Night Gallery on DVD (MERGED THREAD) (1 Viewer)

[MattHR]

The packaging indicates "bonus episodes from the NIGHT GALLERY series featuring the series' biggest guest stars: Sally Field, Vincent Price, Lindsey Wagner (spelled incorrectly), Carl Reiner and more!"

Anybody know what the "bonus" episodes are?

 

[Eric Paddon]

Well, one major chain store jumped the gun by four days on the release for this and who was I to quibble? I'll be interested in looking at these tonight.

 

[Eric Paddon]

What I have just seen in reading the packaging is not a good sign that Universal is committed to releasing all seasons. The "Bonus Stories" consist of Episode #14 of Season 2 (four stories) and Episodes #1 and #14 of Season 3.

Season #2, Episode #14
-"Matter Of Semantics"
"Diary"
"Professor Peabody's Last Lecture"
"Big Surprise"

Season #3, Episode #1
-"Return Of The Sorcerer"

Season #3, Episode #14
-"Whisper"

 

[Scott Skelton]

That's the response a lot of other fans of the show are having, too. It exhibits the studio's decided lack of savvy about the DVD buyer. By including "bonus stories" from later seasons, Universal can offer something as an extra without laying out the cash to produce special features or dig up trailers or deleted scenes (cheapskates). The drawback is, as you noted, the impression left to the buyer that Universal has no intention of releasing further seasons, since they just ruined the integrity of the "season-by-season" release strategy that is currently in vogue. I cannot grok their logic--releasing classics like "Gallery" or "Columbo" bare-bones, while heaping extras and documentation on a piece of goofy pop ephemera like "Knight Rider." Who is running the asylum?

 

[Eric Paddon]

If this is the new Universal's mindset, then all I can say is thank God "Battlestar Galactica" got out under the old management with all the wonderful bells and whistles!

 

[Kevin M]

- so we could have an actual commentary by the man himself....grrrrr.

 

[Eric Paddon]

Yes, the complete pilot movie is part of the set.

It's obvious they chose these extra episodes from Season 2 and 3 solely for their guest star value and so they could make a selling point on the box, and so they could also hedge their bets in case sales were low enough to justify not releasing further seasons, they could then offer as an excuse "hey at least you've got a couple episodes from subsequent seasons."

That said, it's a lousy policy.

 

[Gord Lacey]

I actually viewed the bonus episodes as a preview for upcoming seasons, not as a cop-out to discontinue releasing sets. Universal is doing the same thing with Magnum PI.

I think the only show I've considered a cop-out release from Universal was Baretta. The only reason that was released was because of the murder trial.

Gord

 

[Paul_Scott]

boy, i hope you're right Gord.
i would be exptremely disappointed to not see this series complete.
the second and third seasons have the majority of my favorite episodes, or at least most of the ones i would like to re-visit.
funny that i don't see these bonus episodes actually having much in the way to hype.
Carl Reiner?
Patty Duke?
Ceasr Romero?
if they were going for marquee value, i would have thought Messiah Of Mott Street would have been a shoo-in for Edward G Robinson and Yaphet Kotto...

oh well.
i hope the sales of this one justify S2 & 3, and boy, wouldn't it be nice to see a more comprehensive future release with the Serling classroom discussions, etc.
sure this set seems weak compared to what it might have been, but at least, compared to Images first Twilight Zone releases, we are getting a whole season, in order, in one swoop, and not having to buy or wait for 2 or 3 eps to trickle out here and there.
thats something at least.

 

[Craig Beam]

I'll be Netflixing the season one set, and comparing each episode to those archived on my DVR (from Encore Mystery). If I'm not blown away by the difference, no sale. I can't support mediocrity like this. As a lifelong Serling worshipper, I'm appalled that his recorded comments weren't used as commentary track material. If Universal wants my money, they're gonna have to give me something substantially better than what I'm getting from my satellite dish.

Funny.... the early Twilight Zone DVDs (released by Panasonic) were pretty piss-poor too.

 

[Gord Lacey]

There's always the chance that strong sales of the first season could entice Universal into adding bonus materials for the second season. I have no idea if they may happen, but you never know.

As for the bonus episodes; if it was just happening with one set then I may raise an eyebrow, but it's not. There are "bonus" episodes on Wiseguy (not Universal), and they keep releasing those sets. I wouldn't use the bonus episodes as any indication that Universal is going to stop releasing a series. If they were only planning on releasing 1 set of something, why not release something else that they may have a better chance of continuing?

Anyway, those are just my thoughts.

Gord

 

[Eric Paddon]

It still strikes me as a very cheap kind of "bonus". I'd rather have one less disc or alternate bonus items then get the same episodes again and again unless later releases of them are remastered better like with the Space 1999 bonus disc.

