User reviews

I grew up watching this as a really little kid in Brooklyn, my family loved this show and it's probably the reason I still suffer from Night Terrors to this DAY! I was 5 when I saw 1971 episode THE DOLL. (there are 2 different doll episodes, I think the other is from 73 and is called Doll of Death) Anyhoo, I was SO FREAKED out from watching that 71 The Doll episode that I still remember having horrible nightmares as a kid and I called the Episode The Doll with the Black Eyes. I couldn't sleep in a room with dolls, and I had a new strange raggedy ann type doll my aunt had just bought me, and she had Solid Black Eyes. I loved that doll, but could not sleep with it in my bed or anywhere in my room at night after this episode. I would make my Mom lock it up every night. Seriously!! I Never wanted to re-watch that episode growing up and even as an adult cannot sleep in any room with dolls. I finally re-watched this in 2004, I'm a grown woman and YES, it still CREEPED ME OUT!! It's like this episode gave me PTSD as a kid, and all those feelings of Terror came flooding back. I know, it sounds crazy, but it's TRUE! I haven't watched it since. LOL I'm creeped out just writing this and remembering how terrorized I felt as a child. Rod Serling was Great and I love him to this day, but his show Freaked me out and left my sleep disturbed to this day. But weird thing is I always Loved Horror Movies and can watch The Walking Dead alone at night with no problems, but Don't play the Doll with the Black Eyes for me, cause I don't think I will sleep for days. :o Great old school series with alot of creepy and disturbing episodes. ;D.

This great show did indeed fail to live up to its potential! It may have been as successful as Rod Serling's Twilight Zone have not the execs at Universal not order the time and format changed, and if Jack Laird not put in all those ridiculous short stories which didn't belong on the show! So, for the sack of compensation, I rated the series 10 stars instead of 9 which I would have giving it! Anyway, this was a great series, much like the Zone and my other favorite show The Outer Limits 1963! Some of my favorite stories include: "The Dead Man", "the Little Black Bag","Camera Obscura", "Cool Air", "the Caterpillar", and many more! May least favorite include: Jack Lairds comedic shorts (doesn't belong there), "Lindamenn's Catch"( annoying characters in it), "She Be Coming for You", "Nature of the Enemy", "the Big Supriase", etc.! And another reason why I am compensating this series is because of the butchering of the shows in syndication, I recommend watching only the original un-edited versions of this show!

A wonderful TV series filled with monsters, aliens, weird events, strange tales, evil people, and more. The show was hosted by Rod Serling - the original creator and host of the original "Twilight Zone". This series is not exactly like The Twilight Zone but will still shock and horrify some audiences.

Great actors, musicians, directors, writers and more for this incredible TV series! Worth watching if you're into fantasy, horror, thrillers and mysteries.

9.5/10.

Caught a few episodes of this once again, as part of a Memorial Day marathon on Encore's MYSTERY! Channel. In spite of the fact that it was mostly reviled by critics and not a few viewers, when it originally ran on NBC back in the early '70's, it now has garnered a cult following and I can definitely see why.

GALLERY in its own way, did for horror anthologies what TWILIGHT ZONE did for science fiction and fantasy. It's not as good as ZONE was in most respects, and I don't think that Rod Serling intended it to be. Free of the pressure of topping himself, which was something damn near impossible to do, GALLERY could be wildly uneven in the way the stories were featured, as it has been mentioned before, in terms of both quantity and quality. One story could take up an entire hour, while a half-hour tale could be accompanied by much shorter vignettes, some of them no more than LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE-quality blackouts, albeit it with endings that feature mayhem rather than marriage, though just as hokey.

A lot of the clothes, the special effects, the skewed photographic angles and lighting are positively outdated by today's standards, but that is a big part of the charm of revisiting a lot of the episodes, many which are all too familiar to the generation that grew up with GALLERY and its peer programs from this particular era.

