(1972)
Dir - Sutton Roley
Overall: MEH
Despite containing some of the more freaky imagery for an episode of The Sixth Sense, "Once Upon a Chilling" goes through the motions as much as any other installment in the program. A woman experiences psychic visions, she gets in contact with Gary Collins, the people around her do not want Gary Collins "interfering" and making things worse because one of them has a dark secret that he does not want uncovered, Collins forces the woman under duress to face what she is afraid of and spring forth her visions again so that he can experience them too, the bad guy gets caught, and everyone smiles and vows to be friendly with each other regularly from here on out. Susan Strasberg does an admirable job as the lady who is both gaslit and led on by the men that she is surrounded by, (including Collins), David Huddleston plays a blind for some reason colleague of Dr. Rhodes, and Robert Brubaker makes a fine chronologically frozen walking corpse for what it is worth.
(1972)
Dir - John Newland
Overall: MEH
As was the case with the earlier "Dear Joan: We're Going to Scare You to Death" from The Sixth Sense's second season, "Through a Flame Darkly" only features Gary Collins in bookending segments, once again briefly sitting down with the leading lady to thank her for appearing at the end. Sandra Dee is the leading lady in question and was concurrently making the rounds in a handful of Night Gallery episodes, so this would mark her forth be it unofficial appearance once both programs were combined with new opening segments from Rod Serling being added to them for syndication. Bombarded by psychic images of a morgue and her bedroom on fire, Dee's visions all appear to be desperate pleas for help from a long-lost childhood friend, something which of course no one around her believes since she does not have Collins' Dr. Rhodes to have her back. She manages just fine without him, despite some bumps in the road along the way before running into an up-to-no-good John Karlin. The episode is nothing special, but it is still efficiently done.
(1972)
Dir - Allen Baron
Overall: MEH
British scream queen Pamela Franklin drops in on The Sixth Sense for "I Did Not Mean to Slay Thee", a story with a convoluted plot that is trapped by the show's iron-clad formula. Gary Collins usually seems to know a plethora of people who undergo ESP attacks and then ask for his assistance, but at least this one forgoes that trope by having him receive his own psychic visions by feeling inclined to touch a painting that one of his friends, (Franklin), made for him. This uncovers an murder ploy gone wrong where a shady fellow successfully poisons his wife while accidentally also poisoning his mistress, (Franklin again). We actually get an entire set piece where Collins puts his extrasensory-sensitive hands on a number of items in Franklin's room, attempting to get some kind of break as to what is going on. Such moments occur repeatedly throughout where Collins is close to getting necessary information that is withheld by the not-good guys, only to hit a wall and have to concentrate really hard to get some more metaphysical clues.
(1972)
Dir - John Newland
Overall: MEH
Despite what its title may suggest, "And Scream By the Light of the Moon, the Moon" is not The Sixth Sense's variation of a werewolf tale. Instead, it is not a variation of any of the stories that came before it in the program, featuring one motif after the other that had already been trotted out. We have one more emotionally burdened woman who receives painful visions involving fire, all ultimately stemming from a rude man in her household who vehemently tries to get Gary Collins to leave when he shows up to help at the behest of the female in trouble. It is unsurprising that the show did not stick around for a third season since it relied so heavily on the exact same plotting in nearly every episode, at least the ones where Collins was the man who was called in to annoy skeptics, help stressed-out ladies, and stare intensely while trying to decipher his own psychic visions while holding onto objects. Redundant and bordering on annoyance, this one is such a carbon-copy that it is no better or worse than the lot of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment