Episode 34: The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon / Extra Innings

Hello there. I'm Chris Stashew, I'm Mike White, and this is Father Malone and we are the host of Dreams for Sale, a podcast where we talk about The Twilight Zone nineteen eighty five and sometimes the other shows, but mostly nineteen eighty five. On this episode, we are going to be talking about the first two episodes of the third season of the show. We are here quickly. The second season was half as long as every other season of the show, so we are here quicker than we would be otherwise.

But we are going to be talking about two episodes of the show at once, because now they don't do segments anymore. They only do twenty minute episodes. They changed it up on us. I don't know why. Realistically, they changed it in the second season to something else, and then they didn't unchange it, and then they changed it again.

Yeah, I think I found them alone. Weren't you saying that it was to get to one hundred episodes so they could syndicate faster exactly. I think they thought, let's split that hour up into half hour segments and that will get us to syndication faster. And then when they realized that, like halfway through this season, they were just going to sort of cut it off and shuffle everything to the next season. They ended up putting a couple of episodes together just to get rid of them, just to burn them off before the next season began.

So that's why it kind of went to half hour, than to hour, than a half hour hour, And now we're back to half hour, and we will stay at half hour through the end of the show. So there you go. So yeah, from here on out, it is going to be two episodes of the show on every episode of our show, because they're only twenty minutes long. So there you go. So on this episode, we're gonna be looking at the Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon and extra innings, one old man in a private world of irrational urgencies.

For doctor Jeremy Saint Clair, we're all too common sight, but Edgar Witherspoon is a most uncommon old man with a secret that reaches out to the full corners of the earth, as the good doctor is about to discover. So the Curious Case of Edgar Winterspoon, Witherspoon, Jay Giles Band, Edgar winter Band. I don't know what they're going for here. I just kept saying the Edgar Winter Band. The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon is directed by Renee Bonnier.

It is written once again by Jay Michael Strazinski and Haskell Barkin. It stars Harry Morgan as Edgar Witherspoon and Cedric Smith as the doctor called upon to take care of a crazy old man. Welcome to Canada, y'all. Yeah, it's a bottle episode inside of a shitty set filled with things. Yeah.

I think I think this is a gentle one. I think, you know. I wasn't offended by it at all. I do want to mention one thing that, as bad as any of the American ones were, I never saw the crew in the door. The door, which is the first thing I noticed in this, and I was like, oh wait, we're in Canada an hour, right, aren't we?

And then like he closes that door and there's the career. I'm like, oh boy, are we in Canada? Oh yeah. I was so happy to see Harry Morgan. I was just like, whatever, just do whatever you want.

Just give me, Harry Morgan. I'm fine with this. It reminded me of something else and I can't really put my finger on it, but this whole idea of like, well, I guess it's very much like the butterfly effect, you know, and not the shitty Ashley Kutcher film. I'm talking about the actual effect as far as like, if I don't put this baby head in this particular place, then a tornado's going to come and wipe out Kansas City. So I'm like, okay, yeah, and yeah it's crazy and he hears voices, but yeah, it kind of worked for me.

I kind of enjoyed this one. I agree. I Harry Morgan's great. I didn't mind Cedric Smith. I felt the frustration of the daughter and the landlady and all these other people.

They're just like, this guy's got a whole bunch of junk in his apartment. I'm like, okay, really hoarder. Yeah, you're right. And I did like this concept. I like this Rube Goldberg machine that's keeping the world together and someone tasked with doing that and you know, trying to find his replacement, which is kind of what the whole episode ends up being, which is very Twilight Zony.

So yeah, I mean, you know, look, it didn't reinvent wheel, but it wasn't. It wasn't God I can't even think of the name of the episode, the last one, so bad, the girl I married. Yeah, man, it's leagues and bounds above that. You know, Jay Michael Strezinski is a good writer, and I you know, he's always come up with interesting concepts. You know, he went on to do that show Babbylon five, which I think is kind of wildly underrated as far as televised science fiction goes.

So, yeah, I liked this episode quite a bit. Yeah, I think it's pretty interesting. I think it's fun. I don't yeah, I don't think it like y'all have echoed. I don't think it reinvents the wheel.

