I view "Night Gallery" as a television series of two halves. The latter one was mainly ruined by that rather overbearing producer, Jack Laird. It is nothing short of astonishing in how much authority his word carried at "Universal" studios where "Night Gallery" was made. However, the first half of this show - up until the end of the second season - contains some of Rod Serling's greatest work as a writer of television drama. There are too many classic stories to list here but the writing is easily on a par with the best that "The Twilight Zone" had to offer. That is, on a good day. At its worst, "Night Gallery" makes for rather cringeworthy viewing but this is definitely not the fault of Rod Serling. To be fair to the man, the studio had the writer tied down to one of those dreaded "iron-clad contracts." To the bitter end, Jack Laird was to always have the final say in any decision and this tended to undermine Serling's reputation for writing serious drama. He must have squirmed with embarrassment at some of the ludicrous nonsense that he was lumbered with. I can't say I blame him. When the series was cancelled in 1973 after three seasons, I would wager that no one was more relieved. "Night Gallery" places a good deal more emphasis upon the Horror genre, than on Science Fiction or Fantasy. The format was quite different as well. Usually with this kind of series, the viewers would see one story per episode. With the above series, you would watch as many as two dramatic stories and one rather quirky segment at the insistence of Laird. To cater for all of this, "Night Gallery" was allotted an hour's worth of air time. The 1969 pilot episode was much longer - 90 minutes altogether - and this consisted of three dramatic stories. My favourite one out of these, is still "The Cemetery." I won't give away any plot details but it is brilliantly written. The story's title is taken from a short story by H.P Lovecraft yet bears little relation. The acting from Roddy McDowall and Ossie Davis is superb. The other two stories from the pilot episode are also very good. There are a few differences between this and the regular series that followed in 1970. The pilot episode has a completely different opening credit sequence and different music. I enjoyed this though as the viewer is given the impression of walking along a dark corridor before reaching the gallery in question. I found it to be imaginative and slightly eerie. Whilst introducing each story via a different painting, Rod Serling keeps each one covered with a red cover. In the regular series, the paintings are in full view. The idea of this opening with Rod Serling, was to imagine him as a curator of an Art Gallery. As he escorts most of the customers out of the building upon closing time, he invites a few people to remain so he can unveil some slightly more unconventional paintings that are usually hidden from the public gaze. There is some footage of Rod Serling delivering an advertisement on television about the upcoming series. 1970 to 1972 saw some terrific episodes. The opening credit sequence for the regular series, was quite original in itself. Not many people had heard a synthesizer music theme for a major television show before. The blending of different characters and how they are distorted, works to good effect. The budget was fairly tight. According to one of the many directors who worked on "Night Gallery," a vital scene from a story was deemed unsuccessful after this horse and cart failed to appear on cue. The take was ruined as a result and after taking a deep breath, the director in question approached Jack Laird about renting the horse and cart again, knowing how hectic the filming schedule was. Laird became rather annoyed by this request but still reluctantly paid the $75 that was needed. The scene of the story was completed without any further delay. The most unusual and bizarre events occur in the lives of very ordinary people, once fate has intervened. There are some fine actors who bring this marvellous dialogue to life. Larry Hagman, Burgess Meredith, William Windom, Leonard Nimoy, Bradford Dillman, Sally Field, Bill Bixby, Vincent Price, Raymond Massey, Jack Cassidy, Diane Keaton, Joseph Wiseman, Gary Lockwood, David Carradine, Edward G. Robinson, Yaphet Kotto, a very young pre- "Luke Skywalker" Mark Hamill, John Astin, David McCallum, Leslie Nielsen, Steve Forrest amongst others. It was a wise move in employing trained actors, rather than those who were established stars. After all, it takes an actor to give this dialogue the credence it deserves. I enjoy the stories that have period settings as well as the ones that are contemporary. We have incidents involving haunted houses, Devil worship, Vampires, Werewolves and plenty more besides. I watched some of the third season episodes but they aren't half as good as the previous ones. About 85% of the total number of stories are great, so I'd stick with those. Rod Serling really excelled himself with some more highly entertaining but also thought- provoking television drama.

