Speaker 1: Wait, wait, say.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to midnight Viewing, where this season we're taking
Speaker 2: a look at George Romero's nineteen eighties series Tales from
Speaker 2: the Dark Side. Sharing the midnight view with me are
Speaker 2: the culture cast Chris Statue.
Speaker 3: I don't know how y'all know about this, but Stephen
Speaker 3: King's mighty popular.
Speaker 2: Also with us is the projection booth Mike White.
Speaker 3: He's so good to see you, man O Jesus Mother. Yikes,
Speaker 3: just got canceled. Everybody.
Speaker 2: We are taking a look at the next two episodes
Speaker 2: of season four, the final season of Tales from the
Speaker 2: Dark Side. Those are Sorry right Number and payment Overdue,
Speaker 2: Sorry right Number. Season four, Episode nine, originally aired on
Speaker 2: November twenty second, nineteen eighty seven, Written by Stephen King,
Speaker 2: directed by John Harrison, starring Deborah Harmon and Arthur Taxia.
Speaker 2: This is an original teleplay by Stephen King, not based
Speaker 2: on any original material, but it would collected in his
Speaker 2: book Nightmare and Dreamscapes as a teleplay Yours Later, really funny.
Speaker 2: Before we get to everyone's opinion on the episode, I
Speaker 2: read several reviews of this story by users on various
Speaker 2: platforms complaining that this episode was not as good as
Speaker 2: the short story. The short story that's just the teleplay
Speaker 2: that was published years after this came out. Anyway, what'd
Speaker 2: you think of this one? Mike?
Speaker 4: Oh, I remember word Process for the Gods was a
Speaker 4: really good episode, wasn't it? Can we talk about that instead?
Speaker 3: No pastoral times? Than weren't they?
Speaker 4: Mike? Good lord? Did do you just watch just have
Speaker 4: it going across the bottom of the screen. If not
Speaker 4: that I need to be told what the twist of
Speaker 4: this is, because as soon as it happens, I'm just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's her calling from the future. All right, great, yeah,
Speaker 4: and nothing else really matters. Yeah, God, Chris, what'd you think?
Speaker 3: Did you have a notion of a way to talk
Speaker 3: about the episode?
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ, No, not o this it's tough, man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not good. It's not that it's it's not
Speaker 3: that it's not good, it's just what was the point? Like,
Speaker 3: just you can't change the past? Correct? Thank you? Steven?
Speaker 3: Play us out now, bomp a bomp, bump bump, Like
Speaker 3: I just I guess I don't understand what I'm missing
Speaker 3: because it feels like I'm missing something. It feels like
Speaker 3: those Rod Serling episodes. Of Twilight's on where he's like
Speaker 3: clucking his tongue, like what what if there? I got
Speaker 3: it here. I'm just like, what am I missing? Spend
Speaker 3: time with your loved ones, Yes, don't take them for granted. Yes,
Speaker 3: people when a certain thing happens, they're remembered of another
Speaker 3: thing happening. Yes, Like I get that inherently now, as
Speaker 3: someone who's dealt with some pretty serious things in the
Speaker 3: last like year and a half, I get it, But
Speaker 3: that that payoff is unearned. There's that moment in this
Speaker 3: episode where she picks up the VHS and plays it,
Speaker 3: and she all of a sudden is having these like
Speaker 3: black and white flashbacks, which, by the way, that's not
Speaker 3: how it happens in my mind anyways. It's just it's
Speaker 3: in color. If I'm having a flashback to something that's
Speaker 3: happened in the past, it's not in black and white.
Speaker 3: So it's very weird that that's always a convention that's used. Like,
Speaker 3: I get it though, because we have to distinguish it
Speaker 3: somehow from the fact that we've already seen it. But
Speaker 3: I get what they were going for and mining at
Speaker 3: and driving at. I just the end of the episode
Speaker 3: doesn't capitalize on it. There's a nugget of something. I
Speaker 3: think we can feel it. The three of us can
Speaker 3: feel that there's there is something here to this episode.
Speaker 3: It's just I don't think Stephen King gets to it,
Speaker 3: which is weird because he's the one that wrote it.
Speaker 3: So it's like, why aren't you getting to the point
Speaker 3: of your own story. It's almost like a story without
Speaker 3: a point. It needed like one or two more passes
Speaker 3: of Stephen King actually like putting in the time and
Speaker 3: effort to finish the story. It feels almost unfinished. It's fine,
Speaker 3: but it's no word processor of the gods.
Speaker 2: Sometimes your grief is so strong that it can bridge
Speaker 2: a gap. Third time, I think that's all he was
Speaker 2: trying to say with him. I just think he took
Speaker 2: twenty two minutes to do it. As there been a
Speaker 2: survey conducted about how many protagonists and Stephen King's short
Speaker 2: stories are writers. Because this is thank you.
Speaker 3: Yes, he loves to write about himself father alone.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something like at least with say,
Speaker 2: the lead character in Salem's Law, it's a single guy
Speaker 2: on his there's some remove from Steve. This is Deborah
Speaker 2: Harmon as Tabitha King and Arthur Taxier is Stephen King,
Speaker 2: and they have two kids, and he's a novelist with
Speaker 2: a popular novel. I'll like to point out that although
Speaker 2: the character is supposed to be multi novel a multi novelist,
Speaker 2: they only keep referring to Spider's that's probably Stephen King
Speaker 2: tipping his hat to Harlan Ellison, who had a novel
Speaker 2: called Spider's Kiss, which I believe was a takedown of
Speaker 2: Elvis Presley.