It does have a nice little twist. I mean, you could probably see the twist coming from ten miles away up in space. But but it's it's it's inelegantly shot. I mean, it's it's not well directed like this all feels like, uh, not necessarily sense, but it's lit like television, whereas I think in previous seasons they were trying to go for like at least a movie like quality in most of the episodes. Um So that's my only you know, real uh sort of criticism of this particular episode is that you know, it just felt like, you know, it's a TV show, folks, it feels like they're filming in Toronto, which they are.

I feel like I could see James Woods walking by on the set of Video Drome in the background. I mean, it's that's I mean again, you know, it's when I think of Toronto, I think of David Cronenberg filming a lot in Toronto, and that's this has that kind of grungy, dirty, cheap I guess look to it. So, yeah, there's not much to it. There's really not Like, yeah, I don't have much good to say or bad to say about it, right, I mean, ultimately it's my experience with this one has been positive, so you know, thumbs up, I guess, But you know, it didn't. It's not going to stay with me.

No, I do like it. No, I do like the idea that there's just some dude who's keeping the world together with like all this shit in his house, though the concept and of course nobody believes him. That's like always, this whole thing is predicated on the lack of belief, and we're going to talk about that in the next segment big time. But you know, it's it's fun enough. It's not offensively stupid like the last one.

I think I do think we would like this less if we hadn't seen such duds in the last episode. Yeah, well, that's true. That's you know, we're always comparing one to another, like we did that over on the Chronicles of script as well. It's like this one sucked because the last one was so good, right, I do agree that having watched the Girl I Married and then this one, I was like, oh, well, this is a breath of fresh air. I don't I don't know that I would have rated it worse having seen that one.

It's just kind of there. It's you know, I do the concept is solid. I love the idea of this guy, like, you know, putting little you got a business card on you like the idea of him running around asking for bizarre things like it's a It's interesting, but not so well constructed. I guess. Yeah.

We want to move on, all yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, So let's talk about the next episode Extra Innings two with water. It's been said that the body is the means through which an athlete can best reveal the dynamic potential of the human spirit. But what happens when the means to that expression is injured beyond repair. Meet Ed Hamler, a once prominent player in the big leagues, a man who's never resolved himself to his fate as a non participant, but who will soon be forced to bat in the Twilight Zone. So Extra Innings is directed by Douglas Jackson, written by Tom Palmer.

It stars Mark Singer as Ed Hamner, a baseball player who has been injured who wants to play baseball, a children's game that people don't make millions of dollars playing. I'm glad that an episode like this gives us the most like vile, venal wife in television Twilight Zone that we've seen in a long time. Oh boy, boy, you like I like how I like how unrealistic she is. Okay, she does not exist on a plane of reality that is humanity. Let's just put three notes for this episode, and one of them is this has one of my least favorite tropes, which is the nagging, shrewish wife who's just there to drive our hero to his destination.

Baseball is a children's game, served children's game. I actually don't disagree with her sentiment, but people can still get paid millions of dollars to do childish things. They absolutely can. But if you've been sidelined and you're sitting on the couch and she's paying all the bills, yeah, I think, yeah, the obsessive nature. I'm just like, dude, get a fucking grip, would you.

Yeah, you know, like, go work at a fucking like a sports memorabilius. Job's full of O. J. Simpson. Don't let him.

Yeah. Yeah. I think the concept for this episode makes no sense on the face of it, because he's an injured baseball player who has no money with an indiscriminate injury that he got while playing baseball, which means the team would have cut you. I guess it's been two years since he got injured, but he got injured in such a way that he's forever unable to play baseball, right, I think we all need to point out here baseball is not the kind of sport where you get injured permanently unless you're a pitcher, or you get hit in the face with a baseball, or something happens to your leg right, which is what Maybe he slid into home too hard, his leg inured like bird bones. It's just it was unrealistic to me because the entire conceit is this man is so injured he can't do anything.

