Midnight Viewing - Tribute to Jeannot Szwarc (1939 - 2025) Part 1

Will you wait, Miss.

School Sill.

Welcome back midnight viewers. Father alone here with a rather somber couple of episodes at the time of this recording. Today the cinematic world lost a massive figure in that of David Lynch, maybe not so well known, but also expiring on this same day, which is kind of poetic when you look at his career. Was mister Jeno Zwark. He is a favorite of mine. He directed some nineteen segments of Night Gallery. He made the only decent adaptation of a Richard Matheson novel in Somewhere in Time. Yes

Now.

This was written by Rod Sterling, adapted from a short story by Cyril M. Cornblue. And this is actually not the first time it had been adapted. It had been adapted back in nineteen fifty two for a science fiction show called Tales of Tomorrow. It stars Burgess, Meredith Chillwills and George Firth. It was, as I said, written by Ron Sterling, but it was directed by Jeno'swark. Hope, I'm pronouncing it right. I'm a fan of his, and I'm sure I just made a fool of myself, but I

For your approval, now, a painting which has to do with time, not the brief moments left to our culprits in the previous story. Their years of imprisonment were minute, little fragments compared to the time we talk of in this picture. We talk centuries now, and what happens when men from one century send back items quite unbidden to men of another.

We call this painting the Little Black Bag.

Did you guys happen to read the story or see the original Tales of Tomorrow?

No?

Okay, well I managed to do all three. The original short story takes place in the year twenty ninety eight. Society is split into two factions, super Geniuses and the Dimwits. Two super geniuses have a bet that they can create time travel, and one of them does it so just to see if it works, they send a medical bag back back in time, where it is picked up by an alcoholic but not hobo.

Alcoholic but not not hobo.

Yes, so he was a surgeon. He was kicked out of the medical industry for practicing surgery while drunk. He has nothing. He does have a little house, like I said, he's not homeless, and he has a sister named Agnes. Now he finds the bag. He finds it and shows it to her, figures out what it does, which is from the future, and then Agnes becomes more and more greedy, and he creates a clinic. It's very long for what

Oh boy?

I mean, as soon as I see poor Burgess Meredith, I'm just like, Oh, he's going to get fucked over by fate, isn't he. Rod Serling just wanted him to suffer. Suffer, suffer, little man. I have talked many times on various podcasts about how I dislike when people played drunk. It takes a lot to play drunk very well, and man, when these two hobos just start going at it at the beginning, I'm just like, oh boy, I just was not a big fan. I was more of a fan of the

Yeah, I think, you know, I think a lot of it has to do with the you know, I hate to keep hammering on Rod Sterling, but like the level of writing tends to be like nineteen thirties, Like he just sort of never particularly when it comes to someone on the outliers or it was an outlier of society, like like a homeless man or something like like Rod Serling has a pattern in his head that that's what that type of character sounds like, and so we end

Oh, this is what this is whatbo sound like. And you know they're probably on that tool Hoover Bill.

Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't have vindals on sticks.

With like the threell broths of beard.

Yeah, it's in like a cigar on a toothpick. There you go, found this cannabeans Chris.

What you think, Hey, weird reality together? It couldn't be who've had Okay.

And there are so many times when he could have gotten away from Chilwell. It's like, you know, yeah, I know he was fascinated by the bag to the point where he was sort of like distracted by uh or didn't recognize everything going on around him. Maybe, but like at a certain point, like this guy's means you harm dude, run.

Has that thing that they can only do in movies where it's like one character is themselves and then the other character is standing behind them saying they're plent loud sharpens knife off screen. There's no subtlety to it, dare I say, even inches in earshot.

It was great to see George Firth in this episode. He's the technician running the future teleportation machine. I guess he's alwayshilarious, and of course he was great in Blazing Saddles the Fool's going.

He's great. I mean, he's not given much to do here, but I recognized him from Blazing Sat.

He's not only not given much to do here, but like I found myself thinking back to that guy and wondering what he was up to during the rest of this episode. Right, it's good lord, and like you know there. I thought Serling innovated a lot of a lot of things in the episode, as far as like keeping it on a clock as opposed to you know, the short story he like eventually makes a clinic and he gets a clientele and everything, and then the original adaptation was garbage.

I think for me, it just goes back to the idea that Burgess Meredith could have left it at a point.

Like yeah, oh yeah. Ultimately, when you have a character doing stupid things continuously, how are we supposed to follow you at after a certain point?

You know?

As I said, clearly Chilwell's meant him harm and I don't know how he wasn't able to recognize it the all time.

So I was happy to see Arthur is A Mallett who I mostly know him as is that mister Brisbee from Secret of Nim And I think, yes, yeh, he was in and other things, but I mostly know him for his voice work. So as soon as he started to speak, I was like, whoa, Okay.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think this episode really brought anything to the time traveling genre or anything. And like, when I think about Rod Serling sometimes I think, like, I don't understand how he had time in the day to do anything, considering how many scripts he was writing, and like how many stories he had to even read to get to the point where he wanted to adapt one, so they all can't be winners. This one definitely isn't for me.

Not the last time we'll see Arthur Mallett, because he will come back.

This episode. We're talking about Season two, episode two, which aired on September the twenty second, nineteen seventy one, and was broken into four segments, Death in the Family, the Merciful Class of ninety nine, and which's Feast.

Now.

Since the creative team is pretty much in place for Night Gallery, it's the one that is going to be rotating around. I want to take a moment to highlight a couple of people behind and in front of the scenes here that we're going to be dealing with in this case. This episode's MVP is a guy named Jeno Juark, who is the director. He basically directed the entire episode except for one little blackout sketch at the end. He directed a bunch last season. He's going to direct a

Did Red Snow and The Last Offender of Camelot on nineteen eighty five, twilight Zone.

Listen, yeah, every piece of enter Why.

You just like you left it out. I just wanted to make sure we didn't forget. Since we've already mentioned twilight Zone nineteen eighty five.

I'm not pointing out that he made Supergirl either, but you know, I.

Think you just you just Barbarstriis and him right there. Oh boy, don't look at my house, don't do it. You know what this is.

This is a creative guy. And given this year's deadlines, which we're gonna have to talk about a little bit more. I think he did an amazing.

Job here, and he directed an episode of Colombo. I'm sure he did lovely but lethal, which we have not gotten to.

Yet, not yet. No, Now, I've reached out to him several times, have yet to hear back from him. So hopefully fingers crossed one of these days.

Let him know.

A little American Gothic here, with the accustomed accouterman's toll, mourning tombstones and tears, and the somber look of the bereathed. We generally cry at funerals out of a sense of loss. A poor, unfortunate loved one will no longer walk the earth. He or she will simply occupy six feet of it, never to be seen or heard from again. Or at least we make an assumption that that's natural law, and we subscribe to it. But this painting here, and we

Night gallery anyway. Death in the Family was written by Ron Serling based on a short story by Miriam Ellen de Ford and directed by jeanau Juark. This one stars E. G. Marshall and Desi Arnezz j.

We just saw him last month in Marco the The Rankin and Bass Musical featuring Desi Arnez Junior as Marco pol.

I must have missed that one.

I wouldn't say you're missing it, Bob.

This one is the tale of an escaped convict who takes refuge in a lively funeral home. And this also continues our longest running segment here in the show, which is please Rod Serling no more, for he's a jolly good fellow. We fucking.

Even my wife picked up on that. She's like, oh God, not again.

That's right.

They're tearing down Tim Riley's God.

That's and I've only started counting at Tim Riley's Bar. But I guarantee you, if if I dug back again, there would have been another episode. And I guarantee you there's another one on the way, So anyway, I'm keeping count now. Mike, what'd you think of this one?

