Cloak and Dagger: 205 "Alignment Chart"

Connors has escaped Ty’s cloak, but can it be believed he wants to come clean? Tandy develops a rapport with Lia with disasterous results. Matt and Pete square up episode 205, “Alignment Chart.”

Big thanks to everyone who helps support the podcast at Patreon.com/PhantasticGeek!

Reach out and say hello at Facebook.com/PhantasticGeek, Twitter.com/PhantasticGeek, or PhantasticGeek@gmail.com.

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Avengers: Endgame

The 22nd movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Endgame has taken the world by storm. How does it measure up to the rest? What does it all mean? Where do we go from here? PhantasticGeek.com's Pete and Matt look at the movie step by step.

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The Picard Series: What We Know So Far

As the untitled Picard series starts filming today, PhantasticGeek.com's Pete and Matt cover what's known about the mysterious return of Patrick Stewart to Star Trek, all while theorizing about the road ahead.

Excited about the series? Let us know by commenting at PhantasticGeek.com, and saying hello via Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail.

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God Friended Me: Looking Back at Season 1

With season one of God Friended Me in the books, Pete and Matt look back while pondering the road ahead.

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Cloak and Dagger: 204 "Rabbit Hold"

Tandy enters Ty’s cloak to find Mayhem and gets more than she bargains for. Meanwhile Ty moves to protect his mother from what she’s been trying to do to clear his name. Matt and Pete descend into episode 204, “Rabbit Hold.”

Big thanks to everyone who helps support the podcast at Patreon.com/PhantasticGeek!

Reach out and say hello at Facebook.com/PhantasticGeek, Twitter.com/PhantasticGeek, or PhantasticGeek@gmail.com.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- 214 "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2"

The future’s not set, all that remains is to send the final two Red Angel signals. But there’s an epic battle still to unfold. And sacrifices to be made, both big and small. Matt and Pete embrace the season 2 finale, episode 214, “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2.”

We reference Alex Kurtzman's interview with the Hollywood Reporter, found here.

Thanks as always to everyone who supports the podcast by visiting Patreon.com/PhantasticGeek.


Share your feedback for Star Trek: Discovery by emailing PhantasticGeek@gmail.com, commenting at PhantasticGeek.com, or tweeting @PhantasticGeek.

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The Mandalorian: First Look at Celebration 2019

As Phantastic Geek launches another pop culture podcast, we look at the Mandalorian's debut at Celebration 2019 in Chicago. Our podcast talks the genesis of the series, the stars of the show, and we even discuss some of clips shown.

Share your thoughts and theories about this upcoming live action Star Wars series by being in touch with Phantastic Geek. Visit PhantasticGeek.com, say hello on Twitter and Facebook, and send us an email.

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God Friended Me: 120 "Que Sera Sera"

Miles, Cara and Rakesh are all out of jobs. But the Juliet Code could be rebuilt. And the elusive Henry Chase has at last appeared. Matt and Pete bring you the season 1 finale, episode 120, “Que Sera Sera.”

Thanks as always to everyone who supports the podcast by visiting Patreon.com/PhantasticGeek.

Share your feedback for God Friended Me by emailing PhantasticGeek@gmail.com, commenting at PhantasticGeek.com, or tweeting @PhantasticGeek.

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Cloak and Dagger: 203 "Shadow Selves"

The secret history of Mayhem is detailed as Mina Hess has unlocked the cause. Father Delgado struggles with faith while Tandy and Ty try to track down the trafficked girls. Matt and Pete double up on episode 203 “Shadows Selves.”

Big thanks to everyone who helps support the podcast at Patreon.com/PhantasticGeek!

Reach out and say hello at Facebook.com/PhantasticGeek, Twitter.com/PhantasticGeek, or PhantasticGeek@gmail.com.


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Star Trek: Discovery -- 213 "Such Sweet Sorrow"

Time is running out and the Enterprise has come to Discovery’s aid. Both ships enlist the help of a strategic planet’s monarch to work around the threat to all sentient life, but sacrifice is always part of the plan. Matt and Pete console you about episode 213, “Such Sweet Sorrow.”

We reference TrekMovie's article on the Enterprise bridge, found here.

Thanks as always to everyone who supports the podcast by visiting Patreon.com/PhantasticGeek.

Share your feedback for Star Trek: Discovery by emailing PhantasticGeek@gmail.com, commenting at PhantasticGeek.com, or tweeting @PhantasticGeek.

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TWIST: "Replay" Finds Raw Truth in the Twilight Zone

Submitted for your approval: an episode entirely without metaphor.

The statement itself is a bold one for The Twilight Zone, considering the original series had some of its best episodes with you-can’t-say-that-on-television masked by way of the tropes of science fiction, horror, and westerns.

Yet “Replay” succeeds without metaphor, and eminently so. Indeed, in so far as commercials can spoil a story (hint: they can, exceedingly so), the shape of “Replay” was tipped loud and clear: racial profiling, and more, received by African-American mother Nina (Sanaa Lathan) and son Dorian (Damson Idris) at the hands of the droll and decidedly white Officer Lasky (Glenn Fleshler). As for what was shown in previews, the episode is just that: a ponderance on American racism, casual and powerful and sometimes both.

