I can't think of any TV series that has ever impacted me like this one. I was quite familiar with the true story of the Chernobyl disaster, but the way that this dramatized the event and retained historical accuracy was amazing.
This turned out to be a nothing special story about one woman's grief and her subsequent torture of innocent bystanders. It's pretty dark if you think about it a little and that's fine, except it's another Marvel tease that never pays off.
What is it about this show that makes it so special to me? I was a newborn during its first run, so I was most certainly infected by its charms when it was in syndication. I'm sure it's got much to do with the monsters (or "bears" as the show runners referred to them), but there's much more to it than that.
It's another example of a show (some movies also follow suit) that carries such value for me. I want to just pass it off as nostalgia for my youth, and maybe there's some of that, but I think the sincerity of the creators almost always shines through. There's such a curiosity for things greater than ourselves within its stories. Some of the messages and couched opinions are strong, some of the stories are dark and scary. And yes, some of the sensibilities of the past are evident here, but there's almost always a ray of hope, or maybe a general lack of cynicism. There's definitely a near absence of nihilism, which is so overwhelmingly present in almost every show made today.
This show is a time capsule that you can crack open and discover a different perspective of the way things work or an attempt to make sense of what doesn't actually make sense.
I'll admit that Night Gallery is not on par with Serling's original Twilight Zone. While TZ was a fantasy series made up largely of morality tales, NG is a Horror series that was not nearly as interested in couching messages within its episodes.
Night Gallery is a collection of stories, none of which have anything to do with each other. There's no need to watch anything in order, there's no never-ending story arcs to stay abreast of. It's like opening up a book of short stories and picking one from the lot. Sometimes NG reminds me of the old EC Comics, and maybe some of its TV successors like Tales from the Darkside or even Creepshow. And what I think is most interesting is that many of these stories are adopted works of short Horror by acclaimed writers like August Derleth, H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson and more.
Rod Serling was not as involved in this even though the series features his name and episode introductions prominently. In fact, much of this series is very of its time and budget. The fashions are garish, and the special effects are often wonky. A few of these segments will leave you scratching your head with an abrupt ending, and some will leave you fascinated by their impact. Some may make you fall asleep while others may piss you off because you'll feel like you've wasted your time. But some of them will make your jaw drop or send a chill up your spine. And THAT'S the hook. You never know what you're going to get. They're the TV equivalent of Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, I suppose.
Like the Twilight Zone, there are so many stories that if you spend time away from the series, the rediscovery ratio is high because there is no overarching single story. Rediscovery is the beauty of anthologies.
This show is very funny! The contests are absolutely insane and makes me wonder what the actual Takeshi's Castle series was like. But what MXC does with its dubbed audio and hilarious play-by-play commentary from Vic Romano and Kenny Blankenship makes me laugh out loud during every episode.
Word of warning to those who are more current with their sensitivities, this show will offend. It was made 15-20 years ago, and times have changed.
I don't think I'm going to regret not reading the book first because I'd heard that neither book nor movie are particularly scary. In fact, most everything you hear about Salem's Lot (the movie) is how scary the floating kid at the window is. I'd say it's an effective moment, but not the ONLY moment to remember. There's a scene where Barlow crashes into a home and rises up from a crumpled black mound on the floor to become the towering dull blue Nosferatu look-alike that he is. He smashes the heads of a wife and husband together, killing them, before wordlessly challenging a priest in a battle of will and faith. Calling it a battle is a stretch as its brevity is implied by the moment occurring off-screen. There is also a very tense scene, not even related to the vampire nastiness, when a beer-guzzling husband catches his wife cheating with another man. The state of fear generated from staring down both barrels doesn't need to be explained further.
I think more than anything, I enjoyed seeing a lot of the second-tier stars of the late '70s. James Mason was amazing as the evil henchman Straker. Kenneth McMillan was outstanding as Constable Perkins. In fact, a couple of my favorite moments of the movie occur when he and Straker are exchanging words at the police station. Geoffrey Lewis was a very effective gravedigger-turned-vampire and senior teacher and all-around good friend Jason was played with elderly grace by Lew Ayres.
