What hath Rod Serling wrought?
You can tell a network's in trouble when it has to drag the same musty ideas out of the closet over and over and OVER again. Here's a prime example of going to the well way too often.
"Darkroom" was an anthology series in the same vein as "The Twilight Zone", "The Outer Limits", "Night Gallery" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" - so what's the big diff this time? Well, remember the artistry, talent and well-written stories in those prior series? None of that's in evidence here.
James Coburn hosts here much in the same vein as he played the bad guy in "Looker", which ain't saying much. The stories aren't much, either - every single one of them is downbeat, ugly, nasty and defeatist. I mean, COME ON! Even Serling had the good sense to have a comic episode of the "Zone" once in a while.
Even though there are a few familiar faces in the stories (Robert Webber, Claude Akins, Rue McClanahan, Billy Crystal, Michael Constantine, etc.), nothing they do here will ever come up on their A&E Biographies. At least, they hope so.
No wonder it didn't last a full season. Who, in their right mind, would subject themselves to a whole season of under-developed defeatist sludge? Of course, this is the same decade that brought us "Twilight Zone: The Movie"....
No stars for "Darkroom"; the buck f-stops here.
TIDBIT - "Darkroom" premiered on Thursdays on ABC right before the Robert Stack police drama "Strike Force", another Cop series that was as dark and mean-spirited as "Darkroom".
Maybe if Stack and Coburn switched places and had their shows produced by the ZAZ guys (whom Stack worked with on "Airplane!")...?