Speaker 4: He stole my story, the writer. Yeah, that was not
Speaker 4: a nod to Secret Win.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, that's mister Allison himself.
Speaker 4: You stole my story.
Speaker 2: So not only that. Okay, So we've got Stephen King
Speaker 2: basically just like it feels like he just looked around
Speaker 2: one night and go, wouldn't it be weird if I
Speaker 2: was going to have a heart attack and Tabitha call
Speaker 2: ill just write that. There it is. It's done. So
Speaker 2: it's so meta and self reflexive, but ultimately just padding
Speaker 2: to get us to the Twilight Zone twist. And John Harrison,
Speaker 2: I got to say, and more than one thing that
Speaker 2: he's directed has included that clip from Down of the Dead,
Speaker 2: which is here standing in for the film adaptation of
Speaker 2: Spider's Kiss that the Stephen King character is watching, and
Speaker 2: he not only in he includes that particular clip of
Speaker 2: Don of the Dead because that's him. John Harrison is
Speaker 2: the zombie who gets the screwdriver into the brain.
Speaker 4: And second, I thought this was directed by John Sutherland.
Speaker 2: Another thing that's weird is that, like, I need to
Speaker 2: talk to John Harrison because I do not understand why he,
Speaker 2: on occasion on this series will use a pseudonym. Did
Speaker 2: he feel like he was doing too much or too
Speaker 2: little or I don't know, maybe he just wanted to
Speaker 2: take his name off.
Speaker 3: It wouldn't that be shocking Given the quality of this episode.
Speaker 3: I love that this is essentially also proto frequency over
Speaker 3: that movie with Jim Cavizl and Dennis Quaid where he's
Speaker 3: able to talk to his father in the past.
Speaker 4: Both of those guys have lost their minds over the
Speaker 4: last little bit too.
Speaker 3: Wow, nothing wrong with that? Yeah, well, a little mad
Speaker 3: sometimes that's Steven King would say.
Speaker 2: Do you guys know the actress Arden murri Not offhand?
Speaker 2: It's a comedic actress I once saw. I went to
Speaker 2: a on Halloween night, I went to a night of
Speaker 2: ghost stories at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los
Speaker 2: Angeles and it was hosted by Thomas Lennon and Robert
Speaker 2: Ben Garret and Artemrin told this sort of spooky story.
Speaker 2: Everyone told sort of paranormal stories that it happened to me.
Speaker 2: And Arte Marin told a story where it involved an
Speaker 2: answering machine mess of this harried voice like warning her
Speaker 2: like not to use her bicycle, there's something wrong with them.
Speaker 2: And as it turns out, there was something wrong bicycle,
Speaker 2: but she could not explain the message or who it
Speaker 2: came from, and found out later from her boyfriend, like
Speaker 2: he said, you got up in the night and called
Speaker 2: a number and was warning somebody to about their bicycle.
Speaker 2: She had called herself.
Speaker 4: WHOA, that's fucked.
Speaker 3: That's all you can say to that shit, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the aristocrats you landed the story. That's horrifying.
Speaker 2: I got chills when she told it. I got chills retailing.
Speaker 2: It's the horror chills.
Speaker 3: From you fucking telling it right now. And here's the
Speaker 3: thing to your point, father Malone, like that's what this
Speaker 3: is driving at it just it should have given you
Speaker 3: that moment. But it's so fucking odds. I question, would
Speaker 3: it have worked better if you didn't hear the voice
Speaker 3: on the phone when she answers it at the beginning.
Speaker 4: Maybe, but when she's I know that voice and it
Speaker 4: had to be somebody that I'm related to or something,
Speaker 4: I'm just like.
Speaker 2: That's the thing she kept hammering, I'm related to it.
Speaker 2: So it's oh, so it's you.
Speaker 4: And it doesn't help that Debora Harmon has a very
Speaker 4: distinct voice.
Speaker 3: So that's the other question. And this is again, I
Speaker 3: didn't want to ask this part of it because I
Speaker 3: think where the three of us are a little biased.
Speaker 3: It would be hard for me to answer the phone
Speaker 3: and hear my own voice and not immediately go what
Speaker 3: the fuck am I doing hearing myself talk? Because, like
Speaker 3: you just said, Mike, Debra Harmon has a very distinct voice,
Speaker 3: and she's I can't place this voice. This is nineteen
Speaker 3: This is supposed to be nineteen eighty seven, not nineteen forties.
Speaker 3: The phone technology at this time is meant to be
Speaker 3: like acceptable enough that they've never really called it into
Speaker 3: question in this kind of way before. So so now
Speaker 3: we're led to believe that this woman doesn't recognize her
Speaker 3: own voice, but she recognizes it enough to know that
Speaker 3: it's someone related to her, like it needed to be.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it needed to be, but.
