(1972)
Dir - Jeannot Szwarc
Overall: MEH
The final season of Night Gallery was one that switched to a half-hour format where most episodes consisted of but a lone tale. "The Return of the Sorcerer" adapts Clark Ashton Smith's 1931 short story of the same name, which is part of the Lovecraft Mythos since it features the fabled Necronomicon that is currently in the possession of none other than Vincent Price. While it is always wonderful to see Price in anything, he seems uncharacteristically aloof here, but that could be due to the clunky presentation. Director Jeannot Szwarc was behind the lens of many instalments for the program, and while he manages to deliver some campy occult atmosphere, the narrative seems half-baked and convoluted. Still, Price playing a set of twins, wearing a robe with an upside-down cross on it, chanting rituals, and confusing Bill Bixby by introducing a goat as his father all provide some quirky fun.
(1972)
Dir - John Badham
Overall: MEH
Both Joanna Pettet and John Astin make their final of several Night Gallery appearances in "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes", an adaptation of the 1949 short story of the same name by Fritz Leiber. Pettet portrays the female of the title; a mysterious woman who entices every man that she meets after barging into photographer James Farentino's studio and insisting that her modeling career kick-off from there. It turns out that Pettet is some sort of succubus that has an ulterior malevolent agenda, sucking the souls from men or some equivalent thereof when her eyes glow with fire. The final confrontation between Farentino and Pettet seems more silly than heart-racing, Farentino having quickly pieced everything together and making a lucky guess as to how to rid the world of this enticing evil once and for all. It is almost as if his character read the script ahead of time.
(1972)
Dir - Jeannot Szwarc
Overall: MEH
Host Rod Serling had grown displeased with several aspects of Night Gallery by the time that the third season came around, namely how he had little control over any aspect of it, unlike The Twilight Zone which was mostly his to dictate. He therefor only got four scripts on the air for this last run, "Rare Objects" being the first of them. Raymond Massey returns in what looks like the same foyer and large parlor room that his character had in the previous season's "Clean Kills", with Mickey Rooney in the lead as a disgruntled gangster on the run. This leads to one of Serling's patented shocker finales where the morally corrupt protagonist does not quite get what they bargained for, but said twist has its fair share of plot holes and does not land as well as others.
(1972)
Dir - Jeannot Szwarc
Overall: MEH
"Spectre in Tap-Shoes" plays the bog-standard psychological turmoil game of most quasi-supernatural tales, where a woman is gaslit into believing that she is losing her mind in order for another character to get her out of the way for financial gain. Both the presentation and plot revelation are conventional, but the presentation is still done in a chilling manner for those who are not bothered by its adherence to formula. Sandra Dee returns here as a woman who is traumatized by the alleged suicide of her sister, becoming even more traumatized by the ghostly events which follow. These include hearing her sister tap-dancing upstairs, objects returning from the grave, and herself taking on the habits of her recently departed sibling. The Scooby-Doo mask reveal tries to have its cake and eat it too, but Dee still turns in a solid performance within such confines.
(1972)
Dir - John Badham
Overall: MEH
Ozzie and Harriet Nelson join forces as usual, this time in the Night Gallery installment "You Can Come Up Now, Mrs. Millikan", which is an adaptation of J. Wesley Rosenquist's 1938 short story "The Secret of the Vault". Being a Rod Serling teleplay, it of course has a clever and macabre ending, yet it is also one that should be easily foreseeable enough as various clues to the outcome are dropped along the way. The Nelsons play a likeable if eccentric couple, Ozzie a would-be scientist who botches every last one of his experiments while Harriet suffers from short-time memory loss. Unfortunately, Ozzie tests out his life after death thesis on the Mrs., leading to tragically ironic results that make this a sad if still tongue-in-cheek excursion.
(1972)
Dir - Jack Laird
Overall: WOOF
Producer Jack Laird still had his abysmal blackout sketch itch to scratch come season three of Night Gallery, "Smile, Please" falling in line with all of the other waste of time groan-worthy gags that he had shoehorned into various episodes in the past. This one has Cesare Danova promising Lindsay Wagner that she can take a picture of a real un-alive vampire, and it is a surprise to no one who the vampire is once they get to a crypt and find an empty coffin. It is so short, (let alone idiotic), that one wonders even further why it was bothered to be produced in the first place, but at least they only made a few more of these until the program was cancelled.
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