Night Visions (TV series)

The working title for the show was Night Terrors.^[1] It was created by Dan Angel and Billy Brown, who had both previously worked on John Carpenter's 1993 horror anthology Body Bags, as well as the Goosebumps series that aired on Fox Kids between 1995 and 1998. Interest in the project they were developing was heightened following the box office success of the 1999 supernatural film The Sixth Sense.^[2] In an interview from when the show was still in the planning stages, Angel said that it was going to focus on "psychologically disturbing, suspense-driven, rich character stories".^[2] Filming for the pilot began during July 2000 in Vancouver, Canada.^[3][4] Vancouver was chosen as the filming location since it would help keep costs down.^[5] Veteran punk and metal singer Henry Rollins got hired as host after discussions with Fox executives, who in the summer of 2000 had wanted him to play a recurring role on their popular sci-fi series The X-Files.^[6] Rollins was unable to accept the role in The X-Files since it clashed with an upcoming summer European tour he was going to do with his musical group Rollins Band, so Fox instead offered him the Night Visions role.^[7] In a 2001 interview, Rollins remarked "It's kind of a Twilight Zone-thing and I'm the Rod Serling. It's awesome. I got the job last year, and I'm working on it now and again up in Vancouver. Really nice people, really good material. That's the best part of it, really. If it's bad material it doesn't matter how much money they're throwing at you, it's not worth it."^[8]

Originally, Night Visions was not going to feature a host. Billy Brown stated in 2008, "I never wanted a host. There should have been an introductory voice-over, a la Outer Limits. But the network said 'No host, no show'. So we started looking, and actually got a commitment from Gary Oldman. Having played Dracula, and being a fantastic actor, he would have been a real presence. The network said no. They wanted Henry Rollins. I didn't get it, nor did anyone else on the show's staff. It seemed like someone's desperate idea to make the show hip."^[9] Regarding Fox's involvement in the creative process, Brown said "They [Fox] said many conflicting things. We had a chance to option an incredible Dean Koontz short story that was just terrifying, and they nixed that because it was too scary. And yet they complained that other stories weren't scary enough."^[9] In 2001, Dan Angel said he believed that one of the show's strengths was that it covered several different types of stories, saying "It's a nice mix. Pretty much, it's good psychological thrillers, psychological terror, a little bit of sci-fi, but not a lot. There are some killers on the loose once in a while; there's some monsters once in a while. It's really a mix of everything."^[10]

The show's directors included some best known for feature films, including Tobe Hooper and Joe Dante, and others, such as Brian Dennehy, JoBeth Williams, and Bill Pullman, known primarily as actors. Whoopi Goldberg expressed an interest in directing a segment for Night Visions, but was unable to due to scheduling issues.^[5]

Even though the show was filmed in Vancouver, several segments are depicted as taking place in the neighboring region of Washington State, including the segment "Hate Puppet" which is set in Everett, Washington and the segment "Neighborhood Watch" which is set in Kirkland, Washington.

The show was originally scheduled to debut on Fox on October 6, 2000, alongside science fiction program Freakylinks.^[10][5] The pilot that was going to air consisted of "The Passenger List" and "The Occupant".^[5] The October 2000 premiere never eventuated, with reality show Police Videos airing in its place.^[11] It was then scheduled to premiere in the mid-season during January 2001. Fox's reasoning for the move was since the show would have more publicity airing by its self, rather than alongside a similar program such as Freakylinks.^[10] However, the January 2001 premiere was scraped and the show was delayed again since there were threats of an actors' and writers' strike happening around that time.^[10] It eventually aired on Fox from July 12 to September 6, 2001 as a summer filler.^[11] Billy Brown reflected "There was a changing of the guard at Fox between the time we filmed the pilot and the time the network was ready to order the series. The new regime wasn't convinced an anthology would work, yet everyone agreed that the pilot was good. I had the feeling the network didn't think the show was hip enough."^[9] The pilot that aired in July 2001 replaced "The Occupant" with another segment titled "The Bokor", although "The Occupant" would later air in 2001 paired with another segment.

It was later picked up by the Sci Fi Channel, which reran the series beginning June 14, 2002.^[12] During September 2002, Sci Fi broadcast the final three remaining episodes that never aired on Fox. One of these, "Cargo/Switch", ran as part of the Night Visions series,^[13] while the two other episodes' segments ("Patterns", "The Maze", "Harmony" and "Voices") were edited into the Sci Fi Channel film Shadow Realm, minus the Rollins introductions and the Night Visions name. Reruns of the series also aired on cable channel Chiller. Internationally, the show aired on the Nine Network in Australia during the 2000s, in addition to airing in other countries such as Italy, the Philippines, Malaysia and South Africa.

Warner Bros. have never released the show to DVD.

The Washington Post labelled Night Visions a "creepy relief from reality" in July 2001.^[14] Michael Speier of Variety praised the show in his 2001 review, commenting "[It] is too good to get lost in the land of summer reruns. Show was bumped from the network's fall schedule last year, proving once again that execs have zero tolerance for anthology series. What a mistake — it's one of the most genuinely edgy shows on television, and it could find an audience with the right promotional push."^[15] Scifi.com critic Kathie Huddleston called it "one of the best horror anthologies to hit the tube in a long, long time", adding that "the focus is on the psychological elements of suspense."^[9] The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had a more negative review at the time, criticizing "laughable narration from meathead rocker Henry Rollins and an overreliance on violent plot twists".^[16]

Night Visions has been favorably compared to other horror/sci-fi anthology shows, particularly The Twilight Zone,^[17][14][18] although The Washington Post claimed that it was "far more graphic and scary" than The Twilight Zone.^[14] The 2003 edition of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror described Rollins as "a tattooed and muscle-shirted Rod Serling surrogate."^[19] In their 2008 book Science Fiction Television Series, 1990-2004, authors Frank Garcia and Mark Phillips commented that the show "had a look of quality: Locations were varied, the photography created an ambiance of dread, and even when an ending was predictable, more often than not, it worked."^[9] In 2018, Bloody Disgusting labelled it a "damn good horror anthology series",^[20] while HorrorNews.net reflected in 2020 that the show was "unceremoniously dumped by Fox without a fair chance to find an audience".^[21] In 2022, Game Rant included it on a list of "8 Forgotten Anthology Horror Shows", labelling it a "more-than-solid collection of creepy tales with elements of sci-fi and psychological horror", and calling Rollins a "strange but fun choice" as host.^[22]

13 color episodes in 43-minute format (not counting commercials):

1. ^{^} Based on the short story "Window" by Bob Leman (credited as Robert Leman).

2. ^{^} Although this is the title as given in the story's introduction, it is alternatively listed in the credits as "My So Called Life & Death".

• Night Visions at IMDb