Episode 44: The Mind of Simon Foster / The Wall

Hello there, I'm Chris Stashu, I'm Mike White, and this has fatherom alone, and we're the host of Dreams for Sale, a once a month look at a show that keeps on giving. In the spirit of Christmas, Twilight's Own nineteen eighty five, we're gonna be talking about the Mind of Simon Foster and the Wall. The year is nineteen hundred and ninety nine. Within the box evidence that some things do not change with the passage of time. It's contents the collected debris of a shattered life, now valuable only for the dimes and nickels they can solicit from a third party in your process, and a familiar long walk that is about to lead into the unfamiliar terrain of the Twilight Zone.

So the Mind of Simon Foster is written by Douglas Jackson, are directed by Douglas Jackson. Once again, written by our good friend Jay Michael Strazinsky. Lady's It, Jay Michaels Fazzinsky excited on Jay Michael Strazinsky's Twilight Zone. Yeah pretty much, boy, put your name on it, just like Jordan Peel did. We saw how well that turned.

You know what, Jay Michael Strotsinsky has more of a right too, because he wrote the bulk of the season. That's fair, that's fair. Yeah, that is fair. And this episode focuses on the titular Simon Foster, a man who sells his memories to the highest bitter buyer. Somebody's buying something dreams memories for sale, not dreams this time.

Yes, And hilarity ensues when he turns out that memories are priceless ladies and gentlemen, and there is no price state you can put on them, and he had to sell his memories to find that out. You don't, Yes, he did. The biggest the biggest problem that I have with this episode is there's a moment where he's like applying for a job. Yeah, okay, this is the problem with the episode. You're right, Okay.

The entire problem with the episode is removing a singular. So okay my first birthday? Yes, yes, how I can operate a forklift? No? If you forklift operator.

The logic of the episode is if you forget your high school graduation, you essentially never went to high school. You are screwed. That is, and that is the entire conceit of the episode, because that's the logic the episode plays by, and it is moronic. I like the concept of the episode, yeah, really Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, right yeah? Or even like what end of not end of Days?

What was the rape? Finds Arnold did fight the devil in this? You're right? No, no, no, no, that was end of Days? But now there was a Strange Days with Ray Fines.

Oh yeah, yeah, and Tina Turner right, no, that wasn't Tina Turner, and that that was Angela Bessett. Yes, I know, I'm who played in the movie. Yes, yes, I gotcha. I'm referencing sir. So like that had the same sort of concept where people are, you know, buying and selling memories and stuff, and I like the idea that they're actually taking his memory sort of out of his head, and you know, it's just so clumsily executed.

Ultimately, I think Jay Michael Strazinski as a writer seems to be a guy with really good, big ideas, but then doesn't know how to whittle them down into a twenty two minute teleplay, or even how to get out of the way of the most obvious plot hole that's so obvious everybody watching it is thinking, we all came to the same conclusion at the same moment. There were stakes to be mined out of him selling his memories, but that was the clumsiest way to portray it. Yeah, oh that's and that's and that's kind of where I came down as well. It was I liked the idea of the episode, but the direction they went is strange. Just because he was singular, memory doesn't negate all memories forever.

That's just that's that's not what they're talking about here. That's not even what the pawn shop owner is talking about. He's talking about singular moments. Like you know, a fine wine drinker doesn't want to drink a kangaroo tail. He wants to drink some wine from nineteen fifty.

That's what this is about. It's it's like they missed the point of their own idea from the get go. I didn't take him not remembering graduating high school as the actual memory that wiped out later because he kept going back right and they kept showing memory after memories, so I assumed he had sold some other memory later and forgotten what he had done. But like again, that just makes the character ridiculously stupid that he would have sold that one. Well, it was I was more referencing the thing where he's like, all of a sudden, he doesn't know how to do any of the thing that he supposedly knew how to do, right.

So yeah, but it's like that makes no sense, Like you forgot every memory associated with that down to like the core. That's not what this was about. No, because he remembered what high school he went to, you know, but he didn't remember like other things for that job. Yeah, I know, but he remembered the high school memory, which is what you're saying is the sort of spark that made him forget everything else, Like he didn't remember anything in high school. So like if they took any memory out like that, then and the dominoes would fall, you know what I mean.

