John Newland is growing on me.  He doesn’t have Rod Serling’s gravitas or sinister demeanor, but he does have his own unique personality.  Whereas the writer Serling made sure every word was polished, I assume Newland as director took the same care to make his series visually interesting.  We’ve seen great location shots, and great use of movie footage that really enhanced the ride for the viewer.

Most of tonight’s episode takes place in a French apartment, but Newland at least gives it a little flair at the opening.  He points out the apartment in which the episode will take place.  He then walks down a tall set of steps.  I don’t recall Serling ever moving, and certainly don’t recall Alfred Hitchcock ever doing a tour de stoop.  The camera pans to to show a street which actually looks like it could be in France, even though there is no mime.  Tonight’s protagonist shows up in the smallest car I’ve ever seen.

The landlord shows her new tenant Rita Wallace (Cloris Leachman) around the apartment.  She promises it will be quiet as one neighbor is a 36 year old virgin who works at WJM, and the other has such self-esteem issues that she doesn’t realize she is just as hot as the virgin.  Rita is happy to find a small room that she can use as a darkroom.  She is a photographer in France to work on a book of photos of people with interesting faces.  The landlord agrees to send someone over.

Rita is returning home from the grocery store — with a baguette, BTW.  Hey, you can get baguettes in this country, you know!  Big baguettes, the best baguettes.  Why does every show in France have people buying a baguette?  Anyhoo, as she is putting away the groceries, she notices a shadow on the wall.  She is startled to see it is cast by a stranger in her living room with an interesting face and an even more interesting concept of people’s personal space.

She asks what he wants and he is silent for a few seconds before saying, “I was sent for.”  Rita takes that to mean her landlord sent him over for her to photograph.  She takes several pictures of the man.  The Frenchman seems to have never seen a modern camera, and is equally perplexed by the shower.  When Rita turns her back to get a glass of water, the man is suddenly no longer there.

When the landlord stops by, Rita thanks her for sending the man.  Of course, the landlord did not send him.  They had another photo session planned for that night.  The man again appears suddenly in her living room without knocking.  As Rita is taking pictures, he begins calling her Cecile and accusing her of being unfaithful.  He chases her around the apartment, but she is able to escape into the darkroom.

Her landlord and a cop show up, but the man is gone.  The police say there is not much they can do; it could be anyone.  They say gee, if only there were some way to show us what the man looked like.  Finally, Rita remembers, oh yeah, I have those 200 pictures I took of his face!  She develops the pictures and finds the man is not in any of them!

The detective, brought in because of his photographic memory, somehow recognizes the man despite him appearing in no photographs.  He takes Rita to a nearby cemetery and leads her to a particular tombstone.  The marker has a photo of the man she saw in her apartment — I don’t know, maybe that’s a French thing.  The man died in 1926, executed for killing his wife Cecile in Rita’s apartment.

As feared, there is a certain sameness to the OSB episodes so far.  However, they are so well done that it is still interesting to watch variations on a limited number of themes.  Newland finds interesting ways to present the story, including smoothly incorporating footage from other sources.  Tonight’s episode was not a great story, but those opening shots and an excellent performance by Cloris Leachman brought it to life.  It doesn’t quite achieve the consistent quality of AHP, but it is one of the better series I’ve watched.

Other Stuff:

• Yeah, a dead guy appearing in Cloris Leachman’s apartment is weird.  But those clingy dresses, those were unbelievable!  Just like TFTC was always better with a beautiful blonde killer, John Newland seems to be the king of slim hot babes in skin-tight clothes.

Ellen Larabee, not only telling the future, but balancing a tray of cookies on her head at the same time.  C’mon, Newland, just because Hitchcock never looked through the camera doesn’t mean you can get away with it.

Like thousands of other couples in New York City, Jim and Betty Hennessey are giving a cocktail party . . .