Even more fascinating, however, is the chance to see movie and TV veterans rubbing elbows and sharing scenes with many "newbies," a lot of whom are established stars today, and the chance to see them cutting their teeth on '70's material is an interesting and sometimes enlightening experience. For example, one episode I viewed featured Kim Hunter, Harry Morgan and a very young Randy Quaid; another starred an up-and-coming actor named Bill Bixby, with Carol Lynley, Ned Glass and Donna Douglas (yes, as in "Ellie Mae Clampett," but without most of her corn-pone accent.)

Based on classic short stories by everyone from August Derleth and H.P. Lovecraft ("Pickman's Model"), to Charles Beaumont and Ray Bradbury, the adaptations varied in quality, but usually never suffered as much as the original stories. Even so, there were scripts, directing and acting that are still every bit as good as anything produced today, better even, since anthology shows such as this are in woefully short supply (though the revamped THE OUTER LIMITS is in reruns, and I've heard a new version of THE TWILIGHT ZONE is in the works.)

Case in point, is one of the episodes I saw in the marathon, called THE WAITING ROOM. From an original Rod Serling story, directed by one of the resident GALLERY helmers, Jeannot Szwarc, this was a masterfully dark Old West tale with a twist, and a Who's-Who of a cast that would put any character actor buff or fan of Western potboilers into High Noon Heaven: Steve Forrest, Buddy Ebsen, Lex Barker, Albert Salmi, Jim Davis and Gilbert Roland. This tale brought to mind a movie TNT did not so long ago called PURGATORY, but where that film needed ninety minutes, this episode delivered a similar punch in thirty.

Of course, there is the now-legendary work done in both the pilot movie and the series by some young, green, but talented kid with the unlikely last name of Spielberg, but if you should happen to catch this while channel-surfing, look beyond those prejudicial impressions, stop and give it a chance, especially if you haven't seen it in quite a while. There are plenty of misses that were made during GALLERY'S three-season run, but the hits, which can still leave trails of cranberry-sized goosebumps down the back of your spine, are definitely worth it. Don't believe me? Well, you'll know whether or not NIGHT GALLERY can still have an effect on you, if you still shudder when you read my closing sentence...

"...and the FEMALE LAYS EGGS...."

Often lost in the shadow of Rod Serling's first series, "The Twilight Zone," "Night Gallery" was a fascinating experiment in the anthology format. Instead of one story per episode, the hour was splintered into two, three, or four different stories of varying length. Some were quite brief, lasting no more than a minute; others lasted over 40 minutes. The quality often varied, too. A few of the little vignettes were quite bad. Some stories were quite good. And on more than a few occasions, this little mini-film festival on Wednesday nights produced segments that were as good as anything else on TV at the time. Classic episodes included "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar," "Pickman's Model" (both nominated for Emmys), "The Caterpillar," "Class of '99," "Green Fingers," "The Messiah on Mott Street," "The Sins of the Fathers," "The Doll," "Cool Air," "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," "A Question of Fear," "The Little Black Bag," and "The Dead Man." Because one of these classics could often be followed or preceded by a story of lesser quality, the series got a reputation for being wildly uneven. It was universally lambasted during its network run by near-sighted critics who were thrown off by its inconsistency, and missed the quality elements: intelligent, stylish writing by Serling and others, top-notch production values (particularly in cinematography and music), and innovative directorial touches. For its syndication run, the series segments were butchered to fit into a half-hour time slot, some losing half their length in the editing, and is a travesty, a mere shadow of its former self. Episodes of a boring ESP potboiler, "The Sixth Sense," were annexed into the syndie package with terrible results. Stick to the uncut version.

Often overlooked by the phenomenal success and pop culture landmark that Twilight Zone was and is, "Rod Serling's Night Gallery" was a much different show that never really lived up to it's potential. Viewed as three separate entities, i believe my thoughts will make more sense.

After the cancellation of "TZ" Serling wanted to get back into television with another show, but this time, he had a different idea. "Rod Serling's Wax Museum" was his idea, and it consisted of episodes introduced by Serling, who, as the curator of a wax museum, would introduce the evening's stories accompanied by a wax figure relating to the tale. While this concept was never realized, the idea was the starting point for Night Gallery. In 1969, Serling presented "Night Gallery", a made for TV movie that included three stories, each introduced by a different painting. "The Cemetery" , "Eyes" and "The Escape Route". Receiving high ratings and critical praise, the show was greenlighted by Universal as a rotating series for the 1970-1971 TV season.

