Edited excerpts from our discussion:

SER: What are your thoughts on the Superman origin … the idea that he’s somehow not an illegal alien — even though alien, that term is obviously dehumanizing, but he is literally an alien.

MICHAEL: In every version [of Superman’s origin], the Kents or whoever finds him law entirely to save this baby that they don’t know where he comes from. In one version, they think he might be Russian. You know, instead of sending a dog or a monkey they put a baby in the ship, which says a lot about what we thought about the Russians at that point when we thought it was normal behavior that they would put an infant child in a rocket to test it.

Yeah, in every version, he crashes on Earth and then the Kents forge the [adoption] documents or I think in the John Byrne version, he crashes on Earth but then there's a fortuitous long winter in Kansas that allows them to pretend that Martha Kent was pregnant before the winter started and she gave birth at the house, and after the winter, when hey were able to get back to civilization, they then claim the child is theirs through a natural birth

SER: Objectively, the dumbest version of the origin.

It became this question with the Byrne version where if Superman doesn’t care about his heritage. He’s only an American. Why isn’t he just a mutant? It doesn’t matter. You’ve no longer given any reason for him to be from Krypton. It doesn't define him. Earlier, you were talking about the current Absolute Superman series, which I think has done a good job of asking the questions of why Krypton and showing how [his heritage] influences him.

Neighborhood Comics

Re-Discovering Superman in 2025 with Stephen Robinson

Our Guest: Stephen Robinson…

Listen now

a year ago · 1 like · Lee @NBRHDComics and Stephen Robinson

On a previous podcast, my friend Lee Heidel from Neighborhood Comics and I were talking about with Lex Luthor. I mentioned one of the biggest problems I found with the Byrne version of Luthor … Obviously, I'm not going to say that billionaires can't be corrupt. We know that’s certainly true. But with Batman, the mob running Gotham is shown as bad, and here's how Batman is going to clean it up.

Byrne never really shows how is the world suffering because Lex Luthor is the richest man in the world? He wants to destroy Superman because he is more powerful than he is.

I thought Smallville did a good job showing that LuthorCorp was this corporation that came in and hurt the town, the community, and the Kents didn't like the Luthors as a result. But Byrne didn’t actually show in the Smallville scenes any evidence that Luthor even existed. So what makes him villainous? What makes him a problem?

And that kind of comes up with the modern politics we're seeing now in the world, because if billionaire Lex Luthor hates Superman, that means in our reality now, half the world hates Superman, right? He becomes a 50, 50 proposition.

Luthor would definitely own some sort of media platform that constantly smears Superman. “He’s an alien. We can’t trust him.”

MICHAEL: The writers in the ‘80s and even in the ‘90s who were writing Superman couldn't imagine that you could be outwardly villainous and outwardly just selfish and mean, and it would actually work with the general public.

Now we realize that if they had just written them that way, it would make perfect sense … between [Donald] Trump and [Elon] Musk and even Jeff Bezos who ironically looks closest to Lex Luthor than anybody. They don’t care what the public image is. In fact, they’re too powerful to mostly care about it. They care what the image of their companies are to a certain degree because it affects their stock prices.

But Jeff Bezos doesn’t really care if you think he’s a douche.He just cares if you think Amazon is a terrible company or you think his products are terrible.

As long as you keep consuming, buying your stuff off of Amazon or buying the newspaper, even though [the Washington Post] is kind of like a loss leader for him.

No, Luthor wouldn’t have to put on this benevolent face nowadays.

In the late ‘90s, when they had the storyline of President Luthor, it was seen as too fantastical. Now we essentially have President Luthor, but if he didn’t have the actual intelligence of Luthor.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

Cassandra is also the founding director of Abortion Stories, an organization that provides safe, supportive spaces for people to tell their abortion stories in the context of art and performance

Cassandra’s work has appeared in The Guardian, Brooklyn Rail, the Huffington Post, Public Books, The International Herald Tribune, and Art in America.

A Little Bit Bad is available at your preferred bookseller.

Share

Highlights from our conversation:

How one woman murdered a man, got away with it, and lived on without any apparent regret.

No matter how many anti-abortion laws are passed, people of privilege will still have access to abortions if needed. These laws are thus intended to further marginalize the most vulnerable women.

Cassandra has done some amazing work with Abortion Stories.

We discuss the 1994 indie film Go Fish, and Cassandra’s piece about watching the movie with her daughter is worth a read.