Yeah?

Yeah, uh yeah yeah.

Was this the one that you told me, Mike to watch for the ending because you didn't understand what was going on or was it another one? This was the one? This was the Okay, I'm just making sure. Yeah, okay, I was really hoping that E. G.

Marshall was going to be like threatened by cock broaches or something. But yeah, I I like the first part of it. I like when it's, you know, lonely funeral home guy and this poor guy has died alone, and then they're bearing what feels like a very light coffin. So I'm like, oh, well, he kept the body, Okay, that makes sense. Then we find out that he has preserved him incredibly well, to the point where it almost looks like it's just an actor staying still rather than

Like we see that a lot in this episode.

Now, oh boy, Yeah, when they were at the end of the episode and everybody had to not blink, it was great.

And does Aerz Junior shows up and he's a wanted criminal.

On the run.

We don't really find out anything about him or what his whole motivation is. He just he finds that EJ. Marshall has the corpse there and he doesn't freak out appropriately enough for me. I think I would be much more freaked if I came into a funeral home and the funeral director just had a corpse sitting around with a party hat on and stuff. So yeah, and and then it just kind of goes on. It feels very rambly to me, even though it's not that long of a segment.

Very loose in structure. Chris, what'd you think?

I think, Yeah, it would echo everything that Mike just said. You know, you have Desi Ernes Junior not given much to do. E. G. Marshall, who, like Mike mentioned, I know him from all of one thing, which is my problem, not the show's problem, But I know him from Creep Show, which I mean that segment in Creep Show. I know how much you like that movie Father Malone. I enjoyed as well. That's my favorite segment in the movie. It's

What?

What were they going for here?

Like?

Okay, so he has a bunch of people that he's created a family of It's like office killer but not good. I was like, it's like the same thing. I'm making a family of corpses to what end?

Yeah, And at first I was like, is that really his father? I was like, no, that's gotta be the dude that he was preserving. So yeah, how so how does it that is? Does the arnas junior part of the family.

Now he is?

Now he is?

Okay, they both die in that ensuing gun fight because he goes bang and then he's like, oha, I gotta shoot myself too. I think they the gun was fired while that well, there was a wrestling match going around and shot and then shot our man E. G. Marshall, and then Marshall was still alive enough to drag Arnez to his spot and before taking his own and then collapse. Oh there is in a nutshell.

Long enough to talk to the cops and like, let the cops know what's going on, and and to have a moment where he's my son.

I like that moment. I don't like that he died. Actually when it when I was not convinced that he was shot and sort of jabbering away and looking crazy. I thought, oh, this is good. I I appreciate an ending where someone has completely lost their mind, but now they had to throw it away and you know, punish him because Rod Serling wrote this script.

But but you don't understand the ultimate punishment is deaf. You don't get like, you don't get that.

No, the ultimate punishment is everyone respecting Rod enough to not touch his scripts that he got through, which is what I happened here with with mister Joir obviously didn't change a line and you know, followed the directions. The only sort of subversion to Serling's regular nonsense here is the music, which is Bonker's crazy cool and completely counterpoint to everything we're seeing on screen. It's like xylophones and

Right to Frankenstein.

I just heard it in that this thing pops up forever, So shout out, Castle Thunder. You don't get enough respect. And we all grew up listening to you.

And I was waiting for Roddy mcdonwell to come into this episode, given that where it's set, like there's just one set on the universal back up that they shoot all these gothic oh boy, more episodes in Like that's what this feels like. So goddamn set bound again again again again again.

So what's up with the stairwell? I mean, this stairwell shows up in the next segment, but then this stairwell is dressed with all of these empty frames. I mean you're right. I mean I'm waiting for to be like, oh, let me switch these out with another photo or something, but they're empty, and I'm just like, what are we going for here with the sect decoration?

Do you remember father belowe that episode of Tales from the Crypt where it was like the writer in the apartment building and then the like he was like, I want this woman to fall in love with me, and so she does. And I remember you straight up saying when we did that episode, like, man, this show is so fucking set bound.

So is this show now?

Like this show needs to just like find another shoot it from another angle. Doesn't work anymore because it's like we're seeing literally the same set in two segments.

Like what right now, that's us watching this show and noticing these things, and you know whatever, I'm being a jeno apologist right now because I think the shot it's actually beautifully shot. The guy knows where to put a camera, he knows how to light it. It felt as close to a film as you could get on a set and still match it with sort of the outside stuff.

Who will come in?

More?

Someone must pick music?

Who will care?

Like that's day one at the job at the funeral parlor, right, and then thirty forty years later you're just like, give me the corpse, thank you, goodbye. This crisis that he's having is just doesn't make any sense sort of character wise.

No, he would be so jaded by this point.

Right, very desensitized. He would be like speaking of tales from the crypt, he'd be like the punishment fits the crime. You remember that episode Bought Them Alone, where it's the funeral home, and it's the guy who's like swapping out legs and doing all kinds of terrible shit with the sneak, with the sneakers walking down the stairs. Oh my god, that's the way the character should be, like super disillusioned

In his basement, Like what I could have gone with an empathetic e g. Marshall who also has bodies around because he's a lonely old man and like you know, thought they didn't get a fair shake in life, and he's gonna give him another one. That's not the story

I don't know.

It's the I mean it, mister, get out of the way I made it.

We weren't. We weren't singing the praises of desi Arnez Junior on the Marco podcast on the Rank and on Bass show that Mike and I host with our dear friend Richard HadAM. We were not singing his praises. He was the worst part of that movie.

He's real bad here.

It's there.

Yeah, had he flown on a kite, that might have been something else.

The whole time, might just in the.

Like hello, old man, you crazy. Ruh, I'm gonna get you. I I hear everything that you're saying. For them alone, But I have to say, Classic Nice nine is worse.

Oh it's worse.

Is that?

Yes?

I think it is all right, I mean, but that's like, you know, Chris always talks about the world's tallest dwarf. It's like, whoa, yeah six the one happy Yeah right, I know.

I get it.

Yeah, I just uh, I think there was something maybe this Look, this was ultimately just a tail from the crypt like blackout, Like you know, this is what Rod thinks is really shocking and like and I'm sure that there was some problem with standards. You know, you want to show like a house full of corpses all setting up happily, like they couldn't go too far with it, but they didn't go at all far like you said, It's like it's clearly just a bunch of actors holding still,

But Grimboji.

I was happy to see James be sicking in this. I always enjoy him even though he was so young in this. It's wild can you imagine. I mean, this was when did this one come out?

Again? This was in nineteen seventy one, September.

Wow, just three years later the Texas Chainsaw massacre would just copy this so much.

Yeah, Tobe Hooper is on record as saying, yeah, Night Gallery.

I was very inspired by the Death in the Family episode for Night Gallery. I knew it. It sounded like Toby Hooper was here, but no, he's still dead. That was just me doing a spot on Toby Hooper impersonation.

It was pretty good, man, You really invoked him. It was an evocation of him.

Yes, yes, all right. Our next segment it is uh segment.

It's a minute and a half long.

I know.

It's written by Jack Lair, based on a short story by Charles L. Sweeney Junior. Indirected again by Jeno Joirk. This one is stars imaging Coca and King Donovan. It's basically just a twist on pose cask of Mantiato with a y or a wife, you know, breaking her husband in maybe.

I mean yeah, And I mean they telegraphed this so early on. I was just like, Oh, he's not in the room.

She is.

She's bricking herself in. Yeah, and then it just goes on forever like oh god on and yeah.

Phantom of what rantom of what opera?

This is not?

Yeah?

