If by some chance the specific charms of Night Gallery passed you by the whole series is on DVD, and likely running on some cable channel. Unlike the eerie sci-fi parables and obvious fantasy-tale allegories of The Twilight Zone, the stories trotted out for Gallery were out and out horror, usually in the Victorian or morality play style. The intention was merely to titillate and scare viewers.
The hook was simple: Host Serling would point out some grim oil painting in his er, night gallery, and talk a bit about what the painting suggested. All the items in Serling's collection were at least spooky, if not outright gruesome. Once he uttered the title of the painting, the teleplay began.Much like the covers of EC comics, and its many imitators, the paintings were often more terrifying than the guts of the actual stories. But to a horror fan, the pull of the morbid images was hard to resist, even if last week's episode failed to live up.
Serling's widow Carol endorsed Skelton and Benson's book so it must at least give the man and his also-ran show a fair shake. So while we wait for our copy of An After-Hours Tour to arrive, and before you run out and rent or purchase the Night Gallery DVDs, familiarize yourself with the show -- or get reacquainted if it's been a few years -- via Skelton and Benson's superb Night Gallery Website.
They have all the paintings from the show, screen shots, an episode guide, and even theme music and some sound clips from various episodes. There's more beyond that, but you should just stop reading this and get over there. Hurry up, we're turning out the lights.