The first season of "Rod Serling's Night Gallery", as it was now known, featured paintings revealed for each story, which now included several stories within the hour. As an anthology series, quality varied as different directors, and different script writers worked on different stories. However, "The Dead Man", "The House" "The Doll" and "They're Tearing Down Tim Reilley's Bar" which was nominated for a prime time emmy, stood out among the truncated first season.

Serling, who served as the on screen host of the show and it's public face, was back. However, it wouldn't last long. Producer Jack Laird, brought on board for the first season was the de facto boss. All script and editorial decisions were his. Serling, weary of the grind of weekly TV, had decided to take a smaller role in the day to day affairs of the show, assuming that as creator and host, he would be consulted on scripts, and other decisions, he was in for a rude awakening.

Beginning in the second, and best season, Night Gallery really got it's legs. The best of the series, in my opinion, are to be found here. Along with adaptations of great short fiction stories, such as "Cool Air", "Camera Obscura", "The Caterpillar", "Silent Snow Secret Snow", "A Death in the Family", "Pickman's Model", and many others, were excellent Serling originals, such as "Lindemann's Catch", "Deliveries in the Rear", and "Class of '99". One of the reasons is the great work of director Jeannot Szwarc, and cinematographer Lionel Lindon. However, strains were appearing between Serling and producer Laird, over the inclusion of short, comic viginettes, intended to round out the hour. Probably the most controversial aspect of this wonderful show.

For the third and final 1972-1973 season, short sighted executives at Universal mandated that NG be cut to 30 minute episodes, with more emphasis on American fiction, as they deemed adaptations of British fiction, over the head of the American audience. Despite several fine episodes, including the chilling "The Other Way Out", Rod Serling's Night Gallery was cancelled. In all 98 story segements, which ranged from 3-30 minutes a piece were filmed. In order to increase profits from the show, Universal butchered the series to fit into 30 minute segements for the syndication package, thereby gutting the souls of these wonderful stories. To add insult to injury, another series "The Sixth Sense", an ESP themed bomb, was grafted on to Night Gallery in the syndication package further destroying NG's reputation. Serling, contractually bound, introduced the Sixth Sense episodes, as if they were Night Gallery.

AFter the cancellation Serling stayed busy, but ultimately passed away in 1975, after surgery to correct a heart defect. He remained upset about the treatment he received by Universal and Laird until he passed away.

Years later, after viewing Night Gallery in it's original format, we can see that there were, for all of it's warts, flashes of brilliance from this series. Macabre, eerie, sometimes frighteneing, and even humorous stories were all to be found, with enough differences to make them very fresh, and enough similarities to make them classics. If you're a fan of well told stories, then Night Gallery is for you.

This has often been considered a poor cousin to Rod Serling's other series "The Twilight Zone", and while it isn't in that league, it did present a number of standout segments like 'The Caterpillar', 'A Question Of Fear', 'The Devil Is Not Mocked', and my favorite 'Silent Snow, Secret Snow'.

Rod would present each segment/episode by introducing a painting representing the basic story to be shown, and these paintings were usually quite chilling(like 'Pickman's Model'). There were some duds of course, mostly the comedic skits that were quite silly and pointless, though creator Jack Laird was said to be fond of them; season Two was the best of the three(take a bow Gerald Sanford!) Worth viewing, even if Mr. Serling wasn't as proud of it as he should have been...

Some episodes are fantastic. Most are dull, boring and go nowhere. Then there are those that so unbelievably stupid and obnoxious, it's hard to understand how they made it into this anthology in the first place. These are the "funny" episodes which were the hallmark of Jack laird's utter and complete incompetence. These steaming piles of dog excrement were so bad that they would not make the cut in a Junior High School talent show. The truly baffling part of all this is that this show had access to a huge amount of the most talented writers directors and actors available at the time.