Speaker 2: You what it needed was at the end, we needed
Speaker 2: to know the exact span of time because when we
Speaker 2: meet that when he has the heart attack that night
Speaker 2: and she receives the she has a little girl. When
Speaker 2: we jump forward, that little girl is getting married. So
Speaker 2: we got to assume there's like a twenty year difference.
Speaker 2: So it's a twenty so there's twenty years of aging
Speaker 2: and she's completely grief stricken and choked up as she's
Speaker 2: making the call. So that actually makes sense to me. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: as you said, Mike, Debra Harmon has a very distinctive voice,
Speaker 2: and I remember, even as a kid, recognizing that it
Speaker 2: was her talking to her, and the whole joke, the
Speaker 2: whole twist was blown.
Speaker 3: Does it say how long at any point it's been
Speaker 3: in between those times?
Speaker 2: No, it needed a title card.
Speaker 4: Twenty years later, she says something like, your dad passed away,
Speaker 4: because it was the exact same day that he had asked.
Speaker 4: They did say ten years. Maybe I don't remember.
Speaker 3: It doesn't make and that's the other thing it's not.
Speaker 3: It's it's only been like a couple of years, because
Speaker 3: it's not the girl that we're seeing. It's the older
Speaker 3: daughter that has gone away, olver isn't it, because there's
Speaker 3: another daughter in all of this that we don't see,
Speaker 3: and that's the one that's getting married at the end
Speaker 3: because it hasn't been that long.
Speaker 2: Oh there is a daughter a com That's what the part.
Speaker 3: That makes no sense at all, That's what I'm getting at,
Speaker 3: Like none of this makes any sense. It's almost like
Speaker 3: Stephen King overcomplicated this for no reason when it's so
Speaker 3: obvious what this should have been, which is exactly what
Speaker 3: we're talking about, where it's like fifteen years, twenty years.
Speaker 3: And then she recognized her voice because it's an older woman.
Speaker 3: And that's why she does a recognized her voice. It's
Speaker 3: because it's an old lady. And there you go, like
Speaker 3: with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, no matter
Speaker 3: how much you dge Harrison Ford, and yet you still
Speaker 3: gave him the voice of an eighty year old man,
Speaker 3: which we could tell the moment he all their dead
Speaker 3: voice or opened his mouth and the voice came out
Speaker 3: like it should have just been an old lady. And
Speaker 3: she's I don't recognize her but she must be someone
Speaker 3: related to me. But all of the grand all my
Speaker 3: grandparents are dead, My mom and dad are dead. That's
Speaker 3: how you shore this up. And then it makes then
Speaker 3: makes perfect sense why she doesn't recognize it. But also
Speaker 3: it can't be an older family member. There you go,
Speaker 3: not this. It could be my sister. Let's go check in.
Speaker 4: On her, because she immediately calls her mom and her
Speaker 4: mom's well, what are you talking about? And it's okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: had her mom been dead already, that would even if
Speaker 4: the mom had been dead, maybe recently dead, and was
Speaker 4: calling with a warning or something. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Here's what it should have been, the daughter calling from
Speaker 2: years later, because the mother has committed suicide because she's
Speaker 2: so fucking grief stricken over the month over the dad
Speaker 2: being dead. So it was the daughter calling. It's just
Speaker 2: the daughter from the few. So when she calls her
Speaker 2: daughter and says, what are you doing? Why did you
Speaker 2: call it, she's I call you what you're talking about?
Speaker 3: There you go, yeah, that's equally that's even more dark Jesus.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, to be fair, I think
Speaker 3: father Malone probably to the point that you're trying to
Speaker 3: make like this episode doesn't go far enough either for
Speaker 3: it being a Stephen King thing. It does seem kind
Speaker 3: of toothless in a way that like Stephen King's stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying Stephen King is always pushing the envelope,
Speaker 3: Like in the last episode we talked about Clive Barker,
Speaker 3: who does push the envelope. Stephen King's not always pushing
Speaker 3: the envelope. But this is a little tame, even for
Speaker 3: Stephen King. This is tame for this show, like for
Speaker 3: this specific show, Like this show has gone darker than this.
Speaker 3: We had this in this show. I believe a phone
Speaker 3: strangled a woman to death.
Speaker 2: Sure did?
Speaker 3: Sure did? Why are like, I appreciate what the end
Speaker 3: of this episode is meant to signify with the phone
Speaker 3: swinging and oh my god, the monster moment. I can't
Speaker 3: change anything, But it's not earned. It's not earned in
Speaker 3: the way it thinks it earns it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it just thinks it's a lot smarter than it is.
Speaker 3: Peak nineteen eighty seven Stephen King.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he ebbs and flows. It just got done listening
Speaker 4: to Lear's and I was like, that was very effective.
Speaker 4: I was very happy with the way that it went.
Speaker 4: But He's just he's all over the maps, especially post accident,
Speaker 4: but then there were times where he was just drugging
Speaker 4: and drinking like crazy, and you could really tell it
Speaker 4: in misfiction.
Speaker 3: This is the same year as it. This comes out
Speaker 3: the same year as it. It came out in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty seven, so this is him, Like, I don't know
Speaker 3: if this is Father Milone, you assume this is post it,
Speaker 3: Like he like wrote this around the same time as it,
Speaker 3: So it doesn't feel.
Speaker 2: Like we wrote this in between chapters, right.
