Mad Max in the Jungle! (Penal Colony, by Richard Herley, and 1994's No Escape)
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Yes, we were going to be doing The Hunt For Red October. But we decided to kick that one down the road a month and replace it with a much less worthy movie, and an even less worthierer book. It’s the 1987 novel Penal Colony, by Richard Herley, and it’s a bit of a stinker. The movie is watchably bad and available for free with ads in several locations. The movie is the Ray Liotta-starring dystopian-ish No Escape, notable mostly for Stuart Wilson’s turn as the Big Bad.
Trigger warning for the book: lots of talk of sexual assault in prisons. Also it’s super homophobic and basically distills down the essence of AIDS-fueled anti-gay sentiment that I remember so well from being a conservative kid in the 80s. We’ve moved on since then, but this book has not.
The movie is arguably worth watching-ish, so if you don’t already possess the book, don’t spend any money on it. We’ll explain why.
Nosebleeds for Everyone! ("Button, Button" and The Box)
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Taking another work of short fiction, this time the guys discuss Richard Matheson’s short story “Button, Button,” adapted to a 1986 Twilight Zone episode of the same name, and also adapted to the 2009 movie The Box.
This time, the guys pick up a listener suggestion, from longtime listener Malc Foy, The Running Man, by Stephen King.
Rankings!
Colin: Movie/Book
James: Book/Movie
Seth: Movie/Book
Note: We’ve been having some trouble with our digital recorder. I tried to mitigate the static/distortion we got in a few places, but if you hear it, it’s not your headphones.
This time the guys discuss Tom Godwin’s 1954 classic short story “The Cold Equations” and tackle three of its adaptations: the 1980s Twilight Zone episode, the 1996 Sci-Fi Channel movie, both sharing the story’s title, and the 2014 short film titled The Stowaway.
TMTYR Episode #62: I Gave Him That Answer! ("Arena" TOS episode)
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This time, the Pavement Pounders discuss the 1944 Fredric Brown short story “Arena”, which was adapted into a Star Trek TOS episode (S1E18), may have inspired the TNG episode “The Last Outpost” (S1E5), and there’s also an Outer Limits episode, “Fun and Games (S1E27).”
Big thanks to Rich O’Donnell for sending us the suggestion!
For the purposes of Rankings, here are the abbreviations:
“Arena” story: TS
TOS episode: TOS
TNG episode: TNG
Outer Limits episode: TOL
Our totally scientific ranking of how close the episodes were to the story:
This time, the Pavement Pounders discuss the 1944 Fredric Brown short story “Arena”, which was adapted into a Star Trek TOS episode (S1E18), may have inspired the TNG episode “The Last Outpost” (S1E5), and there’s also an Outer Limits episode, “Fun and Games (S1E27).”