Night Gallery (TV Series) The Different Ones/Tell David.../Logoda's Heads (1971) User Reviews

Unexpected Fates

[AaronCapenBanner · 7/10 · 11 November 2014]

'The Different Ones' - Dana Andrews plays a troubled father whose unhappy son is deemed too ugly to live in society, and so is sent on an interplanetary exchange mission which has unexpected results... Though derivative of "The Twilight Zone", episode 'Eye Of The Beholder', likable tale has a most heart-warming finale, a rarity for this series(that is part of the twist I think...)

'Tell David' - A woman(played by Sandra Dee) gets an unexpected trip to the future where an important warning goes unheeded... Good tale by story editor Gerald Sanford explores the nature of fate and responsibility.

'Lagoda's Heads' - Unremarkable tale of African voodoo revenge.

"The old green eyed monster strikes again!"

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 1 June 2017]

I see a lot of Twilight Zone fans commenting on this Night Gallery entry, which makes my review somewhat redundant but I'll mention it anyway. 'The Different Ones' is a reworking of one of Rod Serling's most celebrated stories, one that's always offered on those cable channel marathons around Thanksgiving or selected holidays. That one was called 'Eye of the Beholder', and included a deeper, underlying warning about mass conformity and falling victim to a herd mentality. The one thing about this episode though, which was novel for the era, was it's mention of euthanasia as a potential 'solution' for the problem posed by the disfigured son of Paul Koch (Dana Andrews). That seemed rather daring for the early Seventies. And as 'The Twilight Zone' often did, this story took the time frame into the near future with a mention of the Federal Conformity Act of 1993. I always found it interesting that Serling would place some of his TZ stories in the very foreseeable future instead of thousands of years, which is what the second feature also did.

'Tell David' is kind of remarkable from the standpoint of it's 1971 air date in that it offers futuristic designs for various gadgets like the telephone with programmed redial, and a simplistic GPS tracking system that David Blessington (Jared Martin) shared with his 'Mom' when she showed up lost, trying to find her way home. Though David's warning from 'the future' is more than transparent to Ann Bolt (Sandra Dee), her explanation to husband Tony goes unheeded when she gets back home, setting up the dire consequences of her own fate that she couldn't help avoid.

'Logoda's Heads' is a story of powerful magic and shrunken heads that could have gone any number of ways depending on who was writing the story. As it is, the mysterious Logoda (Brock Peters) falls victim to his own brand of black magic at the hands of an even more powerful witch, though the way the story plays out, the idea that Kyro (Denise Nicholas) would displace the village chief is somewhat dubious. If she had the potential to defeat Logoda once the white adventurers showed up, why wouldn't she have done so long ago?

Uneven at Best

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 13 June 2014]

These three episodes are a little on the weak side, in my opinion. The first "The Different Ones," for me, was just warmed-over Twilight Zone. A young man who lives in an "advanced" culture has the great misfortune to be born deformed. He is hideous to the eyes of everyone and his father, who feels greatly for his misfortune, doesn't know what to do. One of the options for people born this way is termination. They have, for whatever, reason, developed an exchange program with another planet. The wind up...and the pitch.

"Tell David..." is an odd episode. A woman loses her way, trying to find her house, and ends up getting help from some odd people. They have technology beyond that which she is used to. David, the young man (who has the same name as her little boy) is a master at repairing devices she's never seen. When she returns to her husband, he is dressed as a monster and nags at her and chases her. It is obvious that this is the way he sees her. She is monumentally jealous. She comes to realize that she has an opportunity to change her history, to prevent herself from doing a deadly thing. As it goes along, it becomes nonsensical. It also gets caught in the problems with the mutation of time.

"Lagoda's Heads" concerns a couple of men who visit a medicine man in an African jungle. The brother of one of them has disappeared and it is suspected that Lagoda, the medicine man, is responsible. Lagoda does things with shrunken heads that he talks to. He also can put curses on people. A young woman who is cursed, tells the man his brother has been there. Through a series of spells and counter-spells involving the young woman, everything comes to a "head." Or I guess it's heads. Terrible acting and another convoluted plot.