Speaker 3: Like it's like, this feels all over the place as
Speaker 3: some of those worst moments in IT, where it's like,
Speaker 3: what the fuck are we going eight different directions at once?
Speaker 3: This feels that same thing where it's like just not
Speaker 3: a focused idea. And Stephen King works best when his
Speaker 3: stuff is like hyper focus.
Speaker 2: His stuff works best when it's short fiction. Except this
Speaker 2: one is not great. No, it's as up and down
Speaker 2: as his literary career has been, with the with the
Speaker 2: Tommy Knockers not being he doesn't remember writing because of
Speaker 2: the fucking cocaine, Hayes or I think the Dark Tower
Speaker 2: series was always consistent. I think some of his novels
Speaker 2: are wildly the quality sort of swings wildly, but no
Speaker 2: matter what, anytime he puts out a book of short fiction,
Speaker 2: they're always bangers every single time.
Speaker 3: Agreed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can't disagree with that.
Speaker 3: I will echo that. I tend to say that Stephen
Speaker 3: King is the short story master because he has a
Speaker 3: hard time ending, and I don't know if it's ending
Speaker 3: his long form stuff or if it's just finding us
Speaker 3: a moment to stop. He just can't find a way
Speaker 3: to stop saying things. Finds like eight conclusions and he's
Speaker 3: I'm not going to pick one, so they give me
Speaker 3: cart blatch at this point because I'm Stephen King to
Speaker 3: give all eight. But it's been like that for a
Speaker 3: really long time. So at this point, not ever look
Speaker 3: as bad as Sell the movie is Sell the books
Speaker 3: ending was like there was it. There was one ending,
Speaker 3: like there are some books out there where it's just
Speaker 3: one ending, but then you have something like it where
Speaker 3: it's like there's eight different It's.
Speaker 4: Funny that for me, I've never read it, and I
Speaker 4: don't know which one is longer, but for me, one
Speaker 4: of his longest books the stand of his best books,
Speaker 4: and it's just he's given so much time to develop
Speaker 4: those characters that you really feel like you know every
Speaker 4: single one of those people, the Stu Redmond and all
Speaker 4: of those people. It's just, yeah, I feel for these people.
Speaker 4: I can see these people in my mind. Also one
Speaker 4: of the worst I can't say worst adaptations because there's
Speaker 4: been two, and both of them I've not been a
Speaker 4: fan of.
Speaker 2: I'm actually through the second one.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I can't blame you there, that was rough.
Speaker 3: I'm excited for that Stephen King TV show that's based
Speaker 3: on essentially the e from it, the in between parts
Speaker 3: of it, the like history chapters, because while the story
Speaker 3: of it's, yeah, the story of it is great, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of other stuff that could be mined. And
Speaker 3: that's again, like a world that Stephen King has created,
Speaker 3: like you said, Mike, with a level of intricacy and
Speaker 3: direction that give other people the opportunity to play in it,
Speaker 3: who can yield to those rules within reason but also
Speaker 3: do their own thing, has the opportunity to be interesting
Speaker 3: and it's going to be get this. That show is
Speaker 3: going to be every season is a different, like year,
Speaker 3: so it'll be anthology adjacent. So yeah, so good. Again,
Speaker 3: Like Stephen King's stuff works best when it's when it's
Speaker 3: short form and it's being adapted seemingly like by people
Speaker 3: that get it. If you don't get Stephen King's stuff,
Speaker 3: don't adapt it. Mike Flanagan gets it in a way
Speaker 3: that like nobody else ever has I think anyways.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think Frank der Bond is up there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 2: I think David Cronenberg did a pretty good job with
Speaker 2: The Dead Zone Buck.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's so weird how great those seventies adaptations were
Speaker 4: like seventies even into some of the early eighties, they
Speaker 4: were just was it the material itself or was it
Speaker 4: just they gave the directors free reign and so many
Speaker 4: different types of directors, like freaking de Palma versus Cronenberg,
Speaker 4: but both of those are just so freaking solid, And
Speaker 4: man oh man, I just so many of those early
Speaker 4: King adaptations I thought were just dead on. And of
Speaker 4: course then right in the middle between those who I
Speaker 4: believe with the fucking Shining Jesus Christ talk about.
Speaker 2: A classic that begins the decade and it ends with misery,
Speaker 2: which is also a yeah, and speaking like the breadth
Speaker 2: of the filmmakers, Rob Reiner, Stanley Kubrick, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg.
Speaker 3: I say Mike Flanagan only because and this father alone
Speaker 3: again like again like I agree with you that there
Speaker 3: are other people that would lay claim to it. But
Speaker 3: my I guess my reasoning for saying Mike Flanagan is
Speaker 3: Mike Flanagan has turned it in consistently several times. And
Speaker 3: that's the most impressive thing, because he went from something
Speaker 3: like Gerald's Game to which Gerald's Game as a that
Speaker 3: is a great story, and then a great adaptation of
Speaker 3: the story. But for me, and this is the thing
Speaker 3: that I was most surprised by. Doctor Sleep is a
Speaker 3: really good movie, and the extended version of that movie
Speaker 3: is really really good. I didn't give it any credit
Speaker 3: the first time I saw it, but it's really good.
