The Sixth Sense Season Two - Part Three

IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE
(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.

 

FIVE WIDOWS WEEPING
(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.

 

GALLOWS IN THE WIND
(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.

 

THE EYES THAT WOULDN'T DIE
(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.

The Sixth Sense Season Two - Part Two

ONCE UPON A CHILLING
(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.

 

THROUGH A FLAME DARKLY
(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.

 

I DID NOT MEAN TO SLAY THEE
(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.

 

AND SCREAM BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON, THE MOON
(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.

The Sixth Sense Season Two - Part One

COFFIN, COFFIN IN THE SKY

(1972)

Dir - Sutton Roley

Overall: MEH

 

It took until the season two opener of The Sixth Sense for the formula to be abandoned, be it not profoundly.  "Coffin, Coffin in the Sky" it set exclusively on an airplane that Gary Collins' Dr. Michael Rhodes just so happens to be on when a woman falls into a semi-coma and experiences creepy gothic horror visions of many of the passengers lying in caskets and whatnot.  These nightmare sequences are fittingly surreal, bathed in fog, and feature guest star Ed Nelson, (the plane's pilot), as an unsettling Victorian undertaker.  Collins spends most of the episode doing that intense thousand-yard stare thing that he always does when he is trying to pick up any psychic energies, and his performances is as flat as it ever was on the program.  The rest of the drama never connects since Don Ingalls's script is pedestrian and lacking in suspense, (we know that the airplane is going to land OK because our star is on said airplane), but again, it wins points for trying something singular from the previous season's output.

 

DEAR JOAN: WE'RE GOING TO SCARE YOU TO DEATH

(1972)

Dir - John Newland

Overall: MEH

 

The most singular episode of The Sixth Sense up until this point in that it does not feature lead Gary Collins in the main narrative, "Dear Joan: We're Going to Scare You to Death" is more notable instead for featuring the final screen performance from Johan Crawford.  Collins does appear as himself in bookending segments, briefly interviewing Crawford in the later one where they discuss the potential legitimacy of ESP.  Since Collins is M.I.A., this was one of the easier episodes of the program to later get reconfigured into Night Gallery for syndication purposes, (several installments of The Sixth Sense got such a treatment in a drastically edited format).  While Crawford is as intense as ever portraying a woman who is targeted by some college-age kids in a mansion who practice their telepathy skills on her with malicious intent, Jonathan Stone's script is pedestrian at best.  The psychic visions involving Crawford seeing the ghostly visage of her dead daughter are eerie on paper, but we know that they are being projected by the gang of ruffians so there is no supernatural mystery, just a far-fetched premise that utilizes the series' bare bones parapsychology angle.

 

WITNESS WITHIN

(1972)

Dir - Sutton Roley

Overall: MEH

 

It took three episodes for The Sixth Sense to get back to its tried, tired, and true formula, "Witness Within" having Gary Collins' Dr. Rhodes called in to investigate a woman's traumatic ESP experience where a mysterious man tries to murder her when she returns home.  Tippy Walker portrays said woman who has both a blind mother withholding a pivotal family secret from her and a father that is doing hard time in a penitentiary.  Things are not as they seem of course and truths get revealed via the concept that babies who are still in the womb can miraculously bare visible witness to horrific events that are suffered by their mothers.  It is a far-fetched enough concept to fit into the program's supernatural trajectory, but the lack of variation here from virtually every episode in the first season plus Collins' consistently flat performance makes the whole thing less exciting than it could be.

 

WITH AFFECTION, JACK THE RIPPER

(1972)

Dir - Robert Day

Overall: MEH

 

Frequent series screenwriter Don Ingalls finds a way to fit Victorian England's most infamous serial killer into an episode of The Sixth Sense, and anyone following the program at this point can accurately guess how.  The title "With Affection, Jack the Ripper" is taken from the killer's calling card signature to the police during his murder spree, the same M.O. matching another series of murders that all point to an extrasensory experiment being conducted by Patty Duke.  Duke portrays a colleague of Gary Collins who manages to use Robert Foxworth as a test subject, the latter being able to perform music written during late 19th century London without any prior knowledge or skill.  Naturally, (or unnaturally), there is a catch to such experiments in the form of the Ripper seemingly being able to possess Foxworth with more than just exemplary harpsichord skills.  The concept would be recycled in Kolchak: The Night Stalker's opener "The Ripper" two years later, and despite some sufficient period-set detours which enter the psychically manipulated state of Foxworth, the presentation here is merely bog-standard, if not still acceptable.