Yeah, As she puts the final brick in and it just becomes completely sound proof. I was like, is that really how bricks work?

Exactly?

Also, doesn't the whole idea of the cask of a teato completely hinge on the idea that in the story he's tied up to the wall too, Because I don't know how much carpentry and brick lay y'all have done, but you can knock a wall over pretty easily, especially if now I'm just putting this out here. It's not dry yet.

Unusual, but she's pretty willing.

Well yeah, but in this, in this, in this story, like my point is, you get it?

Yeah.

So I actually felt a little weird watching it, like like imagining myself in the situation. But that's just nothing that that they did on screen. I just started to remember.

Bricking yourself into it?

How good it is the last line of that that s there is one of my favorite interactions of all time, because uh uh, Montressori is the one being while and he says, I for the love of God, and he says back very calmly, yes, for the love of God, and then he puts the last brick in. It's It's such a good line, and any time they film it, they always shout the line and I'm always like, no, just saying anyway, that was the mercy of Imaging Coca and King Donovan husband and wife.

By the way, I mean ging Coca very very familiar to me, but not through regular channels. I think for me, it's her role as Shad or Shag and It's About Time was my entree into imaging Coca.

Wow.

I grew up knowing her only from National Lampoon's Vacation and then later got to see a bunch of Sid Caesar Show of shows.

Oh she's amazing. Yeah, but uh, It's about Time probably one of the best TV theme songs. I mean it puts uh the other Sherwood Shorts film Sorry series to shame.

Really, I know nothing of this show.

It's about Time, but it's about space. Yeah, it's pretty great.

I was just disappointed they didn't say rec we asim Pache at the end. I was waiting for it. Come on, give the give the goddamn source material a little bit more credit because it's good, because it's good. This isn't Yeah.

What I think is funny is that this is based on a short story by somebody else.

Like okay, like yeah, yeah, right, yeah, it's just I read guys.

Yeah, what if? What if it's a husband and wife and she's doing it voluntarily? There, I wrote it. I wrote the story. Now onto Mike's favorite segment of this episode.

Nine, almost unusual graduation exercise. Now it's titled the Class of ninety nine. A set of numbers and the pearl eyes. We'll move behind them now to give you an idea why we call the place you are in the night Gallery.

This is an original script by Rod Sarling. Can You Imagine?

Oh I Can?

Was directed directed by Janno Swark, starring Vincent Price, Brandon Wild, Hilly Hicks, and Randolph Mantooth. This concerns a graduating class's final examination and plumbs the depths of what it means to be human.

Oh, it's plumbing something, it's plumbing it all right? Wow?

Yeah, I had no idea what they were going for through most of this skit, and I'm just like, what is happening here.

Just this.

Vincent Price as this proctor for the final examination and asking all of these very bizarre questions. And I mean, I mean it was pure sirling when it became all about race for a few minutes. I mean it really was about race for I'd say two thirds of it. Once they start talking about this black gentleman that's in class and they start slapping each other, and I'm just like, what am I watching? What in the world is happening here? I was very happy. My wife was all about mister Mantooth.

Honey, Mike, please tell me you caught one for that. Honeyk it's because you're older than me.

That's what you get from the cougar.

An actual cougar. You're married to an.

H Yeah, how do you think I got these scars? My Randolph man Tooth, not Raymond My bad.

Fantastic. I felt like I could hear Rod Serling clucking his tongue at me while I was watching the episode. I'm glad he didn't use any ortis. I mean, that was my concern was he was gonna say something offensive or have one of the characters say something offensive, because it like verges on it, right.

He wanted to.

I want to say the I want to say it.

Yeah, the what you're saying, Mike like that, it seems like heavily freighted towards the racism side, because when all I said and done, what we're dealing with here is a bunch of robots who are going to be sent out into Earth, but that has been devastated by some sort of apocalypse. This is the year nineteen ninety nine, and they're going to repopulate the Earth just the way

I don't feel like the meetings were just like, Rod, you can't do what you used to do, man, Like it doesn't work anymore. It hasn't worked since the last time the show worked, and the show worked, but it didn't work all the time either. And it's shocking to watch Rod Serling fall and continue to fall. It's not Rod Serling's Midnight Gallery anymore or night Gallery, but he's still involved heavily, and I wish he wasn't. Like I

Point this script gone through? Two of his scripts got through here. He complained that like a lot of his script's being rejected or rewritten here. By the way, that's also a fallacy I've come to find out in further reading, like two of his scripts were rewritten like sort of ground up right like and everything else it's minor change. It's always sort of like dialogue or an actor improvised on the set, and they allowed it to sort of

I would question were the professors Were they robots?

I think Vincent Price, Yeah, no, they have to be right because the whole I no, no, no, no, Vincent Price is a human and then they turn off the class. So I think they were human because they they mentioned in the really clumsy giant exposition dump of a finale at the fucking graduation ceremony. God man, like if he had just you know what, if they had left this ending iniguous and not had the finale thing it left, we were left going like what the fuck was that?

I was so glad they had Vincent Price in an episode of this show. And he did nothing. And this is the only episode segment he's in in the entire show.

Yes, it's good to waste him. It's really good to.

Waste Vincent fucking Price. Yeah, not Randolph Mantu, No, no, no Vincent. Like, why why cast Vincent Price? Like why anybody could have played that role? It doesn't lean on his strengths as a as an actor. It actually is strong and completely devoid the charisma that he normally has.

I am shocked that just as the first segment was ripped off here, we have a reverse of this with Mark L. Lester's Class of nineteen ninety nine, which came out in nineteen ninety where it's the teachers who are robots and the students are all people. Oh my god, on where's the outrage about this? People?

Come on, Reparations are necessary.

Intellectual property has been stolen.

Oh boy, Rod, Rod, Oh, I will say if there is anything impressive about this episode, like I thought, all the performance is really good. I think it's shot really well. It also should be noted that this entire episode, beginning to end rehearsal to final take, was half a day of filming. Oh wow, that's how much they take the time they gave shocking shocking, So that means they spent like a couple hours maybe rehearsing, and then another two and a half to three filming, And this is what

Oh, I did really quickly want to go back for a second. I apologize about this severely. Chris, our good friend Nome Pilick is in the Death and the Family episode, the man who has given us so many hours of entertainment as the director of Barney Miller episodes and also the director of Taxi episodes their father alone, so he is the driver in the Death in the Family segment.

At the one at the beginning, the one dropping off the corpse. Yeah, oh wow, the one who I went, oh my god, is that Frank stillone? And then he started acting really well and I went, oh no, it's not friend.

Sty snapping his fingers. Take it back.

Sixteen.

Yeah, even an acting powerhouse then yeah, of course, thank god he wasn't.

All right. Off to our next segment, which, again, you're not gonna hear a an introduction on this. You're not gonna hear an introduction on most of them. Why because Rod didn't want to. But this was called with apologies to mister Hyde, written by Jack Laird, directed by the Senator Jena Schwark. It's really hard to say, but it's worth saying. This one stars Adam West and Jack Laird. This is the play a Playboy magazine cartoon from the October issue.

It's oh boy, Yeah.

You guys want to I love Adam West, just not in this.

He doesn't do a bad job.

Could have been anybody. It feels like he was there so they could go this week's episode. Yeah, Adam West for two. So he's in that on this episode of the Twilight Zone or Night Gallery. He's on that longer than he's in.

The actual episode.

You over promise than under delivered, and yeah, it's a gag. It's fine. It comes and it goes as quickly as I wanted it to, which is to say it was like thirty seconds effectively, is what it felt like. So good.

Yeah, you can't stay mad at these things because they're not around long enough for that to for them really registered. And Plus in this case, it seems like Jack Laird and Adam Western just drinking buddies and they probably had the right conversation and when come to work tomorrow, we'll do this.

