,
Speaker 2: playing both sort of down and out drunkard. He doesn't
Speaker 2: like lean too heavily into that standard sort of Advilian
Speaker 2: take on what a drunk is like we saw Robert
Speaker 2: Morse do earlier this season. I think he does well there,
Speaker 2: and then you know, once the miracles start happening, I
Speaker 2: think he remains consistent as far as his character. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I really liked this episode a lot. I
Speaker 2: thought it was as good a Christmas thing, a happy
Speaker 2: Christmas idea, as the Twilight Zone could produce.
Speaker 4: And I'm not gonna lie I got a little dusty
Speaker 4: in the room at the end. I mean it's you know,
Speaker 4: it's an effective heart string pulling moment there at the
Speaker 4: and when they're sitting on those stairs together.
Speaker 11: Yeah, this one fired on all cylinders. I thought it
Speaker 11: was very solid.
Speaker 4: Which is surprising because it feels like it could have
Speaker 4: really easily veered into saccharin just melancholy bullshit.
Speaker 11: Oh yeah, and when you're dealing with Christmas, you already
Speaker 11: have that huge danger. I mean, you can go over
Speaker 11: the edge so quickly and just start relying on oh
Speaker 11: Christmas spirit, Oh it's a season on the holiday. But
Speaker 11: luckily they they managed to stay away from that. They
Speaker 11: managed to keep it more grounded than that than just
Speaker 11: having to rely on this being a Christmas thing.
Speaker 9: I mean, if I had a quibble with the episode,
Speaker 9: it's when he finally does turn into Santa in the end.
Speaker 2: I don't think we needed that.
Speaker 4: It was a little much, A little much, maybe a
Speaker 4: lot much.
Speaker 11: What about those incredible special effects though when he disappears,
Speaker 11: are a.
Speaker 4: Liar, you are charlatan, you are a false profit among men.
Speaker 4: Those special effects are bad. Star Trek Tos man like
Speaker 4: with Star Trek tos without the charm, just like out
Speaker 4: of nowhere, he just demateializes and goes up the chimney.
Speaker 2: Okay, sure, yeah.
Speaker 11: Well and it was weird too because he was like,
Speaker 11: I want to see how he goes up the chimney,
Speaker 11: And then I don't think those little sparkle dots go
Speaker 11: up the chimney. Do they they do? Oh? Okay they do? Actually, yeah,
Speaker 11: thank goodness.
Speaker 4: It's like Mike TV, you not a good addition to
Speaker 4: the episode.
Speaker 2: No no, but it's a again, as I said, it's
Speaker 2: a quibble, like I didn't need it, but I wasn't
Speaker 2: exactly angry or that it happened like it, you know,
Speaker 2: it seemed appropriate but at the same time not necessary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the way to end it is you
Speaker 4: have him look in the mirror and pull on his
Speaker 4: beard and his mustache, and then it just cuts away
Speaker 4: to you hear something William Atherton looking above the house,
Speaker 4: and you see him, you see him watching him fly away.
Speaker 4: You don't need to see everything else, like, and I
Speaker 4: think I would have been exactly fine with it, Like
Speaker 4: it's it's too much for once, it's showing too much.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 4: But let's talk about something that is just really bad,
Speaker 4: because I genuinely don't know how anyone is gonna have
Speaker 4: anything nice to say about this episode. Let's talk about
Speaker 4: but can she type?
Speaker 7: What do you get the woman who has everything but respect?
Speaker 7: Ask Karen Billings recipient of a very unusual and definitely
Speaker 7: non returnable present, because this year for Christmas, Karen Billings
Speaker 7: received The Twilight too.
Speaker 11: I don't know, Chris, I really like this one. What
Speaker 11: I'm sorry sorry to disappoint you, but I really thought
Speaker 11: this was kind of cute.
Speaker 2: I like the concept of it.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 9: I like the idea of somebody doing a mundane job
Speaker 9: suddenly becoming a superstar in some alternate reality.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I like that idea and fun. The execution is bizarre.
Speaker 9: Well, the mcguffin of this magic xerox machine is a
Speaker 9: little bit much.
Speaker 11: But I liked all the characters in here. I like
Speaker 11: the boss was a real prick. Yeah. I liked when
Speaker 11: she went to the other dimension and Jonathan Frake shows up.
Speaker 11: I was just like, oh my god, look at young
Speaker 11: Jonathan Frakes with the beard. So good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you have to do you have to do
Speaker 4: you have to know of is it fact or fiction?
Speaker 4: This alien autopsy proves to be true. I just kept
Speaker 4: waiting fact in the history of our in the history
Speaker 4: of the world.
Speaker 11: I just kept waiting for him to sit on a
Speaker 11: chair all strange.
