Any love for the Gallery?
 

Although a quite flawed series, there were some really stories in NG.

My issue with the series was that some of these stories weren't given time to develop which hurt them.

Im slowly working my way through season 1. I'm finding it enjoyable, but like you say it is a bit flawed.

I'm yet to be knocked off my feet by it. Some of them are so derivative of Twilight Zone episodes too. But I don't think I've gotten to any of the episodes that are considered classics yet. They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar is coming up soon, so maybe that'll be the one!

I love Night Gallery. I like it even though it has its faults. Except those flipping two / three minute gag stories in Season Two that Jack Laird wrote.

Tim Riley's Bar is amazing, The Doll is great cheesy fun too from Season One.

Season Two's patchy but The Caterpillar is an incredible episode. Also give Pickman's Model and A Fear Of Spiders a go.

I think the writing isn't as strong in Night Gallery as Twilight Zone but when it works it's really effective.

The pay-off at the end of The Doll is really creepy, but also a lot of fun.

An episode I really liked was the graveyard story from the pilot. However, like most stories from the Gallery, I felt it's ending wasn't played out well enough to compliment the slow build.

One episode that creeped me out as a kid (I am sure it was a NG episode, but apologies if I am wrong) itwas about a painting that came to life(I think it was a pirate), I am sure if I viewed this now I would have a different view.

Pirate and paintings
 

At a guess it's probably The Escape Clause from the pilot. That features a fisherman on a boat painting which comes to life. There's also a bit about a man being, effectively, trapped in a picture of hell. So it's probably where the scare came from when you were a kid.

I completed watching the first season of Night Gallery a few weeks back and in my opinion there are only two good segments out of the seventeen in total. Those segments are “The Escape Route� and “They’re tearing down Tim Riley’s bar�, which both get 8 out of 10 ratings from me.

When it comes to the other fifteen segments, I thought “Eyes�, “The Cemetery� and “The House� were decent, whereas the rest ranged from average to poor in standard, so overall I was a bit disappointed with this first season.

From what I have read online though, the show does improve in season two and season two is considered the best of the three seasons. You also get 23 episodes and about 60 segments in season two, whereas with season one it was just 7 episodes featuring (as already mentioned) 17 segments.

I'm not far into season 2, but I'd definitely agree with that. It seems to really hit it's stride in the first few stories.

I wish they'd hurry up and release Season 2 on Region 1.

DVDs
 

The Region 1 is available on UK Amazon for £20

As for a Region 2 release I'm less hopeful. It's been three years since S2 was released in America and there's still no sign.

The fact that it's on Hulu in the States as well means I doubt there will be much of a push to get a decent package for season three out either.

:(

Night Gallery is currently less than £10 on Amazon. I still haven't seen any, but I want to. I understand that Spielberg started out on that show!

Yeah, he did 2 episodes shortly before making Duel.

But, as a big Spielberg fan, their not his best efforts. Eyes is a bit slapdash in places and Make Me Laugh is good in places but probably doesn't hold up on today's audiences.

Despite the horrible Laird vignettes...
 

I love the The Cemetary, Escape Route, The Dead Man and The Doll, but Season 2
is really where the show picks up quality wise.

Highly recommended from Season 2:

A Death in the Family

Class of '99

Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay (For Jeanette Nolan's creepy Aunt Ada alone.
Check out her Thriller performances as well.)

A Fear of Spiders

Marmalade Wine (One of the only dark humor episodes that works.)

Silent Snow, Secret Snow

A Question of Fear (Leslie Nielson as you've never seen him before)

Pickman's Model

Cool Air (Bittersweet and 'chilling' love story.)

Camera Obscura (The last few minutes gave me nightmares as a child.)

The Messiah on Mott Street

Green Fingers (Compare the feeling of the ending to Gollum's last moments
alone in The Two Towers. There's just this chilling stillness that can get to you.)

Deliveries in the Rear

I'll Never Leave You - Ever

The Sins of the Fathers (one of the most disturbing stories I've ever seen on
television...and it's all in the performances.)

The Caterpillar (An unforgettable episode that most cite as the best.
I can't imagine what it must have been like to view 'Sins' and 'Caterpiller'
in back to back weeks during the original airing.)



Also recommended from Season 3 'Something in the Woodwork'.


Despite the production problems, as well as the highly publicized 'creative
differences' between Serling and Laird...this was a landmark period for
television horror.

For anyone interested in Night Gallery, Orange Monkey does a fine podcast over at TheTwilightZoneNetwork.com that looks at each episode:

The Twilight Zone Network - Home

Yes! What I have seen of it I have liked. Even the lesser tales seem to have a certain atmosphere I have not found in any other TV show.

Episode question
 

When I was a 10 year old kid, I saw an episode of Night Gallery in syndication that shook me to my foundations. I don't know which episode it was, though. I've been through the various episode guides in search of it and none of the descriptions seem to match my memory of the show.

