Help me with a TV show title (1 Viewer)

In the mid to late 80's (I believe) there was an anthology series on for a short time (I believe it bombed) that was sort of like Night Gallery. There was a big name attached to it (Speilberg maybe?). The first episode was about a reporter doing a story on death row inmates, but only one person knew that the reporter was working undercover. The reporter was trying to do a "first person" look at the prison system, but ended up going to the electric chair. The story ended withthe reporter seeing the switch thrown to electricute him. Then the guards told him that they were in on his story, but went that far to make his reporting as realistic as possible. However, the reporter panicked so much at the thought of dying, his mind snapped, leaving him a "vegetable".
A very "EC Comics" type ending. Anyone remember this?

Spielberg did "Amazing Stories." Don't know if the episode you saw was a part of that.

Have you been searching for this for quite a while, because there is a newsgroup post from 1999 on Google that is remarkable similar to yours. There, it was stated that this was an episode of Night Gallery, but I'm not finding it in episode guides.

Sounds like an episode of the Twilight Zone that ran in the mid-80s but I'm not 100% sure.

Everything seems to indicate that Eric is correct and it was the premiere episode of some anthology show, and that rules out Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (and Amazing Stories, for that matter). From one of the several Google threads about this, here are some other hints:



I've been doing my best to ferret this out, but it looks like I'm not having luck. I really shouldn't be obsessing about something I've never seen.

The description of the final episode (if accurate) should help someone on the HTF recall the show.

Could it have been the anthology series, Darkroom, hosted by James Coburn?

Here's an episode guide for Darkroom with short descriptions. It's not the one Eric's looking for, but it sounds sort of interesting. The second story of the first episode sounds like a forerunner to Frequency. Many of these anthologies I've never seen sound like they'd be fun to watch.

http://www.innermind.com/myguides/guides/darkroom.htm

Well, when I saw the title "Amazing Stories" I was POSITIVE that was it...however, I went to a website that had an episode guide and it was not listed. I am gonna look into the "Darkroom" thing, but I don't recall there being a host. But thanks to everyone that's responded!

Eric

Tales from the Darkside hasn't been mentioned yet, so I'll throw that one out there. I'd love to have it on DVD, by the way.

George Romero, possibly the big name you're after, executive produced it. Ran from '83 to '88. Featured stories adapted from the works of Harlan Ellison, Stephen King, Cliver Barker, and others.

Now that I look at the episode guide, though, I don't see anything that fits the description.

I believe the "death row" episode described might have been from the extremely short-lived (8 episodes) Quinn Martin-produced anthology series, TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED, which ran on NBC in 1977.

Though it shared the same title and anthology format, this was an entirely separate entity from the better-known, longer-running British TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED (1979-88) series, hosted by Roald Dahl (and later, John Houseman).

Peter, you are not going to believe this, but I was going to say that I hoped you would read this thread, as I imagined you (or Jack Briggs) would know if anyone would. Good show!

I have yet to find the smoking gun confirming that Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected is definitely the show with the death row episode (not that I'm doubting you), but here is confirmation that the additional episode mentioned in my earlier post was part of Tales:


From Joe Bob Briggs.

http://www.joebobbriggs.com/ftf/ftfarchive.asp

Tales of the Unexpected is what I was thinking of. It was the episode with Roy Thinnes as a writer trying to get a Pulitzer by writing a story about Death Row from the inmates' point of view. Thanks to all that helped!

Eric