Strange Highways

This week Terry and Paul are joined once again by Richard as we take a look back on season 3 and the 80's series overall. We talk about what made season 3 different than the previous two and then go over our Bottom 5, Middlin'/Frustrating 5, and Top 5 episodes of season 3. 

Season and Series Finale! This week Terry and Paul go to future and meet Mr. Darius Stephens, an elderly business man who has purchased many replaced body parts, including his brain, to prolong his life. While being challenged by his son during a corporate takeover, Darius starts to shows signs that maybe the technology isn't working as intended... 

This week Terry and Paul enter the home of Mr. John Selig, a seemingly regular man living a regular life. That changes when he discovers that his every moment is being broadcast live to thousands of subscribers...

This week Terry and Paul do everything in their power to not talk about Crazy as a Soup Sandwich. Terry takes a Twilight Zone quiz and Paul generates fake episode plots that are all better than this one. 

This week Terry and Paul head to a dive bar and meet Mr. Jack Haines, a man about to commit a violent act in the name of love. While waiting for the right moment to do so, a blind guitar player starts singing a song that feels oddly specific to Jack...

This week Terry and Paul end up in hospital and meet Mrs. Claire Hendricks, a jaded nurse who has a difficult time being empathetic to those who are in need. When a sudden and unexplained outbreak of people becoming blind starts to occur, Claire is forced to look inward as those around her are losing their sight... 

This week Terry and Paul go to a funeral just for the fancy finger sandwiches and meet Mrs. Barbara LeMay, a widower who is obsessed with death. She has pushed what little family she has left away because she thinks that death will come for her any time now. Death does show up, just not for her...  

This week Terry and Paul wander into the world's smallest drug store and meet Andrea, a quiet and shy woman who finds an escape in romance novels. While hoping one day for a love like those in the pages she reads, a mysterious figure enters her house... 

This week Terry and Paul end up in a science basement and meet Major Alex McAndrews, an accomplished and decorated test pilot that has spent his whole life serving his country, unquestioned. When he is tasked with traveling through a glowing hole between worlds, he starts to have doubts that he is doing the right thing by just following orders...

This week Terry, Paul, and guest Mary take a box of junk to the pawn shop and meet Mr. Simon Foster, who is unemployed and the rent is due. Simon gets an offer that will solve his current problems, but it does come with a steep cost... 

This week Terry and Paul get thrown into Room 2426 and meet Mr. Martin Decker, a scientist who has been locked up because he won't reveal where he hid his research on a potential bioweapon. As the powers that be keep trying to break Martin, he meets another detainee who believes there is a way both of them can escape...

This week Terry and Paul rack'em up as meet Mr. Jesse Cardiff, a young pool shark with a chip on his shoulder that he will never be considered the best unless he beats the best there ever was, James 'Fats' Brown. Jesse gets his chance as Fats appears and challenges him to one game, for life or death...

This week Terry and Paul meet Dr. Mallory Craig on the first day of his new job, helping institutionalized patients with their various challenges. One is unlike the others, as they admitted themselves after seeing faces in every day things: wallpaper, clothing, their children's drawings...  

This week Terry and Paul stumble into a shelter to watch some football and meet Mr. Steve Cranston, a man out of work and running out time to care for his family. He decides to rob the house of a very wealthy man when a gun shot and thrown bottle of liquor changes the course of both their lives... 

This week Terry and Paul go wandering into the woods and meet Danny (we know this because he wearing a shirt with his name on it), a young boy that lives in a trailer with his single mother. Danny then meets a man that doesn't seem to know much about the world around him... 

This week Terry and Paul head to outer space and meet Mr. Thomas Bartin, a man tasked with taking needed medicine to a distant colony, who discovers that a young lady has stowed away without his knowledge. He immediately understands the dire situation that they are both in... 

This week Terry and Paul revisit Rod Serling's only Christmas Twilight Zone episode, The Night of the Meek. They learn about the power of cheer and cherry bourbon...

This week Terry and Paul get caught in the every flowing hair of Mr. Tom Bennett, a cut throat business man that recently received a heart transplant. Soon, Tom, starts not feeling like himself and starts acting out in various ways...

