Night Gallery: The Complete First Season [DVD]

Finally, after nearly four decades, you can enjoy Night Gallery in its original form, instead of that bastardized version Universal has been peddling to TV ever since. There's no stock-footage padding or editorial butchery here, no Sixth Sense episodes masquerading as Night Gallery stories...just the episodes the way you remember seeing them on NBC. I'm going to take a bit of exception to the majority who appear to be panning this DVD set and acknowledge that yes, there are only six episodes in the first season; yes, there are no extras; no, the shows haven't been restored. But the inclusion of the pilot movie and a few second- and third-season episodes makes up for a lot of that, as does the aforementioned opportunity to see the episodes in the form in which they originally aired. You never see the pilot movie on TV anymore, so it's a joy to behold here. The format is only slightly different from what TV fans remember, with a different theme and score by Billy Goldenberg, who did not go on to do the series. It's unfortunate, because his music works well here. Also, the opening credits are quite literally sketchy, which is different from how they appeared on the TV series. Also slightly changed: the paintings are on easels, covered with red drop-cloths until Rod Serling lifts them to introduce each story. And -- this is important -- the paintings literally figure into the stories. Presumably this motif was not continued throughout the series (with a few exceptions) for obvious reasons: every episode can't somehow involve a work of art. As for the stories themselves, they are very good. The first one, "The Cemetery", is a sort of a modern ghost story, with murderous Roddy McDowell being spooked by a painting which keeps changing. The denouement is slightly cheesy in a Tales from the Crypt sort of way, and if anyone can't identify the person walking through the house at the end of the story, he's got to be blind. Much praise has already been heaped on "Eyes", the second story, so I won't even go there, although I will say that the story's "twist" is a little hard to swallow. No situation such as the one depicted could realistically pass for blindness. More than that I will not say, since I'd spoil the ending for you. The final story returns to one of Rod Serling's favorite themes: Jews and the Holocaust. "Escape Route" features an ex-Nazi looking for a place to hide from the Israeli secret police, and, unfortunately for him, he finds it. Then we move on to the series proper, and the introductory painting, "The Dead Man", gets the series off to a whiz-bang start. Based on a story by Fritz Lieber, it's a tale in which an audacious scientific experiment falls prey to base human emotion. Some may guess what the twist ending will be, but that doesn't make it any less entertaining or scary. Season 1, of course, also features the more familiar theme by Gil Melle, as well as some of the entire series' best episodes, including "The Doll" (a precursor to Chucky, and arguably scarier); "Certain Shadows on the Wall", a ghost story with a different kind of ghost; "The Lone Survivor", a new take on an old legend; "Pamela's Voice", a macabre/wry short story about murder and just desserts; and of course "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar", which was yet another one of Serling's whimsical fantasies about a man yearning to return to his past. Robert Prince's music underscores the episodes perfectly, though this music seemed to vanish with the advent of season 2. Overall, season 1 was the high point for the series. Season 2 had many of its own charms, but it was also more uneven, with a greater quantity of mediocre stories and, need we mention it, the much-derided comedy blackouts. Rounding out the DVD is a season 2 episode which has a decent assortment of spooky tales. Leaving out the silly "A Matter of Semantics", two others, "The Diary" and "Big Surprise", generate some nice surprises and shivers. The last story, "Prof. Peabody's Last Lecture", unfortunately falls on its face, wasting a great performance by Carl Reiner in what is essentially an extended comedy blackout. It's a shame to see such a nice buildup leading to an ending which would look more at home on a bad episode of Lost in Space. Finally, there are two episodes from season 3, "The Return of the Sorcerer" and "Whisper". The latter is entirely forgettable, with Dean Stockwell breaking the fourth wall to give the audience a languid narrative performance that just doesn't work. Nor is the tale particularly original. "Sorcerer", on the other hand, is a corker. Based on a short story by Clark Ashton Smith, it tells the tale of a young man hired to translate Arabic for a practitioner of the black arts, only to be terrified when he finds out exactly what it is he's translating. Scripter Halsted Welles added a new character, Fern, a woman who is a lot more "complicated" than she at first appears to be, and for once, such a brazen departure from the original story actually pays off handsomely, enriching the tale by adding new layers and texture without changing its intent. The final scene, a black Mass, is a series high point in its staging, acting and music (by Eddie Sauter). Even Vincent Price's slightly hammy acting works here, and with the exception of a couple of unnecessary dubs ("For power!"; "The woman is insatiable!"), everything clicks on every level to make this story wonderfully creepy, as well as one of the best realizations of Lovecraftian horror done on either the big or small screens. Unhappily, this was also a high point for season 3, which quickly became moribund and directionless. Interestingly, the composer of the raucous, discordant third season theme song is mentioned nowhere...possibly at the composer's request. (It may have been Sauter, but it doesn't specifically say so.) At any rate, it's a shrill piece that is a disappointing departure from the more subtle theme of seasons 1 & 2. Overall, what you have here is a nice, albeit short, introduction to the series, featuring some of the best stories it ever told. The only thing I would really complain about is that even with the pilot and a few bonus episodes, the DVD set is not worth the roughly $50-60 asking price. The set is more reasonably priced in the $35-40 range, so if you find it new or used at that price point, grab it, and enjoy once again the image and voice of Rod Serling leading you through his dark museum.