However, the episode, directed by Gerard McMurray, is also very much more. As someone who likely will never be pulled over by a profiling police officer, the episode was for me a vivid, immediate, jarring, resounding transportation into world that I can hardly imagine. The gut-wrenching result of watching the first half, with its repeated cycles of sighing, sneering, easy racism perpetuated by Lasky, came with the realization that, for millions of Americans and others, this was not “something out of the Twilight Zone.” Instead, this was a story about very real life, yet a tale nonetheless augmented by the gimmick of a magical camcorder that can rewind time.

Indeed, concerning the camcorder, it is the first half of the episode that takes true homage from the original outing’s “Nick of Time,” oftentimes remembered as the other William Shatner episode, the one without the monster and the plane. The inability for Nina and Dorian to leave town, and indeed the roadside eatery the Busy Bee Cafe, come from the launching off points reminiscent of Richard Matheson’s original series episode. (Twist: two Matheson script remake/homages from two Shatner episodes in two weeks? Such Zone coincidences! Speaking of numerology, “Replay” gives Lasky license plate 01015, a cute nod to the prior 2019 episode, one that comes off as more rimshot than mystery.)

It is in the final twenty minutes of “Replay” in which writer Selwyn Seyfu Hinds luxuriates--a portion of episode that rarely found success for the mighty Rod Serling in his hour-long offerings. Mother and son make their way to Uncle Neil’s house; he easily believes in the magic of the camcorder. Such a reveal is presented plainly and without narrative trickery; indeed, Neil wonders if such a thing harkens back to the motherland of Africa. On the topic of language, we hear Neil refer to Nina’s “boy” twice, subtlely offsetting Lasky’s understated yet altogether different use of the word as used earlier in the episode.

The goal to get Dorian to his destination is properly clear and yet obfuscated; that Dorian needs to get to college is the inciting event upon which the story is built, however the twists and turns of the episode see it not thunderously restating the goal. As Neil talks about using back alleys and routes not formally mapped--yet handed down by oral tradition from people of color--the story doesn’t overplay its hand nor its message about young people advancing themselves in the world.

When the trio arrive at the college gates, Lasky arrives to prevent, quite simply, Dorian from getting to college. Here, the episode makes its purpose quite clear. Nina says to Lasky, with authority, “My son will go to college… so back the f___ up!” It is a moment of supreme triumph, of supreme clarity, when the episode’s lack of science fiction fluff or horror cheeze is done credit by a raw and real moment. The camcorder, previously a mystical tool, is then used to document Lasky’s racism, to document the brief yet considerable backup he receives from fellow law enforcement officers, to inspire others to document it as well.

The episode gives an epilogue 10 years later, with Nina a grandmother to Dorian’s daughter Trinity. Nina has continued to use the camcorder the whole time (intermittently, one can imagine), as a stopgap against the return of trouble, a trouble that seems not to have returned. Trinity absentmindedly breaks the camcorder, taking away the magic. Jordan Peele’s narrator (once again a fleeting, perhaps too-tentative presence in the episode) reminds us that “for some evils, there are no magical solutions.”

It seems so often lately that we look back a decade to the feeling of halcyon days of past. It is with the same eyes that this episode must be viewed with the highest regard. The conclusion of “Replay” serves to remind us to keep love in our hearts, but a vigilant eye for those who do not… and to be ready to tell them to “back the f___ up.”

Shazam!

With Earth's Mightiest Mortal taking off in the City of Brotherly Love, how does the latest offering of the DCEU stack up? Pete and Matt bring the thunder and lightning in talking Shazam!

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Cloak and Dagger: 201 "Restless Energy" and 202 "White Lines"

Tandy’s working the program with her mom and Ty’s trying to make life better on the streets. But domestic abuse and human trafficking rear they ugly heads in New Orleans. Also, Mayhem is here. Matt and Pete bring you the two-hour season 2 premiere for episode 201 “Restless Energy" and episode 202 “White Lines.”

Big thanks to everyone who helps support the podcast at Patreon.com/PhantasticGeek!

Reach out and say hello at Facebook.com/PhantasticGeek, Twitter.com/PhantasticGeek, or PhantasticGeek@gmail.com.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- 212 "Through the Valley of Shadows"

The fourth mysterious signal appears above the weighty world of Boreth and Discovery investigates. Elsewhere, Burnham and Spock go on a mission to track down a strangely-behaving Section 31 ship. Matt and Pete guide you through episode 212, “Through the Valley of Shadows.”

Thanks as always to everyone who supports the podcast by visiting Patreon.com/PhantasticGeek.

Share your feedback for Star Trek: Discovery by emailing PhantasticGeek@gmail.com, commenting at PhantasticGeek.com, or tweeting @PhantasticGeek.

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TWIST: "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" Leaves Questions in the Twilight Zone

Submitted for your approval: the episode everyone knows best. Period.