Nifty assortment of stories

[Woodyanders · 7/10 · 4 October 2018]

"The Different Ones" - Concerned father Paul Koch (a fine performance by Dana Andrews) agrees to a unique solution that might help his ugly son Victor (a sympathetic portrayal by Jon Korkes) find happiness and acceptance on another planet. This rehash of the classic Twilight Zone episode "The Eye of the Beholder" offers a touching exploration of a father's love for his son and ends on a rare upbeat, if still ironic note.

"Tell David" - Ann Bolt (nicely played by Sandra Dee) somehow finds herself catapulted twenty years into the future in which she meets her now grown up son David (a solid turn by Jared Martin), who warns Ann that she's going to kill her husband on his fourth birthday. The intriguing premise makes a provocative point on how a person can't escape fate and destiny.

"Logoda's Heads" - Witch doctor Logoda (fearsome Brock Peters) is accused of murdering an explorer. Predictable voodoo revenge tale has few surprises, but at least still has a fun ooga-booga atmosphere along with sound acting by Patrick Macnee and Tim Matheson as the guys who are determined to find out the truth about the death of their colleague.

Far from prime 'Night Gallery', but still watchable.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 15 January 2021]

'The Different Ones'. Written by Mr. Serling, and directed by John Meredyth Lucas. Dana Andrews is solid as a father with a deformed teenage son (Jon Korkes). He doesn't have very many options in terms of dealing with the kid, then learns of an interplanetary "exchange program". The catch here is a warm and upbeat ending, something not that common for this series, where the kid is able to find acceptance, and will NOT have to put up with evil and taunting children any more. The twist is definitely reminiscent of Serlings' previous, legendary 'Twilight Zone' series, but it's nice to see a happy resolution to the character problems here. The episode also has something pertinent to say about the way that humans treat anybody who is "different".

'Tell David..." Scripted by Gerald Sanford, based on a story by Penelope Wallace, and directed by actor Jeff Corey. An interesting, "futuristic" tale with a theme about the damage that chronic jealousy can cause. Sandra Dee is fine as a motorist who stops at a strangers' house for directions, and meets some charming people (Jared Martin and Jenny Sullivan) who have some major relevance in her life. The writing here is fairly predictable, but at least the cast is endearing and the story engrossing. Ultimately, the lead character will be very conscious of her fate and will accept it, knowing that she will be forgiven.

'Logoda's Heads'. Scripted by "Psycho" author Robert Bloch, based on a story by August Derleth. A pretty standard yarn about voodoo and revenge in Africa, as the character Logoda (Brock Peters), a witch doctor, is suspected of having been involved with the death of a white explorer. While there is nothing really scary about this segment, the shrunken heads *are* creepy, and the actors (Patrick Macnee, Denise Nicholas, Tim Matheson, Albert Popwell, etc.) do a decent job.

Overall, this is NOT a great episode, but it is a good one.

Seven out of 10.

Rider in the Rain

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 8 May 2013]

***SPOILERS*** P.S This review is only about the "Night Gallery" episode "Tell David".

Lost on the road in a blinding rainstorm Ann Bolt ends up at this strange house in what seems like the middle of nowhere off the main highway. No it's, the house, not the infamous Bates Motel but something that seem to be out of time and place. Meeting the lady of the house Pat Blessington Anne is surprised how futuristic everything in the place is. There's things like close circuit TV and telephone and computer systems that didn't exist at the time. And It's later when Ann meets Pat's husband she's a bit taken back in how she seems to have known him for sometime and in someplace before but can't quite place when.

Back home after spending a quite and interesting time at the Blessington home Ann is confronted by her somewhat off the wall and crazed husband Tony, who's wearing a rubber Halloween horror mask, who accuses her of being unfaithful to him by not coming back in time. Tony hysterically claims that Ann was out on the town when she was supposed to be home with him looking after the couple's four year old son David. It's what Ann had earlier learned from the Blessington's about herself and David that soon started to rattle her. That's when David cut his thumb cutting his birthday cake and Tony's obvious and in the open and hot in his pants attraction to the maid Yvonne,Francoise Ruggreri.

****SPOILERS*** By now Ann knew what she was soon to come and accepted to what's to happen to her. That after she blew her cheating husband Tony, whom she caught alone together with Yvonne, away in a fit of righteous indignation . She also knew that she would never stand trial for her crime as well. But yet whatever time she still had left on earth, she soon committed suicide in her jail cell, an at peace with herself Ann knew is that her son David would forgive her for what she's done that made her final hour a happy one.