Ace Frehley - In Memoriam

April 27th, 1951 - October 16th, 2025

On a long and heartfelt podcast tribute that Eddie Trunk posted the day after his dear friend Ace Frehley's death, he pointed out the fact that Ace himself would have found it hilarious that the one thing that would take him out was literally falling down.  After all, the man has an album and song called Trouble Walkin'.  What is even more amusing, (and just goes to show that the world works in confounding ways sometimes), is that Ace Frehley died this way after years of reckless rock star behavior and drug and alcohol abuse, and also the fact that he was the youngest of the original Kiss members, yet the first to check out.  I agree with Trunk; Ace would have laughed his ass off in that trademark cackle of his because after everything, his steadfast "spaced-out" clumsiness is what did him in.

 

So we now live in a world with no Ace Frehley, at least not in the physical sense.  Obviously like many other giants that we lost this year, (David Lynch, Ozzy Osbourne, Robert Redford, Brian Wilson, Sly Stone, Val Kilmer, Gene Hackman, D'Angelo, Brent Hinds, Diane Keaton, George Foreman, David Johansen, etc), his work will endure, and it was a body of work that inspired gallons of guitar players and musicians.  As a founding member of one of the biggest rock bands of all time, Ace fulfilled a pivotal role.  He wrote a handful of Kiss classics, (or klassics I should say), and next to Gene Simmon's demon makeup, his Spaceman persona was arguably the most recognizable and tributed by fans, both at concert events and on Halloween.

 

By yours truly included.

One of the most fitting words that someone can use to attach to this legend is "character".  There are numerous famous stories pertaining to Ace's eccentric personality and behavior.  He showed up to his Kiss audition wearing two different colored sneakers.  He crashed his DeLorean into four cars during a high-speed chase up the Bronx River Parkway in 1983.  He rejected Bob Ezrin's schoolmaster production techniques on Destroyer and instead just fucked off and played poker with his buddies in lieu of recording guitar solos.  He refused to load in his own gear during the band's early days, too much of a rockstar even then to bother.  He showed up at the last minute to arena gigs where his future replacement Tommy Thayer was waiting in the wings, suited up in makeup and ready to hit the stage in case Ace was a no show.  Such fables only scratch the surface.

 

As is often the case though, wacky personalities can also be brilliant ones.  As a soloist, Ace Frehley was in a league of his own.  Along with Brian May, he is the most lyrical lead guitar player possibly in all of rock music.  Every one of his solos during his Kiss tenure, (and there is one in just about every single song), is singable, memorable, and a highlight.  Even when he fucks off in Gene Simmons' "Almost Human" and just makes weird background feedback noises, it fits such a sleazy and sinister track.  Like Neal Peart, Ace found it crucial to nail his parts on stage like they sound on the album, never wanting to disappoint people who knew them by heart and wanted to air guitar accordingly.  At the same time though, he would indulge himself and expand upon those leads on stage from their studio counterparts, as he did in the live versions of "She", "Rock and Roll All Nite", "Shock Me", and "New York Groove".

 

He also used such technical malfunctions as his guitar bellowing smoke to his advantage.

Ace's solo career was none too shabby either.  Obviously, his 1978 self-titled album that was released under the Kiss moniker is chock-full of bangers, as well as being wildly regarded as the finest of the four.  I many not agree with that assessment, (Paul Stanley's solo album remains my favorite Kiss record period), but there is no denying that Ace delivered the goods on it and furthermore proved to both himself and the record-buying public that he could front his own material with ease.  Post-Kiss, Frehley's Commit, the aforementioned Trouble Walkin', and his four albums that he did after the band's massive reunion streak are all full of more killer guitar solos and swaggering, enduring old man rock with various references to outer space, growing up in New York's boroughs, love, and just being a well-respected rock star.

 

The "well respected" part may seem like it took awhile to achieve as far as the mainstream rock media is concerned, who for decades delegated Kiss to a gimmicky "kid's group" that was not to be taken seriously.  Yet the truth is that Ace and his band were pioneers that have long held a special place in so many musician's hearts.  John 5, Dimebag Darrel, Sebastian Bach, Mike Portnoy, virtually every grunge-era musician, virtually every thrash metal musician, Slash, Lady Gaga, Trent Reznor, Lenny Kravitz, Tom Morello, Dave Grohl, the guys from Tool, even Garth Brooks; the list goes on and on as far as how many future musicians were and are massive Kiss fans.  One can make the argument that Ace was the stand-out musician in Kiss' original lineup; a non-virtuoso that nevertheless had an immediately identifiable style that rightfully puts him in the guitar god ranks along with any of his contemporaries, not to mention the oodles of axe-slingers that he inspired.

