Speaker 1: Tonight on the Twilight Zone Podcast, as promised, I hand
Speaker 1: the microphone over to you, the audience, to give your
Speaker 1: thoughts on the episode From Agnes with Love. I figured,
Speaker 1: considering we have so few episodes of the Twilight Zone left,
Speaker 1: why don't we make the most of them and try
Speaker 1: and get more thoughts onto the show. And it was
Speaker 1: quite an interesting episode to cover, because I must admit
Speaker 1: it wasn't one that I particularly liked, and as I
Speaker 1: was working on it, I kind of became a little
Speaker 1: fonder of Wally Cox. I thought in moments he was
Speaker 1: quite good, but overall it didn't really work for me.
Speaker 1: But I've said this several times on the podcast. You know,
Speaker 1: every episode is someone's favorite episode. Now, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: there's many of you out there who would say from
Speaker 1: Agnes with Love as your favorite episode. But that said,
Speaker 1: maybe it was an episode that you watched as a
Speaker 1: child and you really enjoyed it and you can see
Speaker 1: its flaws, but you've grown up with it and it's
Speaker 1: part of your Twilight Zone enjoyment. So under those circumstances,
Speaker 1: I really don't like to be super negative on a show,
Speaker 1: even if I don't like it, because there's always going
Speaker 1: to be someone out there waiting to listen to that.
Speaker 1: And while I do have to be honest, there are
Speaker 1: ways to be honest, and there's no point in really
Speaker 1: just being as super negative as possible, because don't we
Speaker 1: have enough of that in the world at the moment anyway,
Speaker 1: So why don't we go over to our friends at
Speaker 1: the After Hours Club because I put a poll over there,
Speaker 1: as I do with every episode, for people to vote
Speaker 1: on and to leave their comments. Oh, probably no surprise
Speaker 1: to anyone that in terms of top tier, middle tier
Speaker 1: or bottom tier, nobody voted from Agnes with Love in
Speaker 1: the top tier. Have we had that before? I can't
Speaker 1: quite remember. But middle tier is fifteen percent of the
Speaker 1: vote and bottom tier is eighty five percent of the vote.
Speaker 1: So eighty five percent of the voters in the After
Speaker 1: Hours Club put it in the bottom tier. And I
Speaker 1: don't think there's any surprises there. But let's hear what
Speaker 1: they had to say about it. Our friend Michael Feinbach said,
Speaker 1: bottom tier. The best you can say is that Wally
Speaker 1: Cox is perfectly cast. Sadly he and Sue Randall died
Speaker 1: too young. I absolutely agree with you on that one. Michael,
Speaker 1: Joshuaheed said, the last time I remember watching this, I
Speaker 1: was sick in bed. It didn't make me feel any
Speaker 1: better afterwards. Yeah, I can see what you're saying there, Josh.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Friend Ben Cairkeham says from Agnes with love.
Speaker 1: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Absolutely okay.
Speaker 1: Aaron Laurence says Middle Tier for the ambition of artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence interference in human matters, which is actually relevant today.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Aaron, appreciate your comments. Our old
Speaker 1: friend al Shadsma says, I loved Wally Cox when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, and this episode's ending surprised me back then.
Speaker 1: But if you're over ten years old, it's unfunny and predictable.
Speaker 1: Poor Wally died far too young and belongs mostly in comedies,
Speaker 1: I mean real comedies, not this lump and not that
Speaker 1: dreadful short on Night Gallery. You know, even though I
Speaker 1: covered the Night Gallery in the After Hours Club, I
Speaker 1: can't remember the one that Wally Cox was in, but
Speaker 1: I will definitely have to look that up to jog
Speaker 1: my memory. I think that's the thing. Isn't it unfunny?
Speaker 2: It's uh?
