I watched the first ep last night. Immediately recognized some of its failings: Not as tight as TZ. Weird 70’s camera angles rather then just concentrating on the story. BUT…
the base story for “The Dead Man” was literally one of the most horrific I’ve ever seen. A man is hypnotized to exhibit psychosomatic conditions on command. Our ‘mad scientist’ commands him to die but cant bring him back.* A year later its discovered the doctor gave him the wrong ‘code’ to come back. The doctors wife (who had an affair with the patient) runs down to rap the correct sequence on the coffin…show features a musctache-less Jeff Corey in a non western role. A huge plus for the ep is its avoidance of tropes. There’s no real bad guy. The ‘mad scientist’ is a very likable guy.
The second half of the ep features a verrrrrry handsome bearded Larry Hagman in a fun story about replacing his shrew wifes consciousness with a more good-hearted woman.
I’m gonna watch more eps. This one was fun. Does anyone know where I can stream the pilot? Which came before S1E1.
*Isn’t there an Edgar Allen Poe story like that? I seem to remember a part of an anthology movie where a man is caught between life and death and the doctor cant figure out how to let the guy die,
None of the stations carried TZ when I was growing up, so NG was my first exposure to Rod Serling. I didn’t get to see TZ until the mid 1980s. Anyway. . .
Despite having seen most of them over and over, there are a few that I still like rewatching. Among them are “Brenda,” The Tune in Dan’s Café," and “The Flip Side of Satan.” YMMV, obviously.
I read a book about Night Gallery, although I didn’t watch the show. The book said that the pilot episode featured Joan Crawford in a story called “Eyes”. Crawford was very annoyed that a young, inexperienced man was assigned to direct her segment. Yup, Steven Spielberg.
I’ve been catching it lately. Watched in the original broadcasts. A bit hoaky, but not bad. I still laughed and enjoyed the story twists. I remember glimpses of it here and there.
Be careful; in syndication, some “Night Gallery” episodes were really episodes of The Sixth Sense cut from their original hour-long formats. Give Rod Serling (the man who almost singlehandedly ruined the Emmys, but that’s another story) some credit; it was made quite clear in the opening credits which ones were which (also, the closing credits of the Sixth Sense episodes used that show’s theme music).
When I see it I keep thinking about how all the elderly people I know were in their 20s when it was on TV. When did we all get so old.
I didn’t think the plots were really that good compared to other anthology shows. The boy who predicted earthquakes was good though, but other than that I felt it was inferior to all the other twilight zone shows. The original, the 80s, the 2000s and the recent remake were all better than night gallery.
Me-TV cable channel carries it, and I’ve seen most of the episodes over the last few years. The quality is uneven, the video quality sucks, and the 1970’s hair and clothing and music and Gary Collins makes you think “what were they thinking?”
In spite of all of those things, there are some excellent episodes (like “The Caterpillar”, “The Sins of the Father”). I prefer the non-supernatural episodes; they had a bunch of witch-related episodes which are pretty stupid.
My absolute favorite is Conrad Aiken’s Silent Snow Secret Snow, narrated by Orson Welles with music by Paul Glass. When the son self-isolates at the end, it is both creepy and something that I know happens in real life. Today he’d be diagnosed with some kind of depression and possibly end up in an institution someplace. And nothing supernatural caused it!
I haven’t seen very many episodes, but I loved the pilot and a few of the others I’ve seen. No, I don’t know where it can be streamed, but it looks like the DVD box set is available on Amazon. You may want to confirm that it includes the pilot episode.
Here is a description of the three stories in the pilot. Warning: obviously major spoilers for anyone intending to watch it!! I think there may be differences between the described film and the actual televised pilot, as I seem to recall the stories being in a different order and the entire episode no longer than the hour length of the others.
According to the article, the most famous of the three stories in the pilot is “Eyes”, directed by a very young Steven Spielberg and featuring Joan Crawford, but to me “The Escape Route” is the most haunting and the real star of the three.
NBC/SyFy and about a half dozen other TV stations have their own streaming site together (I think they combined all their channels onto that) that streams night gallery. However you have to have dish or cable so you can sign in and use it to stream shows…
What was the 45-second quickie where the child is crying in the night for a glass of water, the father (someone like Charles Nelson Reilly) stumbles out of bed to bring the drink, and the kid turns out to be Frankenstein’s monster?
Extra points if you give a YouTube link, I’m sure it’s on there.