You want to make segmentimum, Sign me up.

I watched an interview with Jeno Schwark and he was saying how the Class of ninety nine episode, like the half a day he got to film that that wasn't that common. But if you were getting an assigned a blackout sketch, you had two hours.

That's so you should start these Eneau Swark cast. I'm gonna a deep dive into the career of Jeneau Swark.

You know, you can admire somebody and not be a fanatic about them. I don't have to talk about him every week. He knows I love him.

The fan club of one.

He doesn't, he will, because I'm going to forward the to him. We're gonna work. We're gonna get in touch with you now.

As long as if you can, if you can somehow manage to get Mike White to talk to you know, swark along with yourself as a success.

Listen, Mike can speak for me as my proxy, just as long as he knows that there's a fucking lunatic out there, nam Father Malone who's one of his biggest fans. And like Annie Wilkes, now that's.

Oh yeah, like Annie Wilkes, I'm your number one fan. The wife didn't drink the cock of duty tea, right, which I now know what that is in reference to, so all those times before eyes sat and didn't say anything. Now I get it.

It's a it's a good movie.

He's very good. You know.

I'm gonna encourage beyond you. I'm gonna encourage our listeners to watch Misery.

If you have HBO Max, you should watch it on there because they have a TCM intro with Rob Reiner, Oh nice, where he talks about like ten minutes about the movie Wow on Zoom Essentially.

Just like in his office if we contacted him now, I bet he would tell us some stories. Hey, Ron God, I just looked at him and I thought, let's put him in a bed, like, let's take all the physicality out of him.

Anyway, from this picture, one wouldn't necessarily conjure up the story of love. But that's precisely what it tell us about. The emotion as old as man, but the object of the emotion this is not quite as familiar. It's titled Phantom Farmhouse, offering number one in the Night Gallery.

Now, the first segment is called the Phantom Farmhouse. This is written by Halston Wells, based on a short story by Seabury Quinn and directed by Jeno Jouirk starts David McCallum, David Carrodine, Linda Marsh, Trina Parks, and Bill Quinn. I just want to point him out because the entire are you guys at all familiar with the ventriloquis by the name of Jeff Dunham. He's got this old man character named Walter, who Bill Quinn just looks like the living embodiment of it.

Was very odd. Thanks for reminding me that Jef Dunham exists.

I know. Look, I didn't want to bring him up or promotion anyway.

But Las Vegas is own Jeff Dunham.

You mean that's ready the hometown boy. Now, this story concerns an unorthodox psychiatrist who investigates the mysterious murders plaguing his patients, and there are wolves involved. What do you think of this one, Mike?

I felt this this segment made me feel stupid because I could not figure out what the heck was going on. All these people in this tree and David Kearndy maybe he's a Satanist. I don't know, like what, Please just please explain this one to me, because I just was not getting this one at all.

It's very confused, but.

Of itself is confused.

But here's what happened.

Bear with me.

I'm ready.

I'm ready for this, listeners. I didn't come up with this, all right.

So no, somebody by the name of Seabury Quinn did. And then somebody named Halsted Wells adapted it. Then somebody named Jeno Swark directed it. Those three names together should give you an idea of the well where we're going with this. It's pretty all over the pace.

You know what, though, if you read the original short story, Seabury Quinn who was not like he was a writer, Like all of his contemporaries were the weird Tales guy. So it's like Roberty Howard and you know he Lovecraft and yeah, like all all of the sort of the giants as it were. And he created a character named like Jules de Granden, who is like a paranormal investigator, and he's got like a whole series of these stories

Wow.

And if you read the original story, it's much more simplified. I'll give you the short story version and that'll and you'll understand exactly what it is. This guy checks into a checks himself into an asylum in Maine in this case right, which is right across the border from Canada, which is why there are French speaking characters in the story.

I had a lot of questions, why the hell everybody's speaking French?

All, thank you, thank you?

That helps hold over for no good reason. Wow, he's allowed to walk the grounds, and he walks and finds a house with a family, a mother and a father, and a beautiful girl who seems dressed from another age, and they have an instant connection, but she's very odd and like kind of keeps him at a distance. Nevertheless, when he comes back to the asylum and tells the people about it, they're like, you must really be crazy

I'm glad you did. The only note I have is crow noises and two random French dudes. I mean that there are crow noises up the wazoo in this episode.

Perfect segue there, Chris Mike Card. He knows where we're going with this. Another thing I like to point out in these episodes the second season, our performers who probably don't have the spotlight shine on them enough in this case, featured only once in this episode. But I think we all know it. It's about twenty five years old at this point. Here it is ladies and gentlemen. You probably know that from everything. Most of these sound effects ended up being used on Sesame Street a lot. That's a

Oh, her bangs are great. The bangs on that wig are just chef's kiss specttaga.

And the dress itself this like voluminous, like ball gown looking.

I don't understand it. Where you people are from what time and place? That's all David McCallum needs to say. It's like, who the fuck are you? Like, I don't understand how anyone in the right mind would be like, oh, you clearly belong here. You are so out of time and out of place, it's beyond obvious. They don't even try.

The weird thing about that is it's like they could have, you know, her parents are dressed. It could have been faked. It could be nineteen seventy one. They're dressed basically in coveralls. They just look like poor farmers. Why if that's what they were wearing in like eighteen seventy one, why was she dressed not like them, Like she's not she's not at a cotillion or anything.

She's like dirt poor like her parents.

And she's a werewolf. Why does she even have the dress.

It doesn't make sense she werewolf for she had dog.

Well, they couldn't afford the wolves.

They could afford dogs though.

I was wondering about that too, because when they showed the dog, I was like, Oh, the dog must be running away from the wolf, because I kept hearing the wolf and I was just like, why is this dog running away?

That's not a problem. You know, this is like a two day shoot. Yeah, And according toition, I've swarked like the dogs were like the nicest dogs in the world and they wouldn't even want to chase anything anyway. So it's kind of impressive that they've got any shots at all. But obviously they're where dog ghosts. I guess they're wolfy ghoster tins.

I don't know where dog ghosts are. You asking us a question?

You know what?

It's you know what it reminds me of. There's a quote from Big trouble Little China Eggshen is like talking about all the different disciplines that they're all drawing from, and he's like, you know, Buddhism and Confucianism, and we take what we want to leave the rest like a salad bar. That's what this felt like to me. It's like, well, they are werewolves, so we'll put you know, you have the pentagram on the hand, but they're also ghosts.

But like I, it is titled the Phantom Farmhouse, so there must be phantoms involved.

A phantom reasoning, the phantom logic.

Like it felt like a really somehow poorly done. It feels like a poorly done episode of Tales from the Crypt, like an easy comics story. That's what it feels like.

When they had all those people in the tree, I kept thinking, these are aspects of his personality and they are fighting within his mind.

That would have been good.

And then it just when David Karenine came out of the tree, I was like, well, there goes that theory.

You were you were doing the episode's job for it, trying to make it more interesting than it ended up being.

Did you notice that when David Karenine homps down off of the thing. He tries to and then they kind of cut down. He does he not say cocaine anyone, I swear to god. He says it twice like he said it, and I was like, you couldn't have heard that. They wouldn't have put that on television. And then at the end of the sea he's like, cocaine anyone and then leaves, Maybe I'm wrong, I should read the script, but that's what I heard. Maybe that's what I wanted to hear.

That's what you wanted David Carrodine to say.

It feels like he would share.

