Category Archives: TV

Science fiction and fantasy on television

[June 22, 1970] We’ll All Go Together When We Go (Doctor Who: Inferno [Parts 5-7])


By Jessica Holmes

We last left the Doctor trapped on a parallel world, surrounded by fascists, monsters, and fascist monsters. Does the final serial of this year’s run go out in a blaze of glory, or does it all go up in smoke?

Welcome to the end… of Inferno.

The drilling facility with smoke billowing out and an eerie red glow.
This looks perfectly normal…

Continue reading [June 22, 1970] We’ll All Go Together When We Go (Doctor Who: Inferno [Parts 5-7])

[June 2, 1970] Turning Up The Heat (Doctor Who: Inferno)


By Jessica Holmes

I have good news and bad news. Being the little ray of sunshine that I am, I like to start with bad news . So here goes: we’re heading into the last Doctor Who serial of 1970. Yes, already. The tradeoff for some pretty spiffy stunt-work and shooting in colour is apparently a reduced episode count. The good news is that Doctor Who is turning up the heat and delivering a real firecracker of a story, full of action, monsters, and some great character work. Let’s dig into “Inferno”.

Title Card. Text reads 'INFERNO' in block capitals. The background is a volcanic eruption.

Continue reading [June 2, 1970] Turning Up The Heat (Doctor Who: Inferno)

[May 4th, 1970] The Blue Meanies Are Coming (Doctor Who: The Ambassadors Of Death [Parts 5-7])


By Jessica Holmes

Have you ever been on a rollercoaster just to have it break down halfway through? That’s what this story is like. It was so close. It was so, so close to being a genuinely excellent serial. But tripping just before the finish line, this month’s story just comes out as ‘pretty good’. Let’s try and find out what went wrong in “The Ambassadors Of Death”.

Lennox (white, balding, middle aged) sits at a small table in a bare concrete cell. He has a dinner tray in front of him, on which is a blue plate with a metal rod on it.
Excuse me, waiter? There's some plutonium in my soup.

Continue reading [May 4th, 1970] The Blue Meanies Are Coming (Doctor Who: The Ambassadors Of Death [Parts 5-7])

[April 18th, 1970] The Spaceman Who Came In From The Cold (Doctor Who: The Ambassadors Of Death [Parts 1-4])

a white woman with auburn hair and glasses
By Jessica Holmes

The name’s Who… Doctor Who. In the latest adventure, our favourite double-hearted space alien finds himself embroiled in a spy thriller with all the trappings: cool car, wacky gadgetry, and an espionage plot I need a diagram to keep track of. Let’s take a peek under the bonnet of David Whitaker’s most recent contribution to Doctor Who, “The Ambassadors Of Death”.

The space centre. Cornish communicates with an astronaut, who appears on a big screen.

Continue reading [April 18th, 1970] The Spaceman Who Came In From The Cold (Doctor Who: The Ambassadors Of Death [Parts 1-4])

[March 16th, 1970] The Fatal Flaw (Doctor Who: Doctor Who And The Silurians)


By Jessica Holmes

Welcome back to our Doctor Who coverage, where today we’re wrapping up the latest serial: “Doctor Who And The Silurians”. With lives lost on the Silurian and human sides, will the Doctor be able to persuade those left behind to see sense?

The Younger Silurian and the Scientist Silurian huddle together having a conversation. They're a dull green colour and reptilian, with a third eye on their forehead.

Continue reading [March 16th, 1970] The Fatal Flaw (Doctor Who: Doctor Who And The Silurians)

[February 22, 1970] An Es-scale-ating Conflict (Doctor Who: The Silurians)


By Jessica Holmes

Welcome back to another month of Doctor Who coverage. Jon Pertwee’s run as the Doctor continues in the same strong fashion in which it started with an intriguing serial from the pen of Malcolm Hulke. We’re about halfway through, so let’s catch you up on the latest happenings in “Doctor Who And The Silurians”. No really, that's how he titled it. Yes, it is an odd choice, but don't let it put you off.

Liz, the Brigadier and the Doctor standing in a lab. Liz is holding research notes and the Doctor is holding a test tube.