Okay, sure, but then he takes a baseball to the face later in the episode, like why, Hey, remember when Mark Singer fought a bunch of lizard people on television every week? Mike, Yeah, I wasn't that great. I remember when he traveled through time. Even I kept waiting for that to happen. I was just like, where Podo and Podo?

Where are you? Yes? Exactly, Malone, And I'd like to point out to you, I have seen v I'm not that young, sir. Did you watch it weekly? No?

I wasn't. We're hanging on every plot twist. No, right there, Fetis he called me a fetis. He's not wrong. He iss fans right in this episode?

Yeah, that was interesting. When when they broke out the tigers, I was like, oh, okay, all right. I didn't mind this episode. I it was kind of like the one that we talked about last time. Well that I may mention of the whole Piano episode, um like identical to it in a way.

Yeah, kind of yeah, especially like, okay, how is he in that one? It was how is he going to what get to stay there? And this one is how is he going to get to stay there? Mike, Yeah, at least in the other one though, which is a superior episode in Ere. And I just kept thinking about it the entire time and thinking like, this is a poor imitation of it.

Like, at least in that one he had to figure out a way to stay there. This one was about this guy who has no possible way of continuing his career in our world. He has the worst wife in history. Sure that kid likes him, but come on, here's a chance to actually stay forever. Where is there even a question?

Right? And it was very convenient for him to go back to this other time and suddenly be in uniform. And then even the girl that he brings back, she's in period appropriate dress. I was like, Okay, I'm surprised that, you know, they didn't have her go back, and they're just like, well, young man, yeah, exactly. This is what I was talking about when it when it comes to these the sort of writers later in this series where you know they have the idea and they want to kind of explore it, but they don't really they're not steeped in speculative fiction.

So it like the twist is enough, and there might not necessarily like a Twilight Zony twist, but as far as the mcguffin to get the plot in motion, they're just like and then you know, because you know fantasy stuff, right, that's what you guys like. It's like, you know, at one point, you know, Superman was able to do every thing that they would just to go like, well, because he's Superman. Yeah, now he can run through time and do all that, you know, during the fifties and sixties. As far as the right, that's what this feels like to me. I don't again, this is not an episode.

There's not much to dislike other than the fact that it's called the Twilight Zone. And we've seen some greatness recently or not at all recently, but definitely in the past on this show. And I don't know. Mark Singer was good. That's that's the positive thing I'll say.

Mark Singer plays a very convincing and believable man who's down on his look. Oh yeah, and anybody checked in with him lately, A smart singer up due these days. Yeah, I wonder there's got to be a convention signing somewhere. Well with COVID. I mean, these guys can't go to the conventions.

They mess jammeo baby, Oh there you go. He's just like, you know, call up the Beast Master here. I am twenty five dollars. How much you think Mark Singer would go for in Cameo? Oh he's got to be at least thirty five five boy, I'll say fifteen if he's on there.

Yeah, he might be. I don't know. My wife yesterday was like, hey, check out Jojos. He was on Cameo and I was like, how much is sha five hundred dollars? Jesus Christ.

Fuck dude, just to be like, hey, happy birthday. What's their name again, Barbara? Apparently he was in A Beauty and the Beast TV series, not the one with Ron Perlman, but A Beauty and the Beast. He was in Arrow, which I don't watch, and he was in the rebooted V And apparently he's supposed to be a one coming out in twenty twenty one, probably in theaters only called The Undertaker's Wife. Oh definitely.

Yeah. Well, if you if you want to be a true film fan, you have to go watch movies in the theater. Yeah, why not risk your life for that? Well, at the end of the day, I'd rather watch Arrow on my TV than go to the movie. I went to the movies last night.

Really, what you see Scott Pilgrim Versus the World? Oh I'm sorry? Yeah, me too? No, No, okay out here. I love that movie anyway, but good for you.

The only reason I bring it up on this one, bro, No, that's fine. You both could be wrong, but we're not. What I wanted to point out, far wrong, sir. We were one of two couples in the theater, so I felt pretty secure. Oh wow, okay, because now you know Pilgrim, which, yeah, I'd be less secure.