The Man Who Died at Three and Nine

This is listed as episode s3, e28 of Night Gallery on another online TV episode guide of "Night Gallery."

Upon further research it was actually an episode of "Sixth Sense," s1,e5.

The common denominator is Rod Sterling.

This has confused me for quite some time when researching Night Gallery episodes. The last entry for the "Night Gallery" series also lists season 3 episode 50 as "The Sixth Sense," skipping all entries from episode 17 and jumping to 50.

Joseph Campanella was, as usual, quite excellent as Paul Crowley, a diplomat who sees visions of a beautiful woman drowning at the above mentioned "Three and Nine" clock times. He seeks the help of Dr. Rhodes but during his sessions he suddenly has an apparent change of consciousness and walks out.

I also believe that "Chandrika" is the woman in the water and can't find another reference to her to include here.

I was feeling nostalgic recently and began re-watching episodes of "The Night Gallery". As a kid, I loved it--and it often scared the crap out of me. But now, 40 years later, I can sure see the limitations of the show--limitations that only became more obvious the more shows you've seen. While I ADORE the idea of a horror anthology series, this one was undone by bad writing and too much re-tooling of a basically good idea.

The series is alternately called "Rod Serling's Night Gallery"--and this leads to the biggest problem with the show. While Serling's name is at the masthead, he actually only wrote a few episodes here and there--and wrote less and less as the series continued. Why the execs would NOT want Serling writing as much of the show as possible is beyond me--he was brilliant in all his previous work and you'd think a shelf full of Emmy Awards for writing would convince the high muckity-mucks to make him THE writer for the show. But, instead, it seemed like practically anyone (talented or not) could write for the show--and this became VERY obvious in season two.

This brings me to the next biggie damaging the show. It's rare to see a show's writing go downhill so fast as it did between season one and two. While season one was no masterpiece, some idiots thought the format needed retooling--and comedy shorts were added to the show in addition to the scary stuff. Some of the comedy was funny--most was not. But the big problem is that it totally disrupted the serious mood of the show and cheapened it. In effect, the series jumped the shark in season two.

The final big problem is that even if you ignore the comedy infused into "Night Gallery", you can't deny that the quality of the serious scripts dropped considerably. Many episodes were now pretty awful--so bad that I simply couldn't continue watching the shows. My time is too important to watch any more.

One of the most underrated TV series of the 1970s, and of all time, is this terrific collection of sci-fi and horror stories, hosted by Rod Serling. Often (wrongly) compared to Serling's other series, "The Twilight Zone"...the overall mood, and purpose of this series is different. The "Zone" was a collection of morality tales, disguised as sci-fi stories. A fantastic show, without a doubt, but the "Gallery" was designed purely to shock and entertain...and it certainly succeeded in that area.

So much great talent was on display in this series. The actors, writers, directors, and musicians were almost always top-notch. Though the decision to have multiple stories within each episode, did result in some mediocre results sometimes (especially with the campy vignettes), the quality of the better segments is what most remember best.

Among some of the better segments:

"They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar", with William Windom (in an awesome performance) as a has-been salesman who's beckoned by the ghosts of his past.

"The Doll", about a gruesome doll, sent to a British officer as revenge.

"The Tune in Dan's Cafe", about a haunted jukebox that plays the same song always.

"Green Fingers", with Elsa Lanchester as an elderly woman, harassed by a tycoon who wants her land, where she has an unusual knack for gardening.

So many more great ones. Some folks get turned off by the dated 1970s look to this show (the costumes, sets, bright color, excessive use of zooms/close-ups). If you can get past that aspect, and rather appreciate the show's camp value, you're sure to enjoy this unique and highly original horror series. It's a classic in my book.

Not every episode of Rod Sterling's Night Gallery is great, but a lot of them produce surprises. While Sterling himself serves as a haunting host taking us on an episodic tour through an extensive art museum, we are often stopping to gasp at photos whose texture varied with the artist. Sterling's catch phrase "Picture if you will..." fits this format but I believe he first uttered that phrase on Twilight Zone.

