Rod Serling's NIGHT GALLERY
Season 2
Available on disc

THE BOY WHO PREDICTED EARTHQUAKES/MISS LOVECRAFT SENT ME/THE HAND OF BORGUS WEEMS/PHANTOM OF WHAT OPERA?

THE BOY WHO PREDICTED EARTHQUAKES - Herbie Bittman is an 11 year old with a unique gift - predictions. He is able to see up to 48 hours into the future on any subject that he has learned about. For a year, he has accurately made predictions on the local television station. When the local university sends a researcher to look into the phenomenon, he refuses to do the show for the first time.

This is a great start to the second season of Rod Serling's anthology show dealing with the dark and the supernatural. This is more of a science fiction story, however. It tells of how Herbie comes to make the first of his televised predictions and then tells the story of his last broadcast. The reason for his not wanting to perform turns out to be a doozy. The peformances are average enough, but the strength of the story, and most especially that ending, is what makes it so memorable.

MISS LOVECRAFT SENT ME - An agency babysitter arrives at an old house to learn that her new job is a little different from the average.

This is a short, and rather unwelcome, comic skit that really doesn't have any place in the series. There have been segments before that have flirted with humour, but this is just someone's idea of a joke borrowed from the world of THE MUNSTERS and adds nothing to the show.

THE AND OF BORGUS WEEMS - A man comes to a doctor and asks for his right hand to be amputated. After forcing the surgery, he tells his story to first a psychiatrist and then to a police detective, hoping to understand what spirit has taken over his body part.

Murderous hands are a staple of horror and there isn't a whole lot here to add to the genre. The history behind the killer hand is one of murder and intrigue, leading up to the welcome twist at the end, but with very little else to recommend it. Even the reliable presence of genre favourite Ray Milland can't raise this segment above the average.

PHANTOM OF WHAT OPERA? - The phantom of the opera kidnaps a young and beautiful singer, but finds things are not quite as they seem.

Another unwelcome comedy skit and we are suddenly worried that this is going to be the shape of things to come. Whoever thought comedy moments were going to improve the show was very clearly deluded. It is neither funny nor clever. It's just sort of... there. It adds nothing to the show and actually detracts from the more serious stuff.

DEATH IN THE FAMILY - An odd undertaker is warned that a dangerous and wounded criminal is on the loose. It is, perhaps, the criminal who has more to fear.

This is a character study of a strange and lonely man, who takes extreme measures to relieve his loneliness. It's fairly obvious what he's doing from early on in the segment, so it doesn't come as any surprise, but the extent of his mania is just a little bit shocking. The story then plays out in an uninteresting manner. The performance from EG Marshall and the undertaker is the main reason to watch this one.

THE MERCIFUL - An elderly woman walls up her husband, all the time telling him it is for the best. If you don't see the twist in this short sketch then you really aren't trying.

CLASS OF '99 - A professor carries out an unusual testing process with his surprisingly compliant students.

This is a fascinating entry into the show, and probably the most TWILIGHT ZONE inspired story to date. It gives no hint as to what might be happening in its setup, but the strangeness is there right from the start and the tension ratchets up as the questioning becomes ever more strange and dangerous. This is helped immeasureably by the presence of the inestimable Vincent Price as the professor, but it is the compliance and lack of concern shown by the students to the ever-rising stakes that holds the attention until the very end, when all is revealed. It's a very satisfying payoff. This is one of the best segments of the show thus far.

WITCHES' FEAST - Three witches attempt to brew up an evil potion whilst waiting for the arrival of a fourth.

After the painfully unfunnyMiss Lovecraft Sent Me & Phantom of What Opera? in the opening episode, we get this equally unfunny sketch, which at least is partly written in the rhymes of a spell, but which is altogether uninteresting in almost every other way. These one line joke sketches look like they're going to be a feature of the series, which is disappointing to say the least. This particular segment was replaced in repeat showings by

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED - The owner of temping agency with the promise of 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' struggles with a customer whose exacting, but unmentioned, standards even the most qualified personnel cannot match.