There are outings of the original Twilight Zone that are better written than 1963's "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," like "Eye of the Beholder" and "Living Doll," but there aren't many. In terms of pop culture saturation, everyone knows about the plane episode, if only because it's William Shatner and something horrible on the wing. Not everyone knows it's also a Richard Matheson script, nor that the episode was directed by Richard Donner... but their expertise echoes down the decades in the final product.

It was thus bold that the Twilight Zone revival would return to fly such familiar skies, its producers having gone so far as to say at the 2019 PaleyFest that the revival series would include no remakes.


"Nightmare at 30,000 Feet," has its story by Simon Kinberg (who brought Jordan Peele onto the series), Jordan Peele (the face of the series), and Marco Ramirez (who has several marvelous writing credits to his name), with the teleplay by Ramirez. It is credited as based upon the 1963 episode by Richard Matheson. 

But, don't forget, the producers promised no remakes.

Adam Scott is wonderful as the uncomfortable everyman who is nervous to fly, who sees patterns in repeated 1015s all around him. He's aided by both an effective ensemble cast as well as the episode's direction by Greg Yaitanes (who knows a few things about plane crash TV shows). The episode has some able curiosities, such as Scott's Justin Sanderson stopping in the airport stop to buy a magazine. We see other magazine covers, some with the face of Kumail Nanjiani (or is it Samir Wassan from "The Comedian?"). Other magazines seem to be covering an unlikely and boyish president (the presumed subject of an upcoming episode). (Indeed, are we in the midst of a TZCU--Twilight Zone Connected Universe? "Twist: this anthology is actually an episodic series!" Let's hope not.) Another curiosity: the inclusion of Peele's Narrator on screen as... on screen, literally. He appears only via the plane's television displays. Such an appearance is a curious decision; after all, Rod Serling seemed to pop out with glee from behind that rock, from around that corner, from some maddening place that was both in the story and out of it. If Peele is a bit shy about that dichotomy, don't worry: Rod Serling wasn't on screen for an episode until episode 1x36, "A World of His Own," the season one finale.

Where the episode fades, though, is in its not-a-remake(!) storyline. The episode's tension is mostly good, if not great, and Justin is thrust into the sisyphean existence of most Twilight Zone episodes with a relatable descent. Much like the parable of the frog in ever-hotter water, we are with Justin most of the way: flights can be delayed; numbers can oddly recur; electronics do get left on planes; some podcasts are addictively fantastic. Each step is an easy one from the last, and indeed it's not always easy to look back and see the direction where things are headed.

Yet for the episode to be knit so close to the original (but not a remake!) is to invite comparison. Like many episodes of the original series, "20,000 Feet" succeeds with not one twist, but two: first, "there's a man out on the wing," or a gremlin... or what is, in our reality, a horrible costume with a great mask wonderfully executed. But second, and sometimes glanced over while refilling the pretzel bowl during a marathon of episodes, is the actual ending of the episode. Shatner's Robert Wilson, having blown out the emergency window, succeeds in getting the plane to land. He's taken away in a straightjacket... but the camera pulls back to reveal the engine heavily damaged in just the same way the pesky gremlin was fiddling. The conclusion is that this nightmare was no dream--it was real.

For the not-remake, "30,000 Feet" has not as its backbone of tension the periodic views of a real-or-imagined creature out there; instead, the episode uses the very hip, very modern device of the predictive podcast found by Justin on an abandoned audio player. One might, for a moment, wonder about the notion of the podcast speaking in past tense about the present events on the plane, or that the podcast episode causes Justin to make decisions which lead to the events that the podcast describes. It is a vaguely confusing and circular concept... but this is the Twilight Zone, and such rigid propositions come with the territory. (Let's not forget, there's an entire, wonderful episode of the classic series where Dick York can read minds at a bank because a quarter landed on its side, and he stops reading minds at the end of the work day because... the quarter falls down.) Ultimately, we can accept an instance of "this is the way it is because the episode says so."

Where "30,000 Feet" starts to descend in believability is in its attempt to stick the landing. Fine, we can accept that, rogue pilot Joe Beaumont wants to take over the plane, because... disgruntled reasons. Fine, he's the pilot who bids New York goodnight, hammering home the circular conceit of the podcast. Fine, Justin survives the plane crash, if only to suffer in the tragedy of his own doing. 

But each of these steps show the episode is greedy. In taking away the gremlin, the episode asks for more and more to be believed by we the audience because, because... "because the episode says so."

Justin's survival, solo, could have made a wonderful sort of hell, but we're left (and rather quickly) with the podcast narration that everyone survived--and was rescued! Except for Justin, who didn't survive, says the podcast... while the survivors circle him, taking their mortal revenge.

So what ending is the episode using? Justin's clutching of a rock, then his death at the hands of a mob, seem to borrow liberally and remix from "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Or perhaps the episode would prefer the Lisa Simpson-esque conclusion: "there were monsters on that plane, and surely it was us."

How do either of these conclusions benefit us? How do they speak to our times? Perhaps they don't--perhaps this episode, as the remake that it is suffers from its writers, its revival series creators, fundamentally misunderstanding the original. 

Hopefully, with eight more episodes to go, such a misunderstanding is not a nightmare in the making.