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

An editor and book designer, Meg’s essays have appeared online in outlets like DIAGRAM, the Oxford American, and The Rumpus. She holds an MFA in Nonfiction from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where she served as Assistant Editor of the literary magazine, Ecotone, and worked for the literary imprint Lookout Books. She was a Publishers Weekly Star Watch 2021 Honoree.

Some highlights from our conversation

Meg discussed how corporate publishing tends to look for just one type of story from the South, which ignores the diversity of lived experience.

She explains how Hub City Press elevates voices from every group that represents the South.

Why we should let books be books, and not just part of a pipeline.

Meg shares how Hub City Bookshop in Spartanburg has built a community brought creative methods.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

This is part two of our kibbitz session, and we discuss Death of a Salesman, the musical flop Queen of Versailles, and The Jellicle Ball, an actually good version of Cats.

Raven’s work has also appeared in New York Magazine, Yahoo Parenting, the New York Post, The Village Voice, Bon Appétit, Better Homes & Gardens and Parents.com, among others.

Enjoy and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

Some Highlights From Our Discussion

Raven raves about The Jellicle Ball. You don’t need a hypnotist to convince you it’s much better than Cats.

Raven explains why The Lost Boys musical doesn’t quite work.

I was in New York when the original Ragtime production opened, so I was interested to hear Raven’s thoughts about the revival. If The Jellicle Ball beats out Ragtime for the Tony, it will prove a catty footnote to The Lion King winning the top aware over the original Ragtime.

Raven believes Liberation should win the Tony for Best Play but she thinks it might have serious competition from Giant and The Balusters.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

Raven’s work has also appeared in New York Magazine, Yahoo Parenting, the New York Post, The Village Voice, Bon Appétit, Better Homes & Gardens and Parents.com, among others.

We’ll be back next week for part two of our kibbitz session.

Some Highlights From Our Discussion

The Rocky Horror Show revival might have benefitted from a not-so-great season for musicals.

We discuss Rocky Horror’s origins and how glam rock inspired Dr. Frank N Furter.

Plays with huge stars have performed better than musicals lately, but this season, celebrity appeal didn’t always fill theatres.

My beloved Chicago musical revival turns 30 this year, and it’s endured thanks in part to clever stunt casting. Pamela Anderson as Roxie Hart is obviously not Gwen Vernon or Ann Reinking but Raven explains how her casting fit the show’s overall theme.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

Steward and Evan return for Part Two of our discussion about The Bulwark, the Never Trump movement, and who controls the Democratic Party narrative. Enjoy! And go check out Steward and Evan’s substacks, and .

Certain Thoughts

Reality Checking the Bulwark – Episode 5

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, The Bulwark matters. We value and respect their prominent position in the pro-democracy movement. Yet despite their success, the Bulwark advises on politics from a point of view so ideologically blinkered that it puts the entire movement at risk…

Listen now

3 months ago · 16 likes · 6 comments · Evan Stern and Steward Beckham

Certain Thoughts

Reality Checking the Bulwark – Episode 7

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, The Bulwark matters. We value and respect their prominent position in the pro-democracy movement. Yet despite their success, the Bulwark advises on politics from a point of view so ideologically blinkered that it puts the entire movement at risk…

Listen now

3 months ago · 16 likes · Evan Stern and Steward Beckham

Some Highlights From Our Conversation

Why Democrats shouldn’t choose political expediency over useful action.

Steward explains why conceding right-wing narratives and framing, especially regarding U.S. cities, is part of a broken Democratic Party playbook.

Evan discusses the now almost decade-long smear campaign against Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

I was fortunate enough to speak about this in depth with Steward and Evan. Watch and/or listen to Part One here, and come back next week for Part Two. Also, go check out Steward and Evan’s substacks, and .

Certain Thoughts

Hasan Piker & The Bulwark: Fissures in the Democratic Coalition

The Bulwark Publisher Sarah Longwell has somehow managed to make herself the main character of the story: she’s the villain…

Listen now

3 months ago · 8 likes · Evan Stern and Steward Beckham

Certain Thoughts

Reality Checking the Bulwark – Episode 4

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, The Bulwark matters. We value and respect their prominent position in the pro-democracy movement. Yet despite their success, the Bulwark advises on politics from a point of view so ideologically blinkered that it puts the entire movement at risk…

Listen now

4 months ago · 22 likes · 8 comments · Evan Stern and Steward Beckham

Some Highlights From Our Conversation

Evan warns about political “analysis” that simply launders bigotry.