Who else would go see Scott Pilgrim in theaters? That movie is terrible. I disagree on clubs on uh like uh as far as a bizarro movie that it kind of exists in its own universe. I'm I like the movie more once I realized Scott Pilgrim is actually the villain of the piece. Um.

But you know, I don't know. I just I think that movie's got style to burn. And I love the soundtrack. I love the whole cast so and I love the concept of having to battle your your significant others exes. Like, I think it's really solid.

Yeah, I'd like to watch again with that idea of him being the villain, because he truly is. Yeah, I mean he's such a piece of shit. Yeah, I would like to watch that movie without Michael Sarah in it. I mean, well mine Michael Sarah as an actor, especially what was that the end or this is the end? Immediately?

Yeah, that his best role is the one where he's in for three minutes. Yes, but you know that. And speaking of Toronto, I mean that movie is just a love letter to Toronto, that is. I mean, look, I love Edgar Wright, as I'm sure the three of us do, but that is the one movie of Edgar Wrights where the first time I saw it, I liked it every other time since i've been that's okay whatever, um, yeah, okay, Yeah, I mean, look, I don't really like Hot Fuzz or World's End, Like those movies do nothing for me. But well, yeah, I love Sean of the de Huh.

Yeah, I love Hot Fuzz, but I do not like World's End. And I'm not a big fan of Baby Driver either. I like Baby Driver then I liked what he was doing with some of the music and Baby Driver, but I was just like, I don't know, I was just like kind of done with it after about half an hour. I'm it kind of falls apart. But to be fair, Mike, on my suggestion, I would say you should rewatch World's End.

I think it's right you and I were talking about that. Yeah, it is not good. I actually thought about a year ago, Okay, well that's it, and it was a like, I need to reevaluate this because maybe I was in a mood or whatever. And I like, I like a lot of it, but I don't think it hangs together ultimately. I mean I get it.

Yeah, I mean I didn't like it the first time I saw it, but I subsequent watchings I enjoy it a lot more. Kind of the reverse with Shaun of the Dead. I liked Sean of the Dead for a long time, and then it's okay, it's not the strongest. Hot Fuzz is the strongest, without a doubt. I still have much doubt there.

I quote both of those movies Hot Fuzz and Sean of the Dead all the time. I mean we're constantly, especially saying sorry, Sean, I love catching them. Killer is a it's just the one killer actually, But you know, coming back to Twilight Zone, must we Must we? What is what is this show's obsession with telling these kinds of stories, this version of the show, because I don't think this is number two? Isn't this number three?

Now? Wasn't there one other episode that was in this kind of fantasy fulfillment vein? There was right in the first one, wasn't there Wasn't there a Peter Regard episode where he goes and visits himself. That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah, this was the Harlan Ellison one.

Yeah, like I don't know, every writer's got this. I want to go back to the past and live in a golden age kind of thing, like you know. Unfortunately they came Greenland. That was that Good Lord written by our good friend Alan Brennert. Yeah.

By the way, I don't see Mark Singer. I'm cameo, but I do see Mark mcgraff. So if you want Mark Graf, But could we just ask Mark mcgraff to clarify if it's Sugar Ray or Sugar Gay. Oh my god, have you guys ever seen that? I saw that video?

Yeah, it never goes on. There's this guy heckling Mark McGrath outside of a club, calling him sugar gay over and over again, and I think he just says it once. Actually well but yeah, but he I mean he and then Mark, Yeah, oh god, can say it in my fucking face. Say it to me, like, say it to my face. Oh Jesus, dude, like sugar wow, sugar gay, bro, sugar gay.

Yeah, that's a long video too. He excoriates that kid for a while, and it's like it's a straight up like teenager who just was fucking with Mark McGrath, all right, as you do. But yeah, we should just be like, hey, Markgraf, could you say sugar gay? Do you know Mark Sing? Do you know Mark Singer's number?