Speaker 1: I think I grew to appreciate some of the little
Speaker 1: moments with Wally, some of the looks he had or
Speaker 1: the little inflections he did, but it wasn't really enough
Speaker 1: to save the episode. Thank you all. Jordan Dollock says
Speaker 1: there isn't much to say. I probably would like it
Speaker 1: more if it were waste, but it commits the cardinal
Speaker 1: sin of being bad enough and good enough to be boring.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jordan. My old friend Steve Badger says bottom tier,
Speaker 1: but not the waste episode, no real saving graces, and
Speaker 1: just reinforces the TAZ shouldn't do comedy theme. It's not
Speaker 1: what springs to mind when we think about the Twilight Zone.
Speaker 1: I absolutely agree, Steve, Thank you. Cerebral p says it's
Speaker 1: bottom tier but definitely the better of the comedic attempts
Speaker 1: I've come across at numerous times, and ca'm bring myself
Speaker 1: to turn it off. Good casting, bad script, good concept,
Speaker 1: bad story, good director, bad direction. It's bad, but I
Speaker 1: love it. It's a spoonful of ice cream buried under
Speaker 1: too many cherries, al East anything.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: If there's one thing I can really respect, it's someone
Speaker 1: who can say, you know what, Yeah, it's not very good,
Speaker 1: but I like it anyway, or the flip side of
Speaker 1: that is someone who says, you know what, I can
Speaker 1: see this thing is actually very good, but it's not
Speaker 1: for me, because I think in this kind of modern
Speaker 1: world of you know, amateur critics, of which I count
Speaker 1: myself as one, I think there is a real lack
Speaker 1: of ability quite often to detach themselves from what is
Speaker 1: their kind of you know, do I like this to
Speaker 1: a more universal appraisal of something, you know, and even
Speaker 1: the best critic in the world, obviously it's still their opinion.
Speaker 1: But I think the good ones have the ability to
Speaker 1: detach themselves somewhat and be able to make those declarations
Speaker 1: you know it's good for it, but it's not for me,
Speaker 1: or you know it's bad, but you know there's something
Speaker 1: about it, those kind of things, rather than putting out
Speaker 1: there that my opinion on this thing is my overall review.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean in terms of people sending in
Speaker 1: feedback and that kind of stuff. I mean people who
Speaker 1: are putting out content as reviews, if you like so.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's a very long thing for what you
Speaker 1: were saying, cerebral pe or I just wanted to say
Speaker 1: that I really like where you're coming from with that.
Speaker 1: Santino says. Wally Cox is great, but this episode not
Speaker 1: so much. I think we're on a similar page with
Speaker 1: that one, Santino. Whitney Bieler. Personally, I'm a computer geek
Speaker 1: by profession, and it's nice to see we were already
Speaker 1: portrayed as lacking social graces even in the early sixties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting point. Actually it was. You know, computers
Speaker 1: were barely out of the box, so to speak, but
Speaker 1: the computer gig stereotype was right there. Whitney goes on
Speaker 1: to say, I did like how Agnes the computer displayed
Speaker 1: output that kind of trapped our mouthed And for some reason,
Speaker 1: I've always liked the wimpy Wally Cox. But overall, this
Speaker 1: is quite a week episode bottom tier. Absolutely, thank you, Whitney.
Speaker 1: My dear friend Emmy says, I won't go into too
Speaker 1: much detail here because we'll cover it on the after show,
Speaker 1: but I definitely don't hate this one as much as
Speaker 1: others do. I think. So what Emmy is talking about
Speaker 1: is over in the after hours club after I put
Speaker 1: the main show out. Sometimes it's straight after it, but
Speaker 1: other times it might be a few days or a
Speaker 1: week after the main show, she and I will get
Speaker 1: together and talk about the episode in a more conversational way,
Speaker 1: and we call that the after show. So it's like
Speaker 1: the Twilight Zone podcast and then the after show, and
Speaker 1: now we have the feedback show. So because there was
Speaker 1: two prelude episodes too from Agnes with Love, you have
Speaker 1: had five episodes. Well, if you remember on the Patreon
Speaker 1: there will have been five episodes covering from Agnes with Love.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure anyone actually needs that, or there you go.