Steward: The Bulwark has grown from just being a niche conservative publication where you have a bunch of conservative exiles, essentially debating over whether Trump is true conservatism, what they missed or what they couldn’t see when they were supporting conservative campaigns or reiterating conservative talking points on TV, which they still kind of do. And it has grown into one of the integral narrative forces within the larger Democratic Party machinery and the pro-democracy movement representing this kind of mythical middle voter or this reformed Republican or ex-Republican who wants to vote for Democrats but gets a little bit too scared by the Starbucks barista talking about trans rights and talking about Black Lives Matter.

Steward explains how Republicans co-opted patriotism and how this messaging continues to caricture liberals as inherently “anti-American.”

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

Please check out Julie’s work over at Medium and follow her on Bluesky.

You can watch and listen here on Substack or over on YouTube, where I hope you’ll subscribe to my channel.

Some Highlights From Our Conversation

Julie explains how effective propaganda turns lies into a twisted form of “truth.”

Fox News isn’t just a shameless propaganda outlet. It openly controls the Republican Party.

Julie shares my position that Democrats shouldn’t go on Fox News, where they serve as controlled opposition. As detailed in the book The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News--and Divided a Country, Rupert Murdoch tasked Roger Ailes with creating Fox News for the sole purpose of making more people vote Republican, and no Democrat should delude themselves that they can “beat the house.”

Fox News already has a pervasive influence in society. We shouldn’t normalize it.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

She holds an MFA in non-fiction from Bennington College, with post-graduate work in medical narrative at Duke University. She holds workshops in Jungian theory at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago and hosts the podcast Jung in the World.

Some highlights from our conversation.

“How other people see us is how we see ourselves,” Patricia observes about our social media culture. “We have given the algorithm permission to define us.”

Our consciousness is for sale, and social media is the supply chain.

Patricia raises the idea that modern society is in the grips of what Freud termed a cultural “death drive.”

Will the Future Like You?: Reflections on the Age of Hyper-Reinvention is available on March 5 wherever you purchase books.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

Both Democrats are sane and rational, so we should rally behind whoever wins. Unfortunately, the primary has become somewhat of a fractious slap fight. Some of Crockett’s supporters have outright accused Talarico of racism — and this isn’t limited to very online liberals but includes former Senate nominee Colin Allred. If Crockett wins, does she accept the endorsement of someone she not-so-subtly accused of racism? And if Talarico wins, does Crockett endorse someone she just reported to HR?

Texas was always a reach for Democrats, even in a terrible year for Republicans. However, the Democratic primary has also become a proxy fight for the direction the party takes in 2028: Will Democrats only nominate straight white male Christians — although there are a few of them in the United States — or will they only run base-driven campaigns without any appeals to the center? I wouldn’t necessarily blame them, considering Republicans attempted a coup when Joe Biden was elected. His platform was “unity” and “forgiveness,” and a MAGA mob stormed the Capitol. I think Democrats won’t forget that, and with Donald Trump starting illegal wars abroad and committing war crimes at home against Americans who dare live in states that voted against him, primary voters might side with the candidate who comes ready to fight, not reach across the aisle (where the vultures gather).

For now, though, let’s focus on this specific primary in Texas. Joining me for a deep dive is Midland County criminal defense attorney and political pundit Sara Spector.

Some highlights from our conversation

Why outreach is key for Democrats in Texas.

Talarico had some success with an unlikely audience in right-wing Midland.

I’m not pleased with the mudslinging in this race. It doesn’t help anyone.

If you’re a Texas Democrat, please vote tomorrow and remember to come back in November, regardless of the outcome. Oh, and I should clarify that if no one clears 50 percent in the Democratic or Republican primaries, the “party” continues until the May 26 runoff.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

John Davidson, the Scottish Tourette’s syndrome activist and the inspiration for the film I Swear, shouted the “n-word” — the full Tarantino — at presenters Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo. That was unsettling but even worse was the BAFTA response.

The usual suspects also emerged to argue that Jordan and Lindo having the “n-word” shouted at them is no big deal because they appeared in Sinners, where the word is used. It’s as if people who support Donald Trump don’t understand how consent works.

