"Night Gallery" (1970) TV series 1970-1973

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Directors:

Allen Baron
Leonard Nimoy

Writer:

Rod Serling (teleplay) (3 episodes)

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3

Release Date:

16 December 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Mystery | Fantasy | Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Plot:

Host Rod Serling presents tales of horror illustrated in various paintings.

Plot Keywords:

Painting | Black Comedy | Anthology | Supernatural | Vampire

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Primetime Emmys. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Rod Serling

...

Himself-- Host / ... (47 episodes, 1970-1973)

Also Known As:

Rod Serling's Night Gallery (USA) (alternative title)
Rod Serling's Wax Museum (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

50 min (44 episodes)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:TV-PG | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 (video rating)

Filming Locations:

Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company:

Universal TV

Trivia:

John Astin appeared in three separate episodes of "Night Gallery" (1970). During each episode, his character was killed, and during two episodes, his character found himself in Hell. Also directed three episodes of the show.

Quotes:

Rod Serling: Good evening, and welcome to a private showing of three paintings, displayed here for the first time. Each is a collectors' item in its own way - not because of any special artistic quality, but because each captures on a canvas, and suspends in time and space, a frozen moment of a nightmare.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Steven Spielberg and the Small Screen (2004) (V)

Serling series has informed cult following

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.