It is hard to understand why this segment replaced the equally short, equally unfunny, but somewhat cleverer Witches' Feast. At the very least, it doesn't outstay its welcome, but when we get to the punchline we realise it wasn't worth even that short wait.

SINCE AUNT ADA CAME TO STAY - A teacher of logic and science is faced with the very real possibility that the elderly relative living with him and his wife is a witch with designs of renewing her dying body.

The tension in this story is lessened from very early on as the script makes it very clear from early on that the titular aunt is most definitely a witch and most definitely is up to something. It also reveals how the climax will be resolved in a clumsy way. The twist, when it comes and if it can be called a twist when it is unresolved, is also obvious from the start. James Farentino manages to ground all the nonsense by taking it absolutely seriously, but it is the cameo by Jonathan Harris LOST IN SPACE that is the most memorable.

WITH APOLOGIES TO MR HYDE - Dr Jekyll tries a new concoction. And there most definitely should be apologies made for this lame one-joke segment. Not only should Mr Hyde get them, but the audience for having to watch it and Adam West BATMAN for having to be in it.

THE FLIPSIDE OF SATAN - A DJ on the skids and on the run from husbands and money-lenders finds his new radio station a little different from most.

There's a decent setup here, with Arte Johnson managing to make his DJ the hero, villain and pathetic all at the same time. It's a performance that makes up for the fact that there isn't much of a plot to be getting on with otherwise and his final fate is something of a letdown.

A FEAR OF SPIDERS - A mean and nasty arachnophobe is driven to the door of the woman he so cruelly spurned when the spider in his apartment grows to enormous size.

It pays to be nice to people, or at least not to be cruel, because you never know when you might need their help. Although this story features a spider that grows bigger with every scene (and we hope the flushing them down the sink scenes didn't kill any), that may be only the loathesome man's imagination, or conscience. The largest iteration of the spider is barely glimpsed in the background, so it doesn't manage to spoil the illusion by being not very good. This though, is about a horrible man who treats his female neighbour abominably and who gets his comeuppance. The script is nicely vicious on his behalf and dreamy and floaty, not to mention desperate on hers. When the tables are turned, however, some measure of justice is served. Exactly what the nature of that comeuppance is remains in the imagination of the viewer.

JUNIOR - A child crying for water in the night turns out to be something else. Another of those pointless, and unfunny, gags, this one relying on recognition of a popular character for its punchline.

MARMALADE WINE - A man lost in the forest in a storm comes across the home of a surgeon. The surgeon offers him the titular wine and he claims to be able to know the future.

This segment is an oddity, but the most interesting part of the episode. It is shot in a minimalist, surreal fashion that is striking in its austerity and yet memorable for that. It also augments the strangeness of the men, compounded by a deliberately stilted script and two off-kilter performances. A little more time might have allowed the twist in the tale to be more chilling, but it is still the most successful of the stories here.

THE ACADEMY - A rich man visits a military school with a varied clientele.

Fear of the younger generation is a potent feeling that raises its head through horror and science fiction periodically. THE ACADEMY offers a solution to wayward youth that is meant to feel chilling, but the lack of any actual plot and the fact the point is made so early in the episode that it's a long time waiting for it to be spoken aloud wastes any potential for that. Instead, it is a nicely vignette that come off just flat and pointless.

THE PHANTOM FARMHOUSE - A psychiatrist learns of a nearby farmhouse that is either a ruin or inhabited by a gorgeous woman, depending on who sees it. Some who see it are ripped to shreds by wild animals.

This is an oddly flat and ineffective story, despite sharing the acting talents of Davids McCallum and Carradine. This is perhaps because the threat isn't well-defined being possibly werewolves, possibly ghosts, possibly both. The danger he is in never seems to bother the hero of the piece and his duplicitous patient, who may or may not be a warlock, is more petulant than anything else. The clash of science and superstition, of modern and old time, of reason and madness are not developed and the central love story is too rushed to be believable.

SILENT SNOW, SECRET SNOW - A young boy dreams of snow that speaks to him and begins to remove himself from the world.