Someone on Threads even posted in my feed that white people learned the n-word from “our” music. It’s a pathetic argument. Besides, if we’re talking about “my” music, I don’t think the “n-word” comes up much in Candide or Jesus Christ Superstar.

Some highlights from our conversation

The BAFTA aftermath has shown that too many people don’t seem to grasp how apologies work. You apologize when you cause someone harm, regardless of your intent. Your intent determines whether someone is inclined to accept your apology and forgive you. I don’t demand that Davidson atone for his outburst, as it was it wasn’t intentional, just acknowledge the painful impact without making it about himself.

Too many people also struggle to empathize with Black pain and the legacy of racism.

Apologizing when you cause harm — even if unintentional — is not about accepting undue blame but expressing empathy.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

This is actually good news, if you’re up for Democrats winning elections. I know many liberals insist that Trump won because he’s a racist, sexist bigoted fool rather than in spite of those obvious character flaws. However, if all 2024 Trump voters wanted him to Make American Antebellum Again, he’d enjoy much higher approval. I don’t need to like former Trump voters to accept them in a winning coalition. It’s like Buffy teaming up with Spike in that epic Season 2 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Spike’s motivations were self-centered and hardly noble, but ultimately, he still helped her save the world. (Watch below.)

Subscribe to my YouTube channel!

Friend of the podcast Cliston Brown joins me to discuss the Wall Street Journal’s findings and more in a lively chat that’s well worth your time. Here endeth the lesson.

Some highlights from our conversation

We discuss whether online shaming might feel good but isn’t the most effective persuasion tactic.

Share

Why Democrats too often fall victim to “silver bullet” thinking.

Why John Fetterman’s curious Senate career likely ends after one term.

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

Please like, share, and leave a comment.

Subscribe to my YouTube

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

Combining comedy and confrontation, Teal shares her experiences as a wheelchair user in a world where strangers at Whole Foods either don’t notice you exist or ask oddly intimate questions about your sex life.

Teal has performed multiple roles on stage and screen. One of her first major roles was in 2004’s Warm Springs with Kenneth Branagh and Cynthia Nixon. She played Venom in the web series The Guild and herself in her own hilarious series My Gimpy Life. (Watch one of my favorite segments below.)

Subscribe to my YouTube

Oh, and I love this one featuring Felicia Day. It’s a great series is what I’m saying. Check it out.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

Please Subscribe To My YouTube Channel

The following isn’t homework, though there might be a quiz later.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

Lee hosts the podcast Disrupter Politics, which you should check out.

Please Subscribe To My YouTube Channel

Edited excerpts from our discussion:

ERICA: I was challenging Congresswoman Doris Matsui. The reason most people don’t know who she is, even though she represents the capital of the fourth largest economy in the world, is because she doesn’t stick her neck out for anything. She’s deeply entrenched. Everything is prepared. The joke is that she still acts like the spouse of a member of Congress.

The history here is she’s not from Sacramento. That’s fine. People move around. But her husband, Bob Matsui, was on the Sacramento City Council in the ‘70s. He was elected into Congress in his 30s in 1979. I was two years old and he was elected into Congress for Sacramento proper. He was in Congress for 26 years and he died. And then just days after the memorial — I believe that he was lying in wake under the rotunda — I’m pretty sure Doris Matsui announced that she was going to run. And with Nancy Pelosi’s help, she cleared the field.

So there were people who had been in line to run, who were going to run, who had actually been doing the work in the community who were going to run. But the field was cleared for Doris Matsui to become the next member of Congress, despite not having any experience that any normal objective person would look at and think, “Oh, she’s a great candidate for Congress.”

It was just her name. Even people who like her will say she was only elected because of her last name.

SER: But [Rep. Matsui] is 81 years old, will be 82 [and she’s running for another term].

ERICA: Right.

SER: Which is insane.

ERICA: Not reading the room.

SER: I’ve written a piece about this a while back about why Democrats can’t resist dying in office.

ERICA: She’s never really lived in Sacramento. When her husband won back in 1979, they bought a home in Maryland. She basically lived there. They used her father-in-law’s address at a home in Sacramento. I believe they raised their son there. So all of her experience is like local to D.C.

She was appointed to the transition committee for Bill Clinton … I think she was a corporate lobbyist, too, right before she was appointed into this role basically, or won the special election. But you don’t find that anywhere in her history because I think they know it’s toxic.

So your primary residence is supposed to be in the state, just the state that you represent. And she got dinged in 2007 by the House Ethics Committee, because her taxes have been filed with Maryland as her primary residence. She’s still living in that home that her son now lives in, apparently.