Speaker 1: Our friend John Hay says this episode is simply painful
Speaker 1: to watch. No message here. Yeah, I agree, John. I
Speaker 1: mean I mentioned in the main show that there's these
Speaker 1: other couple of stories which are quite lighthearted in their
Speaker 1: way but still had something to say. But I can't
Speaker 1: really get much to say from this one. Our friend
Speaker 1: Chad Boykin says, I don't like to be in with
Speaker 1: the mainstream of opinion, but it looks like I have
Speaker 1: to be on this one.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Chad. Uncommon Nasa says, I don't remember hating this episode,
Speaker 1: but I don't remember much about it at all, besides
Speaker 1: being board through stretches with the emergence of brain center
Speaker 1: at Whipples in recent years. I think that episode really
Speaker 1: makes this one even more obsolete. Different how common themes,
Speaker 1: but similar reliance on the computer as the gimmick at
Speaker 1: the core of the story. Thanks so much, NASA. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that is our Patreon feedback, and if you want
Speaker 1: to join that part of the conversation, go to patreon
Speaker 1: dot com slash twilight Zone Podcast, where you'll find podcasts
Speaker 1: about Night Gallery, the Twilight Zone, reboots, story readings, all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff over there. There's actually a really big
Speaker 1: back catalog of stuff over there now, so it'd be
Speaker 1: good to have here. And we're also covering the outer
Speaker 1: limits over there as well. So next up we'll be
Speaker 1: hearing from some people with some audio feedback. Don't go away,
Speaker 1: so just starts us off is our old friend and
Speaker 1: voice actor extraordinary, Josh Chambers. Josh, take it away.
Speaker 3: Hi Tom, first and foremost, if I may be so
Speaker 3: bold and speak for the rest of us in the
Speaker 3: after Hours club, we are all eagerly awaiting to see
Speaker 3: how you'll be taking one of the lowest to the
Speaker 3: lower tier episodes and find a critical, academic, or otherwise
Speaker 3: praise worthy angle from which to present the entry, we
Speaker 3: have faith in you, my friend.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: I was originally going to record some audio feedback where
Speaker 3: I'd attempt to explain some cogent theory or simply discuss
Speaker 3: the episode's historical context. I don't know, maybe even do
Speaker 3: a riff on AI and where we are in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five. But now a few days later, as I
Speaker 3: look over my notes, I just simply cannot make sense
Speaker 3: of what it is I saw. And I'm I'm sure
Speaker 3: I have watched this one at least half a dozen times. So,
Speaker 3: without further ado, here's just the list of the most
Speaker 3: mind bogglingly odd things from the episode that I noted.
Speaker 3: Why are they playing Dance the Cuckoos, Dutch Angles? Why
Speaker 3: never go full underdog? Especially at super data? Is anyone
Speaker 3: else scared that Don Keefer's head is going to pop
Speaker 3: off if only Agnes had some Perry combo there. This
Speaker 3: is just weird. I have no idea what that was,
Speaker 3: though I could have said that thirty times the computer's
Speaker 3: display is like watching the board on an old episode
Speaker 3: of Jeopardy? Is Agnes somehow related to Agnes screp all girls,
Speaker 3: same mother? Venus schmemus, premature Champagne odd editing, weird jumps
Speaker 3: and an ambitious crane shot for absolutely no reason. Only
Speaker 3: wished computers today sounded as cool as Agnes. What on
Speaker 3: earth was Elwood doing to that machine? And why is
Speaker 3: he about to put the door placard on the young
Speaker 3: woman's bosoms? And that's it. But for the record, our
Speaker 3: son Carson liked it. When I pressed him on why,
Speaker 3: he simply said, I love the Twilight Zone. I guess
Speaker 3: in the end he's right, good, bad, just playing mediocre
Speaker 3: or whatever. From Agnes with Love is we do love
Speaker 3: our Twilight Zone. Thanks again, Tom, and I hope you
Speaker 3: are in recovery after this episode.
