Rod Serling is perhaps best known these days for creating, writing the lion’s share of scripts for, and hosting The Twilight Zone. Serling was involved with another series that showcased tales of horror, science-fiction and fantasy, which is fondly remembered by many genre TV fans. Night Gallery ran for three seasons on NBC in the early 1970s, following a pilot film which aired in 1969. The Night Gallery TV movie featured three tales of terror, all penned by Serling. The second segment of the pilot, entitled “Eyes,” starred Joan Crawford and Tom Bosley, and was the directorial debut of a young man named Steven Spielberg. The pilot was well-received, and during the 1970-71 TV season, Night Gallery premiered as part of a rotating group of shows called Four In One. Night Gallery’s hour-long episodes contained several segments of varying lengths. Serling hosted the series, standing in an art gallery, where he would refer to paintings (beautifully crafted by artist Tom Wright) which tied into the stories which aired that evening. In addition to the uncanny paintings rendered by Wright, the eerie theme music by Gil Melle helped add to the otherworldly atmosphere of the series. In its freshman year, Night Gallery offered episodes featuring Twilight Zone veterans Burgess Meredith, Agnes Moorehead and William Windom in memorable roles, and also also included appearances by Larry Hagman, Joanna Pettet, Diane Keaton, Phyllis Diller and John Colicos.
Night Gallery generally leaned more into the horror and fantasy genres than science-fiction, and many of its best-remembered episodes were the ones that were genuinely eerie. These frightening entries included “The Doll,” an adaptation of a short story by Algernon Blackwood, and “Camera Obscura,” based on a story by Basil Copper. Serling wrote a number of original episodes for the series throughout its run, such as “Lone Survivor” and “Class of ‘99” and also contributed adaptations of classic tales by H.P. Lovecraft and Davis Grubb. A number of talented directors worked on the show, including John Badham, Jeannot Szwarc and John Newland. During its second season, Night Gallery, now airing as a standalone series, began including brief segments sandwiched between the longer stories. These “blackout” vignettes were often comedic in tone, and were the brainchild of producer Jack Laird. Serling clashed with Laird over them, as the writer-host felt their often lowbrow humor didn’t fit the overall style of the show. However, Serling didn’t have the kind of creative control on Night Gallery that he’d enjoyed on The Twilight Zone, so he had little say in the matter. For its third and final season, the series was cut to a half hour in length, though it still managed to offer some solid episodes, including “The Girl With The Hungry Eyes” based on the classic story by Fritz Lieber.
When Night Gallery entered syndication, the content of the show was drastically altered. The series was syndicated in a half hour format, so the longer segments from the first two seasons were cut to fit thirty minutes including commercials, while the shorter ones were expanded by adding unrelated stock footage, or by repeating shots and sequences, thus padding them out to the necessary length. Night Gallery only aired 43 episodes during its run, so in order to create the number of entries required to sell the series for syndication, Universal added episodes of the short-lived, hour long series The Sixth Sense, starring Gary Collins as an investigator of psychic phenomena, to the syndication package. The Sixth Sense episodes were severely edited to fit the half hour format, and Serling was brought in to film new introductions for them. For many years, Night Gallery could only be seen in these re-edited and re-worked versions, which diluted the impact of the best episodes of the series.
In a move that should delight fans of the show, Kino Lorber video is now issuing the series on Blu-ray. The first season set (which includes the pilot film) was made available last year, and the second season has just been released. These beautifully remastered editions feature insightful and compelling commentaries on every episode by genre experts like Tim Lucas, Kim Newman, and Amanda Reyes as well as filmmakers such as Guillermo Del Toro. There are also featurettes included which explain how the series was altered for syndication, a look at the paintings showcased in the show, and a retrospective on the series featuring interviews with guest stars and crew members. If you remember watching Night Gallery on TV in the 1970’s, and are a devoted fan of the series, as I am, these terrific Blu-ray sets will warm (or is that chill?) your heart. They’re highly recommended. Here’s a promo created for the series when it aired on the cable channel Mystery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtM3jBTOnO0.
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