#021 - Alien Nation 1.15 "Eyewitness News"

0:01 Humans and aliens working together. I really want to dig more into their culture. It's a mirror up to humanity. Social commentary through allegorical storytelling. Wild, angry old man opinions. It's only a test. Extremely aroused. It's only a test. My thought was I think Kathy passed. I'm sure my girls would let you give them a physical. There are really, really gross forms of entertainment. Some of my best friends are the freakazoids to watch some of that stuff because I feel good judging you all about this.

0:29 But he gets assaulted and I said it so excited that. This party is crap. What is this average? This is the most obvious contrived thing possible. Ladies, gentlemen, time now for a little something we call. Is this anything?

0:46 This is who I am today, but right in and tell us if you're like no you 2 are weird. Everybody knows. No one ever does. That was a creative response a little bit. Smarmy because you and I are normal people. Oh, debatable. We're all learning and growing together. Now you know and knowing is half the battle.

1:04 George Francisco is one of my all time favorite characters. This show is going to go to places that I really enjoy. Sour milk is a good thing to the tank the knees. Stay tuned listeners. Of press kit. Yikes, Yikes. Both things of Star Trek. Watching Alien Nation and we enjoy. It I am one of your hosts, Todd. This is Nick. This is the Alienating Ourselves podcast. It's very. Sensually stimulating. Some of it is going to make you feel dirty. Listeners, take a look. Greetings humans and newcomers and welcome back to Alienating Ourselves, the podcast where we examine sci-fi entertainment with a focus on aliens and the humans that cast them in video phone sex services.

1:41 I am one of your hosts, Todd. As a human, I've never been turned on by the long high pitched tone of the test of the Emergency Broadcast System. But I did go through a Barry White phase during the Ali Mcbeal years. And joining me is always this guy who might understand what nonsense I'm talking about because he's mentioned Ellie Mcbeal a few times himself. It's Nick. Nick, how's it going? It's going pretty good. I think almost everything is erotic if done right. So yeah. And this this episode tonight is it?

2:15 I mean, it puts that one scene in when hearing Met Sally to shame. So we will. We'll have plenty of fun things to talk about with that. Let's get into it. Today we're looking at Alien Nations episode 15, Eyewitness News, which we originally sat down to watch back Monday night, February 5th, 1990. This was written by Charles Kaufman and Larry B Williams. This is not Charlie Kaufman of Adaptation and a few other things, but Charles is part of the trauma Toxic Avenger family of film makers. His brother Lloyd is the president and they're all involved in some capacity.

2:51 He also wrote for the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters and somehow Charles also wrote for the filmation Ghostbusters cartoon that only a few of you know. About. This is the only episode he's involved with, and Larry tried his hand at acting. There's nothing there worth mentioning except that it sounds like he was a nameless henchman in The Best Little Whore House in Texas, which happened to star our own beloved Kathy Terry Trees, which threw me down the rabbit hole and I just started looking back at all her credits.

3:19 But his big claim to fame is creating the series Friday the 13th, which some of y'all already know has nothing to do with Jason. It's the haunted evil cursed antiques original show. But yes, this episode was directed by Lyndon Chubbuck. I don't have much to say about Linden Chovik. None of these three did anything else with Alien Nation. He did 3 episodes of that Friday the 13th TV show, so maybe that's how one of these two guys got the job. He also directed an episode of the Bizarre Forgotten Jim.

3:51 Something is out there, Todd, have you seen Something is out there? No. OK, well, this is something I'm going to try and talk Todd into watching later. Like Alienation. It has an obnoxious human with an alien partner that you like a lot more than you're human, and he's a cop. And there are some similarities. This was also based on a bizarre pilot TV movie, and it was also cancelled very quickly. So, you know, maybe later. I think all of it is on YouTube right now, so we may circle back to that. What was your initial response to this episode, Todd?

4:28 It was fine. It was similar quality to some of the last few episodes that we've gotten. So it was definitely fine. And I'm still, I mean, a little bit of spoiler from my grade at the end. I think I ultimately give it a little bit extra than the last few episodes and in some ways I'm not even sure why. It's still kind of that middle quality where it was a fine episode and didn't have a whole lot wrong with it, but didn't have a whole lot totally impressing me either. But it was fine. And if it's any consolation, listeners, next week, and I think even the week after that, those are going to be better episodes.

5:07 But yeah, it was fine. So what do you think? It didn't make me angry or anything, but I think the A plot mostly annoyed me, while I thoroughly enjoyed all the interpersonal stuff that happened in the B plot. And I didn't really give a summary this week, but George is being followed by a news team doing a profile on him led by a young Angela Bassett. And while this is going on, there's sort of a killer sort of stalking a lady kind of involved with the phone sex line. That's pretty much it. But.

5:44 But yeah, I I liked a lot of the side stuff and if I focus too much on the A plot, it kind of made my head hurt. Do you have some positives for this one, Todd? Do you want to get into sour milk? Yeah, I've got two or three. So I laughed out loud when the reporter referred to Matt as an average detective. And for the listeners that need a little bit of context in case you haven't seen the episode or you don't remember, as you said, Angela Bassett plays a reporter that is following around, following around George for several nights, if not a whole week.

6:18 And after the first day of recording, then that night, I guess the 11:00 news, she goes through the first night of this expose, which is going to come in different parts, and she is kind of edited things together in a certain way. There's not too much to that. They really don't show a whole lot of footage. But she makes some kind of reference to Matt being an average detective. And they have a way of editing a clip in that makes him sound like, yeah, he's nothing special. And they kind of play up that George is better than Matt is.

6:51 So yeah, I just laughed out loud when she made that reference. Gunshots echo through the night, summoning police to wear blood. Spattered walls tell him a cob tale of agony and death. Who is responsible for such a heinous cry? It's. Beyond me. That response is not surprising from an average detective. But see, that's funny, man, because it's like you don't find him average at all in in like a derogatory sense. And and this was saying he like, like that would be praise for Matt Sykes. But in the context of the show, it was a criticism.

7:26 He's like, this is the regular detective. I don't know what's going on. And here's the newcomer detective. I've got it all figured out. I guess that it didn't occur to me that you'd be like average.

7:40 He is a unique fellow. So there's a lot of flirting that goes on in this episode. Some of it is going to make you feel dirty listeners and some of it is going to make you feel curious, but probably not the ones that are supposed to. So we have a scene with Matt and Kathy in the laundry room and I'm jumping ahead because our case of sex phone line worker and this is video calls. It leads us to a company that produces adult films. I think Tyner are probably going to use some other words for it in the course of this episode.

8:20 But adult film producers and adult film mogul Arvind Kaufman is a sleazy human dude, an odd actor. I can't really tell if he's a good actor or not. He's kind of a cartoon character of a adult film creator. But he decides that Matt's too uptight, so he's going to figure out what he likes. Now, Arvind specializes in making videos of newcomer women for the curious human guy or anybody. So he sends Matt a tape. Matt, Matt watches it. And I'm going to come back to that in a little bit. But in this scene, Matt has watched some of a tape, which apparently they, we, we already knew they had a little bit of different Physiology, but they've kind of danced around whether or not humans and newcomer women can get together.

9:10 They haven't really addressed it directly. And Matt is seeing some things he did not think he would see. We don't see them, but he's seen some things. The look on his face is shocking. So he's in the laundry room with Kathy and she's folding her laundry, talking idly. The the scene opens with the camera focused right on her butt in jeans, ladies and gentlemen, because that's where Matt is staring. Matt is just staring at her and she she's talking about, I think an all all night laundromat where you match your singles and singles can match up or something like that because she's a single lady in the town.

9:48 But she turns around, kind of catches him and tells him she feels a little bit like he's been undressing her with his eyes. Now, I like this scene, not just because I I love Kathy. It's probably a big part, but because of the way that the way the two of them go back and forth. I don't mean to be blunt, Matt, but ever since I came down here to do my laundry, I've had this feeling that, well, it's it's a human term that you've been undressing me with your eyes. Me. Come on. Then you weren't. No, I got to go.

10:23 I didn't mean to chase you off. And I didn't mean to lie, I was doing. What you said I've undressed. You a couple of times. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. So that was great for me. We don't know what he saw, but she admits to renting her own adult films of humans because she, too, was curious about what human bodies were like. And she admits to even undressing him a couple of times with her eyes. And Matt, this is our representative in the room he's filling in for us, is our hero. He's kind of like, oh, yeah.

11:06 And then he, like, gets out of there as fast as he can. Which, to be fair, is probably what I would do, too. But there is a subplot in this episode about healthy curiosity versus the misleading nature of adult film. And it culminates in her giving him a more educational video that the university has made. That's probably less fun, she says, but a little bit more less manipulative or something. And between these two exchanges, I just think the episode is really progressive. Like, this is 1990. So they're saying adults are watching these things.

11:40 Adults are curious. There's healthy ways to express that. She's a lady alone with a guy admitting that, yeah, she thinks things, too. So that was like, whoa, OK. And I'm positive I missed all of that when I was like 1314. Yeah, and it's interesting that you say that it's very progressive. You're right. And apparently for the time it was even more progressive because later on during and I still don't know what to call this segment Wheel of unofficial Companion to Alienation. You know where I take stuff out of that book that I got for Christmas.

