Space-ships Passing in the Night

Space-ships Passing in the Night is an episode of Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars.

Audio[]

Patreon exclusive.

Cast[]

WorkJuice Players[]

Plot[]

After Sparks announced that he had accepted the Marshal of Earth position, and Ginny leaving the picnic at the end of Martian Orders, Sparks and Ginny meet in the common room of The Widow Johnson's Boarding House. Sparks mentions the many romantic things he's done since that time to try to make their relationship work, including notes, flowers, and fireworks displays. Sparks states that he's still intending to move to Earth, and Ginny still isn't willing to move, despite that they both declare that they still love each other.

Before the conversation turns too serious, Felton enters, asking for halp and acting cooly towards Ginny. Ginny says that she and Sparks will work things out, or come to a conclusion, and Sparks reminds Felton that he's not the marshal anymore. Before Ginny and Sparks can continue, Felton opens the window and yells to marshal Red Plains Rider and Croach to come up to the common room so he can talk to them.

Red and Croach arrive, and Red realizes that Sparks and Ginny are attempting to have a serious conversation. Croach reminds Sparks that while enacting a termination ritual, communicate with directness and clarity, and compares ending a relationship is like a molting ritual. It's gross, but also the feeling is similar to achieving the moisture of a new skin under the brittleness of your old exoskeleton. Red tells Croach that the key to analogies is reliability, and Croach thanks her.

Red reminds Sparks how when they first met, Sparks insulted her hat as a way of flirting, but it was a bad method of flirting, and not direct at all. She and Croach tell Sparks to be direct with Ginny. Sparks begins to tell Ginny that maybe they shouldn't have to work so hard on their relationship, but Ginny interrupts him to ask Felton about his emergency.

Felton yells at someone out the window to come up. Ginny tries to tell Sparks she doesn't want to hate him, but the aliens Felton invited up arrive before she can finish her thought. They are three Bhatu, including Tintissi who they had met earlier, and for a few moments they excitedly flail over the humans and Croach. Sparks reminds everyone how the Bhatu transmit all of the thrilling adventures via satellite to their home planet. The Bhatu say they don't want to see their favorite show get canceled, and are launching a campaign to save Sparks Nevada and his Pals on Mars. Tintissi mentions that she reads Felton's comic book series about their adventures that he draws, Feltoons.

Red says this doesn't seem like an emergency and encourages Sparks and Ginny to continue their conversation. Sparks continues for a moment, insinuating that maybe they need to break up, but Ginny stops him when she realizes that the Bhatu said the show is being "canceled". Red realizes that this means that someone on the Bhatu side is ending the show. The Bhatu say that their ruler, Overlord Woxmard, sees that Sparks Nevada and his Pals on Mars are inspiring the Bhatu, so he's canceling the show to keep them from rising up against him. The Bhatu attempted to save the show by starting a campaign of sending birdhouses to Overlord Woxmard, but it didn't work.

Red says they need to put aside the emotional right now to deal with the threat. The Bhatu tell Red that the Overlord plans on exploding the planet, and he's on his way now. Sparks tells Ginny that this is more goodbye than he reckoned, and Ginny says she didn't want this to end at all.

Red, exasperated that Sparks is rolling over and taking his death, looks into the Bhatu satellite and convinces the Overlord to not cancel the show in order to placate the Bhatu. The Overlord turns the bombs around, and the day is saved. The Bhatu are pleased that with Sparks leaving and the format changing that the viewership will end with a whimper, not a bang.

Sparks realizes that Red is right, and he is rolling over too easily lately. He tells Ginny that they didn't work hard enough to fix their relationship, and he doesn't want to end things. Ginny agrees. Croach thinks this result was because of his molting analogy. Felton thinks it's because Sparks learned to ask for help from him.

Sparks tells Ginny that to be with her, he'll turn down the Earth job and not to look back, or wondering What If. Ginny realizes that she just needed to sincerely hear that Sparks was willing to stay, and tells Sparks she'll go with him to Earth. Sparks is so happy that he surprises both Ginny and himself by asking her to marry him. Ginny says she would like that.

Notes[]

The podcast introduction featured Dave (Gruber) Allen, while Brian Stack did the usual outro.
Marc Evan Jackson asked the audience to sing along with him during the theme song, and stopped singing the first two lines of the last verse to let the audience be heard.
During Hal Lublin's Bhatu freak-out at touching Felton's face, Hal flailed his arms wildly then "fainted" on stage.
The Bhatu, including Tintissi, were previously seen in Sparks Nevada's "I'm from Earth" Day Special.
Janet Varney became an official Workjuice player at the end of the first of two Thrilling Adventure Hour performances the night this episode was performed, March 7, 2015.
Janet Varney later recalled that after the kiss that finishes off the episode, Marc Evan Jackson's lips were stained with the "Toxic Pink" shade of lipstick she had been wearing. Jackson added that before the next segment (a Patriot Brand Cigarettes ad), he kissed the final page on his script to wipe it off. In the podcasted recording, Varney can just be heard saying "Good luck getting that lipstick off" as the show closes.

Continuity[]

This is the 212th episode of The Thrilling Adventure Hour.
The previous episode is The Thrilling Adventure Hour April Fools' Fun-Around part 3.
The next episode is Bucatino Business 11 and the TAH Comikaze Panel.
The previous episode of Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars released on the podcast is The Thrilling Adventure Hour April Fools' Fun-Around part 1; however, that episode is out of continuity, no matter what K of the Cosmos says.
The previous episode in Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars canon is Martian Orders (TAH #206).
The next episode in Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars canon is Marshal on Mars (TAH #220).

Production[]

This episode was recorded at Largo on March 7, 2015 and released on June 22, 2015.

Writers: Ben Acker and Ben Blacker
Director: Aaron Ginsburg
Music: Andy Paley Orchestra
Sound Effects: Cayenne Chris Conroy
Producers: Acker, Blacker, & Type 55 Films