Night Gallery (1969 - 1973)
To be fair, I'm still on season 2, but I'm struggling to get into this, it's off the mark for me, which is a shame, as I loved
The Twilight Zone.
So far, the strongest episodes are those written by Rod Serling, but much like some of my least favorite episodes of
TTZ, some my least favorite ones here are the ones where the characters are pining for their youth, their innocence, being a kid. (
Walking Distance, A Stop at Willoughby, Static, Kick the Can). Sure, I like those episodes on some levels, but I feel that the pining for "simpler times" just gets a bit grating, I've tried to recapture by youth in some areas too, but nostalgia is a tough one, and you can't go back.
To which, something like
They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar just doesn't capture me now, as much as I though it did years ago. Maybe because I'm closer in age (42) to the main character's age (48) in that episode, but in spite of the great performances by William Windom and Diane Baker, Windom's character just annoyed me by the end, with his constant reminiscing and struggling to move past things that happened nearly 20 years earlier. Let it go, man! Move on, in spite as difficult as it may be, otherwise the self-wallowing ughhhh.
I don't know, maybe people did drink and smoke harder back then, and where candles burning at both ends, because Rod looked rough and died when he was ~50.
However, I think what else is missing the mark for me here, is that while episodes of
TTZ were of the anthology type,
Night Gallery does like 2-3 stories per episode, and some might be only a few minutes, which can feel rushed, but so can longer segments.
But I think what's missing for me, is that in the
TTZ, they felt like real people, in unusual circumstances. Here, they feel like fictional caricatures, in fictional circumstances. I'm struggling to buy into some of the stories.
Also, I'm not getting the random vampire curios at all, and like
TTZ, several episodes featuring Nazis in some way. Seems slightly out of place, given that this show was on at the end of the Vietnam War.
Some other episodes are just terrible to me, like
Brenda or
Whisper. Which is also too bad, as the acting is decent to good, but the plots are just awful.
I'm tending to like the more realistic episodes and disliking the more fantastic.
Another issue I'm having, is just how the discs are mastered, I can tell that they didn't figure to release them all as a set, but season by season, as some episodes are on season 1 discs as 'bonuses', and it screws the episode order all up for me.
Joanna Pettit appeared in 4 episodes of the series and was quite beautiful in her prime. Her acting in the ones I've seen is pretty good as well.