This is billed as the adaptation of a classic. We'll have to take their word for it. What we have appears to be the story of advancing mental illness in a child. He hears snow, or rather doesn't hear the postman's footsteps because the snow has muffled them, but the snow is not there. It starts to come into his mind whilst he is awake and starts whispering to him, taking him away from the real world and his ostensibly loving parents. The snow itself doesn't seem to have any intent of its own and so it is not a supernatural tale. It's also not an affecting tale, despite the narration by the unforgettable voice of Orson Welles.

A QUESTION OF FEAR - A doctor challenges a mercenary who claims to be without fear to spend one night in a haunted house.

This is a tricksy little segment, starting off a some creaky tale about a brave man facing the dubious terrors of a haunted house. There are spooky noises and some special effects that are less than special and make it seem fairly obvious that the hauntings are somewhat artificially-induced. It is, however, at this point that the episode switches and takes on a truly dark and nasty direction that is delivered through a dialogue exchange that makes the most of the talents of Fritz Weaver and Leslie Nielsen. It is the twist introduced here that lives on in the memory past the end of the episode, a much more modern and vicious one than the hoary old haunted house nonsense that came before it.

THE DEVIL IS NOT MOCKED - A nazi troop searching for a cell of partisan resistance fighters encounters an altogether warmer welcome in an ancient castle than they expected.

This could have been a much more effective segment had it been played completely straight, rather than with a wink in its eye. The framing device, in which an man tells a child what he did in the war is completely unnecessary and it serves only to undermine the story before it gets going. The nazi leader is played with admirable arrogance and evil, but his adversary is too camp and seems to be in a different tale altogether. This is a shame because, with more time and a more realistic tone, this could have been a much better segment.

MIDNIGHT NEVER ENDS - A woman gives a soldier a lift, but they both have the feeling they have met before and know more about each other than two strangers ought to. A stop at a roadside diner seems destined to end in disaster.

This is another expressionistic segment, though not nearly as much as Marmalade Wine. The settings are real, but isolated in black voids. This all adds to the strangeness of the situation, building up the feeling that something is very wrong with the situation and bad things are going to happen. The eventual resolution to the nature of the situation is disappointingly prosaic, and not all that original.

BRENDA - A young, lonely and thoroughly dislikeable child discovers a monster on her holiday island. At first she taunts it, but then she develops a bond with it that could threaten her family.

This an odd, unsatisfying segment. It focuses on a young child, but makes that child the monster of the piece, rather than the seaweed draped Swamp Thing-like creature she discovers. It then goes on to an ending that thinks it's saying something, but doesn't make it clear what that something is. The middle section, in which the men of the island fight and entomb the creature seems completely half-backed, possibly because of the restricted running time. Why nobody thinks to bring in the authorities to examine this apparently new creature is never explained. As a result, it just ends up as a sketch with no real purpose.

THE DIARY - A heartless television gossip monger is given the gift of a new diary, but it writes the entries itself and will change her life in just three days.

The final twist in this tale opens out the story to a couple of interpretations, making it more interesting than it had been up until that point. Patty Duke's pretty awful character gets a comeuppance she deserves, or does she? It's an ambiguity that makes the story better than it probably deserves. Virginia Mayo has a cameo role as a faded movie star and if you blink you might miss the fact that the nurse is played by one Lindsey Wagner.

A MATTER OF SEMANTICS - A receptionist at a blood bank gets a surprising last minute visitor.

This set up for a one-line (and woefully unfunny) joke is at least very short and is certainly not deserving of the great Cesar Romero.

BIG SURPRISE - An elderly farmer promises a trio of boys a 'big surprise' if they dig under a certain tree.

As a sketch of young boys and their friendships, this is OK, but as a story of suspense and horror, it's a total failure. The young actors are neither good nor bad, but the story does paint a rose-coloured picture of childhood. As for the sting in the tail of the tale... ho, hum.

PROFESSOR PEABODY'S LAST LECTURE - A professor of mythology gives a scathing lecture about the old gods of the Cthulu mythos whilst a storm rises outside the classroom.