Speaker 2: Take care, Thank you, Josh.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed your stream of consciousness thoughts there on From
Speaker 1: Agnes with Love. But I think we all could be
Speaker 1: a little bit more like cars and sometimes, and you know,
Speaker 1: I guess try and find the joy in things more
Speaker 1: than we probably do as adults. I mean, I tried,
Speaker 1: and I think that's probably why I came away with
Speaker 1: the thought that at least I enjoyed some of what
Speaker 1: Wally Cox did. So there was that you said at
Speaker 1: the beginning that you're you were interested how I would
Speaker 1: approach this one and I appreciate that because it is
Speaker 1: getting a little bit tougher here in season five. The
Speaker 1: trivia is really drying up, and you've got to try
Speaker 1: and I guess do something with the episode. So this time,
Speaker 1: you know, it was like, well, what are computer's doing
Speaker 1: at that time? And bring a little bit into it
Speaker 1: to round things out a bit, I suppose, But I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed it, and thank you for charming in Josh.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Next up we have the CEO of job a house press,
Speaker 1: our friend.
Speaker 4: Chad Hey, Tom Chad here calling in with a couple
Speaker 4: thoughts on for Agnes with love. You know, mostly I'm
Speaker 4: guessing that there's now going to be a whole lot
Speaker 4: of feedback on this one. So I like to try
Speaker 4: to do things that nobody else is doing and giving
Speaker 4: a feedback on one of the episodes that I think
Speaker 4: this might be one that Rod Serling referred to lovingly
Speaker 4: as a Turkey. Twilight Zone didn't do comedy especially well,
Speaker 4: that's the conventional wisdom. Maybe they just sort of pale
Speaker 4: in comparison to the to the weight and the gravity
Speaker 4: of the bigger, more heavy episodes, but these also provided
Speaker 4: a little bit of levity and you know, maybe kind
Speaker 4: of maybe they just pale in comparison, but try to
Speaker 4: sort of take them for what they are. So this
Speaker 4: story was, you know, the sort of nerdy office guy.
Speaker 4: He's smitten with his coworker and the supercomputer is giving
Speaker 4: him bad advice, intentionally trying to sabotage his relationship because
Speaker 4: the supercomputer is really in love with the nerdy guy.
Speaker 4: So the I guess that's one of the jokes that
Speaker 4: the episode make. But my two cents on this one.
Speaker 4: My takeaway was that from our vantage point at this
Speaker 4: point in time, when we have the supercomputers and the
Speaker 4: palm of our hand and we're you know, buying laptops
Speaker 4: every couple of years, and they're they've become such a
Speaker 4: big part of our lives, and I think Twilight Zone
Speaker 4: and other science fiction sort of predicted that way way
Speaker 4: back when. But what stands out to me is in
Speaker 4: this episode, it's the supercomputer that's in love with the person,
Speaker 4: Whereas from where we stand today, it seems like the
Speaker 4: people are in love with the computers. So it seems
Speaker 4: like it sort of flipped or became kind of the
Speaker 4: inverse of what this episode kind of says.
Speaker 2: But who knows. We're only at a certain point in time.
Speaker 4: It might be that in the future it becomes that
Speaker 4: way right where the computers are in love with us,
Speaker 4: but right now it seems to be the other way around,
Speaker 4: and we're so connected to these things all the time,
Speaker 4: Like twenty four to seven, we're practically iborgs with these
Speaker 4: computers on our person all the time and in multiple forms.
Speaker 4: So anyway, probably not an episode that's in anybody's top tier,
Speaker 4: but I wanted to send some thoughts in on it. Also,
Speaker 4: just a quick congratulations. I really loved the recent episode
Speaker 4: where you talked about that the spoof concert that never
Speaker 4: was and how Rod Serling did the narration for that
Speaker 4: sort of in the mid seventies, one of the last things,
Speaker 4: if not the last thing that he ever did. I
Speaker 4: wasn't aware of that. I thought it was a really cool,
Speaker 4: a really nice hidden gym to find, and I think
Speaker 4: it's sort of a great little concept and to do
Speaker 4: a half mockumentary half real documentary about that is really cool.
