Anybody was familiar with One Step Beyond ?????

I remember seeing reruns on the low-rent UHF channel in the early 70s (the theme music was pretty memorable) before it disappeared from television altogether. For a Twilight Zone ripoff, it's not too bad.

I believe it's in the public domain, so it's on a lot of the fringe "retro tv" streaming channels.

Thanks R1. I think they are all on YouTube. The pace is a bit off and I'm always left with the feeling that with the captivating premise, each episode should be a lot better. It looks like a TZ herzatz but it was produced between 59 and 61, so it can't really be a rip-off.

Some stories are good in spite of the pace and it is well acted in general.

It broke the ground for TZ. The stories are good and Harry Lubin's music is spot on. You can get the soundtrack online.

Yes!!

OP - if you haven't already, try to catch the episode about the falling chandelier. It has haunted me to this day.

Unrelated, but Twilight Zone is on Netflix now.

The two episodes I remember (without giving away the endings). A woman has a recurring dream about a plane crashing into her house. In the other one, a crippled woman is stuck in her house and a tornado is coming.

Eerie show; I liked it!

It premiered months before TZ did

BTW, I love this show

What do you know, R4, I wasn't aware of that "step beyond" either !

Thanks R5 and R7, I will look out for those.

I saw the one with the tiger toy. A good idea, but I wish there had been more suspens, that it had been scarier.

The story with the villa with an elevator is good, even if nowadays, you have a good idea of what will happen.

The whole vibe of that show scared me as a child, especially the theme music. Don't get me started on the intro to "The Outer Limits," which was sheer terror.

A lot of episodes are up on youtube:

If you enjoy all the Ouija board threads....

Featuring a young Suzanne Pleshette and the recently departed Norman Lloyd

Even earlier TV. I love this show's intro, which annoyingly seems to have been clipped off most of the other episodes on youtube.

Live broadcasts back then.

The only show I remembered from it was the one with the clown. Anyone who saw it knows which one i mean. It started the whole “scary clown” thing, even though the clown wasn’t supposed to be evil, but sympathetic.

The series was over the top in terms of narration, acting and padding the story. It was very melodramatic. The acting was very theatrical at times, as if the actors were playing to a full theater….stage-y. The 4th season of Twilight Zone fell into that trap of enormously padding the story, but at least TZ was padding so much because they’d switched from a half hour to an hour format. It was not a good idea. They did the same thing with Hitchcock. Too much of a good thing. But One Step Beyond was only a half hour show, so it didn’t have an excuse for so much padding. Apparently there were “horror” and “thriller” anthologies on radio which used lots of sound effects…footsteps on stairs, doors creaking open, a few seconds of silence followed by a scream, distant murmuring (“what was that?”)…and One Step Beyond was a tv continuation of that genre, but it didn’t translate well to the screen.

[quote] even though the clown wasn’t supposed to be evil, but sympathetic.

I'm good with television trivia but I have no clue what your refer to. Might it have been a local station kids's show

Disagree that the acting was bad....they had plenty of good actors on the show

10 year old me loved it in 1978.

50 year old me loved it too, R18!

I bought a dvd of the OSB episodes several years ago. I'll have to revisit it.

Hosted by John Newland who also directed and produced the show.

I always suspected that he may be family.

I like this one:

Bump

A young Warren Beatty was in one, co-starring DL fave Joan Fontaine

This one is cool:

Cloris in Dark Room

Just the title "The Dead Part of the House" gives me chills.

Not a horror fan anymore because they give me nightmares, although I realize this isn't "horror" exactly, it's in that area like the Twilight Zone where if you see certain episodes they can damage your reality, and I don't want that.

I can remember every episode of shows that I watched with that effect like The Outer Limits, from decades ago when I was a kid.

I remember 2 episodes in particular:

In one, a painter was driven to paint a picture of a passenger liner sinking and it foreshadowed the real event.

In another, I think it took place in Hawaii. A crippled woman lived in a house and was hearing warnings sounding to evacuate because of an upcoming storm/tsunami, etc. She became more and more frantic because she couldn't get away by herself and there was no one else home. The second character was a late to middle aged man, who was lost, driving around her neighborhood, looking for an address. He was deaf, so couldn't hear the loudspeakers blaring the alarm. I won't tell you the ending.

Beyond Step One!

"In one, a painter was driven to paint a picture of a passenger liner sinking and it foreshadowed the real event."

That's The Night of April 14th, which I posted a link to upthread

"In another, I think it took place in Hawaii. A crippled woman lived in a house and was hearing warnings sounding to evacuate because of an upcoming storm/tsunami, etc. She became more and more frantic because she couldn't get away by herself and there was no one else home. The second character was a late to middle aged man, who was lost, driving around her neighborhood, looking for an address. He was deaf, so couldn't hear the loudspeakers blaring the alarm. I won't tell you the ending."

That's Tidal Wave, which I'm linking to below

Oh no, the woman lived, according to the YouTube summary.

Although in the film adaptation she could have been eaten by a grue, I guess.

If only there was some way to find out!

Radio lets you imagine a much real stage then early television studios.

Our 12-step group discussed this. We were going to add it, but decided against it. A thirteenth step would have been…

I’m watching now! Thanks everyone.

O.P., is English your primary language? (Sorry. “English Is Your Primary Language?”)

It was a great series but the spin-off blew my mind!

One Step Beyond stories were said to be "real" stories of supernatural events - all said to be based on true events.

Another series of the 1950s was Science Fiction Theater, hosted by Truman Bradley. Very fun and interesting series if you like science fiction.

R35 if you read even a LITTLE of the thread he mentions he's foreign

Good show

What a great thread.

The one where John Newland does magic mushrooms is pretty awesome

My mom thought John Newland was very, very attractive. He wasn't really my type.

I'm sorry if this has been mentioned a lot (because I haven't read every line of every post), but I thought what set it apart from the other shows mentioned here is that it was based on true stories. Every episode was based on something that had purportedly happened to someone. So that is completely different from The Twilight Zone.

*Oops sorry I missed the post where it said "real events" (hey I'm at work).

I was raised by television and I remember watching this show in the ‘50’s. Scared and fascinated me! Can you imagine a five year old watching this show?

R44, what was your favorite episode?

I'd forgotten all about OSB.....Those shows freaked me out--OSB, TZ, The Outer Limits....even their names scared me.

The original opening sequence to the first season of The Outer Limits freaked me out enough to turn the channel.

The theme music for OSB is really cool

R45 mostly what I remember is the host’s voice and the creepy music. But I do remember the episode where President Lincoln had visions of his upcoming death. Thanks for asking.

Abraham Lincoln episode

I have a couple of favorites. The episode with the ever-growing spot on the wall and the episode with the murderous necklace.

The killer necklace one:

I was just reading in a book about Elizabeth Taylor that she was in love with and wanted to marry Sean McClory. I couldn't place him, but now I know who he is.

As mentioned above, the gimmick was that the episodes were allegedly based on true stories. But some of them were just urban legends and the writers took extreme liberties with the others.

But I liked it as a kid back then and still do. Fabulous theme music.

I enjoyed this one. Bohemian Greenwich Village setting, trippy premise. For a moment I thought the title might be another interpretation of DL’s favorite “An Open Window” from ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, but no.

^ That one has a young Louise Fletcher in it

Creepy

This one is super freaky:

Featuring Rhoda Penmark

R35, sorry for the late answer. No it is not my first language. Not that I'm hiding it, but what " gave me away" in the structure of my sentences ?