Night Gallery...where does one begin? For those like myself (or older) who grew up in the 70's, little explanation as to who Rod Serling was should be needed. Likewise, his creations such as Twilight Zone and Night Gallery require very little introduction. For those thrill seekers of younger generations however, a few words may indeed be in order...while Twilight Zone is still something of a household name, these days Night Gallery receives a bit less notoriety. Perhaps the best way to think of Night Gallery is as a collection of "short stories". Each episode typically contains 2 or 3 stories or mini episodes, although some are longer (or shorter) than others, with each episode introduced as a painting by Rod Serling..."a nightmare captured on canvas". To say that Night Gallery was something of a "reboot" (to use modern vernacular) of Serling's more classic and more recognized Twilight Zone is quite an inadequate analogy. While Gallery shares many similar themes with TZ, particularly that of science fiction and the macabre, in this reviewer's opinion Gallery was rather darker with a considerably larger creep factor. While TZ had a tendency to cover many ideas and not all of the episodes where horror related, (ala "Mr. Bevis" and "Cavender is Coming"), Gallery tends to stick more with the macabre (even when they're poking fun at it). Unlike so much of modern horror that relies on shock value and hack & slash brutality, so much of which modern audiences have been rather desensitized to, while it does have moments here and there, Night Gallery tends to be a bit more cerebral. Instead of trying to terrify viewers with blood, guts, gore and chainsaws, Gallery is the type of viewing that tends to seep into one's subconscious to abuse the viewers imagination, similar to the way Hitchcock had a tendency to do. It's the kind of viewing that can still give a few folks nightmares, not so much because of what they saw on the screen, but because of the seed that was planted in the back of the brain. As a person who still remembers when this show first aired, for me personally it still maintains much of it's potency. Is it a bit dated? To see actors like John Astin still in his prime, the answer to that would have to be something of a "yea...probably". For modern audiences who've had their imagination utterly beaten into submission by the likes of Steven King, John Carpenter and Wes Craven, Night Gallery may not have the edge that many people today seem to expect from a good creep fest. The feel of the series over-all is more akin to that of The Shining...except without a crazed Jack Nicholson bursting thru the door with an axe. There tends to be a somber, almost ethereal feeling to Night Gallery that's most fitting for the content. For those of us with a taste for such entertainment, Night Gallery is still one of those series that's best viewed at 1 in the morning, under the covers with the lights out and a bowl of popcorn, while you're half asleep (which isn't intended as an insult in ANY way!). The cast of the various episodes, is a veritable "who's who" of 60's and 70's actors. Joan Crawford, Roddy McDowell, John Astin, Tom Bosley, Sam Jaffe, Burgess Merideth, Diane Keaton, Larry Hagman, Agnes Moorehead, John Colicos, Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, David Carradine, Patty Duke, Cesar Romero, Lindsey Wagner ...even Vincent Price and the great Bela Lugosi and even Orson Wells pokes his head in for a voice over...the list is rather impressive to say the least. Likewise the production values were also quite high, particularly considering that this was an era long before the extensive use of green screen and CG. Visually the episodes still stand up rather well when one factors in that these were shot in the early 70's. ..scenes with "computers" for example still had those big ol' spinning reel to reel tapes, as apposed to the average laptop one sees today. Don't expect to see an Ipod or Smart Phone here...people used rotary phones and still dialed up the operator back then! That said, while a bit subjective I think there is an element to Night Gallery that modern productions lack as well. Because CG hadn't really been invented yet (beyond the likes of Godzilla and Ray Harryhausen that is) the directors and producers used a degree of imagination...the use of slow