Speaker 2: So keep up the.
Speaker 4: Great work, and we're in the home stretch and hope
Speaker 4: everybody is doing really well.
Speaker 1: Cheers, Thank you, Chad, and we will have some news
Speaker 1: soon about another book from job a house Press that
Speaker 1: will be of interest to Twilight Zone fans. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed your take on the whole. These days it's
Speaker 1: us who's in love with the computers thing. It's I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't want to get too kind of
Speaker 1: real world on everything, but it is troubling sometimes. And
Speaker 1: you read now occasionally about people who are really trying
Speaker 1: to shun technology to a degree. And much as I
Speaker 1: love a gadget, sometimes I think, you know what, I
Speaker 1: kind of get that as well. It's just a shame
Speaker 1: this episode doesn't really say much about anything.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 1: I suppose at that time, you know, there wasn't that
Speaker 1: dependence there, but as Epicac and a logic named Joe
Speaker 1: kind of illustrated, there were still things to say. Thanks
Speaker 1: for your thoughts on that chat. Okay, my old friend
Speaker 1: Joe Brown with some thoughts on from Agnes with Love.
Speaker 2: Hey time, Joe Brown.
Speaker 5: Here, just some thoughts about the latest Twilight's Own episode
Speaker 5: from Agnes with Love. I'm not really sure where to start, tom.
Speaker 5: I started watching the episode again just to familiarize myself
Speaker 5: with it, and some things that stuck out to me.
Speaker 2: Was.
Speaker 5: Immediately when the episode starts, you see that mister Drysdale,
Speaker 5: who's played by Raymond Bailey, mister Drysdale from Beverly Hillbillies is.
Speaker 2: Wally Cox's boss.
Speaker 5: Wally's playing Jim Elwood, and then the episode starts out
Speaker 5: like it's going to be a really a serious type episode.
Speaker 5: And as time goes on, immediately as he goes down
Speaker 5: to get Elwood to fix Agnes, that music that is
Speaker 5: supposed to be joyous and happy and silly is going on,
Speaker 5: and it makes the viewer think we got a comedy
Speaker 5: coming right away. And I'm just sitting there shaking my
Speaker 5: head watching the television, going I don't this is not
Speaker 5: going to turn out good, and it doesn't because he
Speaker 5: gets into he being Elwood gets into the computer room
Speaker 5: with Agnes, and there's Dan Hollis from It's a Good
Speaker 5: Life is sitting there, you know, Don Keefer, and he
Speaker 5: is completely it looked like he came straight out of
Speaker 5: the cornfield to now deal with Agnes. And he basically
Speaker 5: tells Elwood, this is your problem. I can't fix her.
Speaker 5: I'm out of here, and he leaves. So, of course
Speaker 5: Wally Cox Elwood is getting involved with trying to answer
Speaker 5: these questions or gets computer to work, and it's just.
Speaker 2: It's just silly.
Speaker 5: Tom trying to get advice on the computer about how
Speaker 5: to deal with women and advises him on what to
Speaker 5: do with Milly ask her out, and then it moves
Speaker 5: into we'll have dinner at the apartment because he tries
Speaker 5: to ask her for a date that doesn't work out,
Speaker 5: and it's just these funny moments that are supposed to
Speaker 5: be funny are simply not funny. It's just not a
Speaker 5: funny episode. It's just it's so typical of these comedy
Speaker 5: series of that time, even in the sixties, to where
Speaker 5: it's supposed to be lighthearted, it's supposed to be taken
Speaker 5: with a grain of salt.
Speaker 2: But the stereotypes are just ridiculous.