The Different Ones

[LJ27 · 8/10 · 1 October 2022]

As a small child watching "The Different Ones" segment of THE NIGHT GALLERY, I found it horrifying but now I see it's just the flipside of a TWILIGHT ZONE episode called, "Eye of the Beholder," with the sex of the character changed from girl to boy. I think this episode was a good 10 minutes shorter when it originally aired in 1971, but for syndication, it's running time was increased by adding stock footage from other films that were previously released by Universal Studios. I find it fun to try to figure out which shots come what what movie. The monorail and neighborhood scenes with a red car driving around talking over a loud speaker, as well as a visual effects shot of, "the flying police force," are all from the 1966 film, FAHRENHEIT 451, which was released by Universal Pictures (who also released NIGHT GALLERY on television); There is a shot of the Metalunan flying saucer docked on Metaluna, a shot of a flaming meteor and shots of the Earth on a viewscreen from THIS ISLAND EARTH (1955), another Universal Release. There are also shots of computer tapes, lights blinking and such from COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT (1970). Visual Effects footage lifted from SILENT RUNNING (1972) was added to this episode for syndication as the show originally aired before SILENT RUNNING was released and of course there's lots of footage of Saturn V rockets in various stages of launch and flight taken from NASA. The extremely large volume of stock shots gives the episode a kind of snake-eating-it's own tail quality but I grew up on cheesy films and shows and enjoy spotting the outtakes from other movies. Not sure who did the nifty makeup for the main character but I think it was credited to department head, Bud Westmore, but more likely was actually subcontracted to someone like John Chambers, who also built the monster suit for the "Pickman's Model," episode and did the monsters in the made-for-TV movie, DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (1973).

Same old song and dance

[melikeemovies · 3/10 · 7 August 2007]

This episode of "Night Gallery" is quite honestly just Rod Serling blatantly ripping himself off. "The Different Ones" is just "Eye Of The Beholder" from the original "The Twilight Zone" series with a boy instead of a girl and a planet of disfigured inhabitants...or is it two? The problem is that "Eye Of The Beholder" was directed with style and made the viewer care about the central characters of the story. The only thing "The Different Ones" has going for it is...well...that it's in color and incorporates some N.A.S.A. footage which I'm sure was riveting at the time. Oh, there was also some stock footage of what I believe was the monorail from Disney World to help make the planet Earth look futuristic...that was absolutely hilarious...along with some random announcements over a P.A. system concerning "flying policemen" (on very visible wires and some very bad green screen) and something about aliens landing and then later being found to be "friendly"...not sure what that was except possibly a way of stretching out the story to fit the formatted running time. This is definitely not one of the better "Night Gallery" episodes.

Footage From Oskar Werner film

[Piafredux · 2/10 · 3 May 2013]

The monorail, red Jaguar police loudspeaker car, and the quartet of flying policemen footage was ripped off from the (quite good) Oskar Werner & Julie Christie film 'Fahrenheit 451.'

I never cared for the 'Night Gallery' series, as I consider it to have been poorly written and crudely filmed in comparison to Serling's far superior 'The Twilight Zone' series.

'Night Gallery' also included a lot of occult/horror episodes, a genre rarely seen in 'The Twilight Zone' program, and occult/horror has never appealed to me.

Have fun, Folks!

redundant (redundundant?) and anthropologically/zoologically inept

[bdwilneralex · 4/10 · 4 October 2012]

I agree with an earlier reviewer that "The Different Ones" bears marked resemblances to Twilight Zone's "Eye of the Beholder," which Serling also wrote. The crucial difference is that "Eye" reeked of quality, whereas "Ones" reeks of ineptitude. The light and shadow play that characterized much of "Eye" kept us largely in the dark until it was revealed--at the bitter end--that the protagonist was the lone (or nearly lone) beauty adrift amid a hideously ugly populace. The episode made a sort of intrinsic sense: you could almost genetically divide it into the pig-people and the people-people. "The Different Ones," however, postulates utter lunacy: a profoundly deformed man on Earth is sent to a planet where the normal population just happen to match his every feature. As if that were not bad enough, his "profoundly deformed" counterpart from the planet Vorion is--guess what--a fellow who would pass for drop-dead gorgeous on Earth. Are the odds even calculable that, among two disparate planets, the outsiders of planet A would physically match the insiders of planet B, and vice-versa? PUH-LEEZ! (It's also profoundly ridiculous that--in the 1970s--we could be entirely ignorant of Vorion, a planet that, it is claimed, lies just beyond the orbit of Mars . . . but I digress.)