Speaker 3: I would watch anything Mike Flanagan does with Stephen King,
Speaker 3: and that's I think because again for me, he's shown
Speaker 3: that he can do the consistency. And again maybe if
Speaker 3: others were given an opportunity to do more, they would
Speaker 3: have been able to do it. I'm not saying they weren't.
Speaker 3: But all we can do is speak to where we
Speaker 3: are now, which is Mike Flanagan can turn in a
Speaker 3: Stephen King adaptation better than I think he's up there
Speaker 3: with the best of them, if not the best.
Speaker 2: Humbly disagree. I think yeah, I think he's the best
Speaker 2: fan of Stephen King who's making stuff. I think he's
Speaker 2: the best filmmaker who was raised on making Stephen King stuff.
Speaker 2: I don't think he should be laying claim to quite
Speaker 2: so many of the properties he seems to be fucking
Speaker 2: announcing every fucking day, because I guarantee you there are
Speaker 2: other young filmmakers out there who could probably fucking kill
Speaker 2: some of those.
Speaker 4: I got it.
Speaker 3: I got an even more controversial like who's doing Christine?
Speaker 2: Because that's the one I'm excited.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, why don't we just adapt any
Speaker 3: other motherfucking horror writer out there? As if there's anybody
Speaker 3: else who starts with a K, Dean Koons or Clive Barker, anybody.
Speaker 3: There's so many good horror novels out there that get
Speaker 3: no love outside of them being novels, which is fine,
Speaker 3: go read, reading's great, but there are other horror writers,
Speaker 3: and I guess, to be fair, Bram Stoker is in
Speaker 3: that conversation because how many adaptations are we gonna get
Speaker 3: of Dracula from here until.
Speaker 2: That's the thing. How many band Stephen King at that
Speaker 2: are there for every fucking shining you know, there's a
Speaker 2: graveyard shift.
Speaker 3: The Thinner, the Mangler, yeahs, and well the Dark the Dark.
Speaker 3: Speaking of the Dark Tower, I think the most like
Speaker 3: the egregious one of egregious ones.
Speaker 4: Isn't weird that we live in a time where two
Speaker 4: of the bigger releases this fall are going to be
Speaker 4: Stephen King short story adaptations between The Long Walk and
Speaker 4: then the new version of The Running Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which are true basically the same story.
Speaker 4: Well, one's walking, the other one's running.
Speaker 3: Glenn Powell's going to show up in both those fingers
Speaker 3: crossed Eddy Fling Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The future is forced entertainment.
Speaker 3: The future is Stephen King.
Speaker 2: The future is overdue, Payment Overdue. Season four, episode ten,
Speaker 2: This area.
Speaker 4: That was an amazing trick.
Speaker 2: The last episode aired in November. This one aired on
Speaker 2: Valentine's Day in nineteen eighty eight. Oh Romantic written by
Speaker 2: Dick Benner, directed by John Drury, starring Morris Swanson. Lewis Arlt.
Speaker 2: Lewis Arlt wrote for the TV show Loving soap Op
Speaker 2: featuring Randolph Mantooth The show had a total of six
Speaker 2: hundred and forty two episodes. Arelt is credited on four
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety Wow, also as a voice on the
Speaker 2: phone Awanda DeJesus.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: One thing I want to point out about this episode,
Speaker 2: because I noticed it right away. The score is a
Speaker 2: pretty groovy electronics score throughout the several beds that are
Speaker 2: I found to be very interesting, So I wanted to
Speaker 2: find out who wrote the music in this one. Pat
Speaker 2: Irwin who This was his first sort of score. He
Speaker 2: was a musician playing in bands. In nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 2: he joined the B fifty two's for their Cosmic Tour
Speaker 2: and then was their keyboard player for the next twenty
Speaker 2: nice and now is the composer on all of the
Speaker 2: various iterations of Dexter, including the actual popular one, Dexter Resurrect.
Speaker 2: He's still out there fucking killing it. So good for you,
Speaker 2: Pat Irwin. Probably the best thing in this episode this
Speaker 2: is this is Look, it's a bier Get bit man.
Speaker 2: It's the same fucking star we've seen a thousand times.
Speaker 2: This one's about a collection agent who pushes a woman
Speaker 2: to death and then gets the same treatment. Felt a
Speaker 2: lot like the Twilight Zone Twilight Zone movie. The John
Speaker 2: Landis story felt shades of that, shades of other episodes
Speaker 2: of Counseling the Dark Side from earlier in the season.
Speaker 2: Chris Take It Away.
Speaker 3: Reminded me of that one day, one day, we'll get there.
Speaker 3: One day I'll wear you down enough, Father Malone, that
Speaker 3: we'll do that two thousand Twilight Zone show. It reminds
Speaker 3: me of the first episode of the two thousand Twilight
Speaker 3: Zone show where the guy from the Invisible Man TV
Speaker 3: show becomes black because he didn't let a black man
Speaker 3: into his car who was in the rain. That's what
Speaker 3: this feels like. It's like that just so heavy handed, forced,
Speaker 3: high horse moral bullshit. I get it. But we have
Speaker 3: a friend who used to work for a collection agency,
Speaker 3: that friend being jess Byered. I don't wish death upon
Speaker 3: them because they had to call someone and there was
Speaker 3: a misunderstanding. This is a bogus episode. I don't like
Speaker 3: these kinds of stories because it's always a contrived misunderstanding,
Speaker 3: and this is no different. This is very contrived. I
Speaker 3: like the Oh, it was our changel Michael all along,
Speaker 3: and now you're the woman. I just the and then
Speaker 3: it's that's punishment, So what are what is like the
Speaker 3: actual message of the episode if it's punishment to be
Speaker 3: these people, but we're supposed to care about these people,
Speaker 3: per the episode making us care about somebody any less
Speaker 3: than someone else by making the woman like El Salvadorian
Speaker 3: for some reason, it's just it's it's an other hythm episode.
