Editing Night Gallery (section)

==Background==
===Format and style===
[[File:Joan Crawford Night Gallery 1969.JPG|right|thumb|alt=Joan Crawford in the telefilm that began the series, 1969.|[[Joan Crawford]] in the [[telefilm]] that began the series, 1969.]]
Serling appeared in an [[art gallery]] setting as the curator and introduced the macabre tales that made up each episode by unveiling paintings (by artists [[Thomas J. Wright]] and Jaroslav "Jerry" Gebr) that depicted the stories. His intro usually was, “Good evening, and welcome to a private showing of three paintings, displayed here for the first time. Each is a collector’s item in its own way—not because of any special artistic quality, but because each captures on a canvas, suspended in time and space, a frozen moment of a nightmare.”
''Night Gallery'' regularly presented adaptations of classic [[fantasy]] tales by authors such as [[H. P. Lovecraft]], as well as original works, many of which were by Serling himself. ''Night Gallery'''s multi-segment presentation mirrored the [[EC Comics|EC]] horror comics of the 1950s, and hadn't been seen on television before, except for on the one-off "Trio for Terror" episode of ''[[Thriller (American TV series)|Thriller]]'' in 1961.<ref name="synd">"The Syndication Conundrum: Night Gallery's Horrific Second Life in Reruns", ''Night Gallery'' Blu-Ray.</ref>

The series was introduced with a [[Night Gallery (film)|pilot television film]] consisting of three segments or movies, that aired on November 8, 1969. The second segment of the film, "Eyes," was the directorial debut of [[Steven Spielberg]], as well as one of the last acting performances by [[Joan Crawford]].

According to Rod Serling's wife Carol, NBC envisioned ''Night Gallery'' as being a show about "action, ghouls and gore". While Serling was fine with having horror elements, he wanted it to be infused with social commentary.<ref name="comm">Commentary for "The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes/Miss Lovecraft Sent Me/The Hand of Borgus Weems/Phantom of What Opera?", ''Night Gallery'' Blu-Ray.</ref> Some of Serling's scripts were rejected by producer [[Jack Laird]]. He was a fan of the classic [[Universal Classic Monsters|Universal horror films]], and preferred NBC's vision of the show.

In its second season, the series began using original comic [[Blackout gag|blackout sketch]]es between the longer story segments in some episodes,<ref name="tour"/> with this concept being conceived by Jack Laird.<ref name="comm"/> Most of the blackout sketches were written by Laird himself, and they often featured supernatural characters (such as vampires) in black comedy situations.<ref name="imag"/> The inclusion of the short blackout sketches meant that some episodes in the second season had up to four different segments. Rod Serling opposed their presence on the show, due to their contrasting tone, and several of them have no introduction from Serling. He stated "I thought they [the blackout sketches] distorted the thread of what we were trying to do on ''Night Gallery''. I don't think one can show [[Edgar Allan Poe]] and then come back with [[Flip Wilson]] for 34 seconds. I just don't think they fit."<ref name="imag">{{cite book |last1=Parisi |first1=Nicholas |title=Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination |date=2018 |publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi |isbn=9781496819451 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C_Z1DwAAQBAJ&q=+%22blackout%22&pg=PA362 |access-date=26 December 2019}}</ref> In another interview, he referred to them as "foreign and substantially incorrect", complaining that "you can't sustain the mood of horror or suspense and then intersperse light laughter in the middle of it and then expect to be able to go back in a neutral fashion to an element of horror. You spend fifteen minutes creating a mood for an audience and then you dispel it arbitrarily by trying to make them laugh."<ref name="comm"/> These types of segments were much less frequent in the third and final season. For the third season, the show had a lower budget, and shifted towards a shorter half-hour format, featuring either a single segment, or a single segment and one short blackout sketch. During this season, NBC explicitly asked for no more philosophical ''Twilight Zone''-esque stories.<ref name="synd"/> They also demanded less adaptations of classic European-inspired fiction, in favor of more American-centric stories.<ref name="synd"/> NBC moved the show from Wednesday to Sunday, but it was still placed in the same 10 p.m. timeslot.<ref name="synd"/> Regarding the changes in the third season, Serling said at the time, "I'm fucking furious. These people are taking what could have been a good series and they're so commercializing it it's not going to be commercial."<ref name="synd"/> Serling added that they wanted "considerable action as opposed to anything insightful, cerebral or sensitive."<ref name="synd"/> It has been claimed that NBC pushed for ''Night Gallery'' to become strictly an action show for the third season, with no supernatural elements, although this would not end up being the case.

''Night Gallery'' was initially part of a rotating anthology or [[wheel series]] called ''[[Four in One (TV series)|Four in One]]''. This 1970–1971 television series rotated four separate shows, including ''[[McCloud (TV series)|McCloud]]'', ''SFX'' ([[San Francisco International Airport (TV series)|''San Francisco International Airport'']]) and ''[[The Psychiatrist (TV series)|The Psychiatrist]]''. Two of these, ''Night Gallery'' and ''McCloud,'' were renewed for the 1971–1972 season, with ''McCloud'' becoming the most popular and longest running of the four.

===Writing===
Serling wrote many of the teleplays, including "Camera Obscura" (based on a short story by [[Basil Copper]]), "The Caterpillar" (based on a short story by [[Oscar Cook]]), "Class of '99", "[[Cool Air]]" (based on a short story by [[H.P. Lovecraft]]), "The Doll", "Green Fingers", "Lindemann's Catch", and "The Messiah on Mott Street" (heavily influenced by [[Bernard Malamud]]'s "Angel Levine"). Non-Serling efforts include "The Dead Man", "I'll Never Leave You—Ever", "[[Pickman's Model]]" (based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft), "A Question of Fear", "[[Silent Snow, Secret Snow]]", and "The Sins of the Fathers".

[[Robert Bloch]] wrote two teleplays for the show. "Logoda's Heads" was based on the story by [[August Derleth]]. "Last Rites for a Dead Druid" originally was an adaptation by Bloch of the H.P. Lovecraft/[[Hazel Heald]] collaboration "[[Out of the Aeons]]"; however, Bloch's script was not used, and the episode was rewritten and retitled. As a result, "Last Rites for a Dead Druid" bears no resemblance to "Out of the Aeons".<ref>Randall Larson. ''The Complete Robert Bloch: An Illustrated, Comprehensive Bibliography''. Fandom Unlimited, 19856, p. 76</ref>

===Music===
The show featured various composers. The original pilot theme and background music was composed by [[Billy Goldenberg]]. The theme for the first two seasons, composed by [[Gil Mellé]], is noted for being one of the first television openings to use electronic instruments. For the third season, Mellé's theme was replaced with a more frantic orchestral piece by [[Eddie Sauter]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://nightgallery.net/music-in-the-gallery/|title=Music in the Gallery|website=nightgallery.net|access-date=9 May 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180210062207/http://nightgallery.net/music-in-the-gallery/|archive-date=10 February 2018}}</ref> Currently, no music from the show has been released commercially.