When I was running against her, I heard from three separate people at three different events that I went to … they were a little tipsy, but they said, “Oh, you know, [her campaign manager Roger Salazar,] says he just tells Doris to stay in D.C. because people are going to vote for her anyway, because it’s such a blue district.”

It’s changed a little bit since redistricting after the passage of Prop 50, but she’s so entrenched. And she’s running for another term.

ERICA: When I realized that Doris Matsui was going to run again, I saw her new logo roll up on December 31st, 2024 on Facebook, Doris Matsui 2026. I said, you’re kidding me. So I immediately said, Who is challenging her? I’m a great campaign operative. I love to talk. Who’s challenging her? Nobody. Nobody’s challenging.

I was told the people on the bench are cowards or unhinged. That’s what I was told. So they said, you should run. I was like, I can’t run. I have anxiety. I have ADHD. I have OCD. I couldn’t do it. I don’t like pictures of myself even, you know, I can’t do it. But people kept talking to me and saying, “Look, you are kind of not like a nobody, but you are the person we need right now because you have a background that is unusual, right? Because you have lived experiences that we’re missing in Congress.

I finally filed in April. I still waited a month to actually drop a campaign ad. I was just making sure you know no one else is going to get in and then I did it and so that’s when I had that video I made and I went to the convention.

I would go to these meetings and I feel like I’d see epiphanies on faces. “Yeah, you’re right. You know, these Democrats, they’re a big part of why we lost again.”

So this was the time. Look at your primary challengers. Who was un-bought? There are a lot of people here who say “I like Doris but it’s time for her to go.” The reason why I suspended [my campaign] was because there was finally a more prominent progressive who decided to run. I know that she decided to run after I got in. Her name is Mai Vang. She is currently the lone progressive on the Sacramento City Council.

She was also on the school board. She was born and raised in south Sacramento She’s the oldest of 16 kids. She’s a daughter of Hmong refugees. She is someone people love and admire, and she’s been doing the work in the community.

It takes political courage to challenge Doris Matsui. [Vang’s] not waiting her turn. We have a bottleneck in Sacramento where there are all these people who want to run for Congress, but they’re just waiting for [Matsui] to retire. So they all endorse her. They say nice things about her, even though they know she doesn’t come back to the district or hold town halls. She’s never had to hold a debate in her life because she’s had the easiest ride in Congress ever.

So, Mai Vang announced that she was going to run and almost immediately I suspended and I talked to her and now I knock doors for her.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

The origins of the New Year’s Eve Twilight Zone marathon are in bit of a twilight zone of their own; no one knows which regional TV station syndicating Twilight Zone reruns started them – New York’s WPIX (Channel 11) or Los Angeles’ KTLA?—or whether they even began on that holiday at all. “The first one we did was on Thanksgiving in 1980,” said KTLA program director Mark Sonnenberg in a 1991 article in the LA Times. In a 1981 cover story, “The Great Twilight Zone Revival: Why Rod Serling’s TV Classic Lives On,” Alternative Media magazine noted that this first Thanksgiving marathon, only eight hours long, received a 16% share.

The Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy) started airing “Twilight Zone” marathons over the Fourth of July holiday during the mid-1990s. (It still does sporadically.)

I prefer the New Year’s marathons because The Twilight Zone is the perfect accompaniment to long winter nights and inclement weather. Series creator Rod Serling was born on Christmas Day so the holiday timing is especially appropriate.

These days, I watch episodes from my own collection. My son might even join me this year. Before I go, I thought I’d share last year’s interview with Emmy-winning writer Joseph Dougherty (Thirtysomething, Pretty Little Liars) about his new book, Rod Serling at 100: One Writer's Acknowledgment, a wonderful tribute to Serling that examines his work and significant contributions to television.

Transcribed excerpts from our conversation:

SER: I’m a tremendous fan of Rod Serling in particular. He’s sort of a personal inspiration. Since I was a kid, I’ve read everything written about him and his work and [The Twilight Zone.] What I think I appreciate most about your book is that — you are obviously an acclaimed writer yourself — and I’ve always chafed at the idea that Twilight Zone is some sort of guilty pleasure or that Serling was a pulp writer.

I think he’s one of the greats, and you give him his flowers, to use that term, as someone in the field to look at his work as a writer and his impact on the work.