This week Terry and Paul check into a very sleazy hotel and meet Mr. Willy Gardner, the manager and one of the few nice people to inhabit the building. After stumbling across a trunk that can give him whatever he wants, Willy tries to get the one thing it can't bring him... 

This week Terry and Paul endure one of the most boring episodes of the Twilight Zone, There Was an Old Woman. Will they survive? 

This week Terry and Paul head to the bank and meet Mr. Warren Cribbens, a quiet man that prefers numbers over people. He accidently fractures a lens in his glasses and it gives him the ability to see into future. Will he use this ability to help others or himself...

This week Terry and Paul are joined by El Goro of The Talk Without Rhythm Podcast as they meet Mrs. Louise Simson, a woman who is trapped in an abusive marriage. After receiving a birthday gift from her sister of a porcelain dog, her pent up anger and desperation starts to manifest in unusual ways...   

This week Terry and Paul take one last detour before heading back to the Twilight Zone to talk about 1983's The Dead Zone. Johnny Smith didn't ask to lose five years of his life to a coma and awaken with the power to see glimpses of the past and future. Feeling it is more of a burden than gift, Johnny thinks he has found a way to help the world avoid a terrible fate...

This week we are joined by Nathaniel of the At the Devil's Ball Podcast to finish out Hansktober™ with 1989's The Burbs. With mysterious new neighbors moving in, the rest of the residents in the cul-de-sac start noticing odd things going on and choose to investigate...

Hankstober continues on as Terry and Paul meet Mr. Howard Prince, a con-artist that targets wealthy older women to marry and then poison so that he can get their money. While courting his next victim, Howard starts getting anonymous notes about his recent activities... 

This week Terry and Paul continue Hankstober™ with a look at Tom Hanks's first major role in 1982's made for TV film, Mazes and Monsters. A group of four college students take a table top role playing game out into the real world, thinking that it would just make the game more fun. Unfortunately, one of the players starts to blur the line between reality and fantasy...

This week Terry and Paul kick of Hankstober™ by starting with Tom Hanks first film, 1980's He Know You're Alone. There's killer on the loose and he only targets brides to be but somehow he's not the worst person in the film. Come along as we talk about a tonally inaccurate score, amusement parks in the dead of winter, and the best pornos in town... 

This week Terry and Paul meet Delos, er, Mr. Leonard Randall, someone who claims they can summon an ancient being that delivers wisdom to those that pay to hear it. Just as Leonard is about to hit the big time, a different, uncontrolled voice, starts coming out of his mouth... 

This week Terry and Paul attempt to save a parakeet's life and meet Mr. Noman Blane, a very lonely man living a very lonely life. He dials a wrong number and happens to find another lonely person just looking to connect with someone... 

This week Terry and Paul are joined by Richard as they meet Brockman family and their dying matriarch, Selena. While it appears she may pass away at any moment, she has a miraculous recovery while be waited on by her niece...

This week Terry and Paul stop by the bar and meet Mr. Miley Judson, a man whose life is being lost at the bottom of a bottle. When a stranger provides Miley a way out of his addiction, he takes the opportunity not thinking about the potential consequences... 

This week Terry and Paul stare at a spinning crystal and meet Ms. Mary McNeal, a regression therapist who specializes in helping people recall their past lives. While she can help others remember who they once were, Mary has not been able to figure out if she has existed before this life...

This week Terry and Paul stop by a senior assisted living facility and meet Mr. Roger Leeds, a sour man that hasn't been the same since his wife passed away three years earlier. Roger keeps finding himself in a nightmare with a woman he does not know asking for his help from something trying to break down the door to the room they are in... 

This week Terry and Paul go walking through a field and fall into a hole and find cave paintings that could be over 12,000 years old. As soon as the local university starts investigating the cave, strange things start happening and nearby farm animals start dying... 

This week Terry and Paul go to church and meet Father Mark Cassidy, a leader of a small parish that he has made thrive through his 20 years of constant service without taking any time off. He escapes in his work so he doesn't have to think about the one regret in his past, until it shows up one day outside with the engine idling... 

This week Terry and Paul meet Mr. Ed Hamner (HAMMMMMNER!), a professional baseball player that had to retire due to a leg injury and can't move on in life. When presented with a baseball card from 1910 of a player that looks a lot like him, Ed gets a second chance to play the game he loves...