12:13 Yeah, some, several of the producers behind the scenes say that this was a really tough episode to pull off, at least partly because some of the story didn't quite come together and plus they had challenges from standards and practices. And so I'll, I'll talk a little bit more about that later. But yeah, it was. It was for even though it's tame by the day standards, it was tough for them to pull this off back. Yeah, what's your next sour milk? Well, so the next one, part of it is similar to what you're talking about.

12:41 I'll cover just a tiny bit of the Tingtonese biology and culture. Kathy found the long, high pitched tone for the test of the emergency broadcast system to be extremely arousing. And before she clarifies that to Matt, it's funny that he says it's only a test. And my thought was, my thought was I think Kathy passed.

13:06 So yeah, I thought that that was funny. She seems pretty, pretty aroused by it. And sometimes I wonder if this kind of thing would fly nowadays because it seems like that's been a trope of science fiction, especially when it's been written by men to always find some kind of sex related topic to throw in or to find some way of still making even female aliens, you know, sexy or have something be sexual about them or something like that. And now that we've, you know, had the me Too movement, we're more progressive nowadays, you know, we just look at these things differently.

13:43 I wonder if this many sex related traits what would really fly on today's TV. But anyway, the one other Tanktonese biology thing is that during pregnancy Tanktonese experienced something called prepodiol amino regurgitation, and I get the feeling it's kind of their version of morning sickness. Yeah, yeah, you can read into those things. But Kathy, I'm sorry, Susan is she says she's she's not feeling great. And George guesses that phrase. And I wouldn't have known what they were talking about except that I wrote it down and looked back at it later and I'm like, oh, pre PO podial is pod related and amino regurgitation.

14:32 So it's like, yeah, yeah. Amnio, amnio regurgitation. I don't know. Yeah. Morning sickness. Oh. Oh yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe it is amnio instead of amino either I I might have typed it wrong way down. There, but yes, related to that, we see the Francisco's at home having dinner because of the newscast. So Angela Bassett is following them around because she's doing this profile on George and George is honored because he feels like this is a great opportunity to represent his people and his culture and a positive light breakdown some stereotypes.

15:07 And his wife is very on board and his kids don't seem to care that much about the principle of the thing, but they can tell their dad is excited And well, I would say they're both up for it, except Buck really has a crappy attitude at the beginning. So I was afraid evil Buck had like returned, but it this is no, he he gets over that pretty quick. So we we see them sitting together at dinner. The kids are way too dressed up for dinner. And it's because there's a film crew watching them, and they've got a great big Turkey in the middle of the table, except that it's raw because the newcomers don't cook food.

15:43 So it's like it looks normal at 1st. And then you realize you've never seen people dressed up sitting down at a table with a completely raw Turkey in the middle. That was nice. And as we join them, Susan is finishing the prayer. I do not go back and check, But I assume this is the same prayer that we see them go through previously that Emily kind of walks us through. So she's saying tui vai nuko otti Mata toe UT andarko no Celine. And then they have their hands over their food, then they touch their shoulders, then they cross their hands and touch their hearts, and then they uncross their hands and silently touch their temples.

16:24 George compliments Susan on how good dinner looks, which Todd had already pointed out. If you're not cooking it, preparation doesn't make as much sense. But you know, great job on this. I mean, you know, bringing in this dead animal that's not cooked, we realize they're being filmed. And she says nervously, well, the lymph nodes were fresh. There's like a, a plate next to her. So yes, that was a very charming moment. Lymph nodes, you know, we're, we're still learning what all they eat and don't eat.

16:55 We do not see them cut into the raw Turkey and start serving it. I think that might be a a hazard to have actors doing that on set. Yeah, I definitely noticed the uncooked Turkey too. I thought that was a nice touch. And and yeah, you bring up something that I mentioned in a previous episode and why I can't help but wonder. I mean, it's obvious that they don't cook it and there's a reason for that. But I can't help but wonder if they at least season it. And maybe that's what he's referring to, but it really did just look plane.

17:22 It didn't look like anything had been sprinkled on it to like spice it up or anything. And so, yeah, I just wonder what what it is they're referring to when they say, yeah, that's that's prepared will. And it's at that dinner that they discuss faking up Emily's birthday because her birthday is in a week, week and a half, something like that. But the expose will be done by then. So the reporter suggests moving it up by a week and celebrating it on a Thursday. Who celebrates their their birthday on a Thursday?

17:54 Or at least when you're a kid, you know, that's something you wait for the weekend for or you do it at the weekend before or something. So my next bullet point that in the good stuff is I like that Emily is once again the voice of reason and good morals because she shuts down that fake birthday party because since they have to throw it together in one day, all the kids there are not her friends. They do one of those, you know, quaint 90s banners back when printers had paper that was perforated at the end so as long as you didn't tear it you could make like 1 long stretch of you saw that.

18:28 Yeah, matrix printer. I like excitedly showing my wife and she cares exactly as much as y'all think she might. But yeah, print shop or something, yeah. And but in that banner they spell her name wrong and stuff like that. And, and she just says, no, I'm not doing it. And she pops the pinata too early and and walks out. And I don't blame her. You know, if the expose expose is there to catch or, or to highlight George as the first newcomer detective in LA, then fine, let the focus be on him. Or if they want to do someone's family life, that's fine.

19:09 But let it be natural. But to fake stuff up and to involve the kids that way, that was not right. So as usual, Emily is wise beyond her years. And so, yeah, I like that. I don't think you care. At. All Emily, you've been moping around all days. Anyone to act at your party? What? Do you want this party? Emra is on it, please try. And have a good time, play the game. No.

19:33 I feel about this party. Your age. Are we going to have to do this again or what? Do we have another pinata? I can't hold this amino oozing anymore. Excuse me?

19:46 Emily, Emily. But think of all days your birthday. You could act your age. But it isn't my birthday, remember? Fuck was right. We might as well be animals in the zoo. Emily, I'm sorry, but I just couldn't act like I was having a good time. I act like you've been ever since you've been on the news. Every time Renee says smile, we smile. I just couldn't smile anymore. But I thought you liked the idea, having your birthday on TV. Well, I knew it was real important to you, but and if it was real, it's pretty hard to know it is real anymore.

20:19 I think I'm a people pleaser and George is so committed to what he's doing that he just goes further and further with it before Emily is like. Everything is fake. Like Buck is trying to cheer her up and he's like, but at least you get all these presents. They're all empty. Maybe, you know, if they hadn't done such a crappy job of it where it's like none of her friends are there. Her one friend that is there didn't bring a present because there's a real party next week. So all the kids are fake all the presents.

20:50 If they had given her real presents, you know, OK, fine, we're faking the whole thing. But the studio really did buy, like, 100 bucks worth of gifts and wrap them all pretty like, well, OK, I'll make this work, but no, it's totally fake. But yeah, they're not allowed to cut the cake. They have to have a union guy cut the cake. Yeah, Buck is. Buck's trying to cheer her up. And she's like, Emily is the sweetest little girl ever and she's like this. Party is crap. So yeah, it was great. It made me terribly uncomfortable, but I felt for everybody.

21:25 So Matt gets this videotape, this adult videotape in the mail, just like in a previous episode. I think that was the pilot, actually. Kathy signs for something while he's out. He's never told her she could do this, but the writers have figured out it's a nice shortcut to have them have a conversation. So, yeah, give that to me. Ladies and gentlemen, in this day and age, if y'all want to order something illicit, I have heard that the nice people who manufacture questionable material would probably ship it to you in a nondescript package.

22:01 There are joke packages that say what's in something. But I like that Matt gets something that is clearly a videotape and it is in brown paper, but it is stamped with Voyeur Vision, which is the illicit company, like in big letters right on the front. So it's like there is no question what's in here. Yeah. And Kathy gets this. She signs for it. So she's handing him his adult film tape that says adult film tape on the outside. And she asks, isn't that aren't those the people who make, like, the adult newcomer films?

22:34 And he's like, yeah. So the reason this is on my happy list isn't just because I get to see Kathy. It's because in the previous episode, when he, because of a case, brought an underage prostitute to his apartment. And Kathy is sort of like, who's this? And he's like somebody and he just like takes her inside and doesn't explain himself. I was afraid that was going to happen again. But I'm, I put this on my good list because Matt says it's evidence it's for a case. He at least says it's related to work.

23:06 And I'm like, thank you, Matt. It takes 2 seconds to say this is related to work. Yes, he lies a little bit, but so she comes across in this scene, and I don't know, this is just the way that this lady plays the character, but she doesn't seem judgmental. She doesn't even seem necessarily that curious. She's just sort of generally neutral curious. Like, what's that about? Not a whole lot of judgment there, but I was really happy, he explained himself and didn't just close the door mysteriously again.

23:38 This was delivered for you today and they needed a signature so I took it. Yeah, thanks. I couldn't help but notice the Kauffman logo. Isn't he the man who produces the adult newcomer films? Yeah, we're working on a case. Oh, it's evidence. They probably won't even watch. It but if it's evidence once you have to watch it. Not if I can help it. I see it.

24:06 He didn't order the videotape. The guy, Arvind Kauffman, sent it to him. He's like, I know what you like. And then that kind of opened up the opportunity for the moment you were talking about later where they actually talk about the the tape and everything. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Do you have any more positives? Not in my notes, but there was one I happen to think of and I've got the episode playing in the background and it was actually on just a few minutes ago. And that is that throughout the taping of this expose, there are a few moments where one or more people are kind of awkward on camera.