 

Me, Dimebag and Snake Sabo all have something in common - we like dressing up as this guy.

Yet now, Ace is gone, transported to that alien planet Jendell that he often times jokingly, (and possibly sincerely), believed to have actually spawned from.  For any longtime Kiss fans such as myself, this loss is a catastrophic one.  We also lost Eric Carr to cancer back in 1991, (the same day that Freddie Mercury checked-out, oddly enough), and Mark St. John whose time period in the band was all too brief died tragically after years of health issues and a prison beating in 2007.  One cannot compare the life or death of one person to another of course, but Ace's legacy is an enormous one that hits hard for those who adored his on and off-stage antics, incredible guitar playing skills, that unmistakable laugh, spaced-out demeanor, dedication and appreciate for his loyal fanbase, and the slew of material that he left behind which ranks as some of the best rock music ever produced.

 

Ace may not have had the world's greatest singing voice, his lyrics were often times embarrassing at best, and he had plenty of struggles throughout his life which he eventually overcame with many years of consistent sobriety under his belt by the end, but the man is so effortlessly loveable, singular, and ingenious that his passing is something that cannot be shaken off lightly.  As the title of his autobiography No Regrets implies, the man lived a life that he would never change.  It is only fitting then that we as fans should honor and champion that life.  Ace would probably not want it any other way.  He would not want us crying; he would want us to crash some cars, laugh our ass off, and make a whole lot of jovial noise in celebration.  Safe extraterrestrial travels Spaceman.  Now let us all bump "Rocket Ride" as it was meant to be bumped.

 

As fellow rock soldiers, we salute the one and only Ace Frehley.

The Sixth Sense Season One - Part Three

EYE OF THE HAUNTED
(1972)
Dir - Jeff Corey
Overall: MEH

 

Perhaps the most unrealistic detail in The Sixth Sense's "Eye of the Haunted" is the fact that Mariette Hartley portrays a set of siblings who look exactly alike, yet are two years apart in age instead of being identical twins.  Aside from that odd hick-up in Calvin Clements Sr.'s script, the rest of the story follows a formulaic and humdrum pattern, introducing a less than fetching mystery of a psychic serial killer who is tormented by people's thoughts invading his psyche.  One of the not-twins that Hartley plays is Dr. Rhodes' college professor ladyfriend, bringing Gary Collins into the drama where James Wainwright walks around a lot, gets silver bullets made because reasons, and harasses Hartley despite her pleas that she is merely the sister of his previous victim.  The program had found its niche at this point, but sadly it seemed to be running out of interesting avenues to go down in the process.

 

ECHO OF A DISTANT SCREAM
(1972)
Dir - Earl Bellamy
Overall: MEH

 

Similar to the previous episode "Eye of the Haunted", The Sixth Sense's "Echo of a Distant Scream" is front-to-back unmemorable, throwing together a missing girl, rings of fire, and ghostly horses into a mediocre mix.  Gary Collins does his usual shtick of staring off into the distance as he experiences psychic visions, touching objects to trigger those visions, telling skeptics to call whatever telepathic shenanigans are going on "whatever they like" while insisting that they are real, not having a sense of humor, being asked to leave yet ignoring such a request, and of course uncovering what mystery is afoot.  The presentation is as stuck in the muck as Don Ingalls' script is, with no likeable characters, Collins going through the motions, desperate supernatural elements slap-dashed together, and an obvious ending where the culprit of the crime is the person who was behaving like the biggest asshole all along.

 

WHISPER OF EVIL
(1972)
Dir - Robert L. Collins
Overall: MEH

 

Clandestine cult members in red and black robes, gnarly paintings of Satan, and ritualistic murders make their way into "Whisper of Evil", an installment of The Sixth Sense that falls in line with the 1970's fascination with the occult.  The only episode of the program to be written and directed by the same bloke, (Robert L. Collins in such an instance), it is another one that features two telepathically linked sisters, one of whom desperately needs a kidney transplant from a close relative and the other estranged and having recently been abducted into clan of evil magik practitioners.  After an entire episode of spinning in circles as the clock ticks, Gary Collins' stone-faced Dr. Rhodes finally and randomly gets one of his patented visions that leads him right to the culprit, conveniently wrapping up a plot that had every reason to not resolve itself happily.  Good thing for that, good thing that Percy Rodrigues' police detective was so quickly attainable, and good thing that Pat Delaney's long lost sibling lived apparently mere minutes away in such a crisis.