motion and unusual camera angles for example...to build suspense and enhance the visual quality of the story telling. There was an art to television production back then that some could argue has been lost in recent decades. The quality of this DVD set is, in my not so humble opinion, superb. I've seen a negative comment or two regarding the preservation/restoration of these episodes, however I must say that the quality FAR exceeds that of the day when my father had to fish the UHF antenna (metal coat hanger) around on top of the old Zenith 19". In this case, I would simply offer people a sense of perspective...sure stereo CD's don't sound as "awesome" as HD 7.1 surround sound, but then they still sound a far sight better than the scratchy old 78's that my grandparents would listen to on the Victrola! In this case, on my 27" crt at least, the colors are crisp, vivid and sharp and the sound is excellent. While this set does include the original pilot episode, don't expect a great deal as far as "dvd extras" go...it's not like Serling was doing Peter Jackson style blogs back in the early 70's and you won't find many (any) commentaries on this set. These are however the original versions of the episodes (as I remember them at least) as apposed to the utterly hacked versions that later appeared in syndication. For any fan of Rod Serling or Night Gallery, that alone makes this set a must have for the collection. I'm not going to go too much into the individual episodes themselves as there's PLENTY written about that already...if you really need a spoiler or two, they're not hard to find on the internet. I will say that like virtually every tv show ever produced, some episodes do stand out more than others. Obviously even Twilight Zone had a few klunkers and certainly all the greats from The Honeymooners to Star Trek and onward have had at least a few episodes here and there where people will sit there, scratch their heads and ask, "What the hell were they thinking???". On the other hand, episodes like "The House" can still leave the viewer a bit creeped out (one I still remember from the early days) and here over 40 years later, such episodes still stand up well. That said, I don't think Night Gallery had any truly "bad" episodes...even "Pamela's Voice" had a certain comedic factor that has to be appreciated. Like Twilight Zone and every other tv show, there will always be a few favorites and a few that were just "ok". Finally I will say that Night Gallery, like Twilight Zone, being a rather specific genre, along with being a tv show from the early 70's, is likely to appeal to a fairly specific audience. If Disneyesque is your thing, even today Night Gallery may be a bit disturbing. If you crave the mindless, redundant slash and gore of Craven, you could be a bit disappointed. If you don't really know what "macabre" actually means, you may not get it. If however you're like me and grew up on the legend of Rod Serling and still enjoy those good night frights, then this collection is certainly a must have and should bring back many pleasant...and somewhat disturbing memories :-)

Galería Nocturna - Vol. 1 [DVD ] No puedo valorar objetivamente esta serie, está emocionalmente vinculada a mi infancia, cuando la veía cada semana aun sabiendo que luego sería incapaz de dormirme despreocupadamente pues, como niño, no dejaba de darle vueltas a lo que acababa de ver. La imagen es muy buena (salvo en el primer episodio, que fue el piloto y se aprecia suciedad en el metraje aquí y allá), el doblaje es español latino y lo único que echo de menos es que no tenga subtítulos en castellano. No lamento la compra

Wunderbar, dass Rod Serling die Twilight-Zone Serie, diesmal in Farbe, fortgesetzt hat ! Fir Episoden sind etwas länger, etwas abgerundeter und auch etwas ausführlicher und sind wirklich ein Genuss, können, wie Twilight Zone, immer mit Freude wieder einmal geschaut werden.

Des histoires pleines de terreur et de suspense écrites par des meilleurs auteurs et bien adaptées à l'écran. Bon rapport qualité-prix.

finally i found it, i've been looking my entire life. as a kid i saw the pilot episodes and forgot the name of the series. quick question on fb i got my answer!!!, but one copy does not have the pilot ep's, lucky this did. great stories defo worth a trip down memory lane.

Super product