Speaker 5: On how this computer knows that all girls are the
Speaker 5: same and that if Elwood allows Milli to go meet
Speaker 5: Walter with the blue sports car or before even before that,
Speaker 5: he can use romantic or reckless romantic. And I'm just
Speaker 5: sitting here, shake of my head, going, I don't understand
Speaker 5: why this episode is doing it.
Speaker 2: It's just that's not funny.
Speaker 5: And then one thing I noticed, if you watch the
Speaker 5: episode and when the camera pans back looking at Agnes.
Speaker 2: It almost looks like a face.
Speaker 5: When the message board is opening and closing like a mouth.
Speaker 5: And then the video cameras, which are really just lights,
Speaker 5: are flash and it looks like it's a face. And
Speaker 5: Agnes is supposed to be saying these words, but the
Speaker 5: words are populating in that little flapper that's opening and closing,
Speaker 5: you know, And then you know, as the episode goes
Speaker 5: into act number two, we go back to mister Drysdale.
Speaker 5: It tries to be serious and tries to be funny
Speaker 5: at the same time, and it just does not work.
Speaker 5: And the one thing I made mention about Walter earlier
Speaker 5: with the blue sports car, why is Agnes asking Elwood
Speaker 5: have you met? You're still with Millie, You're still trying
Speaker 5: to date her, And then it says, why don't you
Speaker 5: go have her hook up with Walter?
Speaker 2: You know, the one with the blue sports car.
Speaker 5: Agnes has all of the answers about what Wood is
Speaker 5: supposed to be doing, but yet doesn't know whether or
Speaker 5: not Elwood's with Milly.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 5: It's I don't know, it's trying to personify Agnes is
Speaker 5: a person and you know, when I first started thinking
Speaker 5: about this episode, I thought what I remembered it as
Speaker 5: was going to be like the movie Her with Joaquin Phoenix,
Speaker 5: and it's not. It's it's not that Elwood has fallen
Speaker 5: in love with the computer.
Speaker 2: It's the opposite.
Speaker 5: Agnes has fallen in love with Elwood, and it just
Speaker 5: it makes no sense. In the episode is trying really
Speaker 5: really hard to be funny. And then of course at
Speaker 5: the end, Elwood ends up in the same boat that
Speaker 5: Dan Hollis did. He's all Harry Walter comes in to
Speaker 5: save the day, and it makes me think that is
Speaker 5: the same thing going to happen to Walter because Elwood's
Speaker 5: not going to be back to seeing Agnes in the future.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, Tom, this isn't a Twilight episode.
Speaker 2: It's just a waste of time.
Speaker 1: Thanks, thank you, Joe. You know, I was listening to
Speaker 1: that thinking, man, I missed those conversations with Joe at
Speaker 1: sailing Fest, and it kind of occurred to me that
Speaker 1: actually all of the feedback that I'm playing in this
Speaker 1: episode is from sailing Fest attendees. We were all there
Speaker 1: last time, and yeah, man, good times, good times. You
Speaker 1: said a lot of cool stuff there, Joe. And at
Speaker 1: the crux of it, we can forgive anything. If something
Speaker 1: is funny, it will take us away from a story
Speaker 1: that doesn't make sense, or maybe one of the actors
Speaker 1: isn't so great, but overall it's funny, or you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. But you're right it it just
Speaker 1: wasn't funny, which is you know, the cardinalsin of comedy.
Speaker 1: Also what you picked up on, you know, Agnes being
Speaker 1: a love with the Wally Cox character. And I said
Speaker 1: this in the in the episode, it's like, well, where
Speaker 1: does that actually come from? You know, it kind of
Speaker 1: needed something to at least explain why this has come about,
Speaker 1: because as it is, you know, we have the Don
Speaker 1: Keifer character who's clearly went through the same thing with Agnes,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, Wally Cox's character comes
Speaker 1: in and Agnes is in love with him straight away.