The guests are trying to get Ellen Larabee to make some of her famous predictions.  Like the time she told Marie Cooper her house was going to burn down 3 days before it happened.  Or how she predicted Betty and Jim would get married.  Arthur is skeptical of her ability to foresee such catastrophes.  After much prodding from her friends, she agrees to tell Arthur’s future.

Ellen goes into a trance and describes Arthur’s upcoming train trip.  He is immediately skeptical as he has a reservation to take a plane that night.  However, it is a Delta flight so this one could easily come true.  She drops several other tidbits before she finally “sees” Arthur with a woman holding a knife.  This kind of kills the party.

That night, Arthur comes back to the Hennessey’s apartment.  He says Idlewild is fogged in and he is going to take a train.  I guess he doesn’t want to wait for a flight the next morning, so he’s taking a 2 am train?  Nice of him to drop by the Hennessey’s and tell them.

When Arthur gets to the train station, the cabbie tells him he dropped his keys, just as Ellen predicted.  Then the conductor tries to give him room 102B just as Ellen predicted.  He breaks the cycle by insisting on a different room.  Minutes after settling in, the conductor says this room was actually booked and he will have to move to 102B.  After some argument, he relinquishes the room to the woman who had booked it.

They meet up in the club car and both order a scotch (presumably Canadian Club) and club soda and a club sandwich.  Several more of Ellen’s predictions come true.  Arthur has a great opportunity when he realizes Ellen foresaw the inscription inside a ring the woman is wearing:  To thee for whose love I rise and fall. ^[1]  Man, if he had played his cards right, maybe he would not have been sleeping in 102B after all.  But no, he blows it and lets her read it to him.

Arthur then panics and angrily demands to know if the woman knows him or Ellen.  She — by the way, Ms. Big Shot psychic predicted every stitch and accessory this woman was wearing, but did not mention her name — insists that she does not.  Arthur bolts out of the club car.  Inexplicably, the woman runs after him; maybe he didn’t pay for the drinks.  After a chase through several cars, she closes in on him.  In a panic, he pulls the Emergency Stop cable.

He wakes up with his head bandaged and the woman holding a knife.  Seems that by pulling the Emergency Stop, Arthur prevented the train from slamming into a stalled freighter.  She says she is a nurse, but that doesn’t really explain the knife.  She also asks how he knew to stop the train when it was clear that this sweaty maniac running through the halls really had no idea what he was doing.

Also, cool as it was to know the mystery lady would be wearing a fur collar and a snake ring, maybe Ellen could have also let someone know that a passenger train was going to slam into a freight train that night and possibly kill dozens.

There is not a lot of story here.  The dominoes are set up one by one, then they are knocked down one by one (not even in one of those mass falls).  The predictions weren’t particularly cryptic which might make you wonder how they could possibly occur.  The final one with the knife is dismissed anticlimactically.  Still, I appreciated the things that were well-done.

So, another quality episode, but there is a certain sameness to all of them so far.  And a certain sameness to me saying that every week.

Other Stuff:

• [1] That’s pretty salacious when you think about it.

Host John Newland tells us he is in April 1912.  He pulls a book off the shelf and mysteriously says “We will return to it later.”  Like me with that 1,000 page LBJ biography.

Grace Montgomery wakes up from a nightmare.  She screams for her mother despite not being six.  In fact, she is a beautiful woman.  Her mother does rush to her room.  She frantically says, “It was water, dark water.  I was drowning.  I couldn’t swim anymore, I was drowning.”  Her mother blames pre-wedding jitters.  “In four days, you’ll be on your honeymoon in Switzerland, and you can’t drown in Switzerland.”  You know, unless ya falls into one of those big vats of chocolate.

The next morning, her fiancee Eric Farley comes by the house to see “how the future Mrs. Farley looks in the morning.”  After his terror when her mother answers the door, they sit down for tea.  Eric surprises her by saying they are not going to Switzerland; they are going to America! ^[1]  He giddily asks her how she thinks they will get there, but in 1912, that’s not a big f***ing mystery.  It is by boat, specifically The Titanic.  Even more specifically, they are in cabin 111B right next door to John Jacob Astor. ^[2]  Thanks to Astor’s 29-years younger wife, April 14th won’t be the first night the Farlings have trouble sleeping.

