On Friday November 17, 1981, a television program debuted with little fanfare to a very small audience and lasted only a few weeks before being canceled. The cancellation was expected as the program was only thrown out onto the schedule to complete a contractual obligation. The network wanted to get it out there and get the thing over with. The miniscule audience that saw the program was shocked. It was not a new concept. It was a horror anthology series and there had been many anthology series on television in the past with some more successful than others. What was different about this program was the fact that it was mercilessly grim and nihilistic. The violence was not graphic, it was implied, but what was implied was so brutal that it left people with their jaws dropped simply not believing what they were seeing on network television. What people did not know, however, was that the original versions of scripts submitted to the network standards and practices department were loaded with graphic violence and the network censors tossed the scripts in the trash. Yes, as brutal as the program was it was designed to be even more brutal. The program was called DARKROOM and it remains one of the most bizarre and, yes, underrated horror series to ever appear on television. Despite the grim proceedings, some of the episodes were very well written and at time thrilling. But it had it flaws because it simply went too far. DARKROOM would have disappeared into obscurity, but it was resurrected for reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel in the late 1990’s where people took a second look at the series and felt a little appreciation for this panned, virtually forgotten series. Surprisingly, the Sci-Fi Channel dug up the producers for the series to provide extensive (and interesting) interviews on the series history. Yes, the Sci-Fi Channel used to be a fantastic channel during the early to late 1990’s until it became the fourth rate, embarrassing channel that it has devolved into now. The put it mildly, DARKROOM was an incredibly downbeat and depressing anthology series. It was, however, also powerful and contained some excellent writing by legendary horror writers such as Robert Bloch and Richard Christian Matheson. While the writing was excellent, the episodes also benefited greatly from guest appearances by such top notch actors as David Carradine, Billy Crystal and Claude Akins. Where the program faltered was that is missed out on the trick that made THE TWILIGHT ZONE, NIGHT GALLERY and ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS successful. While the twist endings on these programs were sometimes shocking, they were usually offset from being downbeat either by having a moral lesson associated with the ending. That is, the person who finds himself in a precarious position at the end of the episode is usually either a flawed character or a villain who suffers a comeuppance. With THE DARKROOM, the person who suffers in the end is a flawed character, but not a villainous one. Hence, the punishment they suffer is often downbeat and does not fit the crime. For example, the heroine who dies at the end of the vampire episode dies based on an error in judgment while trying to save the town from the vampire. We really don’t want to see her punished, but she grimly pays with her life. These types of episodes greatly unnerved people into thinking there were so much watching an entertaining horror program as much as they are getting a glimpse into a thoroughly grim car wreck


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