Rod Serling: Welcome, art lovers.
Pamela's Voice
Written by: Rod Serling
Directed by: Richard Benedict
Rod Serling: We offer for your approval: a still life, if you will, of noise; a soundless canvas suggestive of sound. The mouth belongs to Pamela; in life, a shrieking battle-ax made up of adenoids, tonsils, and sound decibels. In death, an unmuted practitioner of "fishwifery." Undeterred and ungagged by what one would assume to be the great silencer. Some ghosts come back to haunt, others come back simply to pick up where they left off. Our painting is called: Pamela's Voice, and this is the Night Gallery.
Jonathan (John Astin) visits the body of who he believes to be Pamela (Phyllis Diller), the nagging, overbearing wife he killed by shoving down the stairs just so she could shut up for once. As he expresses his relief, Pamela appears in the chair behind him, preparing to deliver a pretty big revelation about what happened to Johnathan, before she continues nagging him for the rest of time.
Tropes
- Adam Westing: Pamela is played by comedian Phyllis Diller, known for her piercing voice and nasal laugh. She comes back from the dead to haunt Jonathan, the husband who killed her, because among all the things he hated about her, her voice was the number one thing he just couldn't stand. It turns out that he's also dead and has been sent to Hell, where his punishment is Pamela's Heaven, as she can just keep talking and talking while he can't do anything about it.
- Affably Evil: Jonathan acts rather cordial to Pamela, who he pushed to her death, even asking if it hurt when she went down the stairs. Pamela is likewise very civil, though that's because she knows something he doesn't.
- Awful Wedded Life: Jonathan and Pamela's marriage was completely horrible, mainly due to Pamela's incessant nagging and her horrible voice, and it continues to be so long after they've both died.
- Dead All Along: Pamela tells Jonathan that she was buried several months ago, and he's the one in the casket.
- Gossipy Hens: If Jonathan is to be believed, Pamela's gossip had a knack for destroying people's lives and reputations.
- Henpecked Husband: Jonathan, who shoved his wife down the stairs to her death just to shut her up. Her ghost returns to continue nagging him for all time.
- Here We Go Again!: Once the truth comes out, Pamela goes back to nagging Jonathan while he's unable to do a thing to stop her, even starting right where she left off.
- Ironic Hell: Jonathan murdered Pamela largely because of her irritating voice. When it's revealed that he's dead, he's stuck listening to that voice for all eternity.
- Motor Mouth: Pamela, as her nagging goes on and on for the final minute of the segment.
- Take Our Word for It: Jonathan loathed Pamela in life, and she doesn't necessarily seem like the nicest lady, but she somehow managed to get into Heaven, where she gets to spend eternity talking on and on to torture her murderous husband.
- This Isn't Heaven: It's not for Jonathan, but it is for Pamela, as she can spend eternity nagging him while he can't stop her.
- Together in Death: Unintentionally with Jonathan and Pamela, as he killed her to stop that awful voice of hers. Once he dies, she gets to spend her time in Heaven nagging him nonstop, personally enacting his version of Hell.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Jonathan barely reacts to seeing the ghost of the woman he murdered sitting in the chair behind him.
- Wham Line: "In Heaven, Jonathan." Said by Pamela to her husband to divulge the truth.
Lone Survivor
Written by: Rod Serling
Directed by: Gene Levitt
Rod Serling: An unforgiving sea usually buries its secrets beneath itself. Warships and ocean liners, treasured galleons and submarines, turn into rusting relics inside a watery locker, lost to memory. But occasionally, there comes a floating, unbidden reminder of disaster, like this lifeboat. The painting is called: The Lone Survivor. We'll put it in tow and see where she came from, and why.
In 1915, the captain of the Lusitania (Torin Thatcher) and his crew spot what appears to be a lifeboat adrift on the open sea. Closer inspection reveals a man (John Colicos) aboard the boat in womens' clothing, and the boat itself appears to originate from the Titanic, sunken three years ago. Noting how unusual it is for a man to survive for three years at sea, the ship's doctor (Hedley Mattingly) learns that the survivor disguised himself as a woman to get on the lifeboat, and he was the only one left alive when it hit the water prematurely. Since then, he's been damned for his cowardice, forced to wander the seas and pass from one doomed ship to another for eternity. The officers aboard ship laugh his warnings off as a joke, but events seem to coincide with what the survivor describes.
Tropes
- Chromosome Casting: No females are present, as the episode's cast is composed entirely of sailors.
