Rod Serling Had Nothing But Harsh Words For One Night Gallery Segment

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After “The Twilight Zone,” Rod Serling created the horror anthology series “Night Gallery.” But he didn’t always have an easy time on the show, frequently clashing with producer Jack Laird over its tone and direction. One episode in particular, in which a teen with facial differences is sent to another planet, offended Serling so much he dubbed it “a piece of s***” — even though he was the writer.

“Night Gallery” leaned further into supernatural and horror elements than its predecessor, and, as it went on, jettisoned most of the social commentary Serling had injected into “The Twilight Zone” in favor of all-out scares. That wasn’t necessarily the way Serling wanted it, however. The prolific writer, who’d enjoyed much more creative control on his original show, suddenly found himself hemmed in by network executives, who saw “Night Gallery” not only as a chance to deliver scares but also, bizarrely, comedic intermissions known as “blackout sketches.” In the second season, producer Jack Laird insisted on inserting these incongruous vignettes between the show’s segments, and Serling wasn’t exactly thrilled. As he put it in the biography “Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination,” “I thought [the 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.”

Suffice it to say, Serling didn’t have the most harmonious relationship with NBC. His experience on “Night Gallery” often left him less than pleased with the episodes that aired. In that sense, it’s not all that surprising to hear that he considered one installment to be among the worst things to which his name had ever been attached.

“The Twilight Zone” ran from 1959 to 1964 for five seasons and 156 episodes — 92 of which were written by Rod Serling. “Night Gallery” debuted in 1970 and once again boasted Serling as one of its most prolific writers (though, like the original show, it also adapted existing stories by authors as esteemed as Richard Matheson and H.P. Lovecraft). Many of Serling’s episodes were just as good, if not better, than his “Twilight Zone” installments, and while the show never attained the cultural importance of its predecessor, it remains one of the best anthology TV series of all time. That said, it’s not as if the whole thing went off without a hitch.

Take the 1971 episode “The Different Ones,” for example. The first segment of the episode is set some time in the future and follows Dana Andrews’ Paul Koch, whose son, Victor (Jon Korkes), was born with a facial difference that has turned him into a social outcast and the victim of relentless bullying. Desperate, Paul turns to the government for potential solutions and is offered the opportunity to enroll Victor in an inter-planetary exchange program. It seems the planet Boreon needs individuals to expand its population and has no physical requirements for new arrivals. Victor seems enthusiastic and agrees to go, discovering a world full of people who look like him where he’s finally accepted.

Like “The Twilight Zone” episode “Eye of the Beholder,” “The Different Ones” was clearly trying to make a point about acceptance and beauty standards. But according to Serling, while his script had a lot going for it, the final episode completely undermined all of its positive aspects.

In a 1976 interview with Linda Brevelle (via RodSerling.com), Rod Serling was asked which of his scripts were good on paper but fell apart once they were shot. “Jeez, there may be legion,” he replied, before pointing to “The Different Ones” as one example. Serling characterized his original teleplay as “beautiful” and “a very sensitive screenplay which was a piece of s*** when it was done.”

What irked Serling about “The Different Ones?” Well, in his words, “It was a kind of an American International bug-eyed monster kind of film which it wasn’t intended to be at all.” The “Night Gallery” creator went on to compare his experience with that segment to that of other writers whose original visions had been tarnished. “Chuck Beaumont, God rest his soul, could tell you a lot about this because he had many shows on,” he continued. “‘The Circus of Dr. Lao’ was Chuck’s, and he always deeply resented what they did in the film.” Serling is referring to “7 Faces of Dr. Lao,” a 1964 adaptation of Charles G. Finney’s 1935 novel “The Circus of Dr. Lao” written by frequent “Twilight Zone” contributor Charles Beaumont. Though the film was well-received, evidently Serling was under the impression that Beaumont — who once froze an entire town of actors for a “Twilight Zone” episode — hated the final product.

“I would guess that Ray Bradbury would be equally resentful of what they did with ‘Illustrated Man,'” continued Serling, “Which, you know, took a central idea thesis of his and p***** all over it — made it into one of the worst movies ever made.” That should give you some idea of how he viewed “The Different Ones,” though his general frustrations with “Night Gallery” surely played into his comments.