Like, I think he sold some other memory later on. I don't know why we're quibbling about this. This is I don't know either. The best part is when he's like, I want to get I want memories of the first time you've ever had sex with someone. Yeah, Yet I kept thinking that the person that was buying all these memories because they have a woman that's in the store that he passes and I was like, Oh, maybe she's someone from his past.

Oh, and she wants to buy up all these memories. So she's depriving him like she's maybe the first person he ever had sex with. Maybe he did something else that was really bad and she wants to just punish him something something as any's a twist here in the Twilight Zone. Yeah, like an actual real world payoff of him losing a memory other than like you're not going to get that job right. This is very similar to the card.

Like the stakes in this episode are similar, where it's like this one single person makes bad decisions and they they don't live to tell about it, quote unquote this guy lives, but what is this guy's life. He's like brain dead. I don't know what's Like the way they leave him at the end of the episode is like he's like just completely like a like brain dead. He's just like he's say, memories right now, He's got everyone's memories now. Yeah.

Yeah, it's I like the ending. I like that. I was reminded of Johnny Mamonic because when Johnny had to like choose, I think he lost his fifth birthday because of the seepage from the memory and plants. I was like, oh, that that kind of works somehow. Mentioning Johnny Mmanonak here makes Johnny Manonak much better than it even is.

And it's still pretty good. It's a great movie, but associating it with this is just this is just it's it's strange again. They have a germ of a good idea and then they just fucking crash into the term actor. They do not know what to do with it. Yeah, so Chris, I don't want to play old man here, but I'm going to the guy who was selling his memory, Simon to Foster.

He in the eighties was huge. He was part of Hill Street Blues, where he played what was it Belker right. The character was so popular that they even gave him was probably a very short lived spinoff, much like Fish Oh yes, yes, yeah, oh my god. But that character was fantastic and he he seemed to be on the precipice of just greatness and you probably recognize it from so many roles that he did something. Yeah, and he won an Emmy.

Yeah four Hillstrey Blues. He was great enough. He was He's okay here, he's not given much to do. I think that's probably the I like the pawn shop guy a lot. I like him too, He's one of Cronenberg's guys.

Here we are in Canada, where we're gonna get some good Canadian actors in here, they get all of them. Yeah, so he was in what like Scanners and oh Dead Zone, and I'm not sure if he was in anymore from Croniberg, but but I was got a great face, Yeah, he does. I think the other thing that that really cracks me up and Father Malone. We talked about this a lot on our other show that's now finished, Chronicle from the Crypt, about Tails from the Crypt. This episode is so set bound, and then the flashbacks that they show, or the flash to the memories, it feels like it's it's it's taking place in the corner of a set somewhere.

Oh yeah, it really does. I mean, obviously the budget was showing for this entire season, but you know, I did feel the same way while watching this one. But you could tell that the director was taking pains to light it in a way that it wouldn't come off that way. But there's just nothing you can do if you're going to have the whole set lit, you know, there's only so many and so yeah, I did notice that, but overall, I thought it was actually shot pretty well. This particular episode.

It's just where the writing comes into play, which is the entire thing. And you know, it's one of these episodes it didn't feel it wouldn't have felt out of place in the original series. This seems like a rod Sterling special, you know, like two characters in a room with a device and then just have the character keep coming back. And what was nineteen ninety nine we had everyone had television communications at that point, right that that was part of the production design of it was for some reason it was set in ninety nine. Yeah, that was odd a world like our own, but just a little fause because we start in the guy's apartment where it's clearly we're now in the future.

It looks like every sort of cubical housing thing that the future will portend, and then he steps outside and it's just like, oh, this is just Canada, right, yeah, in eighty nine, right, yeah, oh pretty much. Yeah, It's it's strange. I guess there's not a way to have set this story in eighty nine with a guy who's just doing back alley memory stuff. Yeah, I know, but like you know, they could have just said, like I've read about this sort of thing in the underground, like who cares, Like the actual technology makes as much sense now in twenty twenty one as it did then, Like nobody's figuring that shit out anytime soon. No, it's it's one of these episodes where once again all I want is all I want is for the show to have the writing downpat Everything else seems to be kind of there for the most part, and many writing is just Stinsky is floundering.