Night Gallery was a decent follow up to Serling's vastly superior Twilight Zone series of a decade earlier. Leaning more toward the macabre, Night Gallery's adaptation of short stories produced some memorable episodes during its short run, including "The Caterpillar", "Green Fingers" and "The Doll". Serling's own feelings toward the show were lukewarm at best. Erring in judgment at the outset, Serling thought the producers would routinely defer to him on outside scripts and creative control of the show. He quickly realized they would do no such thing, and his disenchantment with stories that "didn't say something" eventually reached a crescendo. Nonetheless, Serling was contractually bound to host "NG" until its cancellation.Night Gallery fell victim to those who compared it (both unfavorably and unfairly) to episodes of "The Twilight Zone". Also hurting the series were episodes that were not of uniform length and the horrific "comedic" vignettes that producer Jack Laird found fit to round out each segment, many times ruining what was an otherwise effective, dramatic (half)hour of television.The show boasted some fine performances and some Emmy nominated segments, yet strangely, the show was neither embraced nor promoted by studio execs who clashed with Serling's concept of what the show should be. Fed up with the industry, Serling would die only a couple of years after "NG" left the air- a sad finale to a tremendous writer and major contributor to television.

Not every episode of Rod Sterling's Night Gallery is great, but a lot of them produce surprises. While Sterling himself serves as a haunting host taking us on an episodic tour through an extensive art museum, we are often stopping to gasp at photos whose texture varied with the artist. Sterling's catch phrase "Picture if you will..." fits this format but I believe he first uttered that phrase on Twilight Zone.Though Rod is the host here, a lot of the work on this series is from others. Sterling is used as the magnet to draw viewers. Most of the work is horror but there are a few comedy blackouts here too. Some of these were mixed into NBC's Mystery Movie format, and the lengths vary from the 90 minutes of those, to one hour shows to even some 30 minute galleries in the final season.NBC had a habit in this era of attracting top talent to these types of series and getting them to show off that talent. While there are a few episodes I would not recommend, most of this series presents good viewing. On Halloween night, the image of Rod Sterling in front of a painting introducing us to it will always seem fitting to the Halloween spirit in my mind.

If your anything like me, you've probably (to quote Marcellus Wallace) scoured the Earth for "Make Me Laugh," the second of two stories the young Spielberg shot for "Night Gallery." Not wanting to spend the 50 dollars on the DVDs, I patiently waited to find and record a re-run of the anthology.Before I review "Make Me Laugh," I'd like to say that Night Gallery is, for better or for worse, its own show made by many other talented directors and their casts and crews."Make Me Laugh" is not Spielberg's nor Sterling's finest hour. The story is very trite and the acting is weird and self aware. Sterling has written much better episodes than this unoriginal and pointless story of a down and out comedian granted the ability to make people laugh. The late great Godfrey Cambridge (Friday Foster) adds depth to the jaded jokester with extreme melodrama that is so over-the-top its kind of enjoyable. The same can't be said for Jackie Vernon, who played the genie. The genie character is dull, flat, and totally unreal. This is only made worse by bad makeup and a ridiculous costume. The pacing of the episode is minimal (surely due to time factors) but well done. And the lighting is natural. Professional, but not ground breaking.Spielberg wasn't given much wiggle-room on this one. A strict contract gave him almost no creative control, and this terrible script didn't help either. But it is an impressive effort for someone as young as Spielberg was. His visual style was still in the cooker, but there are compositions that are unique to television at the time and early heeds of Spielberg's natural-yet-abnormal frame. In the end, this episode was based on such a lame story that it never really had a chance no matter who was behind the camera. It is worth watching for its historical value, and for the strange performance of Cambridge. However, Spielberg's other Night Gallery outing "Eyes" is a much better example of an early version of Spielberg's framing and his excellent exposition.