The season starts off with "The Impressionist" where a stand-up comedian is asked to help a secret government organization communicate with a captured alien. It seems that the man's unique ability to almost exactly mimic body language and sounds is exactly what the team needs in order to get some superior technology from their friend before he has to return home.
But some of the better episodes include "Ring Around the Redhead" which stars a young John Heard as an inventor who discovers a strange portal to other worlds and befriends a woman from one of these worlds (played by Penelope Ann Miller). While Billy (Heard) teaches Keena (Miller) about his world, he comes to realize that her science is far greater, and Billy's old friend sees his strange portal as a way to get rich.
An episode that was only mildly amusing, but features an incredibly young Seth Green, is "Monsters in My Room" where the nightmares of a little boy (Green) come to life as creatures come out of the closet, stuffed animals come to life and other horrors keep him up at night. That is, until he shows the creatures who's the boss.
Darren McGavin (best known for his role as Kolchak (what is arguably the inspiration of The X-Files) plays a washed-up actor who is commissioned by a strange person to finish a TV series that was wildly considered a flop over 20 years ago. What's odd about this man with so much money is his insistence that fans do exist for this series and there are millions of people waiting to see how it all ends up. When the actor and his director ask this strange man where the show will be watched, all he will say is that it will be played very, very far away.
Lisa Bonet (best known for her role as the eldest Huxtable kid in The Cosby Show and A Different World, and more recently seen in Life on Mars) plays the daughter of a musician who is starting to lose some of his skill and discovers a strange new instrument in "The Satanic Piano."
In "The Devil's Advocate," Jerry Stiller (who, sadly enough, is probably best known by the current generation as simply Ben Stiller's dad who gets nice roles in his son's movies), is a radio personality that goes on late at night to gripe about whatever soapbox he takes up and insults his listeners and callers constantly. On this particular night, the calls start off normal, but soon turn strange as people from the past start calling in, even though some of them insist they don't have telephones or radios.
In "A Choice of Dreams," a dying mobster finds a way to cheat death by having his brain removed and placed in a jar forever, and while this particular episode is only so-so, what is nice is to see Dominic Chianese of The Sopranos make a brief appearance as the mobster's father. This particular episode's theme of cheating death is also found in "Lifebomb" where a new new technology will detect when its user is about to die and encapsulates them in a safe container where it administers life support until they can be reached by paramedics. When this episode's main character decides to use the invention, he realizes that, while the device works as advertised, there is an unforeseen catch.
The season wraps up with a vampire story called "Strange Love" featuring Marcia Cross (from Desperate Housewives), "Fear of Floating" that has Yeardley Smith (the voice of Lisa Simpson) and "The Casavin Curse." Unfortunately, this last one, the season finale, feels like one of the weaker episodes in the set and causes the season to end on a bit of a low note. In this particular episode, an ancient gypsy curse has been plaguing the Casavin family for a couple of generations and as much as the last two surviving members want to love someone, every time they do, their lovers end up dead.
The First Season of Tales from the Darkside had quite a few jewels in its midst, and many of them were episodes I remembered seeing back in the day - well, not when it aired, but in syndication. There were far fewer episodes like that in The Second Season, making the overall feel both cheesier and weaker all around. One of the aspects of this DVD set that I did enjoy was the one special features on Tales From the Darkside: The Second Season where George A. Romero discusses the episode "The Devil's Advocate." He talks about the fact that this was the first show he wrote when they got the go-ahead on the series, how Stiller got cast and who he got to direct the episode. While not long, it is certainly enjoyable.
All that being said, Tales from the Darkside is really only something that hardcore horror fans would want to own in the first place, and that goes double for this particular season. Given the show's very episodic nature, there isn't anything about this season that requires you watch the previous or following seasons to see and understand this one, and because of that, buyers can be a bit more selective in their seasonal purchases over other shows. If you are a Darkside fan and remembered enjoying even a handful of the episodes contained in this DVD package, then it is probably worth the purchase, but only the biggest fans of the series (or anthology horror shows of its type) will fall into that category.
