Night Gallery episode review — 2.22 — The Caterpillar/Little Girl Lost

Original air date: March 1, 1972

The Caterpillar

Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Writer: Rod Serling

The beautiful Joanna Pettet returns to the Night Gallery in this, which I believe is her third credit in the series. I honestly had never heard of her before watching this series, but damn, I’m a fan.

Pettet plays Rhona Warwick, the wife to a much older man, John (Tom Helmore). They live in Borneo with British expatriate Stephen Macy (Laurence Harvey), who’s very irritable and seems to hate living in Borneo.

He makes a play for Rhona, and is rejected. The other person in the story, Tommy Robinson (Don Knight) promises he can help get the two of them together. He tells him about some kind of caterpillar that will burrow itself into someone’s ear, and kill them after two or three weeks. The idea is to use this on John Warwick.

Tommy assures him that he has someone who can sneak in through the window and place the caterpillar on the pillow, undetected.

The premise is really great, and the performances are solid. Harvey is great in a role that’s truly three-dimensional. Don Knight is also great.

The story probably isn’t too difficult to predict. There’s a mistake, and the bug enters Macy’s ear. But the story goes on from there, into a genuinely great twist ending.

This is one of Serling’s best scripts for Night Gallery, I think. It’s a really strong segment.

Little Girl Lost

Director: Timothy Galfas
Writer: Stanford Whitmore

If this story is a bit mediocre, it can definitely be forgiven, considering the outstanding nature of the first segment. And that’s kind of what I found this story to be, despite an intriguing enough and definitely emotional setup.

Still, I think this is overall one of the best episodes of the season.
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Rating: 7/10