The two main characters are played by David Soul and Bonnie Bedelia. I actually do remember watching "Starsky and Hutch" when I was very young, so it was interesting to see how well David Soul played something un-Hutch-y. Bedelia was wonderful, especially when she pursues Mark inside of the Marsten House. She relayed the fear she was feeling so well. It was impressive.
I read the King short story "Jerusalem's Lot" a few years ago. While I recall being a fan of that story, I couldn't remember how this movie tied itself to that pre-Salem's Lot story. I'll need to re-read that and if it intrigues me enough, re-watch this movie for references. That might be fun.
"Salem's Lot" has a few scary moments and the late '70s fashions, cars, sets and overall vibe really worked for me. I am a little disappointed that it is such a standard vampire tale, though.
I bought the Blu-ray and was surprised by its 1.33:1 aspect ratio until I remembered that it was made-for-TV. The DTS audio is Mono, which also makes nothing but sense for the same reason. I'm sure the Blu-ray allows the movie to look better than it ever has. I really loved the film grain. In fact, the presentation relayed the late '70s mood very well. The colors were natural and you can really see things in the shadows and the mist.
It's taken me years to watch this entire series from start to finish. Watching the first five seasons of the show as it originally aired was one of the best television experiences I can recall. The continuing storyline (the "mythology") held my interest back then, but after the film "Fight the Future", I never continued watching.
I purchased the entire series on Blu-ray a few years ago and have finally made my way through it all. The mythology half of the series finished as a complete mess, and it's really too bad because this show's fun, anthology, "monster-of-the-week" episodes are what made the series great.
I'm giving this a "10" despite the sloppiness of the mythology. There are many episodes of "The X-Files" that are truly great and are among the finest episodes of TV ever. Its influence is unquestionable. I'll probably never re-watch the entire series again, but will definitely revisit many of the episodes that made the series great.
I'm going to treat this as an anthology movie as opposed to the episodic TV series that Trakt has it broken out as. The variety of stories is something that current movies, especially here in the U.S., aren't brave (or guaranteed profitable) enough to attempt. The animation was really intriguing, especially Cannon Fodder, which is about a society that's entire existence is based on a war with an unseen enemy. It's really thought-provoking and made me think a lot about the way entire countries became a lot like this during World Wars I and II. The imagery of the gigantic cannon and all of the preparation and pomp and circumstance associated with its firing was unsettling and eerie.
Stink Bomb was pretty outrageous and aped either a chemical war or an attack by Godzilla, either scenario works. It was funny as well because every character ended up doing very stupid things. It certainly offers insight into the panic that would occur if some sort of poisoning or unseen force fell upon the members of a society, only I think in reality things would be worse.
Magnetic Rose looked beautiful but its "ghost in space" premise just wasn't as interesting as the other two tales.
This is good stuff and makes me want to look into some older anime.
I'm never going to be completely fair when it comes to anthology series because I absolutely love them. It's the whole you-never-know-what-you're-going to get aspect of them. Unfortunately, there were no episodes here that blew me away, "Graveyard Rats" and "The Outside" being my favorites of the lot. But the variety of the stories, the visions of the directors, the opportunity to see different actors, it's what make anthology series so special. I don't have to invest myself in a continuous storyline and the same characters week in and week out.
I also thought the introductions by Del Toro were wonderful. I pretty much love that guy for keeping the monster kid in me alive.
My episode ratings for this series are in comparison to one another. A rating of one of these episodes as a "10" is not meant to imply that it is as good as say, "The Doomsday Machine" from the original series. If something impresses as exceptional compared to the typical details from other episodes, it'll spike the rating. The appeal of this show is that it's such a curious thing. What are the stories behind the making of this series? Is it good science fiction? Is it kiddie fare? As an admirer of animation, this should not appeal to me, as Filmation productions are almost always lacking quality. Still, there's something about it. It's probably nostalgia as there are plenty of these kinds of moment-in-time viewing choices I've made in the past, and present for that matter.