She acts excited, but is worried because of her nightmare.  Her mother reads from the paper that The RMS Titanic is the world’s largest and most luxurious liner.  “By virtue of her five watertight compartments, she’s being hailed in marine engineering circles as the unsinkable ship.”

That night, Grace has another nightmare.  People in the water!  A huge ship going down!  She says she could even read the name Titanic on the lifeboats in her dream.  The next day, she and Eric discuss her dream.  He racistly says, “You don’t believe what you see in your sleep unless you’re a gypsy.”

Surprisingly, the next scene is on Titanic.  Other passengers have also had premonitions, bad feelings, heebies, and jeebies.  More surprisingly, the next next scene is in New York City, although not as surprising as if Grace and Eric were there.  Artist Harry Teller has hypnotically drawn a picture that his wife calls “awful, but his best work.”  To be fair, it is pretty awesome.

That night, Titanic hits the iceberg.  Even after being ordered to the lifeboats, Eric is cheerfully reminding Grace that the ship is unsinkable.  He puts her on lifeboat 4, but he goes down on the ship, and possibly one of the stewards.  Hey, why keep pretending?

Host John Newland returns, as promised, to the book.  It was published in 1898 and tells the story of The Titan, a ship whose dimensions and fate are the same as The Titanic.  It is a familiar story of hubris, arrogance, and the resulting loss of thousands of lives, so even more like that LBJ bio than I thought.

The second episode is as well-crafted as the first.  The production was enhanced by using footage from old Titanic movies.  Still, there is a certain sameness that I fear will creep into every episode.  Is this just going to be the premonition/reincarnation of the week?

Other Stuff:

• [1] They could have ended the episode right there; like the Twilight Zone that ended with the characters fleeing to Earth rather than from it.  It did not register with me that this was set in England.  I guess the elegance and manners seemed possible to me in this country 112 years ago.
• [2] The Astors were actually in rooms C62 and C64, which frankly ruined this episode for me.

So we begin a new series.  Because every genre show must be compared to The Twilight Zone, I’ll compare it to The Twilight Zone.  It is no Twilight Zone.

But it debuted a year before TZ, and I have only watched one episode, so it might turn out fine.  They use a host like most TV anthologies.  I appreciate that the host here, John Newland, is not just a carpetbagger like Truman Bradley on Science Fiction Theatre.  Bradley — Tru’, I call him — seems like a swell guy, but why is he there?

Serling is the king of the hosts because, in addition to being a scary dude, he created the TZ world and wrote a huge number of the episodes.  Sorry, 2 faceless guys on the 1980’s TZ run, you were awful.  Forrest Whitaker, I like you as an actor, but you were just collecting a check on the 2000’s TZ.  Hey, Jordan Peele, I appreciate your movies, but I don’t see any writing or directing credits on the series. ^[4] Plus, I’ll be damned if I’ll pay a nickel to watch TZ or Star Trek when God intended them to be free!  Fight the power!

Anyhoo, I respect John Newland for directing 94 of the 96 episodes of One Step Beyond.  I also see a single writer was responsible for 72 episodes. ^[3] I hope these guys know what they’re doing . . .

John Newland announces that he is in The Elite Bar and Grill — stop the tape!  Well, that didn’t take long.  The ornate writing on the door clearly says Ray’s Bar.  This appears to be a set — how could they not get that right?

Matt and Sally McCoy are celebrating their wedding at this elite cafe named Ray’s Bar.  I guess the reception was held there because Newland was diddling the cake earlier.  Adding to the class and sanctity of this blessed event, a couple of dudes have attended in their work-shirts with the name of a moving company on the back.  Sally is dancing with a bunch of the guys who are Matt’s friends, but everyone seems happy.

