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By
WAYNE KLEIN
Rod Serling made pulp
respectable. As a writer of television and movie
dramas, Serling had few peers. His well thought
out plots, well-developed characters and the moral
lessons of his work, all derived from an old
fashioned sense of storytelling that had its roots
in the great playwrights. "The Twilight Zone"
broke new ground using its anthology format to
tackle everything from fantasy to science fiction
with a little sprinkling of horror along the way.
With "Night Gallery" Serling dipped into the well
of horror with a little touch of fantasy as well.
His clever framing stories involving the paintings
that "tell a story" made "Night Gallery just as
unique as "The Twilight Zone." If the series
became a tad inconsistent in later years, it was
because Serling had no creative control over the
direction of the series but was contractually
obligated to host it.
The strong pilot episode and first season
represent "Night Gallery" at its best. There are a
few lemons in the mix but usually that's due to
budget or execution (e.g. "The Nature of the
Enemy"). The highlights include, of course, the
pilot, "The Little Black Bag" and "They're Tearing
Down Riley's Bar." Guest stars Burgess Meredith,
Carl Reiner, Roddy McDowall, Ossie Davis, Joan
Crawford, Richard Kiley, Sam Jaffe and others help
bring these episodes to life.
The transfer varies in quality. The pilot looks
the worse for wear. There are considerable analog
artifacts in the form of dirt, hair and white
splotches. The picture improves as we move along.
While these may not be new digitally remastered
prints struck from the original negative, they
look good with solid colors (with the exception of
the pilot, which, again, has some fading. Since I
don't know what budget they had for restoring this
(every DVD has a budget to work with based on
potential sales for transfer, restoration, design,
packaging, etc.) it's hard to judge this set
harshly.
The chapter breaks make it a bit difficult to
navigate and get to individual stories but by
going to scene access, you're able to get to the
individual episodes. Most, however, don't have
individual breakdowns for each episode. The lack
of commentary (what about Richard Matheson for his
stories or Carol Serling?) is probably related,
again, to the budget for the set. A retrospective
documentary or featurette might also have been a
good idea as well. Perhaps we'll see both in later
sets.
I'm happy to see this finally released. What's
amazing is how well the best episodes of this
series have aged. Watching the pilot with my kids,
they noted it was creepy without resorting to gore
or excessive violence. I'm hoping that the
inclusion of episodes from seasons two and three
are nothing more than "tasters" for the future
boxed sets. Keep in mind, though, that Universal
may or may not release this set depending upon how
it sells. I'm looking forward to Season Two with
"Cool Air" and "Pickman's Model," two adaptations
of Lovecraft stories that still work very, very
well.
Overall, not a disappointment but there's
considerable potential that was missed in this
set. I hope that Universal will remedy this
situation for the next two sets (if they release
them). |