Yeah, I really quick wanted to correct my self. Apparently I was having a Mandela effect there. It wasn't Belker who got his own show. It was Bunts. It was James or Dennis France who had a spin off from it.

Did he did? He did? I thought Belker had the clout that he was going to get it. Seems like he would have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So let's talk about the next episode. The Wall. Alexander McAndrews former test pilot with a paper trail of commendations and a closet full of broken records, A man for whom the unknown is to be faced, not feared, conquered, not surrendered to Alexander mccandrews, who was about to face yet another unknown, but this one is unlike all of the others for this one and burns at the very heart of the Twilight Zone. So The Wall is directed by Adam mcgoyan, written by J. Michael Strazinski.

Once again, didn't fuck that name up, and it's ours John beck Is, Alexander mc andrews. What a terrible name for a character. Very bad name. Mc andrews. Yeah.

And Andy Anderson, Yeah, exactly exactly. That's all I could think of. Uh, And it's it's kind of an episode about a stargate and star Gate. Go through the star Gate and there's life on the other side right to it. Yeah, how much?

And once you know what, the military wants to do something with that gate, because why would they want to bomb the ship out of all the people that are there, They just like immediately they're like, oh, we could just bomb them all the back to hell. It's like what Yeah, I thought what they were doing was they were going to put people on the other side of the portal because they didn't know where it went. I mean, it sounded like the to put weapons and stuff over there. Yeah, they could like use it to teleport themselves other places once they once they understood the technology better. But you know what I gotta say, I'm so tired of the agrarian utopia.

Go ahead, bomb that fucking thing. How many times? Tell us how many times now we've seen this ship on this show? Is this three or four? At least three times?

And this might be the fourth? Like there was the Scott Wilson episode, right, and then there was like there was like one other one other than that. There's one with the guy that goes into the future and they can psychically heal people with their hands. Scott Wilson episode with there was one the barrier between two worlds and it looked like peaceful and a grarian over there. They're actually vampires.

What about what about the George went episode? Does that count? Yeah? I don't remember vampires in this, but okay, I might be remembering an outer limits. So if if we we have at least three, possibly four, it's it's it's it's absolutely insane.

What it destroy that agrarian utopia? I don't know what, blood eyed motherfuckers. I'm a military man who wants to learn about love and the only way I can do that is by working with the dirt under my fingernails. Christ Almighty, And was there an arc for our lead? Like?

Was he? He was just the craziest test pilot. No, similar to the arc of one throwing garbage into a trash can. Yeah, yeah, that at least would have accomplished something, because what we got here was this guy who's just like okay, and then like he hangs out for a little while and then he comes back. You know what.

I wanted this to happen so badly. At the end, when he's now made his decision that he's going to go back and live with the agrarian society and protect them from the evil military, he smashes the machine that makes the thing after giving his little speech. I wanted the thing to wink off behind him, and then he's stuck there with them. Like, here's how this works. You're given ten seconds.

Okay, anytime you destroy something in a movie, you're giving ten seconds to jump through it, run away. You've seen Harry Potter that dagger goes through and kills Dobby for the same reason. It's it's so lazy. Wait Dobby dies. Oh Jesus Christ, sorry, hashtag don't spoil my Potter hashtag j K already did.

It's lazy, it's that late. It's a lazy level of screenwriting that this show is employing at this point that I can I cannot understand. I mean when I describe the episode as is there any more to it? Like, no other than military, bad, farmers good? Pretty much?

What else was there? The messaging is very sound, I'll say that much. Adam Egoyan, who who I like as a filmmaker, Yeah, um, you know he kind of even for me, sometimes wildly uneven, but like he's had some interesting stuff out there. Yeah yeah, we'll sweet here after is gorgeous, gorgeous man and I'll tear your heart out, Yeah exactly. Um, so, I mean he can hit it, but um, even like Exotica, for all its weirdness, not doing such a great job here, like talk about set bound like this guy should have fucking known better, like and he only has like what like one sort of interior set and the rest is the fucking bucolic whatever.