I take serious umbrage with "Logoda's Heads," as well, almost from top to bottom. First, the episode was profoundly cheaply filmed: assuming that my aging TV is not to blame--which it assuredly is not--the level of background lighting and tinting ranges from a light purple sky one moment to a deep green sky the next moment; and, while we trek from one valley, over a short hillock, to the next valley, the background lighting changes from day, to night, back to day. O.K. That's bad enough. Here's where the anthropology gets so backward that my beloved Prof. Stephanie Fins would be forced to commit seppuku. We have a black (= African) sorcerer, and a black "anti-sorcerer" (the young girl), and--I think--a black old woman situated among an Amazonian people. In addition to the Amazonian shrunken head fetishes ("tsantsas"), the Logoda is fond of shaking ironwood statuettes that are--unless my memory escapes me--quite West African, whether Dahomeyan or, in fact, Malian not being terribly important. Then, the young girl refers to the "native" animals, to wit, leopards and hyenas--none of which are to be found in South America (though, I'm sure, some rake will point out, "Aha! You can find leopards and hyenas at the Sao Paulo zoo!" {There's one in every crowd.}). I mean, how ridiculous does ridiculous get? There is definitely some good material to be found on Night Gallery, but you won't find it amid this pair of corkers!

I can't comment on the third segment about "David" insofar as my chopped, sliced, diced, and regurgitated version of "Night Gallery" as shown on the MeTV cable network at 1:30AM did not condescend to sport that third piece. Pity.

Jungle Fever

[zsenorsock · 3/10 · 16 December 2006]

Another disappointing episode of "Night Gallery" this time with "Animal House" star Tim Matheson looking ridiculous in a fake mustache. A terrific child star (he was the voice of Jonny Quest), here Matheson is in that uneasy period of his career where he was too old to play juvenile parts and was trying to figure out just who he was and what he was good at. This was not it. Patrick "The Avengers" MacNee, Brock "To Kill a Mockingbird"Peters and Rupert "The Partners" Crosse are also in this embarrassing story about witch doctors and shrunken heads.

Sci-fi great Robert Bloch both wrote and directed this episode. He's done better.

Not a good one

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 15 April 2023]

The last episode of Night Gallery for 1971, this episode has a story that harkens back to a Twilight Zone episode yet finds - despite the sheer bleakness of this show - to somehow find happiness where that found dread.

"The Different Ones" has a father by the name of Paul Koch (Dana Andrews) dealing with the Federal Conformity Act of 1993, which means that his son Victor (Jon Korkes) - who has a facial deformity - must be sent away to another planet if surgery can't help him. Directed by John Meredyth Lucas from a script by Rod Serling, it has the happier ending of Victor finding the happiness that eluded him on Earth. I was waiting for darkness to intrude but instead, this only has light.

"Tell David..." is directed by Jeff Corey and is based on a Penelope Wallace script. On a stormy night, Ann Bolt (Sandra Dee) seeks shelter from the future tech abode of David Blessington (Jared Martin) and Pat (Jenny Sullivan). Yet she soon realizes that David is her son from twenty years from now and he tells her the mistakes she's made that she must not make again. She must not kill her cheating husband Tony (Martin in a second part) and definitely not kill herself in prison. Yet sometimes, the future is going to happen no matter what we try.

"Logota's Heads" is about a witch doctor (Brock Peters) charged with the murder of an archaeologist. Directed by Jeannot Szwarc and written by Robert Bloch from an August Derleth story, it also has Patrick Macnee in the cast. Unfortunately, the story has an African witch doctor with shrunken heads, which mainly come from northern Peru and eastern Ecuador. Oh well...

I wish this episode didn't feel all over the place but at least there wasn't any comedy moments.