So, can you just tell us what inspired you to write about Serling?

JOE: Well, I’ll tell you right now, your reaction to the book is incredibly satisfying because it’s exactly what I wanted to do. I realized about a year ago that we were coming up on his centenary. And I thought if I was ever going to sit down and really talk about him and talk about what he’s meant to me and the kind of writer he is, this would be the moment to do it. And it’s kind of worked out rather well.

I either had very neglectful or very indulgent parents, but I am of an age where I was able to be exposed to The Twilight Zone as a kid in its original broadcast. And when you’re a kid, you’re kind of a sponge for everything around you, but you’re pretty quick at determining what the good stuff is and what the bad stuff is. And Serling, his storytelling, his approach to storytelling, and his physical presence as a writer who had a job and his job was storytelling, standing there at the beginning of The Twilight Zone episodes after the first season — the first season he just narrated — standing there being a writer and saying, these are written stories, these are handcrafted objects, and we want you to pay attention.

And from that, pretty much from that moment on, even though I recognize it a little bit more in retrospect, like is usually the case, that’s how I started to become a writer. His influence never left me.

He was only 50 years old when he died in 1975. I think it was a tremendous loss to television and to education. He said himself that working in television was not for anyone under 40 years old. I fortunately have been able to disprove that slightly. But he was becoming an amazing teacher at Ithaca and at some other places where he visited.

I encountered him when I was in college and pretty much made an idiot of myself in the process. So maybe this book is an apology. I’m not so sure. I just wanted to put him in a kind of perspective for myself and also a perspective in a larger sense for television.

I’m not the first one to make this observation, but Rod Serling is arguably the first show runner. He is the first writer who took complete control of a television program. And even when he worked with other writers — he worked with the best: Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont and George Clayton Johnson and Earl Hamner — it was always in service of his vision and his vision supported their words. I don’t know if you get a Gene Roddenberry without Rod Serling or Jordan Peele.

One of the great experiences since the book has come out is having conversations with people like yourself and realizing that it’s a lasting legacy. It keeps going on. We’re talking about a man who wasn’t very certain of his own legacy in his final days. As a matter of fact, when it comes down to what he thought was important, his headstone does not identify him as a writer. His headstone identifies him as a World War II veteran. That was what was important to him. That’s what he felt he wanted to say about it.

He’s a damn good writer and a great storyteller.

SER: He made a lot of great choices [as a showrunner.] I’ve adapted a few things from other works, like books to the stage, but one thing that has inspired me is if you go and you look at certain changes that he made, [they’re small but significant.]

[SPOILER WARNING]

So in “The Invaders,” Richard Matheson’s script, a very famous episode, I think he changes the intro … the original script reveals that it’s not Earth. He removes that detail so that you identify with Agnes Moorhead’s character immediately because you just assume that she’s one of us, and “The Hitchhiker,” where he cast a woman as the lead, and that just changes the entire story and makes it more intense.

JOE: It does. It’s Inger Stevens, and you identify with her and her problems. The radio play, it was Orson Welles. You don’t really figure Orson Welles as a vulnerable character.

I think one of the most interesting changes he made is in a script he didn’t write, which is “A Game of Pool,” which was written by George Clayton Johnson. He changed the ending .. if I’m getting this right, George Clayton Johnson had the Jack Klugman character lose and die and be forgotten. Serling said, no, he should win and learn the cost of winning. That’s the way better ending.

SER: Ironically, because people think of him as this guy who did twists, and that’s what Twilight Zone is. There’s so much more than that. He did so much. The human stories [that said[ what you get is often what you shouldn’t have gotten.

JOE: The fact is we keep watching them even when we know where the twist is. Yeah, there are some things that you can see. He was not a fan of despots. He was very concerned about society and conformity.

One of the stock lines that I came up with, and it doesn’t bother me so much because it seems to be completely true, is that The Twilight Zone was a place where you may not get what you want, but you always get what you’ve been asking for. And you’ve been asking for it, buddy.

[ … ]

When I was in college, Serling came and talked to us. I was totally gobsmacked and I made a complete idiot of myself. I take great comfort in knowing I’m sure he didn’t remember it.

I remember talking to him briefly about Burgess Meredith breaking his glasses at the end of “Time Enough at Last.” And I said, “Why was it necessary for the glasses to break?” He said something to the effect of, “Nuclear war shouldn’t benefit anyone.”