Carl Reiner gives a boisterous performance as Professor Peabody, pouring scorn on the old gods in a lecture that seems to consist mainly of calling out their ridiculous names. He manages to command the attention of the viewer throughout, though very little actually happens until the last frames when... well, that would be telling. Suffice to say, the segment is nowhere near as good as his performance, which is the only reason to watch.

HOUSE-WITH GHOST - An unfaithful husband rents a house with a ghost in order to see his wife die of nerves. Things do not quite go to plan.

This is a thin plot about unlikeable people with a lacklustre twist at the end. As the opening segment, it does set the stage for all that follows to be better, but it is just rather dull, so for once we are glad that the limited running time means it doesn't have to hang around too much.

A MIDNIGHT VISIT TO THE NEIGHBOURHOOD BLOOD BANK - A vampire is rebuffed by his latest victim.

Another woeful set up for a quick joke that at least is gone before it can really annoy.

DR STRINGFELLOW'S REJUNEVATOR - A flim-flam artist in the old west peddles his bogus patented cure all. When a distraught father comes to him with a genuinely sick daughter to be helped, he is challenged by a drunk ex-physician and something more.

This is the main segment of the episode and one of the best that the show has produced in a while. The characters show more depth and are more interestingly flawed than most, with Forrest Tucker's Dr Stringfellow at the centre. He has the innate likeability that all conmen require, but is shown more and more to be selfish and ruthless, which makes his necessary comeuppance so much more satisfying. The Wild West setting is nicely evoked and the plot is less rushed than most of the other stories. Murray Hamilton also stars as a nicely dissolute drunk ex-doctor, the second such character in the show after Burgess Meredith in The Little Black Bag. There is pathos in the plight of the father and its inevitable outcome, a kind of sadness in the existence of the obviously intelligent man reduced to fleecing others to make a living in a harsh environment and nobility in the mentally challenged slave who is his minion. There is much more going on here than in many of the other stories and the supernatural ending has a feeling of being tacked on as an afterthought. More stories like this please.

HELL'S BELLS - A carousing hippie dies in a car crash and finds hell to be a little different from his expectations.

John Astin is the centre of a short, but effective sketch about what awaits those who believe they will thrive in Hell when they finally get there. It's a bit predictable and has been done before, but Astin's performance holds it together for the short running time.

THE DARK BOY - A schoolteacher arrives at a frontier town's small school and learns from the old ladies who run the school board that one of her students is, in fact, something other than she thought.

This is a rather dull ghost story that has a wild west setting, but has very little else to recommend it. It is, in fact, one of the few NIGHT GALLERY stories that actually outlasts its welcome. The main interest here is the old spinsters who are the schoolteacher's landladies and who have a symbiotic relationship where they finish each others' thoughts and are equally creepy, but in a good way.

KEEP IN TOUCH- WE'LL THINK OF SOMETHING - A musician makes up a story about a theft of his car in the hope the police will find the woman who inhabits his dreams.

This is an interesting story that keeps its twists up its sleeve until the right moment, keeping the audience guessing about where it is taking them. The final twist is a pretty predictable one, but everything leading up to it is an entertaining neo-noir.

PICKMAN'S MODEL - The discovery of a painting thought long lost leads to a remembered story about a painter of disturbing canvesses and the woman who became smitten by him.

This story belongs to Louise Sorel as the young woman who finds Bradford Dillman's rather overwrought artist irresistible. It is through her utterly charming performance that we come to have any interest in the arrogant, troubled artist. Their interactions are what make this segment watchable, nicely scripted to give a sense of time. The supernatural elements are unnecessarily intrusive and uninteresting by comparison. The tacked on modern framing device adds nothing of interest.

THE DEAR DEPARTED - A trio are just starting to make money with their fake seances then tragedy strikes.

The set up to this story is a neat one, with a trio of ne'er do wells conning rich people out of their money with some rather unconvincing seances. Unfortunately, it is then tied to a dull love triangle and an ending that can be seen coming from a million miles away without the aid of telescope. The script is also banal and the effects used for the seance are so impossibly rubbish that everyone attending would have been demanding their money back, an option we don't have.

