YOUR TV GUIDE TO THE
SUPERNATURAL
Premonitions of death and disaster, the existence of ghosts and wildly improbable coincidences were among the stock in trade of One Step Beyond (1959-1961). Mike Hankin looks back on a classic paranormal TV series...
Scenes from ‘The Devil’s Laughter’ and ‘The Captain’s Guests’ episodes
“The amazing drama you are about to see is a matter of human record. You may believe it, or not. But the real people who lived this story, they believe it, they know, they took that One Step Beyond.”
So began the opening statement delivered with the velvety tones of host (and Director of all 97 episodes) John Newland, standing among shadows thrown by an ornate round window frame that was also cast onto the plain background. Undeniably, these words and setting establish the tone, so simple yet so effective, to a series that tells you from the beginning, that these are not fantasy stories, but dramatizations of real-life incidents. The key word here is dramatization, as the stories presented contain only the elements of the psychic incidents rather than, apart from a select few, how they truly played out.
Advertised for one DVD release with the words, “Before The Twilight Zone there was One Step Beyond”, this line is really a misleading comparison between the premise of the two shows. All the stories featured in Rod Serling’s classic fantasy series The Twilight Zone come from a writer’s imagination, whereas, although dramatized, the nucleus of each One Step Beyond tale is, as host John Newland states in his opening speech, part of human record.
His comfortable yet undeniably convincing presentation, often walking through the set at the beginning of the story and adding a final comment at the end of the episode, no doubt came through his experience as a leading theatre and TV actor. During his early acting career, he had played cinema legend D. W. Griffith in the TV Movie, Silver Glory (1951), then horror favourite Victor Frankenstein and the named part In The Picture of Dorian Gray in episodes of the TV series Tales of Tomorrow (1952-53). There are a few occasions when he acts, if only briefly, within the One Step Beyond dramas. As the host, his introductions could be very unsettling.
Although the creation of One Step Beyond is attributed to writer/ producer Merwin Gerard, his original concept was more along the lines of a fantasy/horror series, with forays also into science fiction and the paranormal. It was only after long discussions with partners, producer Collier Young, writer Larry Marcus and eventual host John Newland that the format was finally decided.