Yeah, I mean, he seemed like a groovy guy. By the way, hippy slang seems so natural coming out of David Charrody, Like all of that dialogue could have been the worst if it weren't him, and like he it was effortless, and I was like, oh, so that's how people talk instead of the awkward way people try to reproduce it.

Well, because David Carrody is a great actor.

Yeah it was. Was he still in sorry damn It? And speaking of damn it, stop doing day for night everybody stop.

Oh that was real rough.

You can't do a were wolf story and do day for night. Just don't even do it.

Yeah, well, how long did you say they had for this? Five days?

I don't know why they even tried two days?

Two days Jesus, Yeah, no, wonder it looks so bad.

Yeah, I mean they're not going to get a big lighting package out there at like, you know, I.

Think it's more impressive that it only took two days and that it it's not a complete mess.

I think it's well shot. I think there's there's some poetical looking shots in there like that.

It's a nice looking it's a nice looking episode.

When McCallum's first like venturing into the forest, like there's a there's a scene of this lamb like running through the forest being pursued by the wolves, and it all looks gorgeous. It looks like a fairy tale. And then unfortunately we're right back to like you know, the universal lot with most obvious lighting in the world, the sun, just because they need needed for speed. But like he

If they had just turned the camera around, they probably would have seen the Baits Motel like behind them. That's what it looked like to me. It looked like where they like the older pictures of the Universal back Loot Tour, That's what it looked like. The set, like the set that they were on. It looked like just out there in the Universal, like where they shoot stuff like this.

It's I mean, you know, it's like, where are you guys gonna shoot over there? Look, this is not the best part of this one. It's it's it's okay, you know. It didn't it didn't insult me. I was more confused, and then by the end I didn't care.

Well, it just it kind of just ends. It just kind of ends, and that's fine. But this is now I think. I want to say. There was an episode segment in the last episode that just kind of ended too, but it worked better than it just kind of ended. This one just goes and that's it. It's like, okay, all right, I guess it's over now, moving.

On, why even use wolves? Just make it a ghost eats people, you.

Know what I mean?

How about we're all vampires. Let's do vampires there, that's a ghost in a wolf together.

Stop and vampire myers are what like five cents. You just get the little teeth, that's it.

Yeah, if you even need the teeth, I mean you just cover up the face or you know, Catherine Deneuve and the hunger, we didn't mention the finger. What's that?

The finger, the index finger that we got to see one hundred thousand times. That was a bit of a failure. I didn't like that at all.

She has a really long finger, just a really long finger. Only wear wolves have long fingers.

It's the index fingers as long or longer than the rest of the fingers, just the traditional lore. But like I guys, we get it. We're not going to get a transformation sequence and we only have dogs instead of wolves. But like, we don't need to feature the one thing you could have ford stop.

They did it better on Coalshack with Tom Scarett. Yeah, it's very similar, Like they couldn't do wear wolves in that episode. So he's a dog, So They're dogs here, all right?

Sure, much more, way better episode though the cole Check episode agreed.

Oh yeah, mister scares alone.

Astounding Tales of the Public Domain with Father Malone, Enhanced audio performances from the Golden Age of science fiction, featuring tales by Ray Radberry, Miriam Allen, DeFord, Robert E. Howard, Paul Anderson, H. P. Lovecraft, and Moore. You're at twice monthly at weirding Way Media. Astounding Tales of the Public Domain with Father Malone.

Weirding Way Media. We deal the pet.

Pigment, light and shots, surreal impression as a movie end or stories, an interest in not fall a pretty much toward the bizarre.

And this place is.

Nothing if it isn't bizarre.

There's no admission, no requirement of membership, only a stronger abided belief than the dark at the top of the stairs or things that go bump.

In the night.

The name of this place that you would commend your accidentally out of the rank is the Night Guy.

All right, Welcome back, our lovers to Midnight Viewing the Night Gallery Podcast. I'm Father Malone, and with me here in the gallery are from Dreams for Sale, The Twilight Zone eighty five podcasts mister.

Mike White, have we met them beforeer?

Sure? And from Chronicles from the Crypt the former casualty mister Chris statue.

But what if we don't know? If the doors you could, if we could be good at bad Oh, We're gonna get to that.

Here we are discussing season episode seven. This one aired

Tonight's first selection. A painting suggesting solitude or at least solemnity as viewed during the midnight Holler. It tells a tale of two young people caught in extorably in a recurring nightmare, with a finale on the dueling side. Our painting, with the somewhat familiar face is called Midnight Never Ends and this is the Night Gallery now.

Midnight Never Ends was written by Rod Serling, based on a half dozen or so earlier teleplays by Rod Serling, like five Characters in Search of an Exit and a World of his Own, and it was directed by A. Jena Swart and stars Robert f Lyons Chris He Was in Transylvania six five thousand.

You know, Mike hate's that movie too, right, It's not just me this time around. Then you get to get to waggle your Translvania six five thousand weener.

He realized I'm outnumbered.

You are outnumbered this time, Heather Train ain't here to help you, pal, and Trevor isn't I help me?

It also starts stud Susan Strasburg, daughter of Lee Strasburg, who starred in my favorite TV movie of all time, Mazes and Monsters with Tom Hanks, and also starts Joseph Perry. It is the story of a motorist and a hitchhiker with a strange feeling that they've done all this before, and what is that strange clacking in the heavens? Mike? Could you think of this one?

Oh man? I I could see that twist coming a mile away, and boy, oh boy, did I really wanted to not be that twist? But it was and I sat through it and I'm Matt.

How about you, Chris?

You know Father Malone.

God, he's winding up.

Yeah, I'm winding up, all right, I'm gonna I've been doing this for eight years now, going on nine. It'll be nine at the end of twenty twenty three. This may be one of the worst hours of anything I have ever had to watch for anything I've ever podcasted about. And you have been privy to a lot of bad stuff that we've talked about together, Father Malone, and we've been privy to bad stuff that we've all talked about

That's mean.

Yeah, Well, this episode segment is fucking awful. It's minimalist in a way that marmalade Wine was, but it is as unsuccessful as the worst segment on the show, which is the you know, the next episode segment we're gonna.

Be talking about just the central premise.

Okay, Rod Serling's writing a script and we're watching it in real time.

Cool, but you wouldn't have your characters say, oh, he's going to open that door now, or like try to predict the future.

It just is that. Why he's confused in the painting is because the characters in the thing are getting autonomy of their own. Father moan, tell us, tell us what you think, because you you haven't weighed in on this Nightmary yet I liked it. No you did not. You didn't your your fucking joke.

No, I kind of did. I'll tell you why You're.

Gonna have to because I wouldn't believe you otherwise.

Okay, I mentioned two Surling scripts he wrote before that are basically the same thing. It's five characters search of a next which is great. It's a great episode, There's no question, which is kind.

Of based on earlier play. Correct, I have five actors in search of an author or something.

Yes, exactly, and and the other one was a world of his own where an author can create anything he wants. You know, and I records it on the piece of tape, remember that. And at the end they had that little bit where Rod Serling comes in He's like, this is att just a joke. He's like, well, you shouldn't say that, and he burns it up. Keenan Wynn burns up the

Look.

It doesn't make sense why they're suddenly conscious because clearly somebody's writing them to say these things. So that's a conflict that doesn't make any sense at all. But the idea of characters kind of becoming sentient to the point where they know how poor they are because of how poor their author is. I like that idea a lot. I don't think it works overall. I think there are some shots that are kind of cool.

I don't know.

It didn't bother me as much as to bother you guys. I certainly would not put I wouldn't say anything in the last season, the season seven of Tails from the Crypt is better than this thing. This, like, you know, twenty minutes of whatever you got, give me that, Chris, No.

I will.