AN ACT OF CHIVALRY - People in a lift meet Death himself.

One of those dreadfully unfunny visual jokes that we really just don't need. Please stop.

COOL AIR - A young woman becomes fascinated by a man whose illness keeps him in his rooms with a refrigeration engine that allows him to function. Until one night when the engine breaks down.

Barbara Rush owns this story as the young woman who effectively falls in love with the urbane older man who used to work with her father. Their relationship is based on the mind, her enquiring one and his cultured, informed one. Her performance keeps the episode on the rails as it heads towards an outcome that was all too obvious from far too early in the story. The direction and setting, though are artfully done and Rush's presence makes this a treat.

CAMERA OBSCURA - A scrooge-like money lender is given a demonstration of the camera obscura, a device that projects the surroundings onto a table. These surroundings, though seem a little bit out of place.

Rene Auberjonois gets the plaudits on the acting front here with his emotionally shut off moneylender, but it is the direction that really makes this interesting as the world turns from bright colours to sepia tones as reality changes for him. The punishment seems a bit harsh when you consider that he is acting legally and the person responsible for his sentence owes him money, but it is an effective segment.

QUOTH THE RAVEN - These weak visual punchlines are getting their own paintings now? Not worth the effort seeing Edgar Allen Poe get writing advice from his raven

THE MESSIAH ON MOTT STREET - Abraham Goldman doesn't want to die; not for himself, but for the sake of his nine-year old grandson who is destined for unloving foster homes and orphanages. He spins the boy a story about the impending visit of the Messiah that sends the desperate child out to find him, returning with an unlikely saviour.

Rod Serling is nothing if not a humanist. His love of people shines through in stories such as They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar and this festive offering is another delightful glimpse of that side of the master storyteller. The setting is bleak and there are all the hallmarks of a dark and downbeat story to come, but then the magic of the season kicks in and a miracle or two occurs. Yes, it's saccharine sweet and overly sentimental, but you can get away with that when you have a cast with the likes of Edward G Robinson, Yaphet Kotto and Tony Roberts to deliver your lines for you.

Robertson delivers a powerhouse performance as the dying man who has given up on himself, but is still fighting for his grandson. There is a nobility in the desperation and when the doctor speaks of his pride, well it's not that at all. His performance alone justifies the existence of the story, but it has more than that going for it. Yaphet Kotto's character is an initially uncertain one, a man dragged off the street by a desperate and uncomprehending child, and he is met with initial suspicion by the family doctor, but he proves to be something very different and commands the screen in both the shadowy and revealed personas. Tony Roberts completes the trio, giving a less powerful, but moving performance as the doctor who has done well for himself, but hasn't forgotten where he came from. These three actors bring such heart to the proceedings that the script's descent into holidy miracle mode can be forgiven with absolutely no effort at all.

The Messiah On Mott Street is a jewel amongst the show's uneven output.

THE PAINTED MIRROR - An kindly, old fashioned fixer of equipment and seller of cheap goods has been forced into partnership with a brash, annoying woman who is greedy and grasping. When an equally kindly old customer brings in a large mirror that has been painted over for unexplained reasons, he finds a way of solving all his problems.

This is a perfect companion piece to The Messiah On Mott Street. A poor neighbourhood, grasping neighbours and desperate people the backdrop to the story of two kindly old souls who find each other. The nature of the mirror is fantastical enough, though the rendering of it is goes from quite neat to somewhat cheap and unconvincing (stock footage and borrowed props) once characters step through. The elderly couple are likeable and Zsa Zsa Gabor is hateful from the outset, so there is no surprise in the outcome, but some satisfaction.

THE DIFFERENT ONES - A desperate father struggles to get help for his badly deformed son, until a chance comes to send him to another planet, where he just might not be considered such a freak.