24:40 And there's one kind of amusing moment where the camera is capturing Matt and George and you see things through the vantage point of the camera. So you can see the the word record and the little L-shaped things on in each corner and the extreme bright light on them and they're talking back and forth about the case. And then at some point there's just nothing left to talk about. But the camera doesn't turn off. So they just kind of stand there awkwardly and that kind of half grins and, and George makes a little bit of a face.

25:09 And then finally they cut to something else. So it's little moments like that then being awkward on camera that there are kind of nice. So my next one is that most of this show I don't feel is that dated. We had reached the part of the late 80s and early 90s where women had stopped poofing their hair quite as much and shoulder pads had been starting to disappear. So I think a lot of those hallmarks of the 80s were slipping away into the 90s. But there are two wonderful dated references. So the Francisco's are gathering around the TV and Susan in the kitchen, she's telling George it's almost on.

25:50 Buck is sitting on the couch with headphones on. He's disinterested and Susan comes in to try and tell him you should be excited. She says it's not every day your father becomes a star. And Buck says like Spuds McKenzie. Yeah, yes. No, Spuds McKenzie is a really ugly dog that we all know from advertising beer way back for like 5 minutes of our history that was a thing. And right after that, they they watch this first interview with George and they're all proud. And even Buck, this is when he turns a corner and he's like, you know what I got admitted to?

26:25 That's pretty cool, you know? So he's on board now. But Susan, who's bursting with pride also, she's in advertising. So she says, you know what? I think I'm going to put you in a dark suit. You know, it commands a different look. It's nice. And he does. He wears these dark suits for the rest of the episode. But she says, I'm going to put you in a dark suit like Ronald Reagan used to wear, which is your other sort of dated comment for the episode that made me happy. My last 1 is really, and when we get into our negatives, I'm going to kind of, I have a lot of bad things to say about Sykes in this episode.

27:01 So I have some good things too. And it's just that when everybody is treating him badly, Sykes is kind of a stand up guy. Like in the background, he'll tell you off, but behind your back, he tends to just stick up for you. And we see him do this several times. Or if it's totally your fault, he doesn't rat you out, he'll tell you, I can't believe you did that. That was all your fault. But when you're out the room, he's not like that was all his fault. No, he doesn't like being blamed, but he like he's feeling ignored and then he's maligned by the newscast.

27:36 So he goes from wearing like nice clothes or kind of trying to be nice clothes to wearing his plain clothes again. But he's left holding the ball by George at work because George becomes this important person that the news people are running around doing important things. And the chief is essentially just told George, hey, go do these things that are showy. Don't even worry about police work. So then Grazer comes in after a stakeout goes terribly, which we'll get into and choose Matt out for messing up the case.

28:05 And then George is like right there. And then Grazer even admits, I mean, I know San Francisco's been busy. You know, he's running around. It's important. So he knows Matt has no backup and that they don't really have a lot of ground to complain. Matt barely wants to even bring it up, but like 90% of the time he just. He doesn't complain when people aren't around. He tells George's adoring fan callers yes, yes he's he's great. Like when he's taking their calls he leaves the film crew alone after they make him look bad.

28:41 He doesn't like, tell them off or start necessarily treating them bad. Other than complaining to George that he once helped, he mostly doesn't even address his grievances. He just keeps quietly doing the job. They film it as though the stakeout is largely the news team's fault. And when it goes sour and the adult film guru is complaining about how crappy the police are, Matt doesn't even bother saying the news team screwed up that whole stakeout. He just quietly keeps doing his job. Unless you're a criminal.

29:14 Then he'll he'll, you know, rat you out. But George isn't helping. He won't tell Grazer that George isn't helping. He won't say like it's not my fault. I I would probably do a little bit if it's not my fault, if it was that obvious. That's my last sour milk. We can get deep into the the salt water and you already brought up one of them. But yes. Oh, oh, which one? It's the test pattern. Now that I've heard you talk about it, I've decided that I completely misunderstood this. They're doing a broadcast for a profile on a New York, I'm sorry, a new a newcomer detective, the first newcomer, police detective George Francisco.

29:57 And it's. So who is going to be watching that program? Tons of newcomers. Like that's just the impression I got. And just by coincidence, after this news broadcast and news broadcast don't end like night of filming or anything, after this news broadcast, KALN Channel 3 Los Angeles puts up this blue test screen. For the next 60 seconds, there will be a test of the emergency broadcast system. And you had already mentioned Kathy has this visceral. Reaction For the next 60 seconds, there will be a test of the emergency broadcast system.

30:37 Oh, oh, Kathy, you OK? What? What? What? It's only a test. Oh, I don't know how your FCC got that particular tone, but it's extremely arousing. What that tone F# above high C? It's very sexually. Stimulating. I didn't know that about you people. There's a lot about us you don't know. So in my mind, this is the most obvious contrived thing possible. Someone is experimenting with messing with newcomers. And the way that the episode goes down, either that's AC plot that was just completely dropped, or it is a huge coincidence that they waited until they were doing a show that everybody that's a newcomer would watch and TuneIn for, and that's when they started doing a test signal immediately afterward.

31:32 That would be like sharply emotionally, physiologically affecting newcomers. So that really it bothered me. Kathy says, I don't know how your FCC got that tone, but it's very arousing, that tone F# above high C She says it's sexually stimulating. And he says, I didn't know that about you people. He doesn't say you people very much. And she, like, looks at him. He's got it turned off now, so she's not still like freaking out. And she says, there's a lot you don't know about us. There's a lot about us you don't know.

32:04 But she just stares at it. It's not. I don't think she had a tone, tone there. But this moment, it comes up again later. So Matt is talking to Arvind Kaufman at his adult film studio. And Kaufman is asking Matt if he's curious about newcomer women. Now. You must be curious, Detective. It's only natural. I'm sure my girls would let you give them a physical. And Matt says, sorry, not interested. Why don't you go let them listen to a test pattern? And Kaufman says, oh, so you do know something about them.

32:41 I'm like, what is going on with the test pattern? And no one, it's like if it was a mistake, if it was an accident, you would think that we would get some sort of comment from somebody later other than Kathy that half of Los Angeles just got terribly turned on at the same moment. But no, no, that's it. 2 comments and the the test pattern disappeared. And I will mention this, although it ruins the the fun of the whole moment because Kathy goes through, I mean, I said in the previous episode 3 to Tango where he's got his hand in the middle of her back.

33:15 This actress is really good at like her eyes rolling back in her head and biting her bottom lip. She's amazing at it. So enjoy that for a minute. I'm going to spoil it all and talk about a way that it's not fun. But in that scene, me and Kathy are not the only ones watching George Francisco on TV. The whole Francisco family are gathered around watching it. So it bothers me that the camera cuts. I mean, I'm glad they did. Dear heaven. Thank goodness they did the camera cuts to Matt and Kathy. Hopefully the Francisco family switched it off because if they didn't, that was going to be a really awkward room.

33:51 Oh, well, yeah, it's like. So anyway, yeah, that was just odd bit the FCC thing was my first big negative because I felt like it was either something and if it was something they messed it up or if it was, it was nothing. And if it was nothing, I feel like they did it wrong. But it I guess it turned out to be nothing. Like it was just a weird, maybe just a jumping off point to say to have Kathy say you don't know us that well, like maybe she hadn't experienced it so good and she just been like, hey, that's nice.

34:25 You'd be like, what? She made it sound like women across LA would be like, veering into traffic and and passing out in hallways or something. She couldn't turn off the TV. Matt had to turn off the TV. She was, like grabbing the door frame. Yeah. Just completely dropped that ball. If the whole point was for her to say, I guess there's a lot you don't know about USDOT. dot. dot. Yeah. Well, and as far as the Francisco family, it being awkward there, they've already talked about how their people are not as prudish about sex.

34:57 And so even if it did some to turn somebody on, it might not be as big a deal. And while you're talking, I was thinking, you know, you think that somebody would complain about this point out because they have been here for five years and that the SEC would say, OK, if not across the entire country, at the very least in Los Angeles County, we've got to do a different tone for the test of the emergency broadcast system there. Again, would anybody really be complaining? Because it could be, it could, it could be that women were just like, hey, let's, let's do that test pattern again.

35:31 So, yeah, I don't know if anybody would complain. And and there again, even if somebody did the way humans are, they might be like, yeah, we'll get around to it eventually. For the next 30 seconds, you will be turned off. If that's just the standard in LA moving forward, that would be bigger than bigger than sour milk. If they, if they had that show up in a few more episodes in the background. It's just a a fact of life that they're all chill with. Like, yeah, I was telling her, Hey, are you OK?

36:04 Oh, test pattern, right. What's your What's your first or second salt water? OK so mine is another installment of Matt Sykes wardrobe spaghetti. What is he going to throw at the wall this week and will it stick this week? Matt's jacket in that first scene looks bizarre. I don't know if it's supposed to be something they invented just for the near future of 1995. The way it connects in the front, it's like there's a center panel that would, if he unbuttoned it, would have to go, you know, one way or the other instead of a more, you know, neat overlap of a normal suit coat.

36:42 And it has like, these huge things that look like enormous buttons or something. But here's the thing. I don't totally hate it because it actually looks kind of sort of reminiscent of something Jakar wore in Babylon 5.