I've gone through the pilot and it looks great, but I'm one of those whose sole exposure to Night Gallery in the past was the awful looking prints from syndication and the Sci-Fi Channel so even though I'm aware the best elements weren't used for this release, it certainly will look great to a relative newcomer to the series like me.

 

[EricSchulz]

This is going to be a rental for me with a possible purchase later...I have fond memories of several of the stories but I want to see how well they hold up. And, how well they look. And I have four other box sets to pick up in the next few weeks (Munsters, Columbo, Alfred Hitchcock Collection and, of course, Star Wars). Thank god for a well-timed promotion/raise at work!

 

[Chris Lockwood]

Question about show itself- I'm not sure I've ever seen it. Would you say Twilight Zone fans are likely to enjoy NG, too?

I'd love to hear Serling commentary on any of his work.

 

[Mark To]

I would say that TZ fans will enjoy some episodes. The show wasn't as consistenly good as TZ but there are some excellent episodes. Serling did not have as much involvement or control and at one point after they rejected many of his thoughful scripts he tried to get out of his contract as host. TZ was a 4-star show, NG is in the 2 1/2 to 3 star range but with some 4-star episodes.

 

[Scott Skelton]

The look and feel of "Zone" and "Gallery" are entirely different. "Zone," in black and white, is a polemic directly connected to the paranoia of the postwar years, and has a distinctly moral, humanist viewpoint. Even though it presented a few comic exercises, it was primarily a "serious" show. "Gallery," in color, was a child of the late '60s, and had a more revolutionary, iconoclastic approach--vivid, experimental, free-wheeling, and taking nothing too seriously, especially itself. Each episode is fractured into two-to-four separate tales, often wildly distinct in tone and level of success (this is one of the reasons it seems so inconsistent to those weaned on "Zone"--its structure makes it almost impossible to be consistent in both quality and mood all the way through). The second season included a handful of comic, vaudeville-style vignettes that gave the show a black eye. But on the whole I thought "Gallery" produced a number of really well-done story segments. The pilot film was classic Serling, with three nicely contrasted pieces. The first season had seven stories out of a total of eleven that I thought had real merit, most of which were Rod's: "The Dead Man" (wr/dir by Zone alumnus Doug Heyes), "The Little Black Bag" (a very Zonish piece with Burgess Meredith), "The House," "Certain Shadows on the Wall," "Clean Kills and Other Trophies" (badly cast but well-written), "The Doll" (scared the poo out of me when I was ten), and "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" (this last one is Serling at his best, as good as anything he ever wrote--very lyrical, very personal). If you look at the "bonus" episodes, don't judge Season Two by the "Diary" hour Universal pasted on. It's one of the least of that season, and any fan of the show could have picked a better representative. Universal ain't too bright.

 

[JoshuaB.]

Since I haven't seen the show for a long time(except for A&E's perpetual airings of the pilot in the early 90s), I'm excited about the set. I'm glad that even with a ten-year-old remastered print the episodes will look much better than they ever have been--and unedited too!

Hope this set sells well and we can look forward to the other two seasons (perhaps as quickly as the Quantum Leap and Northern Exposure sets?).

 

[Gord Lacey]

I'm enjoying the set so far (finished disc 1), but the chapters that are set are screwy. There's a Universal opening, the opening for the show, Serling intro and part of the story that are included in the first chapter.

I'm baffled by this because Universal is often good at setting chapters properly. Well...I'd say they set them properly on 70% of their titles. Maybe they have a couple of people working on the sets; one sets them properly and the other one doesn't. It's not like adding a chapter costs them a ton of money.

Gord

 

[Scott Skelton]

 

[Paul_Scott]

i would agree with what Scott wrote so eloquently.

i will always love Twilight Zone, but Night Gallery is just a different animal.
the blackout skits are not very succsessful, and are really on the level of something that only a very small children would find amusing or humourous- but at least they don't stick around long enough to iritate.
a minute or two and then its on to the next story.

and in a way, even though i don't really like them, i think just the fact they exist gives the show a character that is wholly unique, and that is something i appreciate.
that sets it apart from all other anthology shows, including the other 'occult/horror' themed ones like Friday the 13th and Tales From The Darkside.

but there are still some genuinely creepy stories in there
-Green Fingers (a land developer has an old woman murdered when she refuses to sell her house, and then gets his comeuppance in true E.C. comics fashion)
-Since Aunt Ada Came To Stay (a nephew begins to suspect that their visiting aunt is a witch)
-Something In The Woodwork (an alcoholic begins to believe the ghost of a convicted killer lives in her attic -great use of sound in this one!)

there are plenty more but i haven't watched the show in years, and only recently in the cut-up Sci Fi channel airings, which is why i'm so eager to rediscover it in these sets.
all the ones i mentioned above as well as standouts like The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes and Messiah Of Mott Street, and several Lovecraft tales are second or third season stories.

thats why i dearly hope Universal completes the series-