Metaphors for Night Gallery abound in the opening of this episode. There is the old house full of cobwebs and the promise of a ghost. There is the desperate 1st wife trying too hard, but unable to match the new girl that never gets old in a man’s mind. And down the stairs comes a young handyman who she pathetically begs to stay to keep her company.
Night Gallery had a lot of political turmoil backstage, but maybe it just was doomed from the start. Serling’s style of writing was on the way out. Even in its contemporaries — you never see the maudlin, long-winded, preachy monologues in the other old shows covered here — Alfred Hitchcock or Thriller.
It could be argued that Serling was creating deeper characters, but was he? Even the hour-long Thriller seems to be less padded out than a lot of Serling’s work in Twilight Zone (don’t even start on the hour-long season) and Night Gallery. Mostly, it felt like he was just looking for a platform for his liberal (in the good way, before liberals went insane) speeches. There’s a reason Strange Interlude never really caught on.
Even Serling himself went through a transformation which, though in step with the zeitgeist, did him a disservice. He started out a very straight-laced Don Draper type hosting Twilight Zone in 1959 — perfect dark suit, perfect short hair, perfect thin black tie. Probably wore a perfect hat. He was the the very model of the modern major company man around whom things went askew — just as in many on his TZ episodes. That itself cast in relief the other-worldliness in TZ (and is why it was a mistake to ever have Boris Karloff host such shows).
By the time Night Gallery started, the 1960’s were in full swing or in full bore — ironically both cliches have appropriate double-meanings. Serling was still hosting, but it was a different Serling. Unlike Don Draper, he changed with the times (but did not buy the world a Coke). He seemed a little too tan, a little oily — his dictating scripts by his pool has been described often. And the hair — my God — the hair. It was longer, wilder, often did not reflect a minute sitting in the make-up chair or having at least a comb run through it. He was not our rock standing statue-still as he usually was to introduce the Twilight Zone. He was more like a sunburned hobo with a five o’clock shadow wandering through this cheap set of mostly awful paintings (although why, for the love of God, didn’t they ever use that cool dragon sculpture?). The societal deterioration of the 1960s permeated Night Gallery.
It was also the curse of color television. I have wondered whether watching some of these episodes in black & white might make them a different show — like the black & white DVD that was included in The Mist Special Edition. Or the way color film of WWII seems to cheapen the events. Maybe that’s true for some episodes, but I’m not going back and rewatching them in B&W (nice investment on those DVDs, pal).
And maybe, like the first wife in tonight’s episode, it would just never be able to compete with it’s younger “self” — the earlier “golden” age of TV, the newness, the younger age and energy of Serling, and the innocence of the country. Even the iconic, tight-lipped, vaguely menacing on-screen appearance of Serling was no longer a novelty.
By the time Night Gallery arrived, it was tarted up with color, infused with excruciating throw-away sketches, and creative control was taken away from the man to be be mostly controlled by lesser talents of “the man”. It was just a desperate attempt to be one of the young, hip crowd; but about as appealing as a potbelly and a comb-over.
But I digress.
Molly Wheatland invites her ex-husband over on the pretense of signing some papers. In reality, she has planned a romantic evening. Sadly, her ex-husband Charlie has a younger woman waiting in the car. Happily for him, it Barbara Rhoades who played the hot, young, busty redhead in every show of the 70s & 80s. Yada yada . . .
Maybe it is just the sadness of the episode that finally brings this series crashing down for me. Geraldine Page is great in this and certainly not unattractive. Ironically, maybe this episode launched my rant because the sadness in it is a little too real.
Post-Post:
- Twilight Zone Legacy: Fittingly, none.
- Ironically, Charlie is 13 years older than Molly, so maybe this isn’t his first trip to this particular rodeo.
- Out of 49 episodes, this one ranked 14th from the bottom. A better ranking than I expected, but that IMDb rating system has always been a little suspect.