Though Rod is the host here, a lot of the work on this series is from others. Sterling is used as the magnet to draw viewers. Most of the work is horror but there are a few comedy blackouts here too. Some of these were mixed into NBC's Mystery Movie format, and the lengths vary from the 90 minutes of those, to one hour shows to even some 30 minute galleries in the final season.

NBC had a habit in this era of attracting top talent to these types of series and getting them to show off that talent. While there are a few episodes I would not recommend, most of this series presents good viewing. On Halloween night, the image of Rod Sterling in front of a painting introducing us to it will always seem fitting to the Halloween spirit in my mind.

I always love horror anthologies because with them not just do you have a great variety of stories but their a creative freedom to them, you can do just about anything.

This is both my favorite horror anthology show but also one of my favorite shows in general. This show I also feel has became a bit of a forgotten gem, yeah I know there have been a lot of other anthologies out there some like "The Twilight Zone", "The Outer Limits" (no surprises there), but this I just really love the best and I feel doesn't get the credit it deserves. It's also kinda a childhood relic since I seen this show when I was about 10 years old, so that's all the more reason this show is close to my heart.

I love the theme song it's one of my favorite theme songs ever, it has a creepy and rather menacing tune to it which perfectly fits. It was done on a modest budget but I thought they used it really well and I thought the effects were solid because they were all practical, though there really aren't many which is fine by me, effects aren't what power this show.

Rod Stirling is a great host, director, and writer as usual, his presence is almost easy to mistake this show for being a sequel to "The Twilight Zone" but it's not there is a difference; "The Twilight Zone" was more sci-fi and fantasy morality tales, this show is more horror, fantasy, and suspense stories. However what I really love is the art gallery he directs us in, which all consists of surreal and dark art all which are real paintings. This gallery I thought was awesome since both are my favorite types of paintings and seeing that gallery as a kid I wanted to make my own private art gallery that consisted of that art.

There are plenty of good and memorable stories, some which are really suspenseful and even scary. It's true there are some bad apples as well but all anthologies have their hits and misses. Some of my favorites are "The Way Out" which is like an E.C. comics Suspense story on a scum bag that is trapped in a maze. "Cold Air" which is an adaptation of a story from H.P. Lovecraft one of my favorite authors, about a scientist living off borrowed time, it's both sad and creepy. "The Catapilar" on a doomed man attacked by a Caterpillar , I'll admit this one always made me squirm. And my favorite on "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" which is beautiful, sad, but also really haunting and unsettling, it's a story left to your own interpretation and I love the narration from Orson Wells which adds to the atmosphere.

Like any great painting it's worth looking at, and like any great painting won't be forgotten.

Rating: 4 stars

I was 10 years old when this show debuted on T.V. back in 1970. I remember going to school the next day, and talking about the previous night's episode with my classmates. I would also draw images from the show while daydreaming in class; thats how much of an impact it had on me in those days! There is no doubt that Rod Serling was a genius and this anthology series shows why. My favorite episodes include- Pickmans Model, Cool Air, Messiah of Mott Street and Tell David. It was one of those fond memories from my childhood, and I am lucky enough to have found the first two season's on DVD. I also bought the companion book which is invaluable to any fan of the show. One of the great aspects of Night Gallery , is the chance to see not only veteran stars, but up and coming ones as well. Legendary director Steven Spielberg cut his teeth with the original T.V. pilot as well as a few episodes of the series. A true classic of the medium.

While The Twilight Zone featured science fiction stories, Night Gallery features short horror stories.

One of the best parts of Night Gallery is the creepy art gallery and unique painting displayed before each story.

I like Night Gallery more than The Twilight Zone. But I like horror more than science fiction.

2 of my favorite Night Gallery stories are The Painted Mirror and A Fear of Spiders. These 2 stories are so surreal and are two of the best stories I've seen from the show. I've seen a number of other great stories from Night Gallery, like The Tune in Dan's Cafe and The House. The Cemetery and Make Me Laugh are more great stories.

You can buy Night Gallery: The Complete Series on DVD. It includes all 98 stories. I bought The Complete Series on DVD and I love it. I love the fact I can now watch any of these stories anytime I want. Highly recommended.