Continue reading [February 22, 1970] An Es-scale-ating Conflict (Doctor Who: The Silurians)

[January 26, 1970] Over The Rainbow (Doctor Who: Spearhead From Space)


By Jessica Holmes

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? It’s all change in the new season of Doctor Who: new Doctor, new companion, new visuals. And it's now in colour!

But is it worth the increased rent on my new television set? Let’s catch up on “Spearhead From Space”.

Doctor Who title card—new font on a swirly, coloured background

Continue reading [January 26, 1970] Over The Rainbow (Doctor Who: Spearhead From Space)

[January 6, 1970] Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?

photo of a woman with glasses and straight, brown hair trimmed to just above the shoulders
by Janice L. Newman

The term “vast wasteland” has become something of a catchphrase for Journeyfolk, a reference to Newton Minow’s castigation of the offerings on television all the way back in 1961.

There have been quite a few good shows in the interim, including standouts The Twilight Zone, Dangerman (aka Secret Agent) and of course our favorite, Star Trek. We’ve also seen cases where television has been used to educate and bring awareness to social issues, such as the NET Journal series and the special, The Rejected.

Maybe it’s because so many theatrical releases are targeting adults these days, or maybe it’s just an idea whose time has come, but a group of educators, philanthropists, and television producers have turned their eyes toward the glass teet as a way to educate and entertain the very youngest of us. The idea, as I understand it, is to harness the things that make television addictive and use them to teach basic educational concepts as well as important life skills. The show began airing on November 10, 1969. I didn’t catch its premier episode, but I did manage to sit down and watch a couple over the following weeks.

still photo of a sign reading 'Sesame Street'
There's a signpost up ahead…

Continue reading [January 6, 1970] Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?

[December 10, 1969] Night Gallery: A Frightening Tableau


by Amber Dubin

As we close in on the end of the final year of the 60s, it seems the lengthening nights are seeping into my psyche more than usual. I find myself wishing I were more hopeful for the coming of a new decade, and maybe if I paid less attention to politics or the state of the world I could retain more resistance to the gloomy morale of our divided and unrested country. Thankfully, a timely distraction arose: just think how pleasantly surprised I was to discover that there was to be a diverting new work from Rod Sterling to grace our airwaves November 8, 1969!

I was a step beyond devastated when Twilight Zone left the air, as it remains one of my all-time favorite science fiction pieces to date. To know that Rod Sterling would once again be on my television just before the dawn of a new decade sparked a hope in me that’s just enough to disrupt the gloom I’m feeling at the end of this one.

Title card for the TV series Night Gallery. It shows the words Night Gallery in cursive script over a stylized drawing of cathedral in pale pink.
Rod Serling's "Night Gallery", shown on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies

Given the climate of our cultural atmosphere, however, I am not surprised that although the work that Rod Sterling chose to create is star-studded in cast, it is otherwise physically and emotionally dark. The macabre tone sets in right away as an eerie opening theme tinnily whines from the upper register of a harpsichord. The audience is led down a black and white drawing of a hallway, interrupted regularly by the chalky outlines of featured actors, not unlike how it would feel if one were to walk through a series of taped off crime scenes with final resting places similarly marked in each. This tense opening sequence maintains stress on the audience as the illustration gives way to the darkly enshrouded silhouette of the show’s host and final name featured in the credit sequence, Rod Serling.

Serling returns to the small screen, six years after he left it, in the resolute and deliberate fashion we’ve come to expect from him. Ever our guide through the mysterious and strange, he acts as curator of the mysterious in a black void of a presentation room featuring nothing but three portraits, their faces glamorously shrouded in red velvet curtains. He describes each of these covered works of art as suspended “in time and space, a frozen moment of a nightmare.”

