“The dark side is always there, waiting for us to enter, waiting to enter us.  Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.”

Years:  1985, 1986
Genre:  TV series, Horror
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Guest starring:  Chuck McCann, Bill Macy, Cab Calloway, Lisa Bonet, Jerry Stiller, Michael Warren, Darren McGavin, Seth Green, Fritz Weaver, Marie Windsor, Lorna Luft, Abe Vigoda, Marcia Cross, Paul Dooley, Yeardley Smith
Guest director of note:  Tom Savini
Narrator:  Paul Sparer
Creator:  George A. Romero
Run time:  8 hours 35 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
DVD extras:  Not much of anything
Related reviews:  Tales From The Darkside Season One

     Tales From The Darkside appears to have mellowed some as it enters its second season.  In the first season, all kinds of crazy outcomes were possible at the end of an episode.  The main character might lose, and die.  Or they might live, and win.  There was never any way to tell.  The first few episodes of Season Two, out October 27th from Paramount Home Entertainment, are relatively light with happy endings.  A nice impressionist is recruited to try to speak to an alien being.  When the episode is over, the aliens leave, but they kindly take him with them.  There is also a friendly scientist type fellow who manages to conjure up an alien woman who just happens to look exactly like a gorgeous human redhead.  When he is later sentenced to death, get gets a last-second reprieve as the smoking hot alien appears to take him away, presumably for a lifetime of glorious dirty ET-sex.

     These are all uplifting episodes, with their happy endings and their aliens and their attractive redheads.  Thankfully, the series once again gets a little darker.  I guess they hook you with the feel-good stuff.  And we meet a radio DJ who must broadcast, nonstop, for the rest of eternity.  Which actually is a recurring nightmare of mine. 

     When I watched the first season of Tales From The Darkside, I watched with my wife, who was constantly interrupting me to tell me what happened at the end of each episode.  Because she was an obsessive fan of this show as a child, I guess, and she wanted to prove it.  I tried to tell her that it wasn’t Tales From The Darkside Jeopardy, that I wasn’t going to be terribly impressed if she got the end of each episode right.  There were no points in it.  This time, I decided to watch Season Two by myself.  And you know what?  I enjoyed it just as much.  It’s campy, but totally entertaining.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 4:04 am and is filed under 1985, 1986, Horror, TV series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.