“Middleton College in New York State is a respected institution of learning.  Professor Alex Bondar, teacher and authority in parapsychology, is about to give a demonstration . . .”

Well, which is it?  Are they respected, or do they have a department of para-psychology?  It can’t be both.  Dr. Bondar is about to give a demonstration of hypnosis.  He has determined that elderly Mrs. Canby can be put under by shooting sound waves through her head at 14,000 cycles per second.

In a few seconds the old woman’s face relaxes and her eyes shut.  The overly-optimistic Bondar does not check her pulse, but rather asks, “Mrs. Canby, do you know me?”  He tells his students that not only is she not asleep, but some are her senses are more acute than when she is awake.  He drapes a handkerchief in front of her face, and has a student hold an open book behind it.  She astounds the class by being able to read the text, although she mistakes a booger for a comma.

Bondar explains this feat by saying that under hypnosis, her mind might be more sensitive to infra-red rays.  Hunh?  He says he has also seen Mrs. Canby describe things that were far out of sight where infra-red rays wouldn’t explain it.  He awakens her by counting slowly from 10 down to 1.  And I mean he takes his bloody time and doesn’t miss a digit.

It is also a countdown of a different sort as Bondar has a bombshell announcement.  A college administrator has actually pulled his head out of his ass for once and canceled the parapsychology program, judgmentally calling it “nonsense.”  Bondar is leaving the College, and not by no astral projection, either.

He gets a call from the police that his colleague Dr. Bernhardt Mannheim, driving in from Montreal for a parapsychology lecture, has been missing for 2 days.  Bondar describes him as about 70, small, frail, with white hair, and having a goatee; so indistinguishable from every other German scientist on TV.

Back at home, Julie Bondar is saddened by the loss of her husband’s cushy job.  She suggests that maybe if he had concentrated less on the para- and more on the -psychology, he might still have the gig.  He says she was never supportive and considers his work “the foolish fumblings of the family idiot!”  Sing it, sister!

That night, the Bondars go to Dean Henry Stark’s house for tea and begging.  He implores Bondar to admit that his work is just a lot of hooey.  The Dean says, “Science explains what actually happens.  You’re trying to explain what has never happened.”  Right on, brother!

While there, the police call with an update on Mannheim.  Stark mentions that he had tried to hire Mannheim for the faculty.  But wait, why would he make an offer to a parapsychologist when he was shutting down the department and considered it nonsense?  Anyhoo, Mannheim used his credit card to buy gas about 200 miles from them, but then just vanished.  Stark has a brilliant idea — are we sure this guy is the Dean? — why doesn’t Bondar use telepathy or clairvoyance to find Mannheim?

Bondar is uncomfortable having his crazy beliefs put to the test like, you know, science.  He argues that such skills can’t be turned on and off like a water tap.  The Dean, quite appropriately, accuses him of not really believing in this stuff himself.  Bondar says that psychics usually have a possession of the victim to work with, like an article of clothing.  Whew, guess we can’t test my beliefs, nosiree!  His wife helpfully reminds him that he has a letter from Mannheim, and Bondar almost does a homina homina.

Bondar agrees to haul Mrs. Canby in at 10 am the next morning to try to locate Mannheim.  Julie is suddenly on team Bondar again and doesn’t want him to go through with it.  She fears the Dean will make a fool of him, and reminds him that Mannheim warned him he was throwing his life away.  Again, wait — this is the same Mannheim who was driving down for the parapsychology lecture, right?

In the classroom, Bondar fires up the parabolic dish pointed at Mrs. Canby’s grey noggin again.  To Stark’s delight, this time the sound waves just hurt her ears; especially the good one.  Heyyyoooo!  They fall back on a method that had also worked with her — a metronome.  Honestly, this is a great piece of business because the silence broken only by the perfectly regular clacks is indeed hypnotic; so much so, I wonder why I can’t recall ever seeing it used again on TV or in movies.  The camera slowly pushes in alternately on the metronome, then Mrs. Canby’s face in a series of shots that is — dare I say — worthy of Hitchcock.  Was SFT fooling around with the antibiotic fungus from two weeks ago?

That does not work either, so Bondar tries using light as a stimulus.  Maybe they were still using the fungus, because he shines a spot in Mrs. Canby’s eye, then shines it in Julie’s for no reason I can figure.  Trying to put Mrs. Canby under, Bondar counts slowly from 1 to 29.  Think of that — on network TV, they had a scene where absolutely nothing happened except a dude counted slowly for 30 seconds.  Maybe that earlier 10 second countdown tested well.  Mrs. Canby freaks out at the pressure they put on her and is taken away.

The camera pans over to Julie who has not moved an inch.  She seems to be in a trance as she walks to her husband. ^[1]  She is not feeling well and asks him to drive her home; and to use the Stone Mountain route so she can get some fresh air, and maybe a Pecan Log Roll.  Julie tells her husband to stop at a certain point, then tells him to go down the hill and look around.  At the bottom of a steep hill, he sees Mannheim’s car where it crashed 3 days ago.  Bondar’s paranormal beliefs are vindicated because Julie’s clairvoyant vision made her stop them at this specific place; or it might have been all the flies.

Like Tales of Tomorrow, you really have to grade this series on a curve.  Objectively, the episode is awful.  However, considering the budget, the times, and compared to the rest of the series, parts of the episode are just a masterpiece.  The metronome, the editing, the counting, the shot compositions . . . there was just a lot to like here.

Other Stuff:

• ^[1] OK, it is a great idea that Julie was caught in stray light that was intended for Mrs. Canby.  But it’s not like she was right behind Canby.  Bondar really had to swing that light around to get it in Julie’s eye, and do it more than once.  It would have been so easy to just line them up so Canby caught the light on the left side of her face and Julie behind her caught it on her right side.
• Major kudos to the director Eddie Davis.  He has a ton of credits, but nothing that indicates an auteur.  Maybe I should rewatch his earlier SFT effort, The Strange People at Pecos.
• BTW, IMDb has his age at 115.  Maybe they need a — dare I say — Dead Man’s Switch.  At some point, ya just know you missed an email.