I don't know the entire plot of the episode, but the visuals that stand out are of a man or two men walking outside at night and some sort of shadowy creature is watching him/them from within some bushes. All you could see of the creature were his glowing red eyes. The creature seemed to be following them. A scene later on was, if I recall, in a basement room, possibly a study, and characters saw the eyes staring in through the high windows from ground level outside. By the end of the episode, the creature itself finally appeared and I think killed one of the other characters. It was fairly ape-like or maybe wolf-like. But had the red eyes. Those images haunted me for a long time.

The closest episode description I've found in the episode guides is Pickman's Model. I watched some of it on Hulu to see if it was the one. But while the creature from it is certainly scary enough, there are no outdoor night time scenes in the version on Hulu. And I don't remember the monster attack at the end being nearly as drawn out as Pickman's Model.

Any suggestions for what this episode might be?

Night Gallery?...
 

Hey Juice, is there any possibility that this was not a Night Gallery episode?

The only one that this vaguely sounds like to me is a season 3 episode
called 'Hatred Unto Death' starring Steve Forrest of S.W.A.T. fame.

Not allowed to post links yet...but look at imdb for more info.

From what you describe, it sounds even more like an episode from the 80's
Creepshow movie called 'The Crate' with Fritz Weaver, Hal Holbrook and
Adrienne Barbeau.

Possibility?

Doesn't look like Hatred Unto Death is it, either. I just Hulued it and it's not what I saw.

Good guess on The Crate, which is kind of similar in creature to what I'm thinking of, but I didn't see Creepshow until a few years after this Night Gallery episode.

I had also wondered if it was possibly an episode of Sixth Sense, which was a non-Serling series that apparently got bundled into Night Gallery syndication, including newly filmed intros by Serling. I looked through an episode guide for that series, too, though and didn't see anything familiar.

Only thing concerning The Sixth Sense is that those shows didn't deal in
the supernatural or monster genres.

Hated that they bundled that into the syndication package with NG.
I have many painful memories of settling in to watch re-runs of Night Gallery,
only to be greeted with Gary Collins 'uncharismatic' face!

That show was just poor.

I got the Night Gallery DVD the other day and just watched the Pilot episode (with the three stories). It's an intersting one this as the stories are all brilliant but, as has been mentioned, they are flawed. The first story The Cemetery for instance is a great tale [SPOILER!] but I felt like the ending totally killed it and felt added on in an attempt to outdo the twists The Twilight Zone were known for.

When I was a kid NIGHT GALLERY was on late some nights, thought the way the intros were handled were often much better than the story that followed, something somehow spooky about those pictures, tho if I watched them nowadays I'd have the lights off and put the telly to B/W and skip some of the stories and just watch the intro, oh well fond memories.

Finally season 3 is getting a region 1 release!

http://www.thetwilightzonenetwork.co...ion-1-dvd.html

Season 3!...
 

...and that means Tom, that one of my all time favorites will finally be
mine...'Something in The Woodwork'.

Geraldine Page is fantastic in this one...and Jamie is all kinds of creepy.

Can't wait!

Keep up the great work Tom!

Hey Juice, long after the fact...but what about 'There Aren't Any More Macbanes' from Season 2?

Some were hit and miss but wouldn't mind snagging a complete collection. There were some episodes adapted from short stories from the likes of Fritz Leiber that would be well worth watching. Got S1 and S2 on import. Any chance of an S3?

They were okay, I guess, but I really found the pilot very underwhelming. I'm watching NG for the first time ever, and am not sure I would've stuck with it past the pilot if I hadn't heard that some really great stuff comes in the future. The painting-swapping plot point in "Cemetery" really doesn't quite work (although I guess we could say McDowell's character - oh, that awful accent! - was so weirded out he just didn't notice the painter making the substitutions rapid-fire there at the end... maybe several small blackouts?). "Eyes" is marred by the plot point ex machina of the blackout - and, even in a blackout, you can see stuff (although I guess one could argue that her eyes were so new, they weren't up to snuff). And the one about the former Nazi... did he just not notice that the painting had been changed? (Let alone the problematic imagery of the crucifixion as a metaphor for the Holocaust.)

Already out in the states (See above posts) with WITCHES FEAST (Missing from Season 2 I think)

I'm here merely to register my love for The Night Gallery. It is a late discovery for me in a way, I wasn't around when it was first on, any shows like this I love though. I'm slowly working my way through them though, I don't want to watch them all at once as I like the idea of having something I haven't seen left to watch.

Night Gallery was really good.

I suppose comparisons between the Night Gallery and the Twilight Zone are inevitable given the Serling connection, but I think the Night Gallery was an overall better show, but that the best of TZ (Nightmare At 20,000 Feet, The Howling Man, The Grave, etc) was better than the best of the Night Gallery, if that makes sense. Still, when the NG was firing on all cylinders it was a pretty formidable piece of television.

Would Cool Air be baaed on a certain Lovecraft story perchance??