This week Terry and Paul kick of the start of season 3 of the 80's iteration of the Twilight Zone by meeting Mr. Edgar Witherspoon, an eccentric old man that scours the neighborhood and its residents seeking random items at varying times of the day. When Dr. Jeremy Sinclair goes to check on Edgar's mental health, he finds out what all of those objects are being used for... Added Bonus: Terry wraps up Moist Boi Summer™ with a oceanic quiz for Paul.   

This week Terry and Paul wrap up Moist Boi Summer™ by celebrating the life of recently passed Donald Sutherland with 1999's Virus. A crew of a slowly sinking tugboat come across a Russian research vessel that has plenty of blood and evidence of violence but no one is alive on it,  they decide to board it in hopes of finding anything of value...  

This week Terry and Paul take another voyage at sea and are joined by Richard and El Goro of The Talk Without Rhythm Podcast to talk about Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 film, Lifeboat. After a German U-boat sinks a commercial vessel, eight Americans of various walks and class wait for rescue along with one German officer in a damaged life boat. Tensions flare as supplies run out with little hope of being found...

This week Terry and Paul take to the seas again with 1998's Deep Rising. What do you get when you mix a heist movie with a disaster movie with a monster film? We still aren't quite sure, and Deep Rising isn't quite sure either. We can all agree that Treat Williams riding a jet ski inside a sinking ocean liner while firing a shotgun at a very large tentacle monster is really cool though...  

We kick off Moist Boi Summer™ by booking two tickets on 1972's The Poseidon Adventure. A an aging ship on its last voyage is hit by a massive wave that causes it to turn complete upside down. Those that remain alive have two choices, wait for help to arrive or to try to work their way to the bottom (now top) of the ship as it is rapidly sinking into the ocean... 

This week Terry and Paul continue on their detours and visit The Outer Limits. They meet Trent, a man who is being chased for reasons he does not know and has a glass hand missing three fingers. As he starts to recover the lost pieces, his purpose is slowly revealed to him... 

This week Terry and Paul continue their detours with a trip back to Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities with Lot 36. Nick makes his money off of bidding on abandoned storage units and the remains of those people's lives. What he finds in Lot 36 is more than he could have ever bargained for...

This week Terry and Paul continue their detours by heading to 1977 via the 2023 film, Late Night with the Devil. Jack Delroy is a night time TV talk show host who's star is fading and needs something big to get back on top. He books a young lady that is the sole survivor of a satanic cult that killed themselves and believes she has a demon inside her... 

This week Terry and Paul continue their detours but revisiting the original series with season 2's The Obsolete Man. Does the story of one man being on trial against The State for the crime of being a librarian still resonate today? Spoilers: It does.    Here's the link for the episode of Talk Without Rhythm that Paul was on that was mentioned during the show; https://tworpodcast.blogspot.com/2024/04/episode-717-black-sunday-1977-and.html

This week Terry and Paul continue their detours and head north to Maine with 1979's Prophecy. A papermill wants to expand their logging operations. The native people want to keep the papermill out of their ancestral home. A mutant bear just wants to eat everyone regardless of their position on the logging issue...  

This week Terry and Paul continue their detours and head to the darkside and meet Mrs. Katie Weiderman, a loving mother and supportive wife. When she gets a static filled phone call that is from someone clearly distraught but sounds familiar to her, Katie won't let it go until she figures out who the caller is... 

This week Terry and Paul take another detour with 1989's Shocker. A serial killer who focuses on murdering entire families, Horace Pinker, is finally caught and sent to the electric chair. However, death is only the beginning of his reign of terror...

This week Terry and Paul take a detour to the Netflix animated anthology series, Love Death + Robots. They meet the crew of a ship that is in the middle of a nasty storm, when an unwanted passenger suddenly comes on board....

This week Terry and Paul are joined by friend of the show Richard to take a look back across season two of the 80's iteration of the Twilight Zone. They cover their Bottom 5, Middlin'/Frustrating 5, and Top 5 segments of the season.  Thanks to everyone that has joined us in this very long journey through this season. 2 down, 1 to go! 

Season 2 Finale! This week Terry and Paul meet Mr. Ira Richman, a successful corporate environmental lawyer that is pining for the younger and more care free version of his wife, Valerie.  When the younger Valerie shows up, he does not hesitate to follow her every whim...