Speaker 3: It's a very moral, we morally weird episode. And I
Speaker 3: was not a fan. I was not a fan, and
Speaker 3: by the end of it, I was like, I'm glad
Speaker 3: that this shit's over. But like you said, Father Malone,
Speaker 3: we've seen things like this and.
Speaker 2: They're no Last season with a yuppie with a Hindu man,
Speaker 2: it was mysteriously living in this apartment.
Speaker 4: Much better episode, and we didn't like that episode either.
Speaker 3: Right, stop sucking your tongue at this fucking show. I
Speaker 3: just want to enjoy this show. When I watch it
Speaker 3: and I feel like it's screaming at me, like you
Speaker 3: need to do better as a person. Yeah, I get it,
Speaker 3: but I'm gonna take this show's do you think, Mike, how.
Speaker 4: Weird is it that we just talked about an episode
Speaker 4: with the phone and here we have another breach out
Speaker 4: and fuck someone kind of episode, and it's just, yeah,
Speaker 4: very frustrating and also very obvious. As soon as she
Speaker 4: pulled that car or he pulled that card out and
Speaker 4: it was the it was the Archangel on the front
Speaker 4: of it. I was like, oh, okay, so he's the
Speaker 4: Archangel Michael. All right, got it, Mike, Mike.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you, how fast did you
Speaker 2: figure out that this was the Archangel? Oh?
Speaker 4: Like within seconds? Yeah, it was just as soon as I.
Speaker 2: Saw Do you think being named Michael gives you a
Speaker 2: hands up anytime there's some Michael the Archangel ephemera going
Speaker 2: on in entertainment?
Speaker 3: Off you're John Travolta. Okay's too specific of an answer.
Speaker 2: No, because that's exactly what I wanted to address, because
Speaker 2: look behind the scenes here, folks, father Malone, my name
Speaker 2: is actually Michael as well, and so I and I
Speaker 2: was named specifically for the Archangel. So that fucking piece
Speaker 2: of shit movie Michael with John Travolta, where Michael the
Speaker 2: Archangel is a dufist who loves sugar and line dancing.
Speaker 2: He is the leader of God's Army, You motherfuckers. He's
Speaker 2: basically Heavenly Captain America. Don't treat him like that, and
Speaker 2: don't treat him like this. He's not mister Revenge, He's
Speaker 2: not mister Rourke, like showing you your fantasy was incorrect.
Speaker 2: He this is the wrong angel. This is so wrong
Speaker 2: headed on every fucking level.
Speaker 3: It's really bad. It's really bad. It's by the art
Speaker 3: of its speak like this, oh my, oh my god
Speaker 3: episode we went there, well that is it's I know,
Speaker 3: it's just in bad taste, like offensive whatever. It's just
Speaker 3: again like I don't understand the logic of the episode.
Speaker 3: It's like someone who is hispanic is lesser. What the
Speaker 3: hell episode? Like you missed the fucking you're you know
Speaker 3: that phrase like Michaud for the moon, your land among
Speaker 3: the stars, Like you's missing yours in the sun burning up,
Speaker 3: You're just burning up.
Speaker 2: At least vikmor Row didn't have a Yiddish accent.
Speaker 4: Wow, But I enjoy the Daylight.
Speaker 3: I like the Daylight. Let me tell you, I do
Speaker 3: think that.
Speaker 2: I do think the episode looked great. Robert Draper, friend
Speaker 2: of the show DP here like a lot of the
Speaker 2: shots are really good. It felt like a short film,
Speaker 2: which is one thing I do like about Tams in
Speaker 2: the dark Side meeting they shot this in New York.
Speaker 2: The other the other little bit of anthology it reminded
Speaker 2: me of was something to Tide You Over from Creep
Speaker 2: Show in that In that Richard Vickers is recording the
Speaker 2: deaths of Becky and Harry. He's doing that because he
Speaker 2: had a personal reason of vendetta to do it. This
Speaker 2: woman is recording her calls her bullying that she's so
Speaker 2: proud of. But like I said, Richard Vickers had a
Speaker 2: personal reason. This one is just a fucking looney tune
Speaker 2: for it shouldn't it.
Speaker 3: Should have made her more. I look, I guess this
Speaker 3: is me just like me being me? Who else would
Speaker 3: I She should be worse in this kind of show,
Speaker 3: she should be worse. Make me like similarly to the
Speaker 3: episode we just talked about with the yattering and Jack like, well,
Speaker 3: I appreciate in that episode that's the twist, and this
Speaker 3: one like, just make her a real fuck, Like, just
Speaker 3: make her a real fuck so that when she gets
Speaker 3: her come up and at the end, it needs to
Speaker 3: be a it needs to come up and needs to
Speaker 3: be different. I think just on like I get it on,
Speaker 3: I get it on paper mate. I don't know even
Speaker 3: on paper it's a little fun when.