Most of these episodes feature some pretty quick resolutions to some awfully complicated problems, though the subject matter is usually far more mature than the standard Saturday morning fare of its time.
The animated worlds are simultaneously creative and shoddily drawn. Backgrounds are at times weird but nearly always very colorful. This is common of everything I've seen and read about Filmation and their traits and techniques. This is something that has to be tolerated, or at times, laughed at. It can be fun to see how long a particular shot is held and how few movements are simultaneously occurring.
The Blu-ray edition of this series didn't get a lot of love. There is a lot of dirt, smudges, and other things floating around, and it doesn't help that the drawings of clothes and faces offer little to no detail. But, the Blu-ray menus are eye-catching and creative.
It's neat that this features voice work from the original cast. It offers additional legitimacy to the stories.
This was potentially a great vehicle to use to explore "those strange new worlds" without having to spend strange new amounts of money to depict them. It's just too bad that Filmation was the company hired to animate it.
Overall, I enjoyed this series. James Coburn's voice was great. I liked the opening of the show enough, and Coburn seemed kind of insane a lot of the time when introducing episodes ala Rod Serling. There were twist endings, which is normally the case with these sorts of Anthology series. I didn't score any episode higher than an '8', but scored nothing lower than a '3' rating, either.
Very different show about multiple dimensions and time "warping", I guess. It was kind of an audio anthology series or at least that's what I thought until the individual stories came together in the final episode. It had a decent ending.
Overall I liked this show. It looked great and the main characters were all appealing. Some of the stories had very strange endings or really no endings at all. It's certainly a different series, and I appreciate that.
My favorite episodes are "Pandora's Cave", "The Extremely Smelly Island", and "The Tokyo Protocol".
This show scared the crap out of me as a wee 9-year old, but did no such thing as I watched it now as an aging adult. However, I still love this series for its characters, situations and imagination. The nostalgic charge that this series had given me still remains, even though it is not the fright-filled wonder it was in my youth. I can definitely see how this series planted a seed in the mind of X-Files creator Chris Carter. It is truly a wild ride, with it's B-movie horror and almost comic book delivery. Their cheap production values and formulaic structure kind of wore on me by the end, but again I still love them for their imagination and their goofy charms.
Love this show! Slapstick humor and the inspiration for the Naked Gun movie series. Leslie Nielsen and Alan North are hilarious!
I watched this 3 or 4 episodes at a time but just rating the series overall. A couple of years ago, I became interested in World War I and was struck by the influence of patriotism and culture and how a person could be swept up in it so totally that they would walk into certain death. While that condition also seems to exist in WWII, I hadn't realized fully the brutality and cruelty that occurred (outside of the victims of the Holocaust). The attacks on civilians in WWII was atrocious.
History should be studied from multiple points of view and learned from. There seems to be a desire by far too many people to want to erase record of the past. But then how do you learn from your mistakes? (and to be fair, your successes).
Regarding this series, I'm sure there isn't a lot of new footage contained within. The addition of color certainly adds impact although I can't believe that someone who is interested in history would disregard footage because it's black and white. This series contains incredibly graphic footage, especially in the later episodes, that will certainly disgust and repulse many viewers.
This is comic book quality animation from a time when not everyone watching Saturday morning cartoons needed to be coddled in bubble wrap. There's high adventure here. Monsters, evil scientists, gun-toting thugs...the works. Jonny and Hadji are in constant danger. Race Bannon is a total badass and Dr. Quest is the smartest scientist on the planet. Gadgets, lasers, hovercraft. It's all here.
These episodes are being compared to each other when rated. The rating reflects my enjoyment of one episode compared to the others. So, if I rate an episode of Ultra Q as an "8", it's not the same as if I gave an "8" to an episode of the original Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits, since I consider those shows to be superior to Ultra Q.
I'm glad I finished watching this series. I think it has moments but my unfamiliarity with Japanese culture and short run times made this a tough series to get through.