Anyone familiar with Rod Serling's work will instantly recognise this as a reworking of an old TWILIGHT ZONE movie, but where that was cast in shadows and played its reveal just right, this version is in bright colour and has a twist that not only comes as no surprise to anyone, but which is so utterly unlikely as to shatter any level of suspension of disbelief. It does, however, possess a fine performance from Dana Andrews as the father who struggles against an uncaring system to get his son the help he needs. This, at least, is an aspect of the story that hasn't lost any of its relevance.

TELL DAVID - A woman gets lost in a storm and meets a couple who seem very happy and in love with each other. They also seem to have the very latest of modern gadgets.

THE NIGHT GALLERY seems content to give away its twists cheaply. The casting of Jared Martin as both the husbands in this story makes it obvious what is happening, which also makes it difficult to comprehend why it takes the main character so long to work it out. Is she so blind that she doesn't see their identical faces? The story at least has the courage to go through with its 'time is immutable' storyline to the bitter end.

LOGODA'S HEADS - Two British colonial officers in Africa confront the magic of local witch doctor, manifested in his collection of shrunken heads.

There's more than a whiff of racism about this story, but it's set in a historical context and so just about manages to get away with it. Sadly, the story isn't worth the effort. There is a shock value of the shrunken heads themselves, but aside from that nothing much happens. The twist comes pretty much out of nowhere, but at least that means it's a little less predictable.

GREEN FINGERS - A widow who wants only to be left alone to tend her garden is in the way of a huge factory development. The ruthless developer hires an even more ruthless thug to frighten her off, but they hadn't counted on what she can grow in her garden.

Although it is obvious where this story is going from early on, its simplicity and the committed performances make it work. The big ending falls a little flat due to what appears to be an overreaction in terms of lost sanity,but it the rest is efficient and capable.

THE FUNERAL - A vampire requires a funeral to make up for the one he never got when he 'died'.

The comedy segment is back, but this is a proper segment rather than the one joke sketches attempted previously. The mixture of light comedy and horror doesn't work here, either, but it makes a proper attempt to tell a story with humour.

THE TUNE IN DAN'S CAFE - A troubled couple travelling home to the apparent end of their marriage stop off at a deserted cafe, discover a jukebox that only plays one song no matter what is selected and hear a story of betrayal and revenge.

Another ho-hum story that never manages to land its point. Yes, the deserted diner motif is back from Midnight Never Ends and the idea of a haunted jukebox has some mileage, but the story of wannabe mobster and his bored moll has very little interest and doesn't seem to have any impact on the people hearing it, making the segment somewhat pointless.

LINDEMAN'S CATCH - A cold-hearted fisherman finds himself thawing when his crew catch a mermaid. As she slowly fades from being out of the water for too long, the local would-be seer offers him a potion to turn her fish half into human woman.

The segment's running time is too short for the complete change of character that the titular captain must go through. He is quickly and smartly marked as a man who loves nobody and is loved even less in return. His initial reaction to the mermaid is that she is a monster and must be killed. Moments later, he is apparently in love with her and desperate enough to try just about anything to save her. Anything other than releasing her back into the ocean, that is. Stuart Whitman does what he can, but the change is too great and too quick. The twist is a good one, though predictable in advance, and the production values for the segment are pretty high.

A FEAST OF BLOOD - A soon to be spurned suitor gives his cold, calculating date an unusual brooch.

This rather misogynistic tale leaves a bad taste as a spurned man considers it his right to attempt to force himself onto his 'beloved' and then to kill her when she chooses another. The targets of his affections may be portrayed as cold-hearted golddiggers who are as unpleasant as he is, at least in terms of their spirit, but that doesn't really help the segment's case all that much. There's too much of a 'they deserved what they got' attitude about the whole thing.

THE LATE MR PEDDINGTON - A woman on a budget comes looking for a cut-price funeral.

This is a pretty smart segment that is hugely let down by its final shot. The script is sharp and controlled and allows Harry Morgan the freedom to give a lovely performance as the rather shocked, and then understanding, undertaker. It underpins the short story, which is barely more than a conversation, and lifts it up. Same about that final shot, though.

THE MIRACLE AT CAMAFEO - A world-weary insurance investigator follows a fraudster to the miracle shrine of Camafeo, hoping to find some way to prevent him from abusing the faith of others to complete his scheme.