I view "Night Gallery" as a television series of two halves. The latter one was mainly ruined by that rather overbearing producer, Jack Laird. It is nothing short of astonishing in how much authority his word carried at "Universal" studios where "Night Gallery" was made. However, the first half of this show - up until the end of the second season - contains some of Rod Serling's greatest work as a writer of television drama. There are too many classic stories to list here but the writing is easily on a par with the best that "The Twilight Zone" had to offer. That is, on a good day. At its worst, "Night Gallery" makes for rather cringeworthy viewing but this is definitely not the fault of Rod Serling. To be fair to the man, the studio had the writer tied down to one of those dreaded "iron-clad contracts." To the bitter end, Jack Laird was to always have the final say in any decision and this tended to undermine Serling's reputation for writing serious drama. He must have squirmed with embarrassment at some of the ludicrous nonsense that he was lumbered with. I can't say I blame him. When the series was cancelled in 1973 after three seasons, I would wager that no one was more relieved. "Night Gallery" places a good deal more emphasis upon the Horror genre, than on Science Fiction or Fantasy. The format was quite different as well. Usually with this kind of series, the viewers would see one story per episode. With the above series, you would watch as many as two dramatic stories and one rather quirky segment at the insistence of Laird. To cater for all of this, "Night Gallery" was allotted an hour's worth of air time. The 1969 pilot episode was much longer - 90 minutes altogether - and this consisted of three dramatic stories. My favourite one out of these, is still "The Cemetery." I won't give away any plot details but it is brilliantly written. The story's title is taken from a short story by H.P Lovecraft yet bears little relation. The acting from Roddy McDowall and Ossie Davis is superb. The other two stories from the pilot episode are also very good. There are a few differences between this and the regular series that followed in 1970. The pilot episode has a completely different opening credit sequence and different music. I enjoyed this though as the viewer is given the impression of walking along a dark corridor before reaching the gallery in question. I found it to be imaginative and slightly eerie. Whilst introducing each story via a different painting, Rod Serling keeps each one covered with a red cover. In the regular series, the paintings are in full view. The idea of this opening with Rod Serling, was to imagine him as a curator of an Art Gallery. As he escorts most of the customers out of the building upon closing time, he invites a few people to remain so he can unveil some slightly more unconventional paintings that are usually hidden from the public gaze. There is some footage of Rod Serling delivering an advertisement on television about the upcoming series. 1970 to 1972 saw some terrific episodes. The opening credit sequence for the regular series, was quite original in itself. Not many people had heard a synthesizer music theme for a major television show before. The blending of different characters and how they are distorted, works to good effect. The budget was fairly tight. According to one of the many directors who worked on "Night Gallery," a vital scene from a story was deemed unsuccessful after this horse and cart failed to appear on cue. The take was ruined as a result and after taking a deep breath, the director in question approached Jack Laird about renting the horse and cart again, knowing how hectic the filming schedule was. Laird became rather annoyed by this request but still reluctantly paid the $75 that was needed. The scene of the story was completed without any further delay. The most unusual and bizarre events occur in the lives of very ordinary people, once fate has intervened. There are some fine actors who bring this marvellous dialogue to life. Larry Hagman, Burgess Meredith, William Windom, Leonard Nimoy, Bradford Dillman, Sally Field, Bill Bixby, Vincent Price, Raymond Massey, Jack Cassidy, Diane Keaton, Joseph Wiseman, Gary Lockwood, David Carradine, Edward G. Robinson, Yaphet Kotto, a very young pre- "Luke Skywalker" Mark Hamill, John Astin, David McCallum, Leslie Nielsen, Steve Forrest amongst others. It was a wise move in employing trained actors, rather than those who were established stars. After all, it takes an actor to give this dialogue the credence it deserves. I enjoy the stories that have period settings as well as the ones that are contemporary. We have incidents involving haunted houses, Devil worship, Vampires, Werewolves and plenty more besides. I watched some of the third season episodes but they aren't half as good as the previous ones. About 85% of the total number of stories are great, so I'd stick with those. Rod Serling really excelled himself with some more highly entertaining but also thought- provoking television drama.