Speaker 1: So I guess what we're supposed to take from it
Speaker 1: is that Agnes is just this kind of crazy computer
Speaker 1: who just falls in love with whoever is her main programmer.
Speaker 1: And again going back to Epercac, at least there was
Speaker 1: a reason for that. You know, Epercac was creating all
Speaker 1: this love poetry for the guy who was operating him,
Speaker 1: and that was generating these feelings for the person who
Speaker 1: he was writing the poet, so you know there was
Speaker 1: something there. But yeah, with this one, there's just absolutely
Speaker 1: nothing but good to hear from you anyway, Joe. All right,
Speaker 1: so let's play out with our old friend from Bedea, Texas,
Speaker 1: Harold Clark.
Speaker 6: Hey there, Tom, Harold Clark reporting and from Bute to
Speaker 6: Texas talking about from Agnes with Love. So, unless my
Speaker 6: vast Wikipedia research fails me, you have already said in
Speaker 6: your very mellow tone, first broadcast February fourteenth, nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 6: So to have a love themed episode debut on Valentine's Day? Eh, okay,
Speaker 6: nice touch. So one minute in we go to see
Speaker 6: what this Agnes is all about, and they play that
Speaker 6: whimsical music and I thought, oh, it's one of these episodes.
Speaker 6: I mean, I knew it was a whimsical episode to
Speaker 6: start with, but like, oh no, we're gonna have these stingers.
Speaker 6: Let's see how this goes. So I will say one
Speaker 6: big plus of the episode is the design of Agnes.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, here there, here we are, you know,
Speaker 6: five seasons in I guess budgets were going getting smaller.
Speaker 6: You know, they could have phoned it in Agnes, could
Speaker 6: have looked like anything. But you know, to have a
Speaker 6: whole wall, I mean, I guess that's what computers look
Speaker 6: like in the back in the day anyway. But to
Speaker 6: have a whole wall dedicate tour and have the monitors
Speaker 6: for eyes and the mouth, and all the lights and
Speaker 6: all the ticker tape spilling out and all of this stuff.
Speaker 6: I mean that, you know, they could have done anything,
Speaker 6: but you know, that was that was nice.
Speaker 2: I liked.
Speaker 6: I liked how they did that. And then we have
Speaker 6: good old James Elwood. So I'm gonna believe in my
Speaker 6: head that this is where dan Aykroyd came up with
Speaker 6: the idea for Elwood Blues from the Blues Brothers. I mean,
Speaker 6: he was in the Twilight Zone movies, so who knows.
Speaker 6: Maybe he was a longtime fan and and this character,
Speaker 6: you know, you know, stuck stuck with him, and you know,
Speaker 6: unless Ellwood is just a very common name. So I
Speaker 6: think the actor who plays the part of the nerdy
Speaker 6: programmer actually plays it very well. Now, whether you want
Speaker 6: a nerdy programmer as your main character of your of
Speaker 6: your story. Well that's another story. But hey, you know,
Speaker 6: I think he's fine for the role, for the role
Speaker 6: that's actually given to him later in the episode. I
Speaker 6: am surprised that they used the term sex fiend. I mean,
Speaker 6: I guess, you know, in nineteen sixty four, you know,
Speaker 6: considering what was getting what was getting censored, like you
Speaker 6: couldn't say coffee and tea and other stuff for me.
Speaker 6: And I know that's very related to to censors, but
Speaker 6: or to sponsors, I should say, but I don't know
Speaker 6: that that line, just that phrase just struck me that
Speaker 6: huh that was the thing way back then. Huh uh. So,
Speaker 6: I mean the story as a whole is very cliche,
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, nowadays, very clicheh you know, to
Speaker 6: have a comedy episode about this. You know, maybe it
Speaker 6: was just maybe maybe they just thought it was too
Speaker 6: wild of a concept, you know. I mean, by this point,
Speaker 6: we've had plenty of episodes of robots having you know,
Speaker 6: emotion and things like that. But maybe the whole idea
Speaker 6: of just a computer being able to have an emotion
Speaker 6: of love, I don't know. Maybe that's maybe they just
Speaker 6: felt compelled that this just has to be a comedy episode,
Speaker 6: not sure, but it did make me wonder, well, what
Speaker 6: happened if you would gender swap this, uh, this story,
Speaker 6: you know, you know, have a you know, a woman
Speaker 6: programmer you know, well does would she be a nerdy
Speaker 6: you know programmer? Would that have to be the case?