 

SHADOW IN THE WELL
(1972)
Dir - Robert Day
Overall: MEH

 

At this point, The Sixth Sense was going from predictable in its structure to downright grating, "Shadow in the Well" representing another rinse and repeat tale that encapsulates why the program suffered in the ratings throughout its runtime.  Again Gary Collins portrays Dr. Rhodes as a man who never smiles and takes things deadly serious, only lighting up in the epilogue after the supernatural bologna has been put to rest.  While this presents him as a no-nonsense protagonist that can be relied upon to never rest until he saves whoever is suffering from a psychological bombardment from unknown forces, it also makes him an increasing bore since his methods are identical in every episode.  He gets called into the scene, the guilty parties there want him to leave, and the person in trouble, (usually a woman), is forced by Collins to concentrate on something and not look away so that he can channel their psychic energy and see what they see.  You can replace the details here that involve a dead husband, ghostly images of him, a well, and Henry Silva being Henry Silva, (meaning not a good guy), with any details from almost any other episode of the show and the results would be identical.

 

FACE OF ICE
(1972)
Dir - Daniel Haller
Overall: MEH

 

Closing out with one of several mediocre-at-best installments in a row for The Sixth Sense's first season, "Face of Evil" has yet another woman surrounded by men who want Gary Collin's Dr. Rhodes to go away and not help her, all while he forces her to relive her ghostly visions while concentrating hard.  A guy dies from a motorcycle accident, Christine Belford has amnesia, both her brother and husband are assholes about it and give Collins attitude for trying to help, and the most likely person to be behind the bad stuff that happened is the person behind the bad stuff that happened.  In other words, no surprises, no humor, and no tweaks to the formula.  Harking on the program for its "same shit, different week" structure may seem redundant considering the nature of most television, particularly most television from the time.  Yet the show was consistently lacking in charismatic performances, clever set pieces, or even a single joke to lighten the mood here or there.  After awhile we simply get it, get where it is going, and can tune-out accordingly. 

The Sixth Sense Season One - Part Two

THE MAN WHO DIED AT THREE AND NINE
(1972)
Dir - Robert Day
Overall: MEH

 

People be experiencing psychic phenomena in The Sixth Sense, and the episode "The Man Who Died at Three and Nine" ups the stake since this time it is an important diplomat who gets bombarded with unwanted mental images and impulses as he is on the cusp of delivering some top secret information.  Square-jawed character actor Joseph Campanella portrays said diplomat, and as the title would suggest, he usually suffers his possessed outbursts at both 3 and 9 PM.  We eventually get an answer as to why he keeps seeing an Asian woman that he cannot save who is drowning in a swamp, and it is a satisfying enough reveal that Gary Collins' Dr. Rhodes uncovers in typical nick of time fashion.  Only five installments in and the program was merely doing slight variations of the same premise, similar to ABC's other supernatural "monster of the week" show Kolchak: The Night Stalker which debuted two years later, if one was to compare.

 

CAN A DEAD MAN STRIKE FROM THE GRAVE?
(1972)
Dir - Alf Kjellin
Overall: MEH

 

William Shatner arrives in what ultimately amounts to a thankless guest role in "Can a Dead Man Strike from the Grave?".  The opening scene is one of the most eerie that The Sixth Sense ever produced, showing Shatner slowly getting bombarded with ghostly whispers, playing a piece of horror movie music on a piano that his character actually has no idea how to play, and seeing an apparition of his grandfather murdering a woman.  The rest of the program follows the now locked-in formula of Gary Collins trying to get to the bottom of what mind-projected supernatural activity is going on after he is contacted by a concerned party, running into both skeptics and ones who are willing to believe the unbelievable.  Gene L. Coon's script, (Coon also being a Star Trek alumni), gets too convoluted for its own good, revealing psychics who are able to project visions upon other people while also being manipulated by other people who want to get revenge on yet more people.

 

WITH THIS RING, I THEE KILL!
(1972)
Dir - Robert Day
Overall: GOOD

 

A man in an iron mask mysteriously materializes and swings his sword at Stacy Harris, causing him to collapse and eventually check out in the hospital after he asks his good friend Gary Collins to get to the bottom of such a mystery.  Thus opens The Sixth Sense's "With This Ring, I Thee Kill!", and it turns out that said mysterious apparition has more to do with Lon Chaney than medieval knighthood.  While we only get that one sequence with the ghostly sword-wielding warrior, there is a later moment straight out of The Phantom of the Opera, providing the episode with some of its more overtly-horror imagery.  The script from Robert Collins finds a convenient and rushed way for our parapsychologist hero to correctly deduce what is happening, yelling at Lucie Arnaz until she accepts the impossible scenario that her husband who oddly never wants to leave his house is also not who he says he is.  Still, this is better paced than many of the program's other installments and it leads to an agreeable conclusion.

