Great episode. I'm a big fan of CBSMT and this is one of the best I have heard. Surprised no one else has commented. Good story especially for our culture today with free speech being uder attack now. Great ending and a good spiritual message. Nic

This was a great story. Its also nice to hear CBS endorsing prayer! I know its a script and I don't know anything about EG personally, but its nice to think that he's in heaven now after growing up with his bedtime stories.

Cold war parables generally haven't aged well in the last few decades, and this is no exception. In this case, the sinister regime terrorizing a hapless family is A) an omniscient, ruthlessly efficient surveillance state, and B) somehow so incompetent that a moment's quick thinking can upend everything. And that's not to mention the most literal use of a deus ex machina that I've ever witnessed in a drama. The performances are generally good (aside from the cartoonish villains), and while it builds some genuine tension with its 1984-style paranoia, the third act begins to feel a bit contrived and very dated.

I enjoyed this one.

In a society supposedly in the future but with a "big brother" soviet-era style of government, a woman is able to get herself, mother and fiancee out of the country. Without going into all the details of how she did it, she remarks at the program's end that she believes in God now. Mr. Marshall, (who always narrated the beginning, middle and end of the dramas) says at the end that so many people believe in God when things have been going bad, but that it's important that we should "call on Him (God) when you don't need anything - just call. Door's always open...24 hours a day."

A science fiction tale of a time where “The Protector” looks after all in the manner of Orwell’s Big Brother. A woman receives a letter from the Bureau of Human Affairs seeking her presence some days hence for questioning. Her loose lipped gossiping mother has no idea what it could be about and the woman frets for days. Her fiancé is supportive and tries to help identify the possible reason for the visit. Once there the questioner merely asks, “is there anything you wish to tell us?” The Bureau has such a reputation as to strike terror in the hearts and minds of anyone who must deal with them. Will the terror of this question leads the small family to try to identify some mistake, some misstatement, or petty crime they might have committed…

Reminds me of 1984, great story and great actors

Very awesome!! Dripping with an Orwellian future (1984). This was a creepy episode.

A good listen and not as outdated as some would say. The phrase that came to my mind was "who watches the watchers", which is more so in this type of situation. As Nicole stated very like 1984, but in 1975 instead (although EG does say it could be anytime and anyplace at the beginning).

Can you say North Korea? Maybe even the US some day? I thought it was a great episode! These societies always deny the existence of God.

I, too, listened to this show when I was a child...interesting to listen to now as an adult! Loved what EG had to say about God and prayer at the end :)

Created a true terror within me for the possibilities so easily manifested into our reality! A real 1984 nod,and a fantastic reminder to never give up.Loved it!!

One of my favorite episodes.

Matthew 10:19 "But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak." Our heroine prayed in earnest and her prayer was answered immediately. She was given the right words to say that released her, her mother and fiancé from the torture (mental, social and physical) they had to experience. Fantastic episode.

Thoroughly frightened by stories of the tortures other people have undergone at the hands of the Director, Alexis Meade, a young and attractive woman, engaged to be married, can think of nothing that she, as a good citizen, should tell him. Later, she recalls that her mother had said once, as a joke, “Someday our Protector will protect us to death.” Treasonous words, and Alexis’ fiancé, while being tortured, admits that Alexis said that her mother did say them. But Alexis vows never to confirm this, no matter what happens to her.

Thoroughly frightened by stories of the tortures other people have undergone at the hands of the Director, Alexis Meade, a young and attractive woman, engaged to be married, can think of nothing that she, as a good citizen, should tell him. Later, she recalls that her mother had said once, as a joke, “Someday our Protector will protect us to death.” Treasonous words, and Alexis’ fiancé, while being tortured, admits that Alexis said that her mother did say them. But Alexis vows never to confirm this, no matter what happens to her.

Every generation has a choice to renew our American commitment to liberty and freedom or devolve into ego-driven power-mad tyranny. These morality tales keep that question in front of us. And the resort RG Marshall refers to at the end is the best (perhaps the only) sure course that doesn’t end in the death of “government for the people, of the people, and by the people”. Today is no different. Did the intelligence agencies attempt a coup? Was it perhaps subsidized from external sources? A generation that fails to ask these questions and ferret out honest answers ... truly frankly honest answers ... risks snuffing out the light. It may be eons before it can be rekindled; if ever. It’s merely a radio program, and this one was kinda silly, in fact; but we should let these stories remind us of our good fortune and our obligation. If not to ourselves, then to those who come after us.

Wow. The same perverts and moralistic atheist control freaks attempting to gain power across the free world today. All with the new tool of the internet.

This episode reminds me of an old East German joke: Honecker (the General Secretary): "I collect all the jokes about me." Mielke (Chief of the Stasi): "Well we have almost the same hobby. I collect all those who tell jokes about you." Given the Cold War times this episode was made, the subject matter is hardly surprising.

Some have left comments suggesting this fantastic episode is somewhat FCC dated and a little too far fetched. Now that we live in a country where you can instantly be “cancelled “ and lose everything you have including the time right to earn a living strictly because you say something or think something that someone else doesn’t deem exceptable makes this tale all too real and frightening. And good luck pronouncing your belief in god now. Our “protectors” will have you ridiculed and shamed for that too. How sad that a story of such a bleak future would actually come true in our own backyard

Thom you’re so correct. Today we have absolutely no privacy. Every word we say is listened to and store by the devices we call “cell phones.” And used daily against us, to sell us products and worse, to put us on a database of citizens who might in the future cause the criminal elite “trouble”.