36:57 But then talking about fashion a little bit further, you know, I mentioned that one or two episodes ago it was unusual for George to be dressed casual while on the job. There again, it was a Saturday and maybe it was a special case because this time he is back in the suit. But it was interesting that it was an Obama esque tan suit rather than his usual blue or Gray or even black. And it's funny because it actually came up and you already mentioned how Susan said, hey, I think you should wear a darker suit tomorrow.

37:26 So I guess because that line of dialogue they had to have him wearing something lighter early on. And then let me see. So the next one of mine. You made me to the suit. Really. Yeah, and I mean it. So, listeners, from the waist up, you don't see his midsection in the first shot. And I really thought he was wearing a Hugh Hefner smoking jacket. Like it looked like a bathrobe, like a collar on it. I asked my wife because I don't see red that well, and she said it was a a deep maroon. But yes, it had a wide collar, like a Hugh Hefner robe.

38:02 But then, like you said, you see him later from a distance and it's got like a double breasted suit panel in the middle of his stomach across the bottom of what would be a rope. So yes, yes, that's in future fashion right there. And luckily the news team totally craps on him. So he's like, bump this. I'm wearing regular cop. Well, not cop gear. Regular lousy, lazy detective gear later. Yeah, well, that, that's what I was getting ready to say is the next day he was back to a normal shirt, a normal shirt and leather jacket.

38:33 And George is back to black or maybe a very dark blue. It's a little hard to tell because like I said, I've got horrible reception on. On what? Or a resolution on the versions of the show that I purchased. Then you already mentioned this, too, but at the videotape dinner at home, Buck is wearing a suit. I was like, man, they are really play it up. That was just not very natural at all. So yeah, that was that was a little bit awkward. Yeah, the kids are really overdressed. So my next negative, everything else negative I have to say about this episode is mostly about Matt or the writers.

39:11 So #3 the whole plot of the episode is really that someone is sort of stalking this video pornography girl and she, this call girl, literally a video call girl, and she'll act out your scene. And she keeps getting these calls from someone who sits in the shadows and giggles and they want her to act out a slinky scene that ends in violence. And the first time the cops run out, it turns out to be fake. And they're like, I'm sorry, it was just, we were just doing this performance. It looked like it was violent because the feed got sent to a business meeting instead.

39:49 So the cops got called, but the second time the cops aren't coming or doing anything because they were told it was fake last time and it's real this time. Somebody is really attacking these people. So we get the feeling that this woman is being stalked and it it turns out it's not the guy that we think it is. It's like his kid and his nephew. So these two teen boys. But the reason I'm jumping to the end is because. Matt gives this speech at the end about parental responsibility, and it kind of just, I don't know, it was very 80s.

40:30 I believe parent supervision is a big deal. And I mean, I've worked in schools, so you can imagine how much I hear, gosh, I wish parents would do this or this. But he sort of suggests not just that the dad had let them see illicit materials, but that it's also because he lets them watch scary movies. Oh yeah, I noticed that part, yeah. And it's like, I don't know if you, you listeners have followed along. We, there are really, really gross forms of entertainment. Some of them I can tell you. I mean, if you hate them and you think they're just not right, hey, I'm with you, man.

41:08 But I can't accuse them of causing violence because some of my best friends are the freakazoids who watch some of that stuff. They're hilarious, nonviolent people. So yes, this this modality of attacking the the creepy movies as a cause of violence is even more dated I think than the Spuds McKenzie thing. We have a lot of evidence to the contrary now. I don't know, maybe it was the 3rd or 4th hostile movie that parents just gave up because if that wasn't churning out serial killers, nothing would.

41:47 I don't advocate showing young kids a lot of stuff and these parents are like the worst parents of all time. But the parent responsibility thing, it was a poorly done speech. And it doesn't help that the adult film manufacturer is standing there like, yeah, these parents need to do a better job. Yeah, the, the, the prejudice of the moment did seem a little bit out of place compared to the rest of the episode, because there's nothing about the rest of the episode that was really preachy at all about, you know, the sex online service or anything like that.

42:22 And then all of a sudden for, for that to come out of nowhere. And I can't help but wonder if maybe that was a trade off because like I said, it was hard for them to get this episode made. And so maybe for them to have the topic in the episode in the 1st place, maybe somebody somewhere said, OK, we'll let you approach the topic, but you got to have a lesson at the end too. Well, that's that is a really reasonable guess. That might make a lot of sense if we have a moral at the end. I'm a big fan of He Man.

42:51 And if you guys don't know the original He Man cartoon, they had a moral at the end of every episode where he would look at the camera and say, you know, today's Skeletor attacks me with a magic staff. You all need to return your books to the library. Like you pull something out every time. It never had to make sense. But yes, that's a good guess. What's your next negative? And you've already touched on a little bit, and that is that Matt and Kathy's extra slow building attraction and occasional flirtation or dancing around the issue feels kind of like a game of David Letterman's.

43:29 Is this Anything? Ladies, gentlemen, time now for a little something we call is this. Anything.

43:37 I don't know if you remember what I'm talking about, but David Letterman would every once in a while have a segment called Is this anything? And he would bring out somebody who would, you know, do some kind of like elaborate juggling routine or, or some other kind of weird human stunt or something. Take a look. And then he and and Paul would say, is this anything? And sometimes, you know what? Yeah, I think that is something. And then other times they're like, no, no, that, that, that's not a thing.

44:05 Wow, you see the illuminated hoops? Anna Jack has the illuminated hoops. I think that's new. That was something, yeah. The illuminated hoops was something. What did you think about the guy? I did well. What did he do exactly? It kind of reminded me of my honeymoon. Part of it the the equipment reminded me of my honeymoon. You used equipment on your honeymoon, I. Had to. I had to. It was. Part of the deal. Other than that though, I didn't think. No, I didn't. I didn't think that was. Pretty much nothing.

44:36 No, that was nothing. OK. Yeah, we'll be right back with Kat Von D, ladies and gentlemen. And sometimes that's what it feels like between Matt and Kathy because they'll, they'll talk about it, they'll flirt a little bit, something will. And then it just goes absolutely nowhere. And I, I mean, you know, maybe eventually it might, but man, it, it, it's a slow build getting there. So it's it's. Really, really slow build. But yes, they're, yeah, they're making these small steps forward. Yeah, I don't know.

45:07 I have a lot more to say about that. But it is not a value to you, the community. It's just me giggitying about like Kathy and I don't know, the dreams of the man living alone in town with like the beautiful neighbor who's like, I get curious sometimes. It's like letters to Penthouse. But anyway, yeah, yeah, very slow, slow, slow burn, slow. Build on that. This is just supposed to be the first season of like a seven season show though. So, you know, I mean, I'm impatient because I know they don't.

45:37 They're living on borrowed time. But still, it's like guys, the rest of my negatives all fall under criticizing police work and especially our own police officer for my subheading. So if you have anything that falls under that, we can do those together. But if you don't, you may want to go ahead through the rest of your saltwater. OK, well I've only got 1, but before I forget, you know, you were talking about how this is was supposed to be 7 seasons and for some reason my head I was thinking 5. But either way, you know, we only got the one season and five TV movies.

46:12 If you don't like this idea, I can edit out. But I was thinking maybe once we're done with everything, maybe we can have an episode, or at least a portion of an episode where we talk about where we would like to have seen the series go, or maybe predict where it would have gone had it lasted something like, you know, 4 to 8 seasons or something. Oh heck yeah. And possibly what the what the revival would possibly be like. Yeah, but my, but my last saltwater is that I'm disappointed that we didn't see the final result of of the the news crew following George around.

46:47 You know, we got that first night and then we get to see them following him around. But what were the other nights of the broadcast like? What did they actually say about him? Was it a positive review? Do they continue to rag on Matt? I'm kind of a little bit disappointed we didn't see that. If for no other reason, then I'm kind of used to that kind of thing happening because there are two Babylon 5 episodes that involves some news crews following people around and we do get to see the final results of that.

47:20 And so I thought we were going to this time and it it ended up being a different kind of episode. When we make guesses, I mean, they, he's supposed to tour the police Academy and he's like, I think eating with the mayor. So yeah, I I guess the impression I was given was that since they had seemed to crack the phone sex line murderer spree or something right at the beginning, everything else the news crew decided to cover was like inherently boring. The stakeout would have been sweet, but it crashed and burned.

47:55 So yeah. Oh, and I do think Matt probably just stopped watching so we don't see it anymore because he's like.

48:04 Oh, but there again, the Franciscas would have continued watching so we can totally their perspective. But yeah, totally. That brings me my segment that I like to call Yikes, Yikes, Yikes, Yikes, bad sex. I hate these know it all muffin heads who come from outer space. A Russian and a sponge head. They're a boat in the middle of the ocean, why stop with running them back to slag? Down. Why don't we just kill them? You. Are emotionally involved. It makes for bad police work. What's that guy doing over there?

48:33 Quick guy. What was that name again? Makes for bad police work.

48:40 Bad police work. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes. I'm Kathy Frankel. Matt Sykes. Yeah, I know. In your language, Sykes means excrement and cranium. Yikes, Yikes, Yikes. Big Yikes. Bad Sykes, Yikes Sykes. Sykes where we look at how often Sykes almost shoots an innocent person or almost shoots himself. Some questionable police work, some shooting detective skills, possibly a time for Todd just to talk about Sykes caveman personality. The unique acting choices of Gary Graham, who I love and admire, but I totally get it.

