History Series / NightGallery

* EverybodyLives: [[spoiler: "The Messiah On Mott Street", one of the most optimistic episodes, has the grandfather pull through despite a fatal diagnosis.]]

* In "Room For One Less," a group of passengers on a crowded elevator get a surprise when a monstrous fiend manifests out of nowhere. One guy, [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight surprisingly nonplussed]], scolds the demon and points out the sign saying that only ten people are allowed on the elevator at once. The demon obliges...by obliterating the man with his powers, thus following the rules.

** "Something in the Woodwork": Molly nags the ghost into scaring her ex-husband to death (which she has reason to think will work, given his bad heart). It works, but then the ghost possesses the corpse.

* MaximumCapacityOverload: Subject of a gag in the short "Room For One Less". [[spoiler: A towering.. Thing gets on an already crowded elevator, and one of the occupants points out the Maximum Capacity sign. The Thing solves the problem by zapping the guy into non-existence]]

* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: "Certain Shadows On The Wall" has Rebecca secretly slip a little something in Stephen's food to help him sleep after exhausted he's made himself obsessing over the shadow in the parlor. She informs Ann that it's the same medicine he was giving Emma to help her. Ann is horrified, especially because Rebecca (possibly) doesn't realize that Steven ''killed'' Emma with that medicine.

* " In 'Death on a Barge' a young man is drawn to as woman, Hyacinth, unaware that she's a vampire.

* DarkerAndEdgier: The show leans more towards horror than Serling's previous series, ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone|1959}}''.

* AdamWesting: Phyllis Diller, known for her piercing voice and laugh, plays the titular Pamela in "Pamela's Voice." That is, she's a dead woman who is haunting the husband (Creator/JohnAstin) that killed her because, among all the things he hated about her, her voice was the number one thing he couldn't stand. It turns out he's dead too, and his punishment in Hell is her heaven, where she can just keep talking, and talking, and talking, and he can't do a thing about it.

Although the show was subject to ExecutiveMeddling from the beginning (much to Rod Serling's displeasure; unlike with ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone|1959}}'', he didn't have creative control) the third season saw the most of this (and possibly a bit of ScrewedByTheNetwork), with the episode length reduced to a half hour and the timeslot moved from Wednesday to Sunday. It was cancelled midway through the season.

Unusually for the format,[[note]]and, oddly, bearing a certain resemblance to SketchComedy[[/note]] the individual segments are not of a set length. They range from one-minute vignettes to long stories that take up most of the episode's run time (and everything in between); the number of segments per episode therefore varies accordingly.

Unusually for the format[[note]]and, oddly, bearing a certain resemblance to SketchComedy[[/note]], the individual segments are not of a set length. They range from one-minute vignettes to long stories that take up most of the episode's run time (and everything in between); the number of segments per episode therefore varies accordingly.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959''.

** The robotic servants in "You Can't Get Help Like That Anymore" are capable of adaptive learning, feeling emotions like pain and distress, and as the abusive Mr. and Mrs. Fulton learn the hard way, defending themselves by force.

** Many of the comedy blackouts end with nobody dying. Including "Junior", "Phantom of What Opera?", "A Midnight Visit to the Neighborhood Blood Bank" and "Satisfaction Guaranteed".

** "The Other Way Out" ends on this: either Bradley Meredith dies a slow, possibly painful death in the pit he can't escape from, or he takes the titular "other way out"... [[DrivenToSuicide and shoots himself]].

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" is the least supernatural episode in the entire series, other than the protagonist being haunted by past regrets. It's also one of the most critically acclaimed episodes in the show's history.

* InformedAttractiveness: "The Different Ones". A hideously deformed young man is part of an exchange program with a student from another planet who is part of the program for the same reason. Only the student from the other planet looks like a normal human, and the natives of his planet all look like the student from Earth- and the alien girls all think the new arrival is pretty cute, leading to a surprise HappyEnding. (Keep in mind, the boy and the aliens look like [[http://nightgallery.net/wp-content/uploads/DifferentOnesMarquee.jpg this]]. A bit strange looking, but not much worse than what you'd see on ''Franchise/StarTrek''.)

* DawsonCasting: Fortysomething John Astin doesn't make a very convincing hippie in "Hell's Bells."

* GoneHorriblyWrong: In "I'll Never Leave You - Ever", Morah wishes for a way to murder her incredibly needy husband.

%%* DeadPersonImpersonation: "Since Aunt Ada Came To Stay."

* DeathOfAChild: In "Little Girl Lost", Professor Putnam lost his young daughter Ginny and the government asks the protagonist to humor his delusion that she's still alive in order to get him to continue his work.
%%* "The Dark Boy"

%%* EverybodyLives: [[spoiler: "The Messiah On Mott Street."]]

%%* GoneHorriblyWrong: "I'll Never Leave You - Ever".

%%* KarmicDeath

%%* MermaidProblem: "Lindemann's Catch."