I mean, I'm not even going to pretend like what you said is wrong, Like you're completely right. It's just this what in anyone's mind, you know, specific Rod Serling, would it lead you to believe that this is a story worth telling?

Though?

That's what I don't understand. What is the point of this story for us to go? So when a writer is writing things, the characters have autonomy and remember no, because that's just in this story. That's the case. This is not making some sort of grand ruling on fictional

I mean, I love time loop stories, and at first I was hoping that this was a time loop story. I was like, oh cool, you know, like, oh, something different is happening this time, okay, and so what's the Trick's what's going on with this? And then when it was the character thing. One of my favorite movies of all time is John Pays's nineteen eighty five Crime Wave, which was released on video as The Big Crime Wave,

You know, even that Will Ferrell movie is better than this, and it is. It's strange, stranger. Yeah, it's the same premise, like you this character exists separate from stories or in tandem with stories, or he's trying to figure that out and how he exisited. That's again and there's something to be mined there, and it's not like this is like a blackout segment, and it's Oh, they didn't give him enough time. Half of the goddamn episode. It's twenty minutes,

I don't disagree with any of that. If you're taking this on face value as the segment that it is, then you know it is kind of it is a failure. Okay, I enjoyed it, but that doesn't mean it's it is good and I would recommend it. I'm just saying I enjoyed it. But if you view it through the prism of where Ron Serling is right now, it's kind of great because it seems like he's almost commenting on the fact that he keeps doing this, doesn't even know where

I like it. Hey, Like, I appreciate writing things as Catharsis, but like, what Catharsis is there here? What are you getting at here? You can't write a coherent episode of your own show anymore? Yeah, we know we're watching your show, dude, Like we're watching your show, like we know it's not coherent. I just I like you said, like, what is he commenting on other than himself?

Right? Look? Yeah, it's indefensible as drama or as you know, entertainment, right as a mettextural comment in his own state of confusion? Though, I think it's sores.

But then we'll probably get an episode from him next time we talk about episode eight that may or may not be good. So what is he commenting on other than he can't do it? And he keeps not being able to do it. So what are you really commenting on? Rod Serling? I don't understand. I can't do it, but I'm gonna keep not doing it and wasting your time.

Yeah, if this were in this last episode, though, it would be great, right, Oh, for sure.

You know, we kind of ran into a similar thing on Barney Miller where they had Jack Sue kind of they had an opportunity for him to be done with the show and they didn't take it. And this would be if this were Rod Serling's final moment on the show, like then that would be a masters stroke, but it's not. So it's about as far from it it being his last thing with the show as possible.

This just shift that shuffled this down to the end of season three and then could question.

Could this have worked as a Twilight Zone episode.

It did, It worked a couple of times.

So there you go.

Before we get to the next segment, this is you know, this season, I've been highlighting talent behind the Night Gallery. This season we're getting two stories written by this man, including the next segment. I don't think anyone even remotely interested in speculative fiction would not know him. But if you don't, then do yourself a favor and seek out anything by Richard Matheson. His association with Night Galleries obvious.

I was about to say, is Richard Matheson's greatest contribution to the Twilight Zone is the segment that gets remade every time they do the goddamn show, is what it feels like, And it's the segment that I, for whatever reason in my mind, closely associate the Twilight Zone with

I mean, you can't deny the power of that book and and the as you said, it's it's how have they not come up with a decent filmed version of it? It's such a simple little story, and yet every time they do it, they either do it too small or too big or Okay, the Omega Man is great, there's no question the Omega Man is great, but as its own thing, not necessarily as an adaptation of I Am Legend. At least they change the title.

Who is the Legend? Tell us who the legend is? Please?

I'm sure, Father Malone, you've seen The Last Man on Earth, the one with Vincent Price.

Oh, yes, which I like as well too.

Yeah, I think, yeah, I think that's as close as where we're going to get.

Yeah, because you know, in the book, it's very small scale. It's just him and his Pasadena house, you know, and like there's no there's no grand mansion he's in, or no, you know, high rise in New York. I don't know what any of the adaptations are going for. Honestly, they all seem to miss the point, which is just one man, a normal dude who has to figure this out on his own. He's not a scientist or anything. He just has to He just has to work hard to figure

I mean, it's better to just expand the scope of the source material to the point where it's completely unrecognizable, and then it didn't even matter you were adapting it to begin with. I like that more frankly.

Yeah, I want Elk running through Times Square and some sort of video game adaptation version.

Yeah, well to Batman v. Superman in the background.

Yeah, why, oh my god, I forgot about that. What a nightmare In reality we actually live in now.

Our painting reminds us that there's a strange fascination of digging holes alongside ancient oaks. You give the average amunt of shovel and an xuum map, and the fantasy's come thick and fast. Pirate gold hidden Confederate treasure and sometimes the unexpected and sometimes the unwelcome, hence the title Big Surprise.

Now.

Our next segment is written by Richard Matheson, based in a short story directed by Jenno's Swark. It is called Big Surprise, starring Vincent Van Patten, who is our second rock and roll high school alum for this season, Mark Vehanian, who I'll alwayst know is Lolly Too and Bless the Beast and children, Eric Chase and mister John Carradine. This is the tale of three boys befriended by a crazy old hermit who promises them a big surprise if they can dig it up. What'd you think of this one, Mike.

It's short, it's pretty simple. I'm not sure if I really got the twist at the end. It feels like this would have freaked me out when I was a kid, and I would have probably spent a lot of time thinking about it. Now that I'm fifty years old, I'm just like, yeah, I can't really be.

What about you, Chris?

You know how A Matter of Semantics was a one panel comic. This is like three Yes, this is a three panel comic. I don't know like John Kerodine is sufficiently creepy, but the fact that this is a short story is more surprising. That Richard Matheson was able to ring as much out of this premise as he could from it being a short story, because there's barely anything here. It is really an old man tells a group of

In this show, a short story can be like five pages, you know, I don't know how.

You get five pages out of this is more what I'm getting at.

This is like one reason.

Log of the kids going, oh, there's probably something really valuable here, and just everybody has their own ideas of what's going to be that buried treasure, and then when it finally happens, and describing the hot sun beating down on them and YadA YadA, YadA, Like I could see this being a short story, but yeah, it was just there wasn't a whole lot of substance to this one.

For me, there's a skeleton of a good idea here, it's just to what end. It feels like this is a good setup for something, but I'm not sure the punchline is as funny or as interesting as maybe everyone else thought it was. Richard Matheson included.

Gentlemen, this is my favorite segment of the entire run of Night Gallery. I set it up at the top, right place, right time. I think I saw this when I was maybe ten or eleven years old, And yes, I spent many years pondering the meaning of this, still having figured it out, but that obviously colors my judgment of it. Nevertheless, watching it like two, three, four times I did for tonight's recording here, I still love it. I think it's one of the best things on the show.

Up and that, And honestly, that's kind of where I came away from this specific segment because we haven't gotten a lot of these kind of segments a not a complete committal to it being half of the episode and not it being, you know, a blackout sketch in between.

Yeah, and you know, I was basically the age of these kids, and there's you know it it felt, it felt at the time like it understood childhood. It still feels that way to me. Like like Serling at the at the stop in his intro for it, I thought he summed it up really well. He talks about you know, child basically child of being obsessed with like buried treasure and X marks a spot and like there is a time in your life when that potential for adventure exists in your head and like maybe if I dig, I

Is he? Was?

He buried alive? And that was his spe Like is he just some crazy old man who's dug a tunnel from his house to this thing? And I don't know. It's like every possibility is terrible, so that I don't know.

I love this one painting number one. It has to

Cool Air was written by Rod Serling from a short story by H. P. Lovecraft and directed by Jeno Swark twenty two segments, Gentlemen, Jeno Smart twenty two segment.

