Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Night Gallery: "The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes"

It's no big secret that director Steven Spielberg originally got his start directing TV show episodes and made-for-TV movies but I often forget that director John Badham -- best known for such iconic movies as Saturday Night Fever and WarGames -- got his start in the same way as well.

One of his more famous TV episodes was a certain memorable episode of Night Gallery that creeped me out the first time I saw it. It's based on one of the few screenplays by Rod Serling that actually attempted to argue that ignorance was bliss, a screenplay which in turn was inspired by a short story by Margaret St. Clair.

The episode was about a boy (played by Clint Howard) who literally predicted events like earthquakes and who ended up getting his own TV show as a result. But alas, complications set in and the boy decided he didn't want to do predictions anymore. When he was persuaded to do one anyway, he gives the TV audience a prophecy so offbeat that it just had to be false. And as you might guess, there turned out to be a reason why that was so...

There is not much else to say about this episode apart from noting that you may not want to think too much about this episode before you go to bed lest you have nightmares. If nothing else, you could always consider this episode to be the ultimate comment on global climate change...