The bucolic whatever didn't even look beautiful. It should have looked fucking gorgeous, right right, Well, it looked like it had that Sheen on it where it was just like overly let like right, it was almost like a dream sequence. Very Uh. The way I like to describe it is like imagine a Carpenter's album, like the cover that's it's like it's like washed out. It's like reminds me of the seventies.

Yeah, and that's what they're going for, like a more from from head to toe they're going for. The seventies are like silent running all the way. Oh yeah, and then having time having John Beck as your lead. I'm just like, oh, it's uh, you know, uh, James Conn's best friend from Rollerball. That's pretty much from Oh my God, Houston exactly.

Fuck, I gotta watch that again. I love it. Right, Yeah, I never seen it, but it's probably better than this. Right, Oh, it's so much better, much better. And yeah, in that the future is much more dystopian and that's pretty great.

But it's also it's not, but it's somewhere in between. Right. It's society is still together, like it's not, but it's a better one than this agrarian bullshit. It's like, now it's dystopian, but society is still together. Yeah, exactly for who knows how long.

Yeah, we're living in we're living in the rollerball times. We're not always been ever since American Gladiators. I don't know what would possess them to do this story again again, but this is at least the second time that they've done something this close, because that's Scott Wilson episode is dangerously close to this one, because that one is like they're coming back to Earth to find the life on Earth, and it's the same, like shit about the military bad, agrarian good or non military good, whatever whatever the stand in is in that episode, I forget. I don't think the riggery and I think it's you know, I don't know who the fuck they're on some other bullshit, some other high, high minded thing from the mid eighties that people were into in the seventies.

I mean, that's what it is. Basically, trying to recap children of hippies writing screenplays. That's what this is. Yeah, but the but but there was some wit to it at one point, there was some bite, there was some edge to it. Shattered day word play.

Oh oh, you're talking about the twilight Zone New Twilight Zone as a whole, Yeah, of course, but it ain't here now not with this guy. I'm sorry, not in Canada. Not in Canada. Not I do I do you know what in that the the the first episode the mind of Simon Cowling at there's the scene where he's finally reached his destitute moment where he makes himself some soup and a cock roach drops into it like he bent over to put the soup in the and the boom mics swung into frame and they went back out. So so in fact, I do blame the Canadian god him your number, Canadian Film Board not get invited to tiff anytime soon.

I don't think, damn it. It's you know what's strange about this show, like Tales or like Tales from the crypt Is, is that season change at the end of the final season of the show goes to completely, it changes venue completely. And it's weird because it would almost be better just did not have done that, you think, And I don't think it's not about it. I think we're quite certain. You know, this is all the money grab from CBS Television at this point, like it's just whatever is available put it on the air.

Yeah, and you know, I can't even say it tarnish that first season maybe first two or so, fucking go to this show that, like you know, I can't can't allow this to drag that down. Go watch the Scott Wilson one. If you watch the Scott Wilson whe you've already seen this one essentially, Yeah, don't watch this one. Yeah. So on the next episode, we're gonna be talking about the twenty fourth and twenty fifth episodes of the third season.

We're nearing the end here. We're gonna be talking about Cat and Mouse and Rendezvous in a Dark Place. One of those has Janet Lee and them. The other one's about a horny cat. Yes, until then, Where can people find you?

Father Malone? Check me out over at father Malone dot com. That's got links to all of the dumb stuff I'm involved in, but you cannot does have a link to my podcast, Dark Destinations. It's an a half hour radio drama, right and produce. That's over at father Malone dot com.

What about you, Mike? Where can people find you? You can find me over at the Projection Booth podcast, which is available at Projection boothpodcast dot com. And you can find me at c stashu dot com, cstac hiw dot com. That's my link tree for all the stuff I work on, So there you go.

Thanks as always to roxy Drive and Neutron Dreams for the music for the show, and we'll catch you on the next episode.