The happy couple bails out so they can reach their honeymoon hotel by 9:00.  We hear that Sally has a heavy, adorable Southern accent.  On the drive to the hotel, Matt says, “Those crazy guys down at Tommy’s.  You sure knocked them for a loop.”  Wait, so the joint is named Tommy’s now? ^[1]  Suddenly Sally sits up as erect as Matt and says, “Matt, if we turn left about a mile ahead, it is a prettier drive.”  As they approach the road, Sally says, “Turn right.”  Then when the reach the road, Matt turns left.  What the hell?

Matt pulls the car over, and Sally gets out.  She runs to a beautiful cliff overlooking the ocean. ^[2]  She is darting about as if confused and in a trance.  Matt asks her what is wrong.  She says,”Who are you?”  Even stranger, she has lost her accent quicker than Elizabeth Olsen in Avengers: Infinity War.  She runs back to the car and — LOL — takes it, stranding Matt.

He is able to flag down a cop.  As they are driving back to the station, the officer sees a light on at the ol’ Wharton place.  And hey, Matt recognizes his car out front.  As they go inside, the cop says the former owner jumped to her death from the cliff Sally just led them to.  Sally suddenly appears and tells the cop in a nice midwestern non-accent, “No, I didn’t kill myself!  I was murdered!  I was murdered!”

So they take her to the nut-house.  Matt chews out the doctor for keeping her drugged up.  Then the doctor plays tapes of Sally insisting that she is named Karen Wharton.  She again insists she was murdered.  She even knows Karen Wharton’s birthdate, mother’s name, how her father died, and all about that special night during finals at Bryn Mawr.  That’s all fine, but then she tells the doctor that she knows his wife drowned at a picnic in 1941 during freak dunk tank accident.  Not only that, she says that four years ago, the doctor asked her to marry him.  Hunh?

She says she was murdered by Dan Stapler who she used to be married to.  The doctor knows that Dan was never married.  Sally — oh sorry, she’s identifying as Karen today — says they kept the marriage secret because her mother hated Dan.   Her mother’s instincts were correct as Dan soon bashed Karen’s head in and threw her off the cliff.

Of course, all this is so Dan Stapler can panic and prematurely blow his wad, confessing before the local Perry Mason can even get him on the stand.  I’m sure the testimony of the crazy lady who did not know any of them, had never been to the city, and no longer remembered her her paranormal flashback would have held up in court.  Mission accomplished, Karen Wharton vanishes from inside Sally and she and Matt head for the hotel to fill that void.

This was actually a pretty good start.  The episode looked great, but the bar might have been lowered by low-res DVDs and You Tube public domain uploads of other series I endure.  It was refreshing just to see a crisp, clear B&W picture.  The music was a little overwrought at the end, and the story was a little thin, but consider this a Pilot.

My only real beef is the bit where Karen said the doctor asked her to marry him four years ago.  It is bizarre how that is shoehorned in, given no reaction, then dropped.  I can only figure that 1) a scene was deleted for time, and/or 2) that was supposed to explain why the doctor just happened to have an 8 x 10 glamor shot of Karen Wharton in his office that was not an X-Ray of her skull.

My only fear, largely based on nothing, is that the series will be the same story every week.  Until proven correct, I will be uncharacteristically optimistic.

Other Stuff:

• [1] You’re thinking Tommy’s is the name of the moving company where they all work.  Nope, that’s Nor-Cal Van & Storage.
• [2] Maybe not worth a footnote, but dayum Sally looks hot in that white dress on the cliff with that blinding smile.
• [3] Hmmmm, upon further examination, most of the episodes had other writers.  Lawrence Marcus was credited as Executive Writer on 50 of them.  His other credits include Dramatized By, Dramatised By, Dramatisation, and a very special Material Assembled By.
• [4] Correction, he does have one TZ Story By credit for Nightmare at 30,000 Feet.  However: 1) the episode is based on the original TZ’s Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, 2) that was based on the Richard Matheson short story, 3) he shares the Story By credit with 2 other guys, and 4) one of the other guys wrote the teleplay.  So I’m not sure how much his fingerprints are on the episode.