Can you go on cameo and get somebody to like like surreptitiously like be interviewed you for your podcast, like send them like a list of questions, like here's my cameo I want, right, that's a good question. Would they do that? They'd probably be like, no, you have to pay me more and be like I'm not gonna pay you. Kevin from the office, I just page Mark McGrath say the funny thing, shut the fuck up and just send me my video. Cameo blows my mind though, like the fact that anyone is willing to pay, like mic Foley, three hundred dollars to wish their friend a happy birthday is ingeniously idiotic at the heart of it.

Oh yeah, Mark Singers should get into it. Yeah you should. You should you make fifteen dollars. Yeah, we should get into it. We should just post ourselves on cameo.

Yeah, someone would take one of us up on the offer, and the person they would take the up on the offers Mike quite not us. Hi, I'm here from my movie basement. This is me wishing you a happy birthday. Who you are I do not know, but you you guess you have a happy birthday? You all of you?

Which one of you have a happy birthday? You know? This is making me really want to finally sit down and watch a man called Sarge, because that's like the one cameo or not cameo like parody movie from the nineties that I haven't seen, and I really just need to sit down and watch it and Mark Singers in it. Yeah, and Gary Croaker, oh my god, yeah, an iluminary. Yes, his name is Needelman.

He's an oral Surgeon. Don't worry, Lois, I'll protect you. Yeah, he was on a show for three years. Oh yes, and yeah. Can we hope that this season is going to be better than last one?

Or is that hope going to be misguided? You think we can hope? Yeah, I'm hoping as well. I'm gonna do not want to hope. It is forbidden in these lands.

You have crossed over into a land of sitan sound and terrible episodes. That is season three of the Twilights. We'll see. I mean, they've got some good guest stars in this season, you know, I see like Eddie Albert, Louise Fletcher, Peter Scalari, who you know. I think we all agree that he should have been the one that got famous, not Tom Hanks.

You know, totally. He was carrying that show. Yeah, exactly. Whenever anyone says Scolario, I can think, is this is Scalary brothers tried him for murder, gave him the chair. There you go.

It came back though they did. Look, I think with this show, like Chronicles from the Crypt, when we talk about Twilight Zone, people do remember these shows a lot more fondly than they actually exist. Oh yeah, because the good episodes are that good, like shatter Day wordplay. A lot of the good episodes are that good. But man, everybody conveniently forgets about a lot of the really bad stuff.

But they can't. You can't exist one without the other. You just can't. I mean yeah, I mean we've said this before, Like you go, mackn't watch the original Twilight Zone. It's rife with terrible episodes.

Oh yeah, but they were, you know, putting out like forty episodes a season or something, so they at least have that excuse, you know, of just over exertion here that you know, you've got, you know what, the ten twelve, thirteen episodes the last season, you know, maybe a twenty something here, like come on, and you know, I was just looking ahead at some of the episodes coming up. It would seem I remember quite a few of them, but just as many I don't. But it does seem like it's kind of be more of this. It's gonna be less about shocking you or scaring you or making you think, and more about what if you wished for this and this came true? Like come on, man, I don't have time for Schmaltz in my life better makes some time.

Yeah, I'm going to talk about some more Schmaltz next month. Stitched my wagon to the Schmaltz trains. So speaking of the next episode, on the next episode of Dreams for Sale, we're going to be taking a look at The Crossing and The Hunters, both directed by Paul Lynch. Sure we'll see. Could be good, could be bad, probably bad, maybe not, who knows until then, Father Malone, where can people find you?

You can find me over at father Malone dot com. I got links to all the stuff I do there, but you will find my podcast Dark Destinations, which is a half hour radio drama I put out almost monthly. What about you, Mike White. As always, you can find me over at the Projection Both podcast, which is available at Projection Both podcast dot com. And you can find me on Twitter at Christmas Clause and on the Internet at cstash dot com.

That's where you can find me. You can find this podcast on the internet at twilight Zone eighty five and at I Forgot Yeah, you can find it in the twilight Zone exactly. And as always, big thanks to Roxy Drive and Neutron Dreams for the awesome music for this podcast. You can find them on the internet. Can you find them?

Do we know? I'm sure you can't. Sure, but who knows? Whatever you want, it's boy, can't you. Yeah, let's go to that dark web.

Yeah boy, And as always, make sure to join us on the next episode.