49:19 So the first thing for this is that the giggler who orders the violent video and orchestrates an attack at the same time. So he uses a credit card, and they get the credit card number from the adult film producer Arvind Kaufman. And then Matt goes out to the Denton house where this credit card, the owner lives there. And thing number one, OK, is discretion. Matt shows up, and at first, you see, you feel like he's being really discreet, like, yeah, you know, just a police business. Can I just ask you a couple of questions over here?

49:54 The guy comes over. You know, what is this about? You know, oh, my husband's inside. He'll be out in a minute. He comes out. This is a human family, boring human family having a cookout in the backyard. OK, well, Matt isn't saying it's about this guy stalking adult film star. No, he's just like ask your husband. A couple of quick husband comes out, his brother is standing next to him. The family's standing around and Matt in the yard is like it's about full Eurovision.

50:22 So then we cut to them in the that's thing #1 is like, I thought you would be discreet, Matt, but you are not. So then they're, they're in the garage, him and this guy talking and you know, in the movie where the serial killer is like standing in the background the whole time and you don't notice them. Well, this is that. And it's way more obvious than that, at least if you're a good cop. And Matt is not in this point, but he's essentially found the culprits already. It's, it's this, it's this household.

50:50 But the guy says he's lost his wallet and his credit cards. Oh, no, I, I don't know what happened. He hasn't lost his wallet or the kids have it. So the scene literally ends with the two young boys. I say young, they're like teenage boys. 1 is this guy's kid and one is his brother-in-law or his brother's kid. They like these two young men lean into the garage literally like everything OK in her dad. It's the thing where it's like it's one of them. You guys just sit down and and ask everybody in the family questions separately or something.

51:25 You're already at the perp's house. That's it. So Matt says well that's a dead end while it's stolen I'll take his word for it and he just takes off. So he follows them later. I don't know if he hits a dead end or he gets another clue. I think he gets another clue about the credit card still being used. So he decides to tail them and he sees the dad. The two dads dad and his brother are brother-in-law. They drop the kids off at a movie theater and then they go, I swear 4 doors down to a daytime strip club or Peep Show or something.

52:02 Like 2 grown men parking on the street in broad daylight, high fiving and going into this adult place while their kids go watch a movie. I've never, Oh my gosh. It's just, it's so strange. So Matt sees that the dad is a pervert apparently. No judgement y'all. I'm just saying it's like, this is what Matt's thinking. It's his mental process. And the two boys are going into a movie theater and it's a horror movie marathon about what I said earlier about parents letting the kids watch violent things.

52:33 And I have the names of the terrifying movies that I'll bring up later, but the names of the movies are like horrible, violent sounding fictional movies. So it's this is Matt's clue that clearly something is going on. This is like a mystery where the police come out and question me 10 minutes because the murder weapon was a gun register to me. But I'm like, gosh, no officer, I lost that gun. And 40 minutes later they're like, you know, I bet it is that family and that gun doing the whole thing after all.

53:03 I'll be darned. I think I have two more if you, but if you want to comment on any of that, feel free. No, I, I don't think I have anything for that. In fact, I think, yeah, I think I'm done with saltwater. I mentioned already Matt, the scene where he gets the adult film, the mail and he goes into his apartment. But in this moment when he goes into the apartment, even though it's out of frame and we only see him from like the chest up, I am positive you can tell he is once again pulling his gun out of his waistband and setting it down.

53:33 He loses cop points for that every time he does it. I don't think we'll ever see Matt Sykes use a holster and he'll always just be handling his gun like a teen in a gang movie like The Outsiders when leaving the station for the last big showdown. Also just off camera I'm pretty sure you can tell Matt is jamming the gun back into his waistband so that's just his signature move is putting it right there. So in the botched stakeout scene, Matt is in the car watching the building while Bailey. It's OK if y'all don't know who Bailey is because we don't know who Bailey is but Bailey is a random officer.

54:11 I'm going to guess this is Gary Graham's brother because his name is Graham as well and he only has like 1 line. But Bailey is a random officer in a dark suit and tie inside the studio in a dark hallway. Matt is outside in the car I guess watching the building and he knows that George and the news crew are going to show up. We don't know that, but a van pulls up and George and the news crew jump in the car with Matt to find out what's going on. So Bailey should be outside and Matt should be up in the rafters or in a dark corner watching the set, like obviously.

54:45 And when George shows up, it's even more obvious to me that Bailey should be in the car instead of Matt because now you've got like one detective inside and one outside. So he's look using the radio and Matt says, look, Bailey, I didn't have time to swoop the area, so stay on your toes. We cut to this dude in the suit in the dark inside on the radio, and he gets his one line. He says, right, Sykes. And I'm like, OK, now in my heart, I already know Bailey is a red shirt. I'm like, this is a dead man walking.

55:13 He he got a name. You know, he's alone in the dark. So when Matt finds out that Virginia is starting the video call or the stream for you young people, he radios Bailey to stand by. It's coming down. He says to Bailey, You know that thing in the movie where you you check in with each of the people with the radio, like, you know, officer three check in. You know, Officer Checkpoint 2 clear. He doesn't say. He doesn't ask Bailey to say anything back to him. He says it's coming down Bailey. And then he just doesn't say anything because Bailey's already unconscious with a bad guy stepping over him in the dark hall.

55:52 If he had said, you still there, Bailey, it's coming down and he'd gotten no answer, it would have worked so much better. Why do I know police protocol better than Matt does? But yes, I think I've been trained by the news. So we do know when they do storm the building and it might come up later. But Bailey is alive when he runs over and he he crouches by him after it's all gone down and gone terribly. Bailey, are you OK? And you like hear. Yeah. Or something the ground. So we know Bailey is he's going to make it.

56:32 I know it's short notice and that George has like, ditched you. But yeah. Dyke Sykes. That is it for me for salt water. What? And I'm glad that you noticed that, that he did check on Bailey, because yeah, I noticed the same thing you did. There's this nondescript guy who gets one name, don't know if it's the first name, last name. And then we see him down. We don't know if he's unconscious or dead and somehow either missed it or forgot that he got checked. So it's it's good that he's alive because yeah, that he he just seemed like he's shoehorned in there and just, I don't know, they almost could have just done without it.

57:08 But yeah, I guess, I guess Matt had to have some kind of backup. But at the same time with that backup was effective. You know, that hurts the scene. So a little bit contrived. So I guess we can move on to connecting the spots. Do you want to start this one or do you want me to do it? Well, I've talked a bit if you've got something to start off with. OK, so obviously the big one from this episode is Angela Bassett as the reporter Renee Longstreet. Now I confess I'm not super familiar with Angela Bassett, but she has definitely been in a lot of things.

57:42 I mean, looking at her filmography on I Am, well, not IMDb, but Wikipedia, hers was one where you know how sometimes Wikipedia will put their their filmography on the rest of the profile and the other times it's got to be its own separate page. Well, she's got her own separate page. She's of course famous for being in Black Panther one and two, the last two Mission Impossible movies, which I thought that was weird. Somehow I was thinking that she was in more than just the last two because in the last one she plays the president.

58:10 So I thought she had more of a progression through job titles, but apparently just the last two. That Green Lantern movie that we all would like to forget, She was apparently Amanda Waller in that one. I'm a little bit more familiar with her as being Sergeant Athena Grant Nash in 911, which I didn't start watching right at the beginning. I started watching one of the middle seasons and then because of something happened last season, I'm not bothering with this season. But she is great in that TV show, and she has a / a dozen each of theater and producer credits.

58:44 And she was also the director of the TV movie Whitney and three TV episodes, two of them being of American Horror Stories. So she's also done a little bit of directing. And then as far as awards in 1994 for the movie What's Love Got to Do With It, she got an Oscar nomination for best actress and a Golden Globe win for best actress. She got best supporting actress nominations for Black Panther, Wakanda Forever in 2023. Those nominations were for the Oscars and the BAFTA, but she actually won for the Golden Globe and she got the 2000, 2016 Directors Guild of America award or no, excuse me, a nomination for best director for Whitney.

59:31 She also has several nominations and one win for a number of Daytime Emmy and prime time Emmy Awards and dozens of other nominations and wins for a variety of movies and TV awards. I'm not positive, but I think her awards and nominations might have been their own separate page as well. So yeah, very prolific actress. So it's kind of weird to see her possibly early in her career and in just a guest spot of ATV show like this. And like you said, what's love got to do with it kind of was when she exploded.

1:00:04 And that's 93. So this is just a few years before that. She spent the 80s working her butt off doing everything from 2:00 to 7:00 to 30, something in like a single episode. She was in three episodes of A Man Called Hawk with Avery Brooks from Deep Space 9. I didn't know that. I think they're three separate characters, but I'm not sure. In 90, in 1990, she does this episode and she's a stewardess on Kindergarten Cop. I don't know some of these people, when you see them when they're younger and they've become amazing celebrities, you already know, like right away they had something special and it's just a matter of time.