Entering the scene associated with the first painting, "The Cemetery," this description is immediately validated as we are confronted with a room occupied by a once wealthy patriarch, bound both by a wheelchair and the living death that is the cognitive and physical decline of age. The elderly man, Mr. Hendrix, is waited on with care by famed film and TV veteran Ossie Davis (Mr. Ruby Dee), playing the sharply dressed and precise butler Osmond Portifoy. In a heartbreakingly relatable way, the rich and ailing painter is depicted as incapable of speaking, walking, or even holding a paint brush as he barely clings to life in his old-monied estate home. By contrast, we are confronted by his shiftless rapscallion of a nephew downstairs, who we are made to immediately dislike as he twitters about the house, disrespectfully upsetting its previous order and chirping our patient butler’s name in mockery as he puts his cigarettes out on the tray of discarded food he is carrying away from Mr. Hendrix’s room.

Still frame from the TV series Night Gallery. It shows actor Ossie Davis playing the character Portifoy. He's a Black man with a moustache, wearing a suit and tie.
Portifoy is not amused

The obnoxious youth wastes no time in murdering his uncle once he has confirmed his inheritance of his estate, brazenly directing his uncle’s view to the window overlooking the family cemetery so the poor man can ‘view his future residence’ as he is slowly poisoned by the cold air from the purposely opened window that his frail body is unable to withstand. The greedy nephew makes no attempt to hide his disrespectful glee when the man dies, and he rudely directs the responding home-doctor and estate manager to hastily clear away as many traces as possible of the deceased man’s control over his wealthy home. Condescendingly, he allows Butler Portifoy to stay on staff, despite their obvious and open distaste for one another. However, Portifoy finds it almost more curse than blessing that he is allowed to continue to serve the Hendrix Estate under new management.

Just when it appears nothing could stop the young man’s wonton disrespect for all things dignified, his drunken carrying on hitches on a disturbing detail he notices in one of his uncle’s paintings hanging over the hallway stairs. When his uncle is interred in the family cemetery, it appears that the estate painting changes to depict an open grave in the corresponding area of the portrait. At first, he tries to brush off this change as a trick of the light, or his faulty memory, but the more time he spends in the home, the more fixated he becomes on the painting. When his paranoia grows to the point of inducing sleeplessness, he lashes out, ripping it off the wall and throwing it into the fireplace, only to find it back on the wall where it was before. He responds with violence to Portifoy’s insistence that there is nothing wrong with the painting and burns the man, finally breaking the man’s tolerance for his behavior. Portifoy quits on the spot, leaving the younger man to continue swiftly losing his mind alone in this apparently haunted house.

Still frame from the TV series Night Gallery. It shows the character Portifoy talking to a white man in a red smoking jacket.
A rather satisfyingly contentious dynamic

In predictable fashion, the man fares poorly on his own, and he eventually succumbs to the battle with the paranormal forces at play, launching himself off the staircase entangled in the canvas of his dead uncle’s likeness. To my surprise, however, this is not where the story ends, and it appears that the doomed youth was not the only man in the house compelled by greed and willing to play with paranormal forces he did not understand. It's a twist too good to spoil here.

The second story, “Eyes,” features the fascinating combination of a winning performance by storied actress Joan Crawford and the professional debut of a young director named Steven Spielberg. Although it was rumored that this segment’s veteran star was originally reluctant to take a chance working with the inexperienced director, it appears her fears were unfounded. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the direction of this segment was Rod Serling’s best choice of the featured three. From the elevator door closing on Joan’s character’s disgruntled employee as we open the scene, to the acrobatic shots we get from the ceiling looking through chandelier crystals, the cinematography and dynamic story telling are movie-quality.

Still frame from the TV series Night Gallery. It shows a close-up of a hanging glass ornament. In it we can see an upside-down reflection of a man walking down a hallway.
An ambitious shot that inverts the surgeon as he has inverted his moral code.

The story in question revolves around the aging debutant Miss Claudia Menlo, played by Joan Crawford, whose nightmare appears to be the life-long curse of blindness. It seems as if the finery she surrounds herself with and the technology with which she’s been able to make her life self-sufficient has steadily transformed into bars of a gilded cage. She has become so obsessed with the idea of the sight that she has been robbed of, that she interprets it as a cruelty that she must turn into a weapon to settle the score. It is from this space that she discovers an opportunity to right the universal wrong, and she stops at nothing to seize it.