And I realized, what would you have had if it was just a pullback to this lonely little man would read forever? We remember it because of the ending.

Check out Joseph Dougherty’s book, Rod Serling at 100: One Writer's Acknowledgment. It’s a great read about a visionary writer whose work remains timeless.

I’ll also have a special Serling-inspired piece on New Year’s Eve to kick off The Twilight Zone holiday for those who celebrate.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

Transcribed excerpts from our conversation:

SER: I’m delighted to have a fellow Southerner joining me — I’m from South Carolina. You’re from Georgia — to discuss our mutual affection for an almost 60-year-old British TV series, The Avengers. Can you tell me about your particular interests and what inspired you to write this book?

MICHAEL: I’ve been an Avengers fan ever since I was a teenager. I’ve always said that Doctor Who was my gateway into British cult television, my gateway drug. So in the 1980s, the PBS station in Georgia showed virtually everything British that was cult. You had Doctor Who. You had Monty Python. You had The Avengers. You had Blake’s 7. You had The Prisoner, all kinds of stuff.

I was not a big fan of American ‘80s television at the time. A lot of people see it as a classic era now but it wasn’t really my thing. I watched all these old British TV shows that were in syndication. So I became a fan of The Avengers.

It just seemed like there were several renaissances over the coming years. There was another one in 1990 when A&E showed all the Honor Blackman episodes for the first time.

So that was the second period of interest for me and then the third was when the big theatrical release came out in 1998 and then the DVDs started coming out from A&E. It was around that period in the late ‘90s I started writing a website that was intended to review all the episodes because we were watching a lot of them for the first time or the first time in a long time. The website was called Quite, Quite Fantastic Avengers Limited originally.

SER: I was a fan of the website.

MICHAEL: Oh, good. Some people still remember it. So that’s where it all started. Then for various reasons, it sort of got dropped before I managed to review all the episodes. I was looking for something that I wanted to collate into a book. Around 2018, I thought, “Well, I’ve got these all these old reviews. I can just easily put them together and do a little editing and it’ll make a book,” but I ended up basically redoing everything because opinions had changed, my writing was better, and I just felt like I could do a better job. So I ended up rewatching every episode and and re-reviewing everything, and that’s how the book came about.

SER: You talk about the book being for the modern viewer. [December] is the 60th anniversary of when Diana Rigg starting filming The Avengers. When you and I started watching the show, that was like a 16-year-old now watching old episodes of The X-Files. Yet, I don’t think it’s just my middle-aged nostalgia that makes me think the show still holds up quite well.

MICHAEL: It’s an unusual show in that it has survived the test of time much better than many shows from the 1960s. I think one of the reasons why is it just had a very high production standard for its day, even if you like put it up against the top notch, highly budgeted productions out of America at the time … This came from being like a videotaped show. This is this was a show that [in its first three seasons] had the same production values as William Hartnell-era Doctor Who.

Maybe they had a little more artistry from the beginning, but then it really comes out in the film era, and it starts to look very film noir. It looks like the films of the day, really, to me. I compare it to like a lot of the British cinema that was coming out at the time.

One of the reasons for this was because a lot of the directors that were working on the show that they were pulling in, they were pulling them in from the British film industry, which was in a kind of crisis and was kind of falling apart. It wasn’t being as successful as it had in the past. And so they had all these film directors that were essentially out of work. A way for them to get more work was to move into television. That was all [producer] Albert Fennell’s idea. He was the guy who had the film background amongst the two producers, and he was brining in a lot of talented film directors who boosted the image of the show tremendously.

SER: The book title, Quite Quite Fantastic!, comes from the final black-and-white episode, “Honey For The Prince,” which is another one that’s fun but also slightly campier. You see where it could potentially be a fifth season color episode as opposed to the early episodes [from the fourth season.]

MICHAEL: [“The Girl From Auntie”] is the transition point, in my opinion — the first one that feels like a fifth season episode.

SER: Absolutely. Obviously, there were high body counts as a spy show, as a drama, but where it wasn't necessarily a joke [like in “The Girl From Auntie”]. We see much more of that in the fifth season, the reaction to death was almost as everyone knows it’s a TV show, and we’re just having fun with this. They do sort of pull back from that later [in Rigg’s era]. They start doing much more serious stories, and “Murdersville” is one where the show presents the deaths as tragic. Mrs. Peel is genuinely hurt that her friend has died. It’s not campy or jokey like in “The Girl From Auntie,” which I absolutely adore because it’s hilarious.