What to say about this one... This was a 'my generation' TV show. I was born too late to catch the original run of Twilight Zone and only get the 1970's reruns. But, I watched this as 'coming next week' attractions. It was a good show and still IS a good series. But, there are a lot of duds mixed in there with the gems. It's not as consistent as TZ. So, I have to base my ratings on the mix of good and bad episodes. There's also the part of it feeling like a TZ rip off at times. Rod Serling couldn't make a success out of TZ after the first few seasons and sold the rights to CBS. Production costs were too high and he believed that he would never recover the costs and make a viable go of it. That's the reasoning his widow has released about why he sold the rights in recent years. Must have been a bitter pill to swallow when he realized what it would go on to become. So, Night Gallery has always felt a little like a 'rip off' to me. That being said, if you've never watched it before, give it a chance There's lots of gems in there. They're just mixed in with a few duds.

I was a huge TZ fan even since I was a kid. When the only change I had to watch it was either try and stay up til 2AM on a schoolnight without my mom screaming at me, or trying to get our POS vcr to actually record at the time i put in. Still some of my greatest memories at like 10, middle of the night, dark room but for our old tube tv glowing, praying my ma doesn't come downstairs!

My uncle told me of Night Gallerys existence but sadly I never got a change to see it like literally 20 years later. Re-runs on Antenna TV or something, but something seemed really off about it. Come to find out for syndication they mutilitated the eps and merged some of them with Sixth Sense episodes! What the f**k! Must have been that killer cocaine in the 80s.

NIght Gallery is to horror what sci-fi is to twilight zone. And really its perfect follow up, if they operated like studios today they would just pay Serling to reboot TZ but worse, but they saved that for these wonderful PC times where Black Man makes twilight zone where every episode is 'imagine a crazy world, if you will, where a while family has a nice home, quiet neighborhood, and everyone gets along' such horror!

Learning about Rod Serlings sad lack of final decisions on the show thankfully doesn't hurt it too much. The inclusions of Jack Lairds 'funny' scenes grew on me one I got over the shock. I'd rather they just kept things serious, which I think is what Serling wanted.

If you havent checked out the show in the original broadcast eps, for sure do so, there was a full torrent going around a fews years back with a wonderful rip of the whole series.

Sadly television/films has seen talented people who are capable of writing smart scripts has long been pushed out of hollywood. I could become a writer on Kurtzmans crew if I showed up with meme coloured hair, wearing spandex pants and some LGBT lives matters t-shirt. I have plenty of terrible ST ideas too! And they wont understand its all ironic. Just to see what i could get away with going in undercover look just like the other 'writers' on staff.

TV and FILM from big studios is long, long dead. So treat yourself and your kids to Night Gallery. A show that can leave them either laughing, scared to sleep at night, or inspiration of their own to get into stuff. TV today does not inspire or capture information.

This latter Rod Serling series is in color, and can't hold a candle to the classic series that Serling was most famous for. In Night Gallery, the emphasis is more on horror. Each episode is supposedly related to a painting, which Serling references in his introduction to the episode. The episodes feature some fine actors, several of whom also appeared on Twilight Zone. Some of the same writers (including Serling) were also involved. All of this considered, most of the episodes just fail to resonate. At best, the show is "something to watch." There is nothing "classic" here. Also, most of the episodes consist of more than one story. Since the stories are not related to each other, what was the point of this? Like I said, the show is something to watch. Like I also said, it can't hold a candle to Serling's most famous series.

Just because the creator of the Twilight Zone (TZ), Rod Serling, was "involved" in this mess doesn't make it better than it was. For those of us who were around for both, it was an extreme disappointment. Those little blackout sketches were more often than not extremely cringe-worthy and no doubt embarrassing to Serling. And, let's keep in mind, that Serling didn't have the creative control that he was allowed in the TZ and it shows. What we often have here are stories that go nowhere, have no point or whose conclusion is illogical. Not necessary a bad show, but definitely forgettable and not worth some of the accolades heaped upon it here.