- I wish I had enough interest to mention that the black & white cookie guy in her eye above looks just like the guy in Star Trek. Am I going to take the time to look up his name? I am not.
One of my favorites entries in this blog, and that’s saying; great if saddening reflections on Rod’s decay with the times. Given a longing for the past is one of the most prominent topics in his work, that embracing trends resulted in a loss of his essence fits somehow.
Takin’ the chance to inquire, too, if all is alright, if you decided to take December off too and will return come January, or if your absence will turn more permanent. Whatever the case I hope you’re doing swell. Been a fan of this site since I stumbled across it two years ago.
(Also, I have a DVD of the 2002 Twilight Zone that my sadistic nature would be happy to donate to you)
Thanks for the nice comment! Sorry it took me 4 years to see it!
I beg to differ with you on 2 counts. This segment was excellent, and the iconic paintings were fantastic.
I enjoyed your in-depth analysis prior to evaluating this episode – some very valid and interesting observations on the zeitgeist of which Night Gallery resides in, even if I take exception to some of the conclusions drawn.
But I gotta say, what seems to put you off about “Woodwork” is precisely what makes this an effective, not to mention haunting (no pun) story. I have seen this episode over a dozen times, and each time, I am completely captivated by the performance of Geraldine Page – let’s just say it……she owns this episode. She’s lonely, a touch delusional, drowning her pain in alcohol while refusing to come to grips with the reality that she is a divorcee, and worse, her ex has taken up with the tarty Barbara Rhodes. That’s enough to make anyone hit the bottle.
Conversely, ex-husband Leif Erickson is no spring chicken himself: he seems weary (possibly of Molly), brittle, and apparently (as we are told in not-so-subtle terms) he has a ‘bum ticker’. Which kinda makes me wonder how long it would be before Charlie would’ve bought the farm during one of his intimate moments with Rhodes. I mean seriously….think about it.
The ending also feels like a labor of convenience: and since Serling himself adapted the short story for this teleplay, the onus has to be on him. Okay, the spirit scares her husband to death, and when Charlie dies, he inhabits his body. When Charlie tells her (in ghost voice) that her ex is now confined as a spirit in the attic, you’d think he’d be grateful, after all, he could’ve made the choice to have Charlie be his sidekick, but he chose to inhabit his form instead. And are we to assume the apparition was going to attack Molly, likely killing her? That’s a cheap resolution if ever I saw one.
Great comments, as always!
It’s a solid episode and it owes a lot the Miss Page, naturally. She makes eating an olive seem fascinating to behold. I like the ending because it not only surprises us but it is a deliciously ghastly surprise for Molly, whose aim was to kill Charlie. Instead, she is the one who gets murdered.
I must mention: saying here that Serling “started out a very straight-laced Don Draper type hosting Twilight Zone in 1959” made me giggle because Draper is physically based on executive males of that period, not vice versa. Rod (and his tailor) could not be emulating the look of Mad Men. So many people these days make the mistake of remarking how something/someone from the past reminds them of someone/something from recent times. It doesn’t work that way. (Okay, I’m admittedly being inordinately fussy, but it’s a little peeve of mine.)
Back to the “woodwork”: I enjoy the choices made. Things are said very economically: only a really lonely person would prepare cookies and coffee for a handyman in the hopes that he could be swayed into staying for a while. Obviously Molly is very unhappy, and any attention she can grab is precious. Also, the decision to make the ghostly Jamie’s persona and voice very humdrum, monotonous, and almost melancholy is unexpected– when he could have been written/presented as angry, territorial, evil or scheming. And I detect something of a British accent there too.
Bottom line, this is a fun one. It’s got cool camera angles and compositions, good audio (that heartbeat sound adds a creepy effect to the proceedings), and a stellar leading lady to cement things together.
Wow, longest comment ever! I saw it sitting in line at a drive-thru and assumed I was in for a reaming. But no, so thanks for the insights!