MICHAEL: I love the witty banter [of The Avengers] probably most of all. I think that is a feature that goes all the way back to the beginning of the show. It’s just a matter of intensity or concentration of it. I think it reaches a peak in the fourth and fifth seasons, probably because the chemistry between Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee was so good.

Diana Rigg was so good at that witty banter and just delivering a line with with so much nuance to it. She could put a little bit of aristocracy into the most humorous line or she could put a little bit of humor into the most serious line. She was extremely good at the subtlety of her expressions, too.

SER: The issue of automation comes up a lot in the series. I wouldn’t say it’s dated [considering concerns about AI]. It’s in “The Cybernauts” and later “The House That Jack Built,” when the villain is someone who believes that machines are superior to people. He’d wanted to automate [Mrs. Peel’s company]. She’d fired him, and he now wants revenge. I was watching [“House That Jack Built”] recently during Jodie Whittaker's run on Doctor Who, and it’s interesting to see the ways how Diana Rigg’s Emma Peel was like the Doctor, especially in the modern era. She’s dashing but also brilliant and able to think through problems.

MICHAEL: It’s a tour de force for her. I mean, she’s got to do a lot in that episode and she’s got to do a lot with very little, because she hardly has any lines. It’s all about the frustration she displays on her face, whether she’s looking hopeful, whether she's looking fearful, whether she's uncertain or confident or whatever, and it all plays on her face. She only has this insane escaped convict to talk to, and then only briefly. So, it’s a lot of work for her, and I think she does a bang-up job. She had tremendous range as an actor.

Watch the full interview on YouTube below or download the podcast version above. Please like, share, and subscribe. You can order a copy of Quite Quite Fantastic! here.

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

Share

Lynne has 31 years experience in professional theater, and she’s spent most of her career serving young audiences. This includes performing at the Kennedy Center, Arena Stage and Adventure Theatre and teaching for such institutions as the Folger Shakespeare Library, Everyman Theatre, and Baltimore School for the Arts.

Lynne also co-hosts the podcast Fine Beats and Cheeses with her twin sister (and friend of this newsletter), Leslie Gray Streeter. Last year, Lynne and Liz invited me on to discuss all things Law & Order.

Share

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal

Cassandra’s work has appeared in The Guardian, Brooklyn Rail, the Huffington Post, Public Books, The International Herald Tribune, and Art in America.

A Little Bit Bad is available for pre-order at your preferred bookseller.

(We discuss the 1994 indie film Go Fish, and Cassandra’s piece about watching the movie with her daughter is worth a read.)

Share

Edited excerpts from our discussion:

CASSANDRA: Yeah, I guess about a year before Roe v. Wade was overturned, I had this weird moment. I just a voice told me, you have to have a festival about abortion stories … So a friend lent me their gallery and we had a little art show and then we had a storytelling event in the park.

And then we also had some comedians and some music and various things throughout the weekend. Recently we just did another one which was not just abortion, it was bodily autonomy more generally where we were talking about how all these issues about the fight to be in control of one’s own body is an issue that we’re facing on a lot of different levels and we need to be united and fighting for [it as one issue].

One of the things that I really loved about the first festival was a lot of women came out who had to seek illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade. They were furious and upset because the festival, just by coincidence, ended up taking place a few days after the Dobbs decision was leaked, basically essentially saying that Roe v. Wade was going to be overturned.

And these women [said] I’ve never told this story before. It’s very traumatic. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but I’m going to tell it now. Stories about having to get into … somebody’s car and go who knows where to have an abortion on a kitchen table. Stories about getting out of an abusive relationship, stories about being raped.

And my mother’s own story was something that I grew up with. So maybe this work came out of that. She had to help a friend get an abortion in 1960. They drove from Berkeley to Tijuana. Her friend was bleeding a lot on the way back. And my mom was really afraid that she was going to die. But the friend didn’t want to stop because she thought she would be arrested. [My mother] drove her through the night all the way back to Berkeley bleeding and then took her straight to the infirmary at school. And the doctor looked my mother in the eye and said, your friend is having a miscarriage. Isn’t that right?

They’re living people now who can testify what it looks like to live in a country where there’s no abortion access and what that can do to people’s human rights. And we should be listening to them.

Donate/Subscribe Via Venmo

Donate/Subscribe Via PayPal