1:00:41 But she did. She had to pay her dues for a while. So the year after this she's in an episode of the Flash, which is a very early superhero show for like our modern sensibilities and I liked it but it's very brief and she was in Boyz N the Hood climbing her way up. And then 1992 is a weird year for her. I think it's her transition year from bopping around on TV and small parts to what's love got to do with it the next year. Making it at least because in 1992 she was in Critters 4,

1:01:12 which I've seen. But y'all don't have to see Innocent Blood, a forgotten vampire film, and Malcolm X. So she's like climbing up. There's a lot of other stuff, but to keep it on brand for our podcast, I'll just mention Contact in 1997 where she's a pretty important senator in that. And if y'all haven't seen the animated Disney Pixar movie Meet the Robinsons in 2007, I love that and she is in that. There are several people in this episode who are nobody, at least in terms, I'm sorry I don't mean to be mean, who are nobody on the IMDb.

1:01:48 They have amazing and rich lives outside of that, but a few of them, it's like maybe just nothing that I would have spotlighted as related to something we focus on. Ernie Denton is the dad who turns out to be, I think, the real villain for not just starting out with his credit card and misleading his young men, but clearly leading a problematic life. And when he's confronted in the police station and has an opportunity to look sad about it, instead, he's hyper defensive and angry. So it's kind of weird we don't like him, but this guy is a weird guy.

1:02:21 I think he was born in the 30s, acted in his teens in the 40s, and then he took like 40 years off, maybe playing things on stage. But he shows back up in the 80s, where he had his longest stint playing a character named Hugh in 15 episodes of Cheers, which I can't remember at all. And that's really strange to me. I probably wouldn't mention him except in his 80s he was in Batman Versus Superman and Doctor Sleep, the underappreciated sequel to The Shining. So Hugh McGuire has had an interesting career.

1:02:53 He's just a random bad dad in this episode. But yeah, then you've got Kelly Jean Peters as Missus Denton. She doesn't have much to do, but she's in Poltergeist 2. She's in an episode of the original Green Hornet and she's in another forgotten sci-fi show that I advocate you all watch called Voyagers, which is briefly for each of them. Lewis Denton. I think this is the creepy brother-in-law or brother. Whenever you have a character over the side with no lines but they're just standing there a lot.

1:03:25 I feel like it's probably a stunt person. This is Lewis is played by Rob King and Rob King has a ton of credits. Some of the highlights include like the original Terminator V which was also developed by Kenneth Johnson for TV, Independence Day sliders, Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds, which I don't like but it is very pretty. Cloverfield, the first Thor, Cowboys and aliens, Amazing Spider Man, Robert Corman's notoriously bad and never released Fantastic Four movie from 1984 and somehow this guy is in Forstick, the Fantastic Four movie from 2015 that people also didn't like.

1:04:03 So that's a weird piece of trivia. And he's been in Agents of SHIELD, Blue Beetle, and somehow the brother-in-law who doesn't say anything. Like I said, I think he's just in makeup a lot. He was in Star Trek 6, The Undiscovered Country, which is really going to help me out later. John Meese, It plays Roger Rose. Roger Rose doesn't do anything in this episode. He's this weird dude who hangs out with our adult film starlet. He's just a dude with long hair in the background and I guess they imply he also performs with her.

1:04:35 I'm doing air quotes but he gets assaulted and I said it so excitedly. Roger Rose gets assaulted. The actor John Meese was in X-Files, he did 7 episodes of the short lived series American Gothic and he was in the 90s. Classic but also forgotten UFO miniseries Dark Skies, which has a small but devoted following. And I think the only other person I've got, I mean, there are these two wayward teens, and one of them has been in four different roles in the Bruce Tim, Batman Tim verse of cartoons between the 90s and early aughts.

1:05:16 I'd talk about that show a lot more, those shows, if any of these actors were ever in it. So he's exceptional. He's not in it. He was in one episode of Voyager and there is a forgotten giant robot movie called Robot Jocks that this one of the two kids, the one that looks slightly more memorable and has more personality was in in 1989, one year before this with our own beloved Sykes, Gary Graham, Gary Graham and this kid, we're in Robot Jocks together. So that's just crazy. Todd is one of the Co hosts who reviewed Robot Jocks in episode 123 of the Discerning Geeks Portal podcast.

1:05:55 The cameraman who I I just assumed was a real cameraman somehow he's also in Batman cartoons. But if you guys are Power Rangers fans, Kerrigan Mahan, the cameraman, I didn't make that up. He has done voices for Power Rangers from the beginning through today. I think he did 24, No 44 episodes of whatever the current Power Power Rangers is, although I understand it might be finally coming to a conclusion. So yeah, whatever. The last one was. Two Star Trek video games, but I don't count those. Lots of video games.

1:06:29 If you're interested. Anime Captain Harlock. It's all the cameraman. Weird dude over to the side. That is it for me for connecting the spots. OK, so one other thing I did have, it didn't have anything to do with the casting, but I mentioned the similarity in this episode to a couple episodes of Babylon 5. Those are season 2, episode 15. And now for a word, which is where somebody, a reporter, follows people around and tries to catch things are going on while things are heating up between the Centauri and the Narn.

1:07:03 And then there's season 4, episode 8, The Illusion of Truth, which is directed by Stephen First, who played Viracoto on the show. And that episode is all about somebody doing an expose on Babylon 5. And I'm not sure I want to say what exactly they were focusing on or, or what had happened right before this. It might be a spoiler, but one of those things where it looks like, well nevermind, basically anything about that I say by the episode would be a spoiler. Nothing with spoilers. But yeah, but in both of those, we get to see a little bit more of the final result of a reporter following somebody around.

1:07:43 And that's why I was kind of disappointed that we we didn't see that in this episode. So if that's it for connecting the spots, we can move on to the Albert Einstein Award, which I think will be short because I think there was only one tank to knees in this episode. You're at least the only one with a strange name, and that is Virginia Ham Woo. Hoo, Virginia ham. And that is an interesting name because I'm sure there are some people out there with the last name Ham and Virginia is a valid female name.

1:08:15 And so it's kind of neat they put them together because it's, yes, it sounds ridiculous because of the context, but the two names separately aren't that ridiculous. Yeah, yeah. If any of you listeners know someone who is low key, Jenny or Jen Ham, and you've never put this together before, you know, comment, e-mail us and let us know, you know, of Virginia Ham because they're out there, they're among us and they resent their parents. We think it's amazing. Yes. So we have a winner for that. And I think we're ready for the I have to talk about this section.

1:08:54 Anything leftover that you really need to get out or cover or bring up? OK. So I really don't have any general things, so I guess I'll go ahead and do. Wheel. Of press kit and in case anybody just is just now tuning in, we've only done this two times before but for Christmas, one of the things I got for from Christmas from a friend is an original press kit from back in the days when you know when a new TV show would come out they would send out like a packet of information about the show and and I guess these things are just kind of lying around some people had them and put them on eBay and my friend got them one for Christmas so.

1:09:35 Let me roll the. Wheel or spin the wheel to see what topic I'm going to give you tonight.

1:09:44 OK so this is something from the Eric Fear Point profile and I didn't really didn't take the time to to summarize or anything. I'm just going to read paragraphs 5-6 and nine. Let me see. The key to Eric Pierpoint's heartwarming portrayal of George can be attributed to his genuine affection for his character and his colleagues. And then with his television family, wife Susan's son Buck and daughter Emily, Eric feels like he has a surrogate household parenting, and this is a quote from him. Parenting has never been a reality for me, so I'm enjoying the theatrical exploration of what it's like to be a responsible father.

1:10:26 I've always been envious of my friends who have the real thing, says Eric. Growing up in Washington, DC, as the son of former CBS Washington correspondent Robert Pierpoint, Eric has wonderfully jaded memories of flying on the presidential press plane in the late 1960s. Oh, wow. So yeah. So I thought that was pretty interesting. All right. His dad was a correspondent. Yes, for CBS. That's cool. And spinning it again. OK, we're still on the Eric Clearpoint profile. Let me see the last two paragraphs.

1:11:07 OK, so this first one is another quote from him. I feel exhilarated from this experience. Playing an alien inspires me to bring forth a new me and come up with something that has not been done before, something that might be unique for episodic television. It makes you feel special. Eric adds with a grin. Also, with his makeup, it's nice not to look like Eric Pierpont all the time.

1:11:36 I have an. Ongoing theory that really, really attractive people thrive in the acting world if you put prosthetics on their face. I think there's something powerfully freeing about it. And like, and I've seen Eric Pierpoint, it turns out in several things I just never cared because he's sort of, I think a randomly averagely handsome white guy over to the side. So it's just like, oh, yeah, he was in that. I don't know, he kind of blended in, but this thing on he's, he's got so much personality and I think he has fun with it.

1:12:08 So yeah, yeah, it's cool. I have like, a lot of these. And so maybe you'll just like, jump in and comment on some. Let me see. There's a woman at the table at the beginning scene when they are in a board meeting and the adult film is suddenly the video call is piped into their boardroom. They think they're going to be on a call to, I think, like, Kyoto. Instead, this woman in lingerie in a bed shows up, and she's like, I know what you're here to see. So the guys are all sitting around, like, confused.

1:12:42 And this woman at the table, who appears to be Indian, she explains to all the men and to the audience that it's one of those services where you order what you want, and they do it for you on video. And all the men in the room are surprised, which I just thought that was hilarious. And nobody in the room asks her how she knows so much.

