Rating: 
Summary: A Fond Remembrance to a Forgotten Anthology
Review: Creator Rod Serling will forever be remembered for his earlier classic: a little something called "The Twilight Zone." While "Night Gallery" never quite made the ratings and dramatic success as its predecessor, the show did have its moments, all lovingly chronicled here by the authors. The book details the production, the episodes, and the various actors featured on the show. It also reveals the infighting between Serling, producer Jack Laird, and the wishes of the "suits" at NBC. Sadly, the strain of his association with the series may have contributed to Serling's untimely death. For those fans of the show, this is an insightful and well-prepared document.
Rating:
Summary: A Fond Remembrance to a Forgotten Anthology
Review: Creator Rod Serling will forever be remembered for his earlier classic: a little something called "The Twilight Zone." While "Night Gallery" never quite made the ratings and dramatic success as its predecessor, the show did have its moments, all lovingly chronicled here by the authors. The book details the production, the episodes, and the various actors featured on the show. It also reveals the infighting between Serling, producer Jack Laird, and the wishes of the "suits" at NBC. Sadly, the strain of his association with the series may have contributed to Serling's untimely death. For those fans of the show, this is an insightful and well-prepared document.
Rating:
Summary: A Fond Remembrance to a Forgotten Anthology
Review: Creator Rod Serling will forever be remembered for his earlier classic: a little something called "The Twilight Zone." While "Night Gallery" never quite made the ratings and dramatic success as its predecessor, the show did have its moments, all lovingly chronicled here by the authors. The book details the production, the episodes, and the various actors featured on the show. It also reveals the infighting between Serling, producer Jack Laird, and the wishes of the "suits" at NBC. Sadly, the strain of his association with the series may have contributed to Serling's untimely death. For those fans of the show, this is an insightful and well-prepared document.
Rating: 
Summary: A Thorough and Enjoyable History of the Night Gallery
Review: I recently purchased the hardback version of Skelton's extremely thorough and enjoyable book pertaining to the Serling Anthology series. Everyone who has seen the show has their own opinion on how it rates among other programs. I enjoyed the show immensely in syndication, in spite of the fact that the episodes were butchered. Having watched the restored episodes through Columbia House, I found the difference to be quite an eye-opener. However, as many have opined, the show was uneven, but many shows such as the Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits were also uneven. Some brilliant, some abyssmally bad. The book, however, full of facts, interviews and history, is an absolute essential to anyone's library who enjoyed The Night Gallery on any level and is interested in learning more about such a unique television series
Rating: 
Summary: Comments excerpted from the back cover of the book.
Review: In the early '70s, Emmy-winning dramatist Rod Serling followed his landmark in network television, "The Twilight Zone," with "Night Gallery," a remarkable anthology series that became a new forum for Serling's unique brand of storytelling. In chronicling the turbulent history behind this innovative series, authors Scott Skelton and Jim Benson provide fascinating production detail and behind-the-scenes material, with critical commentary, complete cast and credit listings, and synopses of all 98 episodes. Containing more than 100 photographs - some never before published - this book is spiced with anecdotes from such film and television luminaries as Leonard Nimoy, John Astin, Sydney Pollack, Roddy McDowall, Richard Kiley, and Leslie Nielsen. "Rod Serling's 'Night Gallery': An After-Hours Tour" offers the first comprehensive overview of a significant entry in the annals of classic television. "A must-read! Rod Serling was a very close friend, and one of the greatest writers I ever knew. Anyone who is interested in the last chapter of his career must take this after-hours tour." -Aaron Spelling, producer "A fine, richly-detailed history of the 'Night Gallery.' Well worth reading." -Richard Matheson, author/dramatist ("Duel," "I Am Legend") "It is simply grand to have such a comprehensive and responsible examination of the remarkable 'Rod Serling's Night Gallery.' And the employment of the recollections of so many artists involved provide an added yeast. In short, it's delightful!" -Roddy McDowall "This 'Night Gallery' guide presents a fine running commentary on the stories, the writers, the actors, and all that were a part of the 'Gallery.' A most comprehensive and critical study of the program." -Carol Serling, widow of the show's creator "Scott Skelton and Jim Benson have set a new stand! ard for this type of book. Make no mistake: what you hold ! in your hands is nothing less than the most thorough, most exhaustive, most painstakingly researched book ever written on a television series." -Mark Dawidziak, author of "The Columbo Phile" and "The Night Stalker Companion."
Rating:
Summary: The best television history I have ever read.