At least it's not Gene Kearney.

Wow, thank god it's not Jeane Kearny doing twenty two segments. I think I would lose my This one stars Henry Darrow Barbara Rush, who, by the way, appeared in a TV movie called The Man, which was about the first Black President starring James Earl Jones, written by Rod Star.

Oh yeah, such a great, great movie.

This is the tale of a May December romance. What do you think of this one, Mike?

It left me cold, o bing bang. Yes, I was waiting for that room shot there, Chris, Yeah, there we go.

Late on the uptake around here. We just got the sound for.

Uh yeah, we're back in HP Lovecraft territory. Though again, I can tell what's going on. Why are we supposed to not figure this stuff out? Like, yeah, the guy's dead, Like I could tell you that right from the get go. I don't know. I was. I really wanted to like this one. Maybe if it was like half the length, I would have liked it a little bit more. But at the length that it was, and just that I could see the twist coming. H yeah, it did it, no joke could diddly be cold?

Boy? They love HP Lovecraft, don't they? They really really do I need Look, I'm not gonna say, oh it a what a weird HP Lovecraft story to adapt, because look, HP Lovecraft in a lot of ways is like Stephen King, like he's got plenty of things to adapt, folks, and they're not all winners for a reason. Whatever the fuck. The conceit of this episode is that there is a man who has a living corps because he lives in

It also doesn't help that it feels so similar to the one we just talked about on our last episode with the woman that was well, wait.

Is that the one?

Was it a woman that was being menaced by that thing? Or am I completely mixing this up? In Pickman's Yeah, it's also HP Lovecraft, right, And it's like basically a woman comes in and it's just like, oh, what is this stuff? And then oh there's a big or a big twist quote unquote at the end.

Yeah, it's it's a shame that they they're on the heels of one another because the romance aspect is not present in the original HP Lovecraft story. And I actually think it's an improvement by Rod Sling in that regard. And if you read the original story, there's a lot of like, you know, he's supposed to be from Spain, so it's all phonetically written like oh alleal l E E T l E. It's very embarrassing. Henry Darrow. Henry Darrow here, he's five years younger than Barbara Rush playing

She put that in there?

Why would that be on there? Weirdest thing ever, by the way his name is misspelled on the grave.

High production values abound at midnight at the at the Night Gallery podcast. I guess this isn't the podcast as high production values.

This show doesn't.

Is this the back lot?

Oh? Speaking of the backlot and high production at one point, like this starts as a period piece. It's set in the nineteen twenties, and she's in the back of you know what is you know, basically a horseless carriage is like driving down the street and in the background the street is blocked off by a Universal Studios van.

Oops. Oh geez, I mean, what are you what are you implying? Father alone?

Maybe shoot the scene at night?

I thought you were like, what are you are you implying that this fruit stand back there?

Or like two guys carrying a pane of glass anything other than a vehicle from nineteen seventy one, just sitting there like, hey, folks, the tour is right right this way.

Hey, who was asleep at the wheel at this point? H that's the question.

I blame Jano, But Jane did do something really cool here. There's a conversation scene when they're sort of falling in love. It's a minute and a half pan around the dinner table. There's a join in it, but it's really masterful considering all the other limitations that they're sort of saddled with. Also, the music in this episode, this was a guest composer

Necromantic? I'm just saying, I mean, if we're talking literally, then yes, well, all right, good for you. Rod HP Lovecraft was into some freaky shit.

Lovecraft didn't have anything to do with that part of it. That's all surling.

Yeah, but I mean the concept, you know, the concept though it still lends itself in that direction.

The concept of necrophilia just goes way back to the beginning of civilization. We always had it with us. It just took Rod Sterling to really popularize it. Use it in between commercials for soap.

I only use ajax when I now back to necrophilia.

It's the most romantic presentation of necrophilia I've ever seen. I was moved.

I yeah, you know, when you think about it that way, boy, it really puts it all in perspective, doesn't it.

You know what?

Hey, I I wish the payoff was in an episode half the episode segment half the lenk that's really it. Like it's not a bad segment. I just don't think it gets to the point fast enough. And also like you're stalling as if we can't kind of figure out what's going on, Like, was anyone surprised at the end that he was a corpse? Like they kind of you know, hint at it a lot, like a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot a lot. Yeah.

Also, this episode does contain I think the single worst performance in any segment we've seen thus far, which is that handyman ice carrying guy, whoever he is. What's with the guy in there with the he's got ice in the bathroom, just pulling all these faces like he's you know, I don't know, like he's auditioning.

He's late stage Leslie Nielsen.

Oh, he was bad.

Eight of number three in the night Gallery, you'll probably recognize as quaint figurine, the dead eyes, the sown lips, the kind of thing that usually infest nightmares, and that happens to be precisely what it is, a nightmare.

Of the first order.

It's titled Agoda's Heads.

Indeed we are in this segment called the Lagoda's Heads, written by Robert Block, author of Psycho Robert Block, from a short story by August Derlett, directed by my favorite Jeno Zwark. All three of them should have known better. This one stars Patrick McNee, Brock Peters, Denise Nicholas and Tim Matheson and a terrible mustache. It's the tale of an explorer who escorts an American in search of his

Yeah, anything that has Brock Peters in it, I'm pretty happy with, but mostly just when he's on screen. Denise Nicholas, she looked so familiar. And then I went back and I looked at her filmography and yeah, I've seen a bunch of stuff that she was in. I want to say she was in Uptown Saturday Night, I'm pretty sure. Or yeah, let's do it again, one of those of the Cosby Portier films. But yeah again, did I see the twists coming?

Yeah?

Yeah, I sure did. Did I want to see more of those heads? And did I want to see them talk and do other kind of cool things? I sure did it. That didn't really get to see that one, but at least I got to see a very young Roger E. Moseley with kind of a bad accent come in and tell them that that Lakota is or Lagoda has died. So it was kind of neat, and then yeah, Tim Matheson and that ridiculous mustache. I didn't even recognize him at first until.

I heard his voice hotter.

But yeah, it was okay again. And I feel like this one went on for a little too long. How long was this one? Was this another twin?

It felt like no one was Yeah, this one was only right.

This has been an episode with mediocrity. It's fine, I mean yeah, like Mike said, the twist can be seen from orbit, for fuck's sake, like I for an let me put this way for an episode segment called Logota's Heads, there is not enough head here, not enough of the heads doing stuff. The heads of Lagoda's heads are not present enough to call it Lagoda's heads. And the question then becomes, how did the heads kill him?

Uh? They summoned forces or they chewed him up themselves. I don't know. Maybe they came off the mob the.

Second the second answer came off the log exactly, the Tim burtonization of them. Yeah, what about you, father, blam? What did you think?

I think having a shrunken head nook is important when you're buying a new home.

Does it come with or without the stick is the stick included.

I would assume so, otherwise it's just a nook. I like that. They go, they arrived, it's always great to see Patrick McNee by the way, you know John Steed. But they go into the hut to talk to Lagoda, and Lagota clearly speaks English, but for some reason, Tim Matheson keeps talking to Patrick mcnei as if he's a translator. Ask him about my brother, like I think he heard you just then he'll probably answer you if he so chooses.

That'd be a good.

By the way, it is dumbala, just the word. I kept waiting for Chunky to come running out because they had dumb balla while. They were, you know, talking to the heads. I don't know, not enough. There weren't anough of the heads. I was intrigued by the heads. I was hoping one of the heads would come to life, just one of them, at least one.

Well, you said it's called log, It's called Lota's fucking head.

