Night Gallery

Brought back memories of the old show!

I purchased this collection of short stories by Rod Serling not realizing that it was an Amazon-affiliated print job, not a publication from a real publishing house. The paper is glossy and unfriendly...cheap. Rod Serling should invite you in...like as he hosted television programs...not seem cold and plastic, as this printing exhudes. The cover is a strange material that feels a bit disgusting to touch...it's like the plastic on the bottom of a thing that creates friction with other surfaces to jeep it in place in a moving vehicle...it feels disgusting and awkward to touch. It is a crime to publish Rod Serling's genius in this way.In addition, I noticed that there is a second volume to the Night Gallery stories. Both volumes are quite thin. The fact that they are not combined is blatantly an attempt to get the consumer to pay more by buying two books instead of one. Disgusting practice.

Great selection of Stories from Rod Serlings night gallery Highly recommended

The Twilight Zone was one of my favorite series growing, and various stations put on reruns and marathons and I became hooked. I always thought Rod Serling was a brilliant, creative mind in creating content both as a producer and writer that delved into the human psyche so well. This collection of Night Gallery is an series of short stories that were the basis for his television series which aired in the 1970s. Night Gallery has a much darker, cynical, and at times, macabre approach more in line with horror than The Twilight Zone, but these stories offer some brilliance into the mind of Serling.My favorites included:“The Sole Survivor” involves a man who is afloat, who has been spotted and picked up by a vessel about a see. Apparently, this man is the sole survivor of the Titanic. The problem being, though, that it has been three years since the Titanic disaster. This was a compelling story with a nice twist at the end. Very Twilight-Zoneish in its themes and presentation.“Does the Name Grimbsy Do Anything to You?” explores the determination and competitiveness of being the first man to walk on the moon. As with Serling’s classic style, he takes us into one particular man’s head, and there are certain bits and pieces of information revealed little by little, including some ironies, as we head towards the conclusion of this tale.I think my favorite of the bunch was the final selection “They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar.” On its surface, we might see this story as an “out with the old, in with the new” kind of tale, but it think it digs deeper. A man, Lane, is out of step with his current job, and slowly losing his grip on everything in the present state as he continues to mourn the loss of his wife many years prior. He also laments the fact that his favorite bar—one which held fond memories of family and friends from the past—is being demolished. This is the longest story of the bunch, and the most profound in my opinion, as it examines humans’ need to “go back to a happier time” as well as their desires and longings. A great way to end the collection.The other stories I would rank lower than the previous three mentioned:“Make Me Laugh” and “Clear Kills and Other Trophies” were way darker in mood and story than the others, and fairly cynical in tone. Still, they offer some common truths about human beings and their nature.The only one of the bunch that I didn’t care for ways “Pamela’s Voice.” (I heard this was one of Serling’s favorites…..Sorry Rod.) This one is a darkly comic tale of a man’s desire to murder his wife and the repercussions of it. This is the most insufferable couple you will ever meet, and the story is fairly mean-spirited and left me kind of cold.In general, this collection definitely was fairly good and I think the ones I enjoyed made up for the other ones. I still will take The Twilight Zone over Night Gallery any day, but it was great to see the brilliance of Serling on full display in this collection.

I was a faithful viewer of the show. Had a little trepidation about buying the book because I had already seen the stories on TV. However I found the book to be even more entertaining than the show. Watching the show you see how the director interpreted the story and how the actors played the parts they were given. There may have been distractions while the program was on--getting a snack, phone ringing, dog wanting to go outside, whatever. When you read the stories you can go back over a paragraph or two. You see how Serling portrayed the story. And he was a masterful story-teller.