Although the past decade has seen a resurgence of the anthology horror film there haven't been nearly as many new television series that follow the multiple stories per episode format. That is a shame as I think these kind of shows allow for a couple of fascinating programming possibilities. There is the ability to put together two or more different stories that share a theme or even a star. I could even envision a series that occasionally featured multiple stories by the same famous author as an event episode. Also, it would be possible to use a later story to soften the harshness of the preceding tale with a humorous final play to make the darker opening punch seem less rough. The options seem limitless especially with the more permissive standards of cable and streaming we have now.
But if you are interested in past attempts to bring this type of show to the masses I am happy to say that NBC has made the short-lived 1981 anthology horror series DARKROOM available to stream from their website. If you have a Roku TV or another streaming device you can watch episodes of this rare little gem on the NBC app and see what worked and didn't in this show. I can't claim every episode was great but when you see Robert Bloch and Brian Clemons' names attached you know the right people are in there pitching! I'm going to be rewatching episodes for the rest of October to discover if my positive memories are accurate or not. Fingers crossed!
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