- Dead All Along: The survivor is the only living character, as all the others are phantoms in his personal hell.
- Dirty Coward: The survivor reveals he was a sailor on the Titanic, having forced his way onto the lifeboat he was found in dressed in women's clothing. The overcrowded lifeboat broke its cables, and he was the only person who managed to survive when it hit the water. He's well aware that his cowardice was unforgivable, and can give no excuse other than that he was out of his mind with fear, but he's since been damned in the eyes of God for his deed, cursed to float forever on the seas from one doomed ship to another.
- Downer Ending: As predicted, the Lusitania sinks, and the survivor is picked up years later by another doomed ship: the Andrea Doria.
- Flying Dutchman: The survivor calls himself one, noting how he's been cursed to drift on the sea forever for his cowardice.
- Here We Go Again!: The episode ends as it began, with the survivor being picked up by the Andrea Doria, similarly fated to sink.
- Ironic Hell: The cowardly survivor dressed up as a woman to get on one of the Titanic's lifeboats, which hit the water prematurely and caused everyone in it but him to die. His cowardice has damned him to be left floating on the sea forever, being continuously picked up by ships that are doomed to sink.
- No Name Given: The titular survivor has no spoken name.
- Oh, Crap!: The survivor has this reaction when he sees a torpedo approaching the Lusitania, and desperately tries to reach someone. At that point, he's the only one on board.
- Wham Shot: As the crew of another ship spot the survivor and prepare to bring him aboard, the camera zooms into one of the sailor's hats to reveal the ship's name: Andrea Doria.
The Doll
Original story by: Algernon Blackwood
Teleplay by: Rod Serling
Directed by: Rudi Dorn
Rod Serling: We move now from ships like the Titanic and the Andrea Doria, to a small fragment of history. This little collector's item here dates back a few hundred years, to the British-Indian Colonial period, proving only that sometimes, the least likely objects can be filled with the most likely horror. Our painting is called: The Doll, and this one you'd best not play with.
During the days of British Colonialism in India, Colonel Hymber Masters (John Williams) notes that his niece Monica (Jewel Blanch) has gotten a new doll to play with, a doll with a sinister expression on its porcelain face. The Colonel's housekeeper Ms. Danton (Shani Wallis) notes that Monica's doll has an evil presence surrounding it, and insists that it must be disposed of somehow. Hymber soon meets the man who sent the doll to his house: Pandit Chola (Henry Silva), who sent the doll as a cursed object meant to kill the Colonel in revenge for executing his brother.
Tropes
- Companion Cube: Monica always takes the titular doll with her everywhere she goes, even as it visibly unnerves Ms. Danton and the Colonel.
- Conveniently an Orphan: Monica's parents were killed sometime ago, so Hymber and Ms. Danton are the closest family she has.
- Creepy Doll: The titular doll, a cursed object sent by Pandit to Hymber as an act of revenge for the Colonel having his brother, an anti-British rebel who led raids on several outposts, sentenced to death. Making matters worse, the doll ends up with Hymber's niece Monica, who gets incredibly attached to it. By the end of the episode, the Colonel accepts his death when the doll makes him trip and suffer a fatal gash, ordering Ms. Danton to throw it into the fireplace so Monica can be freed from the curse, as well as giving her his insurance money and leaving her in the protection of Ms. Danton. That same night, Pandit gets a package of his own, which contains a doll that looks like the Colonel.
- Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: The titular doll looks as though it has heavy eyeshadow to illustrate how sinister it is.
- Cursed Item: The doll, which was sent to the Colonel by Pandit as revenge for having his brother put to death.
- Face Death with Dignity: When the doll fatally injures him, Hymber doesn't fuss about his impending death. He instead has the doll destroyed, Monica is left with his inheritance, and she gets to live with Ms. Danton.
- Here We Go Again!: In the end, Pandit receives his own creepy doll in the mail. He soon finds that this doll looks suspiciously similar to Hymber.
- Kill It with Fire: The doll is finally taken out of the Colonel's life when Ms. Danton throws it in the fireplace on his orders.
- Obviously Evil: The titular doll's malevolent presence and creepy appearance visibly gets on everyone's nerves except Monica, who treats it as a treasured companion. At first, anyway.
- Slasher Smile: The doll has one of them to accentuate its status as a cursed object. When the Colonel becomes a doll himself, he visibly puts on a similar smile.