Speaker 2: Everything she's doing is fucking reprehensible. But the fact is
Speaker 2: the actress Morris Swanson, who's still out there working today.
Speaker 2: Everybody she she seems decent at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: I don't the idea that she is this bloodthirsty human.
Speaker 2: And that's where the writing is maybe a failure, because
Speaker 2: somebody should have said she's too nice. She needs to
Speaker 2: be meaner, like we need to ramp up how horrible
Speaker 2: she is because she's because she goes on the defensive
Speaker 2: almost immediately, like she starts getting ghostly phone calls. I
Speaker 2: do think the ghostly phone calls worth. I was watching
Speaker 2: it very late at night by myself, in a kind
Speaker 2: of frequently, so I'm going to give that to the episode.
Speaker 2: But that's just because the dead calling you was a
Speaker 2: freaky idea.
Speaker 4: And then they do it, and then they do it six.
Speaker 3: Right, I was gonna say, and then they do it
Speaker 3: six more times?
Speaker 2: Though, oh, I know I didn't say it sustained, but you.
Speaker 3: Know that I know I didn't say you did. I'm
Speaker 3: just saying then they was so effective they did it
Speaker 3: six more times. It was effective until they let it
Speaker 3: play for a long time. And then it's just like
Speaker 3: a woman doing a really again, the woman is clearly Latino,
Speaker 3: so it's fine that she's doing the voice, but it's
Speaker 3: like a very like Mickey Rooney and Breakfast activity is
Speaker 3: like just the most like Hispanic thing where you're just
Speaker 3: trying to convey a specific thing and it's just not
Speaker 3: I just I don't like the optics of it. But
Speaker 3: it's fine. It's just fucking this. This episode's fucking weird.
Speaker 3: And when you trivialize another ethnicity for whatever reason, like
Speaker 3: why why does it have to have anything to do
Speaker 3: with the way the woman talks? Why does have anything?
Speaker 3: Just make this a white woman talking to another white woman,
Speaker 3: and then there's no weird optics of it. It doesn't
Speaker 3: really matter as an episode. It's still kind of a
Speaker 3: waste of time either way, but at least it's not
Speaker 3: a like muddle headed waste of time. This just feels
Speaker 3: like everybody making it. We're probably like looking at one
Speaker 3: another during this, like we know what we're making is
Speaker 3: not great. Somebody's got to get paid to make it.
Speaker 3: Why not us?
Speaker 4: Yeah? That was We've seen good telemarketing type movies with
Speaker 4: the Sorry to Bother You, We can say a lot
Speaker 4: about that, having flipped the ethnicity and having it having
Speaker 4: the black eye calling and to sell that stuff so
Speaker 4: much better than this white woman just calling and badgering people.
Speaker 4: And yeah, we've seen yuppie scum on this show before,
Speaker 4: and she should be in that model. It should just
Speaker 4: be like her with her perfect nails. Maybe she's doing
Speaker 4: it through the emery board thing and all that, and
Speaker 4: I'm just like, yeah, no, I don't hate her as
Speaker 4: much as I really want to hate her.
Speaker 2: We had no episode with a couple they had, like
Speaker 2: a neighbor dancers, the kindly old gentleman who they wanted
Speaker 2: to raise his rents, so they kept being fucking horrible
Speaker 2: to him, and we hated them by the end of
Speaker 2: that episode. Yeah, so, yeah, they where are the teeth? Here?
Speaker 2: Tails from the dark Side, the meanest of all of
Speaker 2: the anthology. Ordinarily he's a jolly good fellow. From that episode,
Speaker 2: that yuppie is what I think of when I think
Speaker 2: of yuppies. And that guy in that episode is our
Speaker 2: hero and like he he learns his lesson, but he
Speaker 2: doesn't get a come up. And because that show was
Speaker 2: even more defanged than this show can be, and this
Speaker 2: show tends to not be. But with something like this,
Speaker 2: it's not that it's defanged, it's just misguided in what
Speaker 2: it's biting because it doesn't seem to be having any
Speaker 2: like bite to it at all, Like its bite is
Speaker 2: nothing here, Like what are we what's the takeaway here?
Speaker 2: This woman was terrible and she deserved it, not really,
Speaker 2: and she should have deserved it if she're gonna if
Speaker 2: the punishment is gonna.
Speaker 3: Be this, because that's the other question. That's the thing
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you guys at the end of
Speaker 3: this episode. Are we led to believe she's gonna kill her?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Has he touched her head and was like here, have
Speaker 3: her brain tumor too? By the way, right? Yeah, fucking
Speaker 3: hey man, Okay, jesus, So that's the expectation at the
Speaker 3: end then yeah, I think so yeah, Okay, So question,
Speaker 3: did she switch places with the lady or is the
Speaker 3: woman still dead or what's the logic here or is
Speaker 3: she just what's happening?
Speaker 4: A woman's still dead?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Okay, dead?
Speaker 2: And now she has to it's what she put that woman?
Speaker 2: What happens to live her life and be badgered by
Speaker 2: somebody like so this is just.
