Not to be confused with Under the Bed.

I feared I was on thin ice when I saw director René Bonnière had not only an accent grave in his name, but also an accent aigu.  What is this, Ray Bradbury Theater?

Ridiculously cute kids Jillian and Andrew Rosman are sent to bed by their single mother Sharon.  Andrew is missing his teddy bear and hears it beckoning him from below the bed.  Not being named Teddy Ruxpin, this is suspicious behavior even to a dumb little kid.  When he tries to retrieve the bear, his sister sees a tentacle grab him.  The girl does a great job of registering the attack, and even gave me a little chill.

After a particularly awful opening narration, TV’s favorite yuppie Timothy Busfield arrives to save the day.  He meets up with detective Caitlin Doyle who immediately suspects the absentee dad.

The next day, Busfield goes to Police headquarters where Doyle has dragged in Mr. Rosman for questioning.  I was happy to see the police station is at the Strughold Mining Company from The X-Files.

Left: Outer Limits, Right: X-Files. Are they ever going to fix those windows?

Being a 40-year old guy on TV, naturally Busfield has daddy issues.  Turns out they became estranged after Busfield’s brother mysteriously disappeared much like Andrew.  The next day, Busfield is again pumping the detective about Andrew’s father.

Busfield then asks Jillian to act out the abduction with dolls.  Jillian tosses the Daddy doll away.  As she is searching for a way to explain the abduction, Busfield again prompts her to implicate her Daddy.  “Not Daddy,” she says, tossing away the Daddy doll she already tossed away seconds before.  Jillian names the boogeyman as the abductor.

Jillian just won’t give Busfield the answer he wants so he finally resorts to hypnotizing her to get more information.  As she relives the trauma and screams about the thing under the bed, Busfield once again tries to inject Daddy into her mind as the culprit, “What makes Jillian afraid?  Is it Daddy?”  Thank God Jillian is more honest than Busfield, and she blames the boogeyman again.

This guy has more daddy issues than a season of Lost.

Later, Jillian is called to the window by Andrew.  As she opens the window, Andrew becomes the boogeyman and grabs her arm.  Busfield shows up and immediately asks again if it was her father.

This obsession would have made sense if that were the point of the B-story with his father, but it really wasn’t.  He never suspected his father was responsible for his brother’s disappearance.  This was just him being the worst, most leading anti-father child psychologist in history.

Busfield finally gets off the Daddy-wagon and figures out that it really is the boogeyman.  But not before Jillian is taken.  Busfield and the cop find Jillian and kill the boogeyman.  It is strange that zero-mention is made of her brother Andrew.  Presumably he is dead, so I credit them for not going for the feel-food ending.  It is just kind of strange that they don’t mention him or look for his body.

The last scene of the episode shows the Eiffel Tower and then a French kid about to be abducted.  I knew René Bonnière was going to jam France down our throats at some point.

Some good performances, and I actually got a legitimate chill.  But still only manages to be so-so.

Post-Post:

• The police station / Strughold Mining pictured above is located at the Britannia Mining Museum in British Columbia.
• William MacDonald (Daddy) played 5 different credited roles in the X-Files.  I thought that would be a record, but there were at least 4 other actors in the 5-timers club.
• Per IMDb, this is the 2nd lowest rated episode from Season 1.  Of course, the worst was White Light Fever.