Night Gallery -- The Pilot -- 1970

[no_hypocrisy]

Two particular stories

Do you remember this?

Roddy McDowell is a mean SOB. He is contemptuous of the loyal butler for his uncle yet sends him away for the week-end, taking charge of his relative. He then informs his uncle (who is paralyzed, wheelchairbound, unable to speak) that he needs to die sooner than later because Roddy needs his money as sole beneficiary he'll inherit. He opens the wide window in the bedroom. It is a cold grey fall day, sun setting, a strong cold wind blowing in. The uncle is then positioned in front of the window with the hopes he'll catch a cold and succumb accordingly. (The old man was warned by his doctor not to catch a cold or he'd die.) Roddy coldly (no pun intended) tells his uncle what his intentions are and locks the wheelchair, and leaves the room, closing the door. The old man is terrified. He feebly tries to close his sweater in futility, shivering, knowing his fate, helpless and alone. Pure evil.

Another vignette. Joan Crawford is rich and blind. She blackmails a surgeon into performing a speculative operation that may restore her sight. (A girl died on his operating table but it wasn't known and/or reported.) Her lawyers find a shnook whose life in danger because of gambling debts and who essentially sells his eyes (and sight) to Joan Crawford. I think it was Tom Bosley. She is ruthless in her pursuit of seeing again and has the money get what she wants.

I don't care that both Roddy and Joan received their karma at the end of each story.

My point: I was 12 in 1970 and these 2 particular stories horrified me because of the vacuum of ethics and the abject greed and personal corruption and manipulation of people because of the greed and corruption. And especially the first story with the nephew pushing his uncle across the room to his inevitable death. His uncle's life is dispensable, a barrier to the nephew's wealth, an inconvenience. I thought nobody could possibly and really possess these morals (or lack thereof).

I was wrong. There are people who buy people like commodities. This country is in the wheelchair, being pushed to the open window with the cold wind by Ted Cruz and the Koch Brothers. They want us to die.

I truly am horrified how bad it is. And it isn't fiction.

[LiberalLoner]

1. I remember those very well. The right wingers would celebrate those

Stories as the way it ought to be in America.

[kimbutgar]

2. Good analogy

I loved night gallery. Rod Sterling was a genius.

These GOP tea people are rotten to the core and need to all being voted out for trying to destroy our country.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. dont remember those eps but good analogy

[snagglepuss]

4. I don't remember that ep but do remember a wealthy family who the reading of a will

had to don repellent masks to make them eligible to inherit. Each mask highlighted each person's worst character trait. The catch was that they their actual faces changed, appearing like the masks when the masks were removed.

[janlyn]

5. That was a twilight zone episode.

And a really good one. The sci-fi channel runs a marathon of twilight episodes every year. Sure wish they would do night gallery as well.
Loved that show and nightstalker. My mother worked nights and my older siblings would let me get up after she left and watch. Good memories.
I definitely remember those episodes.

[TheDebbieDee]

8. The Nightstalker was one of the scariest shows ever!

And they never showed a bunch of blood or gore either.....those people knew how to build suspense and allow the viewer's imagination to make things seem a lot scarier than they were!

[dsharp88]

6. Exactly! They want us owned or dead.

If you're not donating to or, at least, voting for Republicans they will do what they can to own you and/or cause your death. Keeping health insurance from those who can't afford it, taking away SNAP benefits from poor children, disabled, and elderly, gaining control of your social security money, eliminating minimum wage or keeping it below poverty levels, keeping voting rights from those won't vote their way, preventing equal pay to women, forcing unnecessary penetration with inanimate objects into women who won't vote their way...

You tell me if that's not what they want.

[xfundy]

7. Here's the pilot episode

The Joan Crawford segment was directed by Spielberg!

[Uncle Joe]

9. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, no_hypocrisy.