Through the perspective of the conscripted surgeon, we discover that Miss Menlo has bribed, extorted and blackmailed enough professionals and poor slobs to direct a procedure to take place where one man will lose his vision forever to give her but twelve hours of precious sight. It’s clear we are meant to condemn Joan Crawford's character’s actions, and to be sure her victim is pathetic enough to deserve all of one’s compassion, but I cannot help but understand her desperation. Yes, her vanity, decadence and aggressive way of tearing through everything that gets in her way is indefensible, but it’s hard to say if given the same circumstances I wouldn’t make similar choices. As a senescent ice queen of an empty decaying palace, the woman that life has made of her is twisted into an unlovable shape now, but I cannot help but imagine what torture it must have been to live a whole life of such beauty without the ability to see any of it.

No matter how thoroughly we are meant to have shut her out, I cannot help but feel a pang of ache when she screams about color, while decorated in such fine examples of the same. I understand the bad intentions she paved to her own destruction, but when the irony she earned comes to call, I cannot fully say it would have been a doom I could have avoided myself.

Still frame from the TV series Night Gallery. It shows a close-up of a white, red-haired, middle-aged Joan Crawford wearing elegant jewels and screaming in anger.
I am always hesitant to call a woman a nightmare, but when the shoe fits…

The last story for me is the weakest of the three. “Escape Route” features an ex Nazi officer from a concentration camp hiding out in Buenos Aires after the end of World War II. As many men with this description did (do?) in real life, he is haunted by paranoia of being found and held responsible for his cruelty and past actions as he lives a life of poverty and insignificance in a foreign country he does not seem to enjoy any aspect of. I felt like this had the least compelling premise because even if he wasn’t a war criminal, the protagonist seems to be a completely irredeemable, unlikable nightmare. While he is haunted, he appears remorseless and even defensive of his past behavior. It also seems to have turned him into a miserable, belligerent drunk who verbally abuses the only person in his life that knows his secret: his consistently drunk, lady-of-the-night neighbor. Even though she is the only one who seems to tolerate him, she still uses his secret to twist the knife of insults she slings right back at him.

Still frame from the TV series Night Gallery. It shows a man standing outdoors at night, looking in anxiety at whatever could be on the other side of a wire mesh fence.
A well-deserved haunting

One day, in hiding from the detectives attempting to get him to answer for his crimes, he seeks refuge inside a closing museum and is unexpectedly moved by a painting of a fisherman who he hallucinates as having his face. It is here that his personal moment is interrupted by an elderly Jewish man emotionally connecting with another painting that expresses the agony of a holocaust victim. Based on how often he is drunk and/or hallucinating, I am not entirely convinced that the other man, Herr Bleum, isn’t a physical manifestation of the ex-Nazi’s guilty conscience.

In fighting against the web of his own weaving, he predictably hangs himself, using the thread of magic he has discovered in his story to yoke himself to a punishment far worse than any he could have received at the hands of real-life avengers.

Still frame from the TV series Night Gallery. It shows Rod Serling in a suit and tie, talking to the camera. There is a red curtain behind him.
Rod Serling, in all his glory

Whatever unevenness exists in this trio of stories is overwhelmed by the sheer quality of production, and also the joy at having an old master back at the game. The gilded tapestry Rod Serling has woven with The Night Gallery is a welcome masterpiece capable of warming my heart in these cold and dark winter months. The papers say that Serling is uninterested in serialized television work after Twilight Zone, and that these three episodes were a one-off set. However, after turning out such well-crafted, well-acted and well-directed gems as these, I cannot imagine this vignette not inspiring a sequel or two in the coming decade, either penned by Serling or a successor he designates. That hope alone gives me something to look forward to as the curtain draws this year to a close.

5 stars



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[June 22, 1969] Game Over (Doctor Who: The War Games [Parts 8-10])


By Jessica Holmes

"The War Games" draws to a close, bringing us a thrilling conclusion, revelations of the Doctor’s origins, and some heartbreaking farewells.

The Doctor (right, foreground) meets with the War Chief (left, background.)
"If I join you, do I also have to grow the silly moustache?"

Continue reading [June 22, 1969] Game Over (Doctor Who: The War Games [Parts 8-10])