Speaker 4: You mean, swing his leg over the top of the chair.
Speaker 11: Yes, exactly, that's not strange. That's a that's the kermannue
Speaker 11: I know, pull down his top right twice. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, idea, Like Father Malone said, what is trying to say?
Speaker 4: But I think the like usage of a xerox, just
Speaker 4: like it just feels weird.
Speaker 11: I mean this was the era of those kind of things. Yeah,
Speaker 11: I think about the word processor in the one that
Speaker 11: Steven Penn for Tales from the Dark Side, where if
Speaker 11: he deleted people's names, I actually disappeared from the world.
Speaker 11: So I was like, Okay, yeah, it's it's a little
Speaker 11: you know, goofy and everything, but I liked it. I'd
Speaker 11: like that she went into this souther dimension that her
Speaker 11: car keys disappeared, and you know, things were different, and yeah,
Speaker 11: the whole idea of like her being treated like this
Speaker 11: superstar because she was a secretary. I really got into
Speaker 11: that idea. And then I was so glad that she
Speaker 11: managed to go back to that world and just live
Speaker 11: in that forever and not have to worry about the
Speaker 11: shithole that she was working at. I guess going through
Speaker 11: like a lot of problems in my job right now,
Speaker 11: I just really wish that I was Pam Dauber, or
Speaker 11: could be with Pam Dauber. I wish that I was
Speaker 11: shot a thing.
Speaker 4: You wish you were breaks chair.
Speaker 11: That's right, throws leg over me. That'd be fantastic.
Speaker 4: Sit on your face.
Speaker 11: Feel that Beard.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Jonathan Brakes is a nice guy.
Speaker 11: And Pam Dauber was making me real thirsty. I was
Speaker 11: just really digging her this.
Speaker 4: I do like on Jonathan Brakes's character is just referred
Speaker 4: to in the belly as single guy.
Speaker 2: The single guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, single guy who wants to know if it's fact
Speaker 4: or fiction.
Speaker 2: No need for names here now, Uh, Chris. When we
Speaker 2: talked to rock Me s O'Bannon about Shadow May, we
Speaker 2: talked about, uh, this episode, not this particular segment, but
Speaker 2: the Christmas episode as it was. And originally Harlan Ellison
Speaker 2: was going to make his directorial debut with a segment
Speaker 2: called Knackles, which is sort of this anti Santa Claus
Speaker 2: when it was gonna be the actual horrific episode or
Speaker 2: segment of the piece, and then CBS their censors killed
Speaker 2: it like a month before they were going to start filming,
Speaker 2: And this is why Harlan Ellison left the show after
Speaker 2: this particular episode. So in its place they put in
Speaker 2: this and the only real Christmas I mean they mentioned
Speaker 2: it's Christmas Eve and we can see a Christmas tree
Speaker 2: at one point, but that was their way of shoehorning
Speaker 2: this into their otherwise Christmas episode, because the first and
Speaker 2: the second or first and third episodes are definitely Christmas based.
Speaker 2: But I just thought it was funny, like watching it,
Speaker 2: like just seeing the Tristan's tree in the background, going like, oh, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's why they that's why this is a quote unquote
Speaker 2: Christmas episode.
Speaker 11: Yeah. I really had to look for that, and to
Speaker 11: the point where I had forgotten until you guys reminded me.
Speaker 11: I was, oh, yeah, I guess there was a point
Speaker 11: Satia in the background.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's like a passing mentioned like and
Speaker 4: it's Christmas tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I mean you know, okay Christmas.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I think I think Mike, you might have swayed
Speaker 2: me in your direction. I liked the episode just fine.
Speaker 2: I thought it was okay, but uh yeah, there's something
Speaker 2: sort of charming about the the mundane becoming the spectacular.
Speaker 2: But that that like the I'm a high I'm a
Speaker 2: high earning supermodel, but really what I want to be
Speaker 2: is a secretary, right.
Speaker 4: I mean again, I like the idea. I just feel
Speaker 4: like it's not much of an episode, does that make sense.
Speaker 4: It's like it just feels it falls flat as a segment.
Speaker 4: Does that make sense? I don't know.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I am respect I'm not a fan of the
Speaker 9: Xerox machine.
Speaker 2: Uh well, although I do like this.
Speaker 4: I do like the symbols transports are the end.
Speaker 11: Yeah, cat she used it twice or something like maybe
Speaker 11: some different settings took her to another place. I mean,
Speaker 11: maybe make it like more central to the episode. And
Speaker 11: then it's like, why are these guys coming to this
Speaker 11: thing away?
Speaker 4: But yeah, and is she the only one who can
Speaker 4: use it and go to an alternate dimension?
