Night Visions
© 2001 Fox

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Night Visions

It's nice to see Fox marketing their new anthology series NIGHT VISIONS the right way by acknowledging that this is essentially an updated riff on THE TWILIGHT ZONE. In commercials for the series, the rock song "Twilight Zone" by Golden Earring hums in the background as it offers glimpses at the new show's all-star cast and feature film quality cinematography.

There haven't been any popular prime time anthology attempts in awhile and the only real success stories within the past ten years have been Showtime's revival of THE OUTER LIMITS and HBO's TALES FROM THE CRYPT and those were on cable. That poses a potential problem for NIGHT VISIONS since network audiences tend to be a bit more fickle.

Still, short attention spans may be just what the network had in mind. NIGHT VISIONS is well aware of the anthology lineage it has to live up to and does its best to etch out its own unique niche.

Whereas TALES FROM THE CRYPT really played up the "twist" in their shows and made it very apparent where its obvious metaphors were leading ("you are what you eat" and so on), NIGHT VISIONS goes for the obvious twist half way through the episode but twists again in an entirely different direction before the tale is wrapped up. It works most of the time and that's what makes the series so interesting to watch.

Aidan Quinn investigates an airliner crash on NIGHT VISIONS

© 2001 Fox Broadcasting

The two-hour series premiere culls four stories together (subsequent episodes will be one hour long with two stories apiece). Kicking things off to a great start is the incredibly creepy "The Passenger List," directed by Yves Simoneau. Owing a little bit to Stanley Kubrick's expert symmetrical composition of long, winding hallways in his seminal THE SHINING, Simoneau manages to create an otherworldly atmosphere. The story follows an air transportation official (Aidan Quinn) that suspects his daughter might have been the unlisted passenger on the plane crash he is investigating. Intricately plotted and featuring a great performance by the always underrated Quinn, this episode builds and builds until the ending's creepy finale.

The second tale, "The Bokor," is totally CRYPT-like in structure and follows the nefarious plan of two med students (Samantha Mathis, Jason London) and the terrible lesson one of them learns when she tries to double cross the other. It's familiar turf, made tolerable by a better-than-average performance from Mathis.

Much better is "Dead Air" featuring Lou Diamond Phillips as a late, late night shock jock whose pranks go too far. Though the final twist proves a tad too contrived, the build-up is taut and quite frightening. The clever use of music sets this segment apart -- "I Think You're Alone Now" by Tommy James and the Shondells plays as Phillips roams the radio station's hallways terrified someone is stalking him.

Gil Bellows (R) on NIGHT VISIONS

© 2001 Fox Broadcasting

The final story is "Renovation" directed by Brian Dennehey and starring Gil Bellows as a recovering alcoholic who buys a fixer-upper that happened to be the place where a horrible murder happened several years earlier. As he becomes haunted by visions of the former murderous occupant history may be repeating itself, this time endangering the new occupant's wife and child.

The unifying tie of all four stories is the way they actually try to provide some honest chills for the audience. The guessing game that goes on in regards to twists is also a nice attribute since the stories never quite go in the direction you think they will. And like most anthology series, it's a hit and miss affair. Some are great, others not so, but the good so far outweighs the bad. In fact, the two stories that compromise the July 19th airing are as good and if not better than the premiere. Actor Bill Pullman directs himself in "A View Through the Window," which is classic TWILIGHT ZONE a complete and utter morality play that has a final image that is as creepy as they come. GREMLINS/SMALL SOLDIER director Joe Dante takes the helm for "Quiet, Please," which features Dante's quirky sense of humor. In this story, Cary Elwes plays a "city life" hating man who decides to go to the woods for a little rest, only to find he can't get away when a nosy camper (Brian Dennehy) starts making his retreat a living hell.

Henry Rollins as the host of NIGHT VISIONS

© 2001 Fox Broadcasting

Serving as the show's host is hard rocker Henry Rollins whose opening and ending tags are short and to the point. He's the perfect short attention span host and because his thoughts are kept to a minimum, they pack more of a thoughtful punch than would be expected.

NIGHT VISIONS was originally intended to debut last fall, but Fox held off on airing the series keeping it as a back up in case the writers strike happened. Now, a perfectly good show has been relegated to summer hell when something as bad as FREAKYLINKS gets the entire fall TV promotional budget. The good news is viewers who stumble upon NIGHT VISIONS on Thursday nights won't need the previous episodes to catch up on what happened. The bad news how many people are even aware the show is on.

NIGHT VISIONS is this summer's sleeper hit it doesn't ask an audience to jump midstream into its mythology and the production value and the A-quality talent involved insures that the value will be consistent throughout its 12 week run. Now, its up the audience to tune in before Fox decides to control the vertical and tune it out completely.