Speaker 6: And what would a male you know, you know angus,
Speaker 6: I guess what would a male computer sound like? Would
Speaker 6: it I mean, it's it's a know it all already?
Speaker 6: Would it already be a know it all? Would it
Speaker 6: try to man explaining stuff anyway? Not sure, but you know,
Speaker 6: it makes makes me wonder how they could have took
Speaker 6: the story if again, if things are changed. It makes
Speaker 6: me think about the twenty thirteen Joaquin Phoenix movie Her.
Speaker 6: I have not seen it, but apparently that's very much
Speaker 6: more dramatic retelling almost maybe of this story where you know,
Speaker 6: somebody actually does fall in love with a digital a
Speaker 6: digital thing. So you know, I mean, with with the
Speaker 6: advances in AI nowadays, I mean, it would be interesting
Speaker 6: to see what, you know, some of these writers stuff
Speaker 6: could could come up with as far as stories in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty five, I mean even five years ago, AI
Speaker 6: was completely different, So I mean, who knows, who knows
Speaker 6: what some of these stories will be coming out nowadays.
Speaker 6: You know, in the end, you know it's it's a
Speaker 6: harmless episode, you know, forget full so to speak. I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, I'll always remember the design of Agnes, but
Speaker 6: you know it, I mean, it's bottom tier for me,
Speaker 6: but you know, I mean, I'll give it. I'll give
Speaker 6: it kudos for the set design. And I did enjoy
Speaker 6: the the the banter back and forth between Elwood and
Speaker 6: Agnes and some of the some of the retorts that.
Speaker 2: Agnes would come up with.
Speaker 6: So you know, at the end of the day, it
Speaker 6: is what it is, and you know, you know it'll
Speaker 6: be interesting to see, you know what the what the high,
Speaker 6: you know, middle, low, bottom tier is what that percentage
Speaker 6: is going to be like. So anyway, on to the
Speaker 6: next episode.
Speaker 1: Then, thank you, Harold. Always good to get your thoughts.
Speaker 1: I was thinking over while you were talking actually, from
Speaker 1: some of the things you said, you know about the
Speaker 1: time period and everything with computers being quite new, I
Speaker 1: suppose it reminds me of when the Internet was starting
Speaker 1: to become a thing. So filmmakers started to make films
Speaker 1: about you know that the Internet and try and weave
Speaker 1: down into an adventure or something, but they didn't really
Speaker 1: kind of know what to do with it or how
Speaker 1: it really works in a kind of real world way.
Speaker 1: And I suppose there's shades of that. All this was
Speaker 1: quite new, so like, right, what can we do with this?
Speaker 1: What can we do with this? And they're like, let's
Speaker 1: let's make a comedy and here we are from Agnes
Speaker 1: with love. Thank you, Harold, appreciate it. So I've enjoyed this.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe I should have done this fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: separated out a kind of feedback upsode where I could
Speaker 1: take a bit more time with it and speak to
Speaker 1: you all about it. But I've enjoyed doing it. As
Speaker 1: long as I keep getting feedback, then I will carry
Speaker 1: on doing this until the end. So if you want
Speaker 1: to get your thoughts onto the show, then send a
Speaker 1: clip of around five minutes to give or take. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not too strict on it. If you've got a
Speaker 1: lot to say about an episode, that's fine, and send
Speaker 1: her over to Tom at the Twilight Zone podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: And let's do this again, because our next episode is
Speaker 1: spare of the moment. I'll speak to you then