1:13:04 It's a room full of guys. And they had like, the one woman at the table be like, oh, you know what this is? Yeah, and one thing I'll comment on about that, it seems so quaint. You can tell that this was like running the edge of the 80s and 90s because this was still referred to as phone sex, but just the video version of it. Because I guess we were still pre Internet, or even if the Internet was around, it was the Super primitive version of it where, you know, it was still wasn't sophisticated enough that you could transfer video over Internet net lines.

1:13:34 And so, you know, nowadays we still have basically what they were showing us there is just as obviously over the Internet rather than over anything phone related. And so it's it's especially quaint knowing that they were portraying a future that was five years ahead. And yet this is still the most futuristic they can come up with. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it's back in those days you would have to have like a video camera, a big one hooked up like doing a feed just like ATV station would or something.

1:14:06 It's it's pretty involved to have a video call of some kind back then. So yeah, it wasn't like the capability like you said, it just sending data like we do now. Did you notice the cat food commercial at the beginning of the episode? Yeah, I thought that was weird, but I don't think it was cat food. I think it was Tank Deniz food, but it looked like they were using cat food containers. Yes, yes. So there are times when something is really, really clever and I pick up on that and I tell you all about that.

1:14:34 And then there are times when I think they might have been trying to be clever and I'm not smart enough to get it. So this commercial that we see in the background, I think before George's first broadcast, it starts off literally with a cat on the screen and mom like doing something with these containers and then it ends, it looks like, with the kid eating it. And this is a newcomer kid and a newcomer mom. So either it's food for them and I just got confused or they were trying to do something clever.

1:15:08 I have no idea what it was. It was just a weird commercial. But yes, yes, I think you're right. I think it's not cat food. But I swear, if y'all go watch the commercial, you'll be like, what is this? The product is called new menu, which sounds it also sounds like it could be either. So I don't know. I don't know. They, I feel like that was intentional, but I didn't really get the point they were making. So yeah, that was, that was odd. Virginia. Virginia Ham, when she first sees the detectives coming in because it's a false alarm and and stuff.

1:15:41 She says she knows George from the news this morning because he's becoming a local celebrity. And when she sees him, they do the newcomer fist bump. And we haven't seen the newcomer fist bump a whole lot, but it's kind of like you do a limp handshake, like your hand isn't quite clinched and you just kind of touch knuckles that way. And then Matt asks what the hell is going on? And she says, I'm sorry about the gunshots, Probably what led the police to the location. She says we're a new business and we're, quote, still working all the kinks out.

1:16:08 So that was like a 2 for one on that voyeur vision company. No trespassing sign on the chain link fence. So they seem to be like waiting outside. And George says Hoffman has been exploiting newcomers since we landed, from his cheap tours of Little Tank Don to his newcomer Flesh magazines, which is good exposition. George is filling us in that he's heard of this guy and this is an ongoing thing. But what I noticed was this is the at least the second or third time that we've heard Little Tank done used this way, like Little China or Chinatown.

1:16:44 And I feel like they are officially stepping away from the phrase slag town. I don't think we're hearing that anymore. And I think it might be because the way that they were using it for the 1st 5 or 6 or 7 episodes, that was its only name. And even the newcomers would use it because we didn't have another name for it. And that might not have made great sense since it's such a racial epithet. So yes, I think it's all a little tanked on now. Five years ago. Oh, this is Kaufman. He's talking to Matt, and he's talking about how he made a big break.

1:17:16 He said five years ago I was a mope going nowhere when they came. For y'all who don't know, I'm big and looking up words right now, and I had never heard mope used as a noun. It just means someone who mopes. But it's like you're a mope. Aimless, dejected, low spirits. And then the newcomers show up and he has the idea of marketing them. Matt says pennies from heaven, huh? And Kaufman says Krugerrands. Do you know what a Krugerrand is? Todd No because you and I are normal people. Oh, debatable. OK, if y'all want to comment on this because I feel good judging y'all about this and you can judge me right back.

1:17:55 I think the reason Todd and I have no idea what this is, is because of the way that we live our lives and what echelon of society we live in. Todd, the Krugerrand was first minted in South Africa in 1967 and it is the world's inaugural and most recognized gold bullion coin. It is a single Troy oz, currently worth around $5000. Oh my goodness. So if you wanted to hand people 3 Krugerrands and you'd be handing them about $15,000 currently. It's just, it's interesting to me sociologically that this guy said it on this show in the 80s in the cocaine era and I had no idea what he's talking about now in year 2026.

1:18:36 And Todd doesn't either, just as a sample size. So Krugerrands, that's a vocabulary word for y'all. You may never hear it again, but write in and tell us if you're like, no, you 2 are weird. Everybody knows about Krugerrands. Just I was like, what? Matt is asking for help. And George says, Matt, I can't, I'm sorry. After watching last night's segment, the mayor has invited me to lunch. And Matt kind of asks, oh, is it just you? And George is like, well, you know, because he couldn't invite Matt.

1:19:08 But he says she's very important

1:19:12 and he tells him, you know, you can go talk to Denton and meet up with me later. Well, I just wanted to point out that this is supposed to be taking place in 1995 and it's filmed in around 1990. And Los Angeles in 1990 not only had a male mayor, but they did not get their first female mayor, Karen Bass, until 2022. So this was very forward thinking futurism for the show. It took them a long time to get there. And just as a side note, because you did some cool history last time, Todd, in Atlanta, we've had two female mayors.

1:19:48 We've had Shirley Franklin from O2 to 2010 and Keisha Lance Bottoms from 18 to 22. And I know both of their names and I'm terrible at politics, but our current mayor is Andre Dickinson, and I wasn't nearly as interested in him. But out in Winston Salem, where you live, they beat us by a mile. Y'all had your first and only female mayor? Before LA did you had one in 1989. Oh, that is Martha Wood, 89 to 97. And then, I mean, I can't get on to you that much for not having another female, female mayor because you had one in between.

1:20:24 And then a guy named Alan joins, became mayor, and he has been your mayor for 25 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Name is definitely familiar, Yeah. Yeah, it should be by now. I mean, I'm, I'm slow to pick these things up, but that makes history and and social studies Class A lot easier if you just stick with one mayor for 1/4 of a century. So But yes, there's y'all's social studies lesson for tonight about mayors. We've we've all had them at this point, but not as many female mayors as you might think.

1:20:57 Yeah, and a few years ago during the riots, what was her first name? Lance Bottoms. What was her first? Name Keisha Lance Bottoms. Yeah, Keisha. Yeah, I, I really liked her. Anytime she was on the news or the female mayor of Washington, DC Yeah, I love it when they used to give updates and the the female mayor of Washington, DC, she did something really creative. I think she painted Black Lives Matter along the street outside the White House in letters big enough to be seen from, not necessarily from space, but just way up high.

1:21:32 Oh, wow. So yeah, I thought that was cool. So yeah. The Internet says you might be talking about Muriel Bowser. Yeah. And who is? She's currently still the. She's in her third term, so yeah. OK, good. And I think she is, let me see, first female mayor to be re elected to a second term and the first African American woman to be elected to 3-4 year terms. She is not seeking a fourth term. So yeah. Interesting. I did not know about Muriel Bowser. Don't worry y'all. I feel shame. I want to know all these people.

1:22:03 But yes, cool. There's we're all learning and growing together. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. I do want to say a couple things about Matt's apartment. See from across the bar that he has a lot of cacti. I just, I feel we need to mention that the man has like I think 15 might not be an exaggeration. He has a lot of cacti. The people who did his apartment, remember, gave him a huge model train that he actually played with one time. But in the corner is a hat rack. And I had a hat rack growing up.

1:22:38 But this is this is a thing that stands up. It's not like 4 hooks hooked to the wall or something. And he's got one. And I think it has way too many hats on it for this one guy. But I'm thinking because we like to make these guesses, that this may explain his previous midlife crises. So like, maybe This is why he's wearing the baseball cap sporadically and that stupid hat in the episode Little Lost Lamb. Like they maintain this set for the whole season. So I'm wondering if Gary Graham just like grabbed a set hat and was like, this is who I am today.

1:23:13 I'm wearing this crazy pork pie hat off the hat rack. Y'all gave it to me. You can't complain. It's Sykes hat. He's like, I don't know, maybe he was upset with just being in a wife beater in that episode. So he was like, I'm going to wear a funky hat to go with it. Well, and I usually don't pay this much attention to this type of thing, but since you're talking about his apartment, something that did catch my eye earlier in a zeroing in on that moment now to make sure I wasn't imagining things. But on the side wall of his apartment, he's got two big either photos or pic paintings or portraits or something.

1:23:54 And then let me see two on the sides on the of the pair of the big ones. And then under each big one, he's got two other pictures. Anyway, he's got this like somewhat intricate arrangement of pictures or, or photos or whatever that are framed. They're kind of nice. They're lined up, maybe not perfectly, but good enough. And I'm thinking, would he really be the type of person to have the patience to measure out and, you know, bring levels out and, and you know, tap all those nails in the wall and make sure that everything is even and spaced out just right.

1:24:29 It looks way too organized this to me. This is the type of guy that would just throw nails over the wall and things will be like leaning, you know, 45° and and just nothing would be lined up right. So I'm wondering who put up these pictures for him? I think it came with the apartment. Oh yeah, maybe so. Which brings me to since they since Kathy hands him the videotape, we now know Matt Sykes is a street address. Everybody. He officially lives at 2630 Lacey St. #2O3 in LA. And this is interesting because I looked up Lacey St. and there really are loft apartments there.

