(1972)
Dir - Bernard Girard
Overall: MEH
For the third and final time, The Sixth Sense jettisons the idea of featuring Gary Collins in the main narrative and instead brings in a leading lady to fend off her disturbed premonitions on her lonesome. Jane Wyman is the unlucky actor brought on board for "If I Should Die Before I Wake", portraying a woman who returns to her family home and is immediately overwhelmed by seemingly ghostly visions and the persistent sound of her dead daughter calling out to her. Wyman's performance is more mildly concerned than terrified throughout most of the episode, though Mike Lane does some impressive work as her simple-minded and faithful handyman who turns apologetic and sincere puppy when he feels that he is accused of heinous acts. The twist messes with the chronology of the events that Wyman has been seeing and provides an acceptable subversion, but the whole thing gets wrapped up in a sudden and less than satisfactory manner all the same.
(1972)
Dir - Allen Baron
Overall: MEH
Re-dubbed "Five Women Weeping" for its Night Gallery syndication run, "Five Windows Weeping" is another The Sixth Sense by-numbers episode for better or worse. Gary Collins actually smiles and cracks some jokes besides just in the coda, but it is still the identical old gag of a woman, (Mary Ann Mobley), reaching out to his Dr. Rhodes after suffering a concerning premonition that everyone around her does not believe and thinks that he is making worse by his very presence. Judging by every episode of the second season, you would think that Collins was the only male on earth with ESP since only females seem to suffer psychic episodes. Mobley sees her husband rising from the grave with white eyes, a red hallway with women in black shrouds and corpse pallbearers, and a suit of armor coming to life and swinging at her before everyone finds out that said husband has been kidnapped. It leads to a white-knuckled on-paper finale where Collins has to rescue him inside of an unstable mine-shaft, but many viewers may have tuned out by then having already seen all this before.
(1972)
Dir - Alan Crosland Jr.
Overall: MEH
Don Ingalls authored the most episodes of The Sixth Sense, (seven), with the penultimate one "Gallows in the Wind" being his last. This time it is Meg Foster who portrays the women that receives troubled premonitions which only Gary Collins takes seriously, much to the skeptic chagrin of the other characters who feel that our lead parapsychologist is only making things worse by encouraging Foster's ESP. The only difference between this episode and nearly all of them is that Collins is at the scene of concerning events from the get go instead of having anyone call him in, being part of a tour group that takes refuge in an inn during a brutal hurricane. Foster sees what can accurately be interpreted as their deaths via reoccurring soft focus visions involving a hooded figure, a guillotine, and everyone emerging from a watery tomb. As always, the only way for Collins to figure out what it all means requires both he and the unsettled female to stare intensely for minutes on end, but Foster sleepwalks through her performance even more than Collins does, which is saying much.
(1972)
Dir - Robert Day
Overall: MEH
Business as usual for the final episode "The Eyes That Wouldn't Die" of ABC's The Sixth Sense, signing off on a note that is no more or less forgettable than the lot of the program's two season run. Kathleen Lloyd has been blind for a decade and has recently been granted her vision again via various lengthy and detailed operations, only to almost immediately experience involuntary premonitions where she sees a serial killer at work. Somehow a local newscaster gets wind of this even though we never see any journalists or reporters anywhere, but the point is that Gary Collins also catches wind of things and shows up to do his bit, which is to not smile, stare intently, and annoy everyone besides the one woman who needs his help. There are a few intense moments where Lloyd is either witnessing a murder that she is powerless to stop or is getting perused herself by a guy who easily infiltrates the flimsy security outside of her hospital door, but the rest of the episode is bog-standard to a fault. At least Tom Bosley got a paycheck as Lloyd's potential love interest who is way too old for her.
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