This is one of the most downbeat of all the stories on THE NIGHT GALLERY. It is shot through with the malaise that afflicts the detective himself, a weariness of all that taints the world and hides itself behind the faith and purity of others. Not much happens, but this isn't about the story it's about the people inhabiting it. None of them are perfect, far from it, but they are all in Camafeo looking for some sort of miracle, a miracle of redemption perhaps. The twist, when it comes, isn't so suprising, but it does have a grim satisfaction to it.

THE GHOST OF SORWORTH HALL - A lost traveller happens upon a beautiful woman living alone in a crumbling manor house. He learns that she was widowed from an evil man, but he promised to return on the night of their second anniversary.

This is a fairly straightforward ghost story with a sense of impending doom about it, but nothing that marks it out from the ordinary. The ending comes as no surprise and, in the end, any promise it showed is not realised.

THE WAITING ROOM - A gunslinger of some renown walks into a saloon where four other men of violence are playing cards. Then the clock strikes and the first walks out into the night to be shot.

There are no suprises in this story, not least because the title of the piece gives everything away right at the start, but there is a sombre mood that pervades it, an atmosphere that is compelling and keeps the audience watching even though they know exactly what is going to happen. As each of the men tell their tales, what was a period piece becomes something of an anti-violence parable and, though there isn't any twist we didn't see coming, the quality of the script and acting means that we don't mind the inevitability of the ending. In fact, that's part of the point. Having the men in the saloon played by actors familiar for western roles adds to the atmosphere that makes this one of the most memorable segments for a while.

LAST RITES FOR A DEAD DRUID - A young husband starts to change when his wife buys him the present of a statue that looks just like him, a statue that comes with a dark story behind it.

A predictable and rather uninteresting story is enlivened by the cast and the inherent scariness of a statue that moves when you're not looking at it (decades before the weeping angels of DOCTOR WHO). Not enough to make it stand out from the run of the mill episodes, perhaps, but keeping it out the least interesting.

DELIVERIES AT THE REAR - A medical professor turns a blind eye to the source of the cadavers that turn up on his dissection table.

There is no absence of atmosphere in this segment with foggy streets, horse-drawn carriages, period setting and the hint of both graverobbing and murder. Cornel Wilde is the unpleasantly arrogant and socially dismissive surgeon who believes the people who end up on his table are there purely to serve him and society. One death, he contends, is meaningless if it serves the noble cause of saving lives through better surgery. The character is compelling and the story winds a net that starts to close in on him, but it leads to a finale that is as ruthless as it is abrupt.

STOP KILLING ME - A homicide officer is suddenly faced with a woman who has come in to report that her husband has a sure fire plan to worry her to death.

This is a short one-set two-hander that is amusing and short enough not to wear out its welcome. The performances by Geraldine Page as the scatty would-be victim and James Gregory as the long-suffering police officer are enough to keep the interest going right up to the funny denoument.

DEAD WEIGHT - A gangster on the run needs a quick way out of the country and a wily exporter has a perfect record.

This is another short segment that sets up a fun twist, but it isn't one of those terrible gag inserts that have thankfully ceased for the last few episodes. Singer Bobby Darin is somewhat forgettable as the gangster, but Jack Albertson puts in his usual reliable showing as the expert exporter. The twist is entertaining, but don't think about it too hard.

I'LL NEVER LEAVE YOU-EVER - A young woman and her secret lover tire of waiting for her ailing husband to die and turn to witchcraft to hurry his fate along.

A voodoo story set in Ireland, there isn't that much about this segment that convinces. The sets are obvious, the accents are uncertain and the horror isn't very horrific. The little voodoo doll turning its head to follow the unfaithful wife is creepy enough, but the rest teeters between overacted pantomime and confused conclusions.

THERE AREN'T ANY MORE MACBANES - A student of witchcraft turns to a family secret to stop his uncle from disinheriting him, learning in the process that all magic comes with a price.

The usually reliable Joel Grey hams it up in this somewhat overwrought story of magic, jealousy and friendship. It's hard to believe that the three younger people were ever actually friends, considering the difference between Grey's indolent, extravagant waster and the buttoned-up businesslike personas of the other two. We are also asked to believe in a terrifying monster that fails to terrify in any of its various incarnations, though the red eyes at the barred windows are the most impressive manifestation.

And be careful when you blink because that delivery boy is Mark Hamill, years before his breakthrough in STAR WARS

THE SINS OF THE FATHER - In a countryside ravaged by famine and pestilence, a young man must pretend to be a sin eater and convince a grieving family that he is saving their dead patriarch from unending torment.

Now this is a grim little tale and no mistake, crammed to brim and overflowing with desperation. Quite apart from the ethical problems of sin eaters, poor people forced to take on the sins of others for food and a few pennies, sacrificing their immortal souls simply to eat, there is a plot to cheat a grieving family, however entitled, and then a betrayal of the most intimate kind. At the heart of this are two performances from Geraldine Page and Richard Thomas that we can kindly call 'heightened. Thomas, especially, starts at such a intense pitch that he really has nowhere else to go except into hysteria. This doesn't help the story make the impact it ought to and the ending can be seen coming.

YOU CAN'T GET HELP LIKE THAT ANYMORE - A rich and cruel couple who take on a robotic maid find they can't treat this one the same as their previous models.

Cloris Leachman gives a captivating performance as the hateful robot owner with a husband whose lascivious desires swing to targets both human and robotic. Sadly, though, the segment doesn't have the time to do either her performance or the story itself justice. Barely have the couple time enough to be nasty than the maid turns on them and their fate is sealed, off camera. It's a disappointing ending because there was potentially a lot more to explore here.

THE CATERPILLAR - Macy hates Borneo, where he has ended up on a year-long contract. It rains all the time, there is almost nothing to do and he lusts after the young, attractive wife of his much old employer. Then he learns of a local insect which, if placed in the old man's ear will eat right into his brain and bring about a most hideous, painful death. leaving behind his vulnerable widow.

Rarely has NIGHT GALLERY served up a classic segment in terms of horro, but in The Caterpillar it does just that and the success of the piece is mainly down to the central performance from Laurence Harvey. Initially, he is presented as the villain of the piece, his intensely jealous gaze amplified by the director's hardly subtle use of light in the close ups. However, it his pain-wracked face, locked in a rictus of agony, a silent scream of anguish without end that will remain with the audience long after the rest of the segment fades. Even then, the story isn't done with him and a delightfully nasty final twist is delivered. Throughout, the character is given opportunities to turn away from his path, and the extent of the agonies that will be visited on his victim are laid out at each point, he refuses to be swayed.

This segment is especially effective because of the time it takes to establish the situation and the characters. By giving both depth and texture, the horror that follows has greater impact. Joanna Pettet, as the young wife could have been just a sketch, for example, a pretty face to hang Macy's desires onto. Instead, she is shown to be both faithful and to have a core of steel. When she challenges Macy on his assumption that she would just fold into his embrace upon the death of her husband, she shows her true nature. The ne'er do well who provides the solution to Macy's problems (ne'er do wells offering solutions is something of a theme in NIGHT GALLERY) veers between being truly slimy and almost a figure of comedy.

And then the cruel twist of fate that plays out has more depth than simply ironic justice. Was it a simple error, the vengeful act of a ne'er do well on the man who looked down on him or an act of justice on the part of one of the other players in the drama? That may not be resolved, but it does add to the detail, shading and depth of what is very possibly the finest, and certainly the most horrifying, segment the show has yet produced.

LITTLE GIRL LOST - A psychiatrist agrees to work with a top scientist in the arms race to facilitate his work. This requires him to enter into the man's delusion that his dead daughter is still alive.

This is an afterthought following the segment that went before it. It is not given the time or space to breathe, though it is doubtful that the central conceit of the man's delusion that his daughter still lives could hold up long in the face of normal life. It could have been made much better with more time and thought. As it is, the twist ending is sort of tacked on and diminishes the power of the first tale.