1:25:06 It has a little bit of that industrial feel. It does not have a bar across the street from it where humans could get drunk and come across and attack a woman on her way home. But you know, other than that, it actually seems pretty close. But Lacey Street is close to a few other locations, so it's plausible that the writers try to pick places where they could, for an LA audience, really have person going from point A to point B. When she comes into the police station, Virginia, Virginia Ham says Matt is criticizing her lifestyle.

1:25:42 He's criticizing, you know, her being exploited or being taken advantage of. Why do you put up with that? How do you live like this? He's being a good dad to this woman who did not ask for his input. Why do you let that sleeze bucket exploit you? Ex Floyd, I'm a businesswoman. I've made 100,000 in the last six months which I've invested in Japanese back US bailout bonds. At this rate I'll be SFL in two years. SFL. Set for life. In the end, Virginia does decide to walk away from the dude in his adult films, and I'm really happy for her in all, but I respect her two year plan.

1:26:19 I have to tell you guys. I mean, if if I'm judging someone and then they tell me that they're going to be set for life in two years, I'm probably going to shut up. I might not say good job, I'm with you on that. But I, you know, I'm not going to keep talking. So yeah, $100,000 in six months. You know, once they get the teen boys to stop attacking her, you know pretty good if you are, If you are not spending your money on smack and loading up on booze to silence the voices and bury the regret, you just might make it so no sarcasm show you.

1:26:50 Arvind asks Matt if he watched the videotape that he sent him and Matt said he doesn't, did not watch it, and Arvind says funny, no one ever does. That was a creative response, a little bit smarmy, but I could see how he's probably telling the truth. Yeah, well, there's a there is a thing about that, but I don't know. It's the percentage of people that indulge in adult cinema and the percentage of people who swear they've never indulged in adult cinema. And the numbers do not match up. They chat about George seeing the mayor.

1:27:25 And George is, he's wistful. He's daydreaming about how great it is. She's a fascinating woman, Matt. You really should meet her. He says her home has Romanesque columns and a lovely fin de sigla Pearl to Gutierre. And I had to look up what that was, too. So fin de sigla is probably end of the cycle. So like turn of the Century and Nepoto Gutierrez is a it's a gutter. It's a gutter spout. So the Internet will show you a lot of really pretty waterspouts that stick off of buildings like a fish or something.

1:27:52 Now, I do want to say that this the boys when they got dropped off at the scary movies, I think that was the Highland cinema, which is not far from Lacey Street where Matt lives. And I think it's the same Highland cinema that was in Night of Screams. I did not go back and double check it, but the Real Highland Theatre is on Figueroa St. in LA and it's, yeah, it's, it's like halfway between LA and Pasadena. So I'm starting to feel like these are not just good filming locations, but everybody's really close together.

1:28:24 The scary movies that the boys got dropped off to see were Psycho Slasher 2, Bloodaholics and Death Slave, which kind of I guess gives you an idea of why they're contriving the filming scenes. They are. You already mentioned the prepodial amino regurgitation. I wrote amino too. So maybe it's not amnio, maybe it is amino. Matt calls Peisman on the phone and says he he wants to get those phone records. Peisman, we've been waiting on those phone. Records. We never see Peisman, I don't think he says to send them down and the guy brings them to Matt.

1:29:00 But I don't think this is Peisman because he doesn't talk to him. The guy has no lines. I bring it up because I think Peisman is a consistent, unseen character from upstairs. That is in a previous episode. I think Matt has talked to a Peisman over the phone before for his lab results or something. Peisman, get that to me. My last note is just that I maybe it's because the perps turn out to be these teenage boys. But even though they're on the trail of a killer, once again, no one is actually killed in this episode.

1:29:33 It feels like somebody's killed. People keep kind of getting killed. But the first murder is staged and fake for the video feed. And the second murder, the guy, Mr. Rose, is assaulted and he's in a coma or no, he's in intensive care in the hospital. The guy brings in a baseball bat and rushes toward him on the bed and then just kind of sets it down and starts like slapping him. The cop I mentioned, Bailey in the hall, is just unconscious for a minute. So you keep getting the impression that somebody is brutally murdered, but no one is ever actually brutally murdered.

1:30:10 And that does it for me before I have to mention this. OK, All right, So I do have one last thing. And I mentioned that my other Christmas present was the unofficial companion to Alien Nation. That is a book by Ed Gross. I forgot to see what the date was like when that that book was written. But it has, you know, entries for each episode, some summaries and some opinions from the the writer of the book. And it also contains either interview snippets from various producers and stars of the show, or maybe the writer of this book just kind of compiled those quotes from other places.

1:30:48 So I thought I would kind of paraphrase some of their quotes. Story editor Craig Van Sickle said that the biggest problem with this episode was with standards and practices. They were terrified of the videophone sex aspect. In the episode, Coast Story editor Stephen Mitchell added that there would have been less problem with a guy with a machine gun killing everyone, but they had to be more careful about sex topics. Producer Tom Chahek said that he had to fight for defending the right to view pornography in the episode, and he clarified that he wasn't supporting porn itself, but that he felt like the right to view it needs as strong a stand as the right to not view it.

1:31:30 He said it was one of their tougher episodes and considered it a clunker. And that was his words, not mine. Roducer Andrew Chneider also said it was a tough eisode and they could have used an extra day or two of Roduction O Aarently this eisode had all kinds of roblems from writing, editing and justice getting it shot. Eric Pierpoint had fun playing the two sides of George Francisco in the episode and compared Matt forgiving George as being marriage like. And then lastly, Gary Graham had fun playing Matt as awkward about sex, especially the idea of possible eventual sex with a newcomer.

1:32:10 He had fun. Is that what you said? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Gary Graham. I can't imagine. Yeah, OK, Well, we are ready to give our scores. I do like those. Those are really, really cool. So when I give a score, I tend to score it based on two things. One, whether or not you guys can skip the episode if you don't have to watch everything. And two is how many stump Star Trek alumni I found in it. And this one, I thought the score was pretty low, but we have a base 4. We've got Sykes, Mr. and Misses Francisco and Captain Grazer.

1:32:47 We're All Star Trek alumni's and we managed to get two more. We managed to get a guy from Voyager and a guy from Star Trek 6, The Undiscovered Country. I don't think either of them had big parts, but there they are. So we got a decent STA score of 6. I don't think we've gotten below 5 yet. I feel like it's coming. But yeah, yeah, this was OK for that. And like I said, I don't give a grade for Batman cartoon alumni. If I did this episode would have done better than a lot of the others on whether or not you guys can skip it.

1:33:20 Like I said at the beginning, it's messed up in terms of plot, but all of the bits on the side are great. So I don't feel like y'all can skip this just because not just the great Kathy stuff, but there's there's all the multiple cool parts. So I like the Francisco family, I like George. Oh, I didn't mention it. So like, they have to break into the adult film guys compound because they think the girl's going to be murdered and there's a wall and George essentially chucks Matt over the wall. Oh yeah.

1:33:54 There's one weird moment where he's just now George. They did not have him jump the wall like the bionic man. Y'all will probably be happy to know. Instead, he kind of leaped and was sort of up to the top of it, climbing up pretty quickly and then leaped down. So he's not like full Superman or anything, but he did Chuck Matt. Matt kind of went topsy turvy over the top really fast. So that was that was great. You all need to see it for things like that. Not so much for the a plot and the daring mystery, but yes, a lot of fun.

1:34:27 What did you how do you rate this one, Todd? This one was tough. This was another episode that was kind of borderline BB minus and comparing it to some of my B minuses, I'm like, was this really that much better? And then comparing it to some of the other BS, was it not as good as those? But ultimately, I do give it AB. It's kind of that middle quality episode where, as I said at the very beginning, nothing hugely wrong with it, nothing hugely awesome about it either. It's kind of right in the middle.

1:34:55 It's a very stable episode. So yeah, I can appreciate it. But I'm definitely looking forward to the next couple episodes, which are going to be much, much better. Oh, all right. Well, that's good, y'all can be thinking about that. Let's look forward to the future. Coming up next time on alienating Ourselves, join us as we explore Alienation's 16th episode Partners. George is suspended from the force. Oh no. When several grams of drugs go missing on his watch, an old mentor of Sykes returns and the Francisco family prepares for the ejection, when the baby will transfer from Susan to George.

1:35:34 Spoiler alert. So wow, George is going to be under a lot of pressure this week, accused of a crime, his livelihood's in question, wanting to be there for his wife, and about to get pregnant himself. This could be an emotional whirlwind. So join us next week for all this and more as Todd and I continue alienating ourselves. I continue to be Nick. I'm Todd. Thank you for connecting your phones to the modem to dial us up to listen to us. We'd love to see some reviews wherever you listen to podcasts.

1:36:04 If you love us, like us, or can barely tolerate us, please give us five stars. If you can stand the idea of inviting us to even a fake birthday party, please give us four stars. If you give us three stars or lower, your next live video sex encounter will also be interrupted by a masked assailant wielding a baseball bat. As always, may all your milk be as fresh or as sour as you prefer it to be. And the next time you make a habit of undressing someone with your eyes, maybe wear sunglasses. Have a great week.

1:36:35 Goodbye everybody. Other than that though, I didn't think. No, I didn't. I didn't think that was. Pretty much nothing. No, that was nothing. OK. Yeah. Turn off.