Review: Not only is Rod Serling's Night Gallery: An After Hours Tour the best work of its kind I have ever read, it is also one of the best books of 1999. The authors give a very gripping back stage account of the making of Rod Serling's The Night Gallery. The battles between Night Gallery creator Rod Serling and series producer Jack Laird are facinating and well documented. The series itself was a mixed bag, with excellent episodes interspersed with the awful. For all those interested in television, Sci-Fi, horror or film the book is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book on a terrific tv show.
Review: Once I knew this was coming out, I hewed away at the Syracuse Univ. Press to get a copy expedited to me, and managed to get one on Xmas Eve of '98, just in time. It was well worth all the phone calls. Excellently researched and just packed with info. Plot synopses, behind-the-scenes stories (some of which are hilarious), and great fun to read. I loved "The Twilight Zone" but loved "Night Gallery" even more - this is a fine tribute.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book on a terrific tv show.
Review: Once I knew this was coming out, I hewed away at the Syracuse Univ. Press to get a copy expedited to me, and managed to get one on Xmas Eve of '98, just in time. It was well worth all the phone calls. Excellently researched and just packed with info. Plot synopses, behind-the-scenes stories (some of which are hilarious), and great fun to read. I loved "The Twilight Zone" but loved "Night Gallery" even more - this is a fine tribute.
Rating:
Summary: THIS BOOK WAS AN AMAZINGLY PLEASANT SURPRISE!
Review: SURPRISE, SURPRISE! THE NIGHT GALLERY: AN AFTER HOURS TOUR TURNED OUT TO BE FAR MORE ENGROSSING THAN THE SERIES ON WHICH IT IS BASED! NOT SINCE MARC SCOTT ZICREE'S DEFINITIVE TWILIGHT ZONE COMPANION HAVE I FELT AN AUTHOR'S TRUE PASSION FOR HIS TELEVISION SERIES SUBJECT TO EMANATE FROM THE PAGE SO POWERFULLY! THIS BOOK IS EXTRAORDINARILY WELL-DOCUMENTED AND WELL-WRITTEN. LIKE OTHER TV BOOKS, SUCH AS THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE DOSSIER AND THE COLUMBO PHILE, THIS NIGHT GALLERY TOME GIVES CREDENCE TO THE BELIEF THAT A CERTAIN SEGMENT OF THE POPULATION CAN WATCH TV AND MANAGE TO BE BOTH HIGHLY INTELLIGENT AND ARTICULATE AT THE SAME TIME!
Rating:
Summary: Response to "A book that surpasses the series"
Review: That the "reader from Maryland" spent the balance of his comments not on the quality of our research but on calling our taste into question for even bothering to critically reassess "Night Gallery" suggests that a reply is in order. Our sole purpose in writing the book was not to cover up NG's deficiencies but to set the record straight after years of parroted misinformation from Serling's various biographers. Hail this brave reviewer from Maryland for such courage: marching in lockstep with past critics of this series and, in doing so, missing the whole point of the book. We agree that the series was uneven. We also pointed out that, because of the show's unusual structure of multiple stories per episode, this was inevitable. In this way "NG" was less akin to "Thriller" or "The Twilight Zone" than to "Saturday Night Live," the quality of which varies from skit to skit. As we noted in the book, we feel that the only fair way to view the series is on a story-by-story basis, not episode-by-episode. In viewing "NG" from this perspective, we determined that its consistency ratio was equal to "Zone," and surpassed "Thriller." Admittedly this is an aesthetic judgment to be determined individually. Yet when the reader from Maryland posits his view that "'Night Gallery' just was not a very good TV program" as "a fact of which audiences...were well aware"--as if this were the only reasonable view one could take of the series--we find this presumptive. Our efforts to be fair to producer Jack Laird, in weighing both his follies and his successes with an even hand, was seen by the reader from Maryland as suspect, a fool's errand. Evidently he thought we should throw our journalistic objectivity to the winds, ignore Laird's strengths as a producer, and pillory him. Laird made mistakes, yes. We reported his abuses of Serling and his creation of the dreaded vignettes, two points which have colored the judgment of many a Serling fan--feelings which we can certainly understand and do share. But we could not ignore the quality of the large number of non-Serling scripts, for which Laird was largely responsible. If we do not accept the compliments of the reader from Maryland, it is mainly because they are backhanded. His tone suggests we lack his keen insight and critical acumen, and he asserts that we were somehow deluded in our reassessment of "Night Gallery." Our view may be controversial, true; on the other hand, received wisdom passed down without thought requires a challenge. We find it preferable to break with the flock and think for ourselves.
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