 

WITCH, WITCH, BURNING BRIGHT
(1972)
Dir - John  Badham
Overall: MEH

 

Seeing Cloris Leachman give alms to Asmodeus may be enough of a selling point for the uninitiated to check out "Witch, Witch, Burning Bright", an episode of The Sixth Sense that otherwise is merely serviceable.  The basic premise in John W. Bloch's script is one that uses an age old motif of a condemned witch vowing vengeance on future generations of her persecutes as she is burned at the stake.  In Leachman's defense, she is only partaking of the black arts in the finale in order to rid her daughter of said ancestor who is trying to possess her, Gary Collins becoming directly involved when his uncle calls him and says that the witchy apparition is out to get him.  Unfortunately and as was commonly the case for the show, there is less action than there is people partaking of increasingly redundant conversations about the power of the mind, leading to a lengthy and implausible courtroom scene where Collins is allowed to put an accused woman under hypnosis in order to clear her of involvement with his uncle's murder.

The Sixth Sense Season One - Part One

I DO NOT BELONG TO THE HUMAN WORLD

(1972)

Dir - Alf Kjellin

Overall: MEH

 

ABC's The Sixth Sense premiered in mid-January 1972 with "I Do Not Belong to the Human World", establishing the premise where Gary Collins' parapsychology professor investigates supernatural occurrences.  Though it was not a traditional anthology program, each episode was a stand-alone story, and in this one Collins finds himself being pulled into Vietnam flashbacks via a woman who writes in a language that she does not speak while under a trance.  It all connects to her presumably dead brother who seems to be telepathically reaching out from a POW camp, with gaslighting, melodrama, and a nifty theremin score peppering the proceedings.  The plot gets more convoluted as it goes on, plus Collins' lack of charisma and an overall talky structure do not help matters.

 

THE HEART THAT WOULDN'T STAY BURIED

(1972)

Dir - Barry Shear

Overall: MEH

 

"The Heart That Wouldn't Stay Buried" has some unusual and menacing set pieces, but it is still bogged down by the hour long format, as were most episodes of the The Sixth Sense.  At least Gary Collins seems to be coming to his own more in the lead, growing frustrated as he is supernaturally threatened in his quest to get to the bottom of the vivid death premonitions suffered by Leif Erickson's neurosurgeon.  Collins chases after a ghostly vision and falls slow motion into a pitch black void and spider web, a hawk stature comes to life and attacks, and an entire set starts shaking as if it is being transported on the back of a flatbed truck.  Series creator Anthony Lawrence's script is once again overstuffed, with more elements like various characters bickering and a book on animalistic impulses seemingly having influence over certain people, including Collins who nearly strangles Erickson to death, as prophesied.

 

LADY, LADY, TAKE MY LIFE

(1972)

Dir - John Badham

Overall: MEH

 

In "Lady, Lady, Take My Life", a colleague of Garry Collins who also possess extra-sensory perception brings him into a mystery where a seemingly healthy man dies from "impossible" circumstances moments after he breaks up a psychic experiment between five individuals.  It turns out that said individuals, (including John Saxon's skeptic scientist), collectively have the ability to exert their will with deadly results, at first subconsciously yet deliberately and with focused intent by episode's end.  The trippy sequences for this installment occur when Collins' Dr. Rhodes tries to get close to what is going on, cuing in Dutch angles and gel filters galore when he experiences devastating vertigo and claustrophobia merely from walking up a staircase or riding an elevator.  These moments plus an intense experiment involving tarantulas getting bombarded by the group's psychic onslaught are the highlights, but it otherwise still drags regularly.

 

THE HOUSE THAT CRIED MURDER

(1972)

Dir - Richard Donner

Overall: GOOD

 

As the title would dictate, "The House That Cried Murder" is the closest that ABC's The Sixth Sense got to a conventional haunted house yarn.  The tweak comes in the crucial detail that two different deaths occurred nearby, both of which revolved around the works of Edgar Allan Poe and cause Poe-related psychic hallucinations for our main character to endure.  These include getting walled up, seeing his corpse in a casket, and having a pendulum swing above his torso.  Even guest star Carol Lynley is not spared as she suffers a vivid nightmare of being buried alive, not being able to breathe and everything.  While the ending feels rushed once we discover who the murderer is, the rest of the presentation throws plenty of oddities into the mix, plus it is no surprise that Richard Donner was behind the lens as his sense of pacing and staging of supernatural set pieces is a cut above some of the other director's work on the program.