Speaker 11: Right? Yeah, maybe send that friend of her someplace else.
Speaker 4: Maybe send her boss someplace else, because that guy's a dickhead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that would have been nice.
Speaker 11: I wonder what they do to bad bosses in that dimension.
Speaker 4: Bad bosses don't exist apparently, is kind of what it seems.
Speaker 11: Or maybe they'll run out on a rail.
Speaker 2: Tard and feathered.
Speaker 4: Just it was just it was just a little weird.
Speaker 4: But like at the same time, I guess like that's
Speaker 4: the universe she lives in now and now she's like
Speaker 4: a big hot shot, So there you go.
Speaker 2: It's like it's almost like she found her way into
Speaker 2: the Twilight Zone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, permanently. I do like these episodes where it's like
Speaker 4: and now you're in the Twilight Zone permanently. I do
Speaker 4: appreciate that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and it is a departure in that most Twilight
Speaker 9: Zone episodes, although you know, not recently, where the twist
Speaker 9: ends up being horrific and and damaging to the lead character.
Speaker 9: Here it's somebody who is a downbeatn downtrodden and gets
Speaker 9: what they deserve, right, And I guess we got that
Speaker 9: with the with the previous one as well.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about an interesting third segment and what has
Speaker 4: been up until this point a very good episode or
Speaker 4: middle of good to middle of the road episode. The Star,
Speaker 4: the servation.
Speaker 7: With John bearing with it the last legacy of a
Speaker 7: long dead people, a legacy to be kept and cherished
Speaker 7: and in time bequeathed to a world still unborn from
Speaker 7: the current inhabitants of the Twilight Zone.
Speaker 4: So it is an adaptation of an Arthur C. Clark,
Speaker 4: one of the Titans of sci Fi, his short story
Speaker 4: The Star. It is adapted by Alan Brenner, so you
Speaker 4: know it what it's gonna be good if he adapted
Speaker 4: it and didn't outright right it. It stars Fritz Weaver
Speaker 4: and Donald Moffatt, yes, Donald Moffatt from the Thing, not
Speaker 4: Richard Mulligan who's not in the thing, and its focuses
Speaker 4: on Fritz Weaver, who is a father as of the church,
Speaker 4: and Doald Moffatt, who is a doctor of the science,
Speaker 4: and kind of you're welcome, and it focuses on kind
Speaker 4: of an an interesting star that they come upon on
Speaker 4: Christmas in space.
Speaker 2: Christmas in space, y'all.
Speaker 11: But you can't figure out what's gonna happen here.
Speaker 2: I'm telegraphed at all.
Speaker 4: I did not.
Speaker 11: Okay, then it works?
Speaker 4: Am I a dumb?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 11: You're not a dumb A dumb?
Speaker 4: Am I a dumb No? I better tell you what.
Speaker 4: Even though I didn't pick up on it, I really
Speaker 4: liked it.
Speaker 11: Yeah, this one I wasn't as hot on just because
Speaker 11: you didn't have Riker. It's just two guys talking. And
Speaker 11: there were times where these two guys look fair different,
Speaker 11: but dressed up in their get ups and stuff. There
Speaker 11: were times where I was confusing these two characters. And
Speaker 11: then when he called him father, I was just like,
Speaker 11: is that his dad? What is going on here?
Speaker 4: Daddy would have called him daddy. Let's be honest.
Speaker 2: I like the I thought I really liked the idea
Speaker 2: that they were, like, you know, this is our science officer,
Speaker 2: this is our engineer, this is our navigator, and our
Speaker 2: jesuit priest, Like what what is happening on the spaceship?
Speaker 4: It's a spaceship of value and.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, and and you know, look, I actually
Speaker 2: do like the concepts of this episode. But the space
Speaker 2: outfits that they're wearing like straight from Lost in Space.
Speaker 4: Oh my god. Yeah, the space outfits are really boring
Speaker 4: and like generically conventional, so shiny, not good. They're wearing
Speaker 4: a real bad Yeah.
Speaker 11: They looked like something I could see in like outer Mongolia.
Speaker 4: You know, Oh, they look like something they look like
Speaker 4: something that your mom would make for you when you
Speaker 4: were a kid, and you're an astronaut.
Speaker 12: Owen, Oh boy, And you know, I hate I mean,
Speaker 12: this isn't necessarily like a dialogue as exposition, but when
Speaker 12: we open on these two characters, they're having the sort
Speaker 12: of age old science versus religion debate, and all I
Speaker 12: could think is, these two guys have been in space
Speaker 12: for god knows how long they've not had this conversation yet.
Speaker 4: Well not on camp.
Speaker 2: I mean, right, right.
