Night Visions

The premise for this show is simple. You take a pinch of "The X-Files", blend it with some "Amazing Stories" and throw in a dash of "Tales From The Crypt" and voila, you have a fresh new series based on the supernatural and unexplained with guest actors, guest directors and a creepy host (well, that is if you consider Henry Rollins to be creepy).

But alas, this is probably about the 5000th TV show to hit the air since television was invented and just about everything about this show seems either unoriginal or enters the 'been there, done that' territory because so many shows before it has dabbled in the same subject matter.

Unlike "Tales From The Crypt" where the host was the fun and always hilarious Crypt Keeper, here we have a sombre and straight-to-the-point Henry Rollins (of the Rollins Band) presenting each story with a quick foreword. Each story blends mystery, suspense and most of the time, death, together to make for a half hour episode of fun. Unfortunately, most of the stories are extremely predictable and the endings don't always come as a surprise. But still, it makes for good Summer filler, and seeing guest actors meeting a sorry demise at the end of each episode is always fun.

FOX - Keep this one on the air!

Night visions was an extremely good show. It has a Twilight Zone quality to it. The stories are very well written and often blow you away when you see the ending. I would recomend anyone to check out this show if the can find it.

I, for one, enjoy this show. It's not the greatest show ever, nor is it the most original, but it makes for good late-night entertainment. I'm constantly blown away by the somewhat big names they can get. Thus far (4 episodes in) the best one is the one with Brian Dennehy and Cary Elwes about the weekend killer. Sure, the stories are trite and the surprises are predictable five minutes in, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The only problem I have with this show is Henry Rollins' grim and somber Rod Serling-esque intros and outros. Henry Rollins is too talented and/or cool to be that dull and boring. He should really liven up, it would add a whole new dimension to this show. This show is definitely worth watching. But you should probably watch it soon before Fox inevitably yanks it from its lineup and replaces it with more Malcolm In The Middle reruns.

I knew when Fox started airing this show that they'd already decided not to make any more episodes of it, but I figured they'd at least air the ones they had and I could tape them. I missed one and then Sept. 11th happened before they could air the last three. When the schedule finally returned to normal, Night Visions was nowhere to be found. I kept hoping that they'd finally air them eventually and then I heard the Sci-Fi Channel had picked it up.

I happily started checking the schedule each week to see if it was an episode I needed and finally the one I missed was going to be on. It wasn't, they played repeats of The Dead Zone instead. I figured that they'd play them eventually, even if it was in a lousy timeslot. Now they've done something so low, I have trouble expressing how angry I am.

Tonight SFC aired a supposedly original 'movie' called Shadow Realm. I then discovered that this was nothing more than 2 episodes of Night Visions with the original titles and intros removed and SFC's name plastered on it.

This is a bald-faced *LIE*. SFC had absolutely nothing to do with this 'movie' other than hacking up the episodes and slapping their name on it! I consider this outright theft. They'd probably argue that since they bought the rights to it, they can claim it to be an original, but how many people would accept it if I were to buy the Mona Lisa and proclaim it to be my original work? No, I'm not comparing Night Visions to a priceless work of art, but the principle is the same and it deserves to be seen the way the creators intended.

Because of this, you can be sure that you will never see those two episodes (Patterns/Maze, Harmony/Voices) in their unedited form, because that would show the SFC to be the liars they are. That's not just an opinion, it's a fact. They lied about creating this 'movie'.

I hope that the IMDB approves this comment because I think it's important for fans of this show to be aware of just how low the SFC really is.

I didn't discover this until it began airing on Sci-Fi (and I quite agree with Rekrul about Sci-Fi misleading viewers by claiming productions as their own -- they made similar claims with "Strange World" [a series that ran on ABC for half a season three years prior to Sci-Fi claiming it as their own], "Cube 2" [an international production in wide release that couldn't secure a distribution deal in the US], "Riverworld" [adaptation of a Phillip Jose Farmer novel that was doomed when Alex Proyas left the project and was bound for direct-to-video release until Sci-Fi grabbed it] and all of their cheesy Saturday afternoon monster movies that would have gone direct-to-video if Sci-Fi hadn't snapped up the rights). "Night Visions" was a bit heavyhanded with the morality lessons, something that "The Twilight Zone" did with a light touch and as an afterthought. But if you could overlook that, some of the stories were quite effective (and many were not, either lacking a strong ending or simply not being believable). The guest cast was literally stellar, including some of the leading lights of the indie film movement as well as more mainstream actors, which gave it some sort of post-modern credibility. The acting was always solid. Somehow Henry Rollins didn't really work as the host -- he's a competant actor, why did it seem like he was phoning it in? He may have fit the indie sensibility of the show, but he was positioned in the mode of the classic moralist anthology host ala Serling, and he just didn't seem to rise to the task...in fact he seemed uncomfortable in the role. I can't picture the guy in a suit, but I think the t-shirt and tats combo also worked against him (but how else would you dress Henry Rollins?).