They show the thing Goda's Head's wind machine is what we get. Just like they'll just sort of vibrate a little and hear some sounds and.

Somebody's just shaking it off screen. Just oh, they're moving.

The actor you mentioned Mike earlier, who comes in to tell them that Logota is dead, you're saying, he's doing a really weird accent. Like all I could think was like you could just see him bristling against this bullshit native dialogue that they all three of our sort of principal leads have been saddled with just a rankling at it, Like can I just speak in a full sentence, like, by the way, what year was this? Was this supposed to be the two of the century, because it could

Yeah, I want to say around this time, Rogerie Mosley was doing The MAC where he was a African nationalist, so much different character and something.

I think, Yeah, he just seemed like uninterested and he just wanted to I'm saying the words, here are the words, right, this is what you wanted? And good for him. Yeah, I hope everyone got paid because you know, you're right, Chris, this is It's not terrible, it's just there. This entire episode was just kind of there, which I suppose is better than a bad episode. But still, this is an episode that began with the boy who predicted her earthquakes,

It's just not She's gonna kill herself. Don't forget, she's straight up. They go, you gonna kill yourself, by the way, like great cool, just as the.

First like sort of time travel plot i've ever seen, honestly where the characters are uninterested at all in changing their face.

I know, the future.

Who fuck they just see and everything's just like, well, that's weird, Like it doesn't factor. You know, he gives the message, but the message had already been given. That was faded as well.

It's like this segment is so good. We're talking about the other segment while talking about this one segment is such it's a nothing burger. Like August Derlith's stories are varied, Father Malone, you know that because I know you've looked into his I mean, it's varied stuff right, like, but it's a lot of horror or horror adjacent whatever this is is not that well.

It's supposed to be a supernatural tale, but we don't see anything happen at all. We don't even get to see broh.

We know Denise Nicholas just killed him, like and just put his head there anyway. He's like, who knows? Oh yeah, the heads killed him or I just did it, and who gives a shit.

It would have been good had she said, well, no, it was me. I can with your brother. There's nothing you can do about it because I got these heads now, babe. That would have been great.

Yeah.

Instead it was like, no, I know he killed why did he kill? We don't get any of that information to get those heads talking. Come on, they got mouths unstitch it.

Eh man, It's fine. This episode is better than some of them this season, which is not saying much, but it's saying more than you.

Would think saying enough.

Yeah, I agree it is. You use the word nothing burger. I don't tend to use that too often, but I would say this is all that and no bag of chips.

General generic area of costume jewelry note girl and note expression. Obviously a lady much disturbed by whatever little bubbles she has recently been the recipient of said sentence, improperly ending on a preposition. But this story ending on a much more deadly note than that. We call it a feast of.

Blood, all right. Our next segment is a feast of blood.

Again comically large. One might say, yeah, is.

The message here that everyone is terrible? Because everyone in this episode is terrible. This guy's basically a rapist and if you don't fuck him, then his magic brooch is going to kill you, Right, that's what happens here.

But was he not like stealing their like beauty too? Was that not a component to this or was that me reading it that was to him just talking kooky talk, But like, okay, because I thought there was like a Tails from the Crypt thing, you know, you know what I you know what I'm talking about bottom alone, where it's like I made the bust of your face and I stole your beauty, Like that's what I thought it was.

Levels of fucking wild like, guys, it's Gilly suited Brenda Man. It's just such a that's not true. It's better than Gilly suited Brenda Man because the design is cool and even as goofy as it is that they just keeps getting larger and they keep doing wide shots of her running. What's wrong with you, Jano? Why shots of her running with this giant like I don't know, like gummy bear, that's all I could think. It looks like a giant gummy bear, Like what do you have to see?

Or you could eat it? I think the worst thing about this episode segment is that the painting is so good.

Oh well, I'm obviously a big fan of that painting.

I think it's me too. I'm a fan of that painting as well. And like again, it like the last I guess the first episode segment on this episode like it makes a promise of something that is not followed through a like it's I don't want I don't understand what the point of this segment was other than like you said, Father Molone, everybody's terrible.

How about you, Mike, what do you think of this one? Yeah? I was impressed.

So this might be controversial, but I've never found Sondra Lock to be that attractive, but in this I was like, oh, I can kind of see it. I can kind of see that she's attractive in this one. And then she gets attacked by approach the end.

The blackout extravaganza.

This episode really it is it is and yeah, like he he is this essentially a rapist, so I was like, okay, yeah, I was waiting for him to get his comeupence at the end, like somehow she survives and gifts it back to him, but that's not the case.

Interesting optics for this episode segment are we are.

We two woke?

Sorry the woster needs to leave. Sorry?

Yeah, So what's with Sondra Lockin Rodents? She restricted that rat boy she was in Willard, She's got killed by a giant rodent. In this she loves Rodents. They had some rare screen projection when they were driving. I loved it. It looked great. And night for night again, how do you like that? Twice in one episode? At the end, Okay, I can this should have been a black out skitch. It should have been just a girl breaking up with a guy on the phone. He's like, did you get

They can find a dead body, that's why. And then the episode segment ends.

If only the camera could have done that for us.

Yeah, that is the funniest part of the segment is that camera angle where it's like set on the ground in front of her, pointed at them, but you can't see anything, and they're just like whoa, whoa. Yeah, that's great, guys, great reactions. We got it. We're done. Jano's Swark Janos Schwark is not doing any favors for any of these segments at all, Like, I don't think I've seen one yet where I've been like Geno's work added something to this.

Hey, hey, don't don't don't talk about Jenno that way. I won't stab for it, even if I'm sinning.

I you know what, Jaws two is fine. This leaves a lot to be designed.

It wasn't good.

It's a blackout sketch. I mean it just it's unfortunate that we just keep getting extended blackout sketches. Because this show is good when it is good, when they're putting effort in, that is the problem. It's just like Tails from the Crypt. It's just like Twilight's on nineteen eighty five. When it's good and the people who are doing the work are doing the work, well, it's really good and

The problem here is that Ron Starling's way was wrong and Jack Laired's way is wrong. There was somewhere in between it had they mediated and worked it out, where this show could have been the best anthology horror anthology of all time. Right, Because if rod Serling was writing blackout sketches. That could be something he could get his little bitter, ironic thing out in a couple of minutes. As opposed to they should have just assigned him all

If he's not willing to do the introductions for the blackout sketches, he ain't willing to fucking write them, right, So probably it's beneath me.

I'm not saying. I'm not saying he should have been assigned them necessarily. I'm just saying, had they worked it out, then this show, I agree, phenomenal.

Yeah, I mean a twilight zone for the seventies, Like that's what the promise of this show is and could have grown into that, right, and when it satisfies that, it really satisfies it. But it's few and far between in this second season. But again, like there's you know what though, Like in reality, if you take a step back,

There hasn't been a precipitous drop off. It's definitely better than the first season.

So yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree.

It has ups and downs, but once you've got past the pilot of the first season, it was a love of diminishing returns. There were little pleasures to be had here and there, but certainly not like this season.

So well, and I mean again, when this season opens with the banger of bangers, the boy who predicted earthquakes, I mean again like that, it might be the best segment on this entire show.

And it opens the second season. Yeah, hard to measure up to. But at the same time, like, at least it.

Wasn't the first episode of the first season like Twice or Tails from the Crypt.

Yeah, I'll take an episode like this, one of basically extended blackout sketches over one segment of their tearing down Tim Riley's bar.

So thank you there is You know, we should start like a you know how they have like a job site. It's like one day without disaster. This should be one episode without for he's a golf.

Right, wait, all our reviews would be glowing from here on it, and remember Jence, this was not tearing down Tim Riley's bars.

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