Speaker 11: You're welcome the thing that God me is that. So
Speaker 11: it's this whole thing of like, hey, yeah, the civilization,
Speaker 11: they seem to be great, and then they died out
Speaker 11: and their star exploded and then that ended up being
Speaker 11: the star that the mage I saw on the way
Speaker 11: to Bethlehem. And oh yeah, so science kind of caused
Speaker 11: religion or whatever. And I'm just like, but hasn't Christianity
Speaker 11: caused nothing but problems since it was invented? So you're welcome,
Speaker 11: thank you science, right, I'm just like, yeah, had had
Speaker 11: Christianity never happened, I think we would probably be in
Speaker 11: a much better place. I don't know, you know.
Speaker 2: And what I liked about the episode was the notion
Speaker 2: that doesn't actually pay off. I mean it kind of does,
Speaker 2: but then it gets tempered where this Jesuit priest realizes that,
Speaker 2: you know, how many billions of people ended up getting extinguished,
Speaker 2: so this star could you know, lead these people to
Speaker 2: or signified the birth of the Savior on our world? Right,
Speaker 2: But then, like I like the idea that everything in
Speaker 2: his mind just completely shattered at that moment. But then
Speaker 2: of course the science guy, because we have to have
Speaker 2: this you know, balance of science and religion, like steps
Speaker 2: in it's like it's so because this and this and this,
Speaker 2: you know, like, no, how about just let leave this
Speaker 2: guy a broken man. This would be very Twilight Zony
Speaker 2: if he realized that, like, you know, the birth of
Speaker 2: his savior signified the death of another billion Like that,
Speaker 2: to me would have been an interesting end to the episode,
Speaker 2: something you know, a little bit more macabre and sort
Speaker 2: of shocking. But it doesn't ever achieve that. It just
Speaker 2: kind of like stays level the whole time, where science
Speaker 2: and religion can go hand in hand.
Speaker 4: So here's the thing. My dad is a huge fan
Speaker 4: of Arthur C. Clark and I when I was younger, my
Speaker 4: dad bought me at half price books a bunch of
Speaker 4: Arthur C. Clark books, and being someone who reads a lot,
Speaker 4: I read all of them. And this story was included
Speaker 4: in one of those like collection of short stories. The
Speaker 4: original short story ends the way you're talking about Father Malone,
Speaker 4: Oh wow, where he's like, oh my god, no, like
Speaker 4: what the fuck ever? Like the priest is all like
Speaker 4: just completely beside himself.
Speaker 11: And like that's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's how it should have ended.
Speaker 4: Well, I like that ending, but I do like the
Speaker 4: kind of poem they found in the episode in the Cave.
Speaker 4: You know it has a good message. I mean, look,
Speaker 4: in this three part Christmas episode of twilight Zone, they
Speaker 4: can't end it on a bummer, Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they should have. This is the twilight Zone.
Speaker 11: This is the Twilight Zone if you're gonna end anything
Speaker 11: on a bummer.
Speaker 4: But but it's their fucking Christmas episode. Guys, I would agree, right,
Speaker 4: but with any other episode we've already but like, I
Speaker 4: feel like they can't send you off with that.
Speaker 9: Well, then they should have started with this segment because
Speaker 9: the two others are so thoughtful and uplifting, like you
Speaker 9: needed a gut punch in there at some point, maybe
Speaker 9: in the middle, they could have put it.
Speaker 2: You know what, No, I'm forget everything. I'm saying. It
Speaker 2: should have ended this way and it should have been shattering.
Speaker 4: Listen here, Jordan appeal, We get it. You want to
Speaker 4: be edgy?
Speaker 2: Oh stop, no no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 4: No, we get it. You have a racial agenda.
Speaker 11: That would be if a billion black people died in
Speaker 11: order to cause Christianity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's sad. That would have been the Jordan Peel episode.
Speaker 4: The race.
Speaker 2: You mean this star exploded and caused slavery exactly.
Speaker 4: Do you mean Adam Scott was on the plane the
Speaker 4: whole time with a podcast.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, my mind is blown.
Speaker 11: I am having flashbacks.
Speaker 4: A million, a million. Dan Carlin's died so we could
Speaker 4: get one episode of hardcore history.
Speaker 11: Oh maybe both of us died so you could have
Speaker 11: a savior in Christ.
Speaker 4: I fucking yeah. Twilight Zone twenty nineteen can go and
Speaker 4: fuck itself. But hey, we're getting it in twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: So what the fuck do we know nothing? We're just three.
Speaker 4: We're just three cisgendered white men. Our opinions don't matter.
Speaker 11: Good place to end it, except we can't end it.
Speaker 4: They're unfortunate. As much as I want to.
Speaker 8: Sis sis
Speaker 1: Sis sis