Speaker 3: A play for the archangel Michael to get this woman
Speaker 3: to kill herself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, like you do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I'm just saying okay, because that is pretty metal,
Speaker 3: is my point. That's pretty fucked up. But the episode
Speaker 3: needed the episode. Honestly. Would we have enjoyed it a
Speaker 3: little bit more if the end of the episode had
Speaker 3: been her like walking to the window and then opening it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then it's that's some sick shit episode overall.
Speaker 2: It needed to be the level of mean that we're
Speaker 2: expecting from that side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, get her to walk up to that window and
Speaker 3: have her open it, and then it cuts to black
Speaker 3: or fades to black, probably more not just okay, let
Speaker 3: us fill in the blanks. So no, this is tails
Speaker 3: from the dark side. Come on, you're not you. There
Speaker 3: is subtlety, but not right now, Like you don't need
Speaker 3: it right now, not if you're gonna go as broad
Speaker 3: as this story is going by having the archangel Michael
Speaker 3: give a woman a brain TOHI, or by touching her forehead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the archangel exposition, because he basically just shows up
Speaker 2: to tell her the things that are happening to her,
Speaker 2: whereas maybe it could have just happened to her and
Speaker 2: that could have been something interesting. Why well, and that's
Speaker 2: where'd my nest go.
Speaker 3: That's what happens in that twilight zone the two thousand
Speaker 3: and one is he just starts like this, skin starts
Speaker 3: changing color, his hair starts changing like it just starts happening,
Speaker 3: like it gets there in a more organic way. To
Speaker 3: your point that I think would work better in this
Speaker 3: visual medium that we're watching.
Speaker 2: It right, anything else? On the next episode of Midnight Viewing,
Speaker 2: We'll be taking a look at the next two episodes
Speaker 2: of season four. Those are Love Hungry and The Deal.
Speaker 2: Midnight Viewing is a proud member of a weirding Way
Speaker 2: Media group. Our theme song was composed by HP with
Speaker 2: an assist by Donald Rubinstein. Until next time? What are
Speaker 2: you working on? Where can people find it?
Speaker 3: Chrish Weirdingwaymedia dot Com is where you can go to
Speaker 3: find all the things that I work on. My main show,
Speaker 3: The Culture Cast, is still on a little bit of
Speaker 3: a hiatus, but that's not permanent. It's temporary. That show
Speaker 3: will be back, but everything else that I work on
Speaker 3: monthly or bi weekly is still up there, including this show.
Speaker 3: And there's a big backlog of things as if it's
Speaker 3: six hundred and nine. If you listen to all the
Speaker 3: episod the Culturecast and you're still expecting more to listen to,
Speaker 3: it's coming, but there's a lot of episodes to listen
Speaker 3: to six hundred and ninety one. Last, that's where you
Speaker 3: can go to listen to everything that I work on,
Speaker 3: and then everything that I don't like Eighties TV Ladies
Speaker 3: or Mike Show, the Projection Booth or Father Malone's show
Speaker 3: this one or the one that he has on Patreon,
Speaker 3: which is more important because that's where you can go
Speaker 3: to help him out, which is Patreon dot com. SU's
Speaker 3: Father Malone. What about you, Mike White? Where can people
Speaker 3: find you? And the things that you.
Speaker 4: Pretty much the same darn thing Waitingwaymedia dot com. And yeah,
Speaker 4: we also have patreons Chris and I Patreon dot com
Speaker 4: slash Culturecast than patreon dot com slash Projection Booth and
Speaker 4: over there once a month we talk about James Bond
Speaker 4: and we're blazing through those. We're running to the Pierce
Speaker 4: broslan Age and pretty soon we'll be over at the
Speaker 4: Craig side of things, and I'm hoping for a little
Speaker 4: Johnny inglad would be good. That's a little bit of that.
Speaker 4: How about you Father Malone.
Speaker 2: For me, Hey, midnight viewers, if you happen to be
Speaker 2: in the Las Vegas area October fourth and fifth, not
Speaker 2: by the Silverton Casino, at the Nightmare Into Vegas Horror
Speaker 2: convey and Car Show, Now you're gonna find a booth
Speaker 2: featuring midnight viewing. That booth will be featuring not only me,
Speaker 2: but HP and mister Chris Statue. Mike White won't be
Speaker 2: there because he hates that's.
Speaker 3: Right, he hates the heat in the fault time of
Speaker 3: Vegas versus everybody.
Speaker 2: Indeed. Yeah, as for me, they said the Patreon check
Speaker 2: us out on Mondays. That's Father Malone's weekly round up
Speaker 2: and every Friday. If you're not listening to this show
Speaker 2: talking about Temison dark Side, you could probably hear a fest.
Speaker 2: We've got a Yaucha fest. We're looking at the Predator movies.
Speaker 2: We've got a Rick Moranus fest going on by now,
Speaker 2: so check that one out. Oh and in early October,
Speaker 2: we're gonna be looking at the books of Blood the
Speaker 2: Clive Barker. We're gonna be looking at the films based
Speaker 2: on the books of books of Blood by Clive Barker. Anyway,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I'm tired. Until next time. I'm trying
Speaker 2: to enjoy the daylight.
Speaker 3: Last SA