- Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond
-
One Step Beyond 
Format Horror, Mystery, Science Fiction, Drama Created by Merwin Gerard Directed by John Newland Starring John Newland (Host) Theme music composer Harry Lubin Opening theme "Fear" Composer(s) Harry Lubin Country of origin 
United StatesNo. of seasons 3 No. of episodes 97 Production Producer(s) Collier Young Running time 25 min. Production company(s) World Television Programming, Inc., in association with Joseph M. Schenck Enterprises and ABC Broadcast Original channel ABC Picture format Black-and-white, 4:3 Audio format Mono Original run January 20, 1959 – July 4, 1961 One Step Beyond is an American television series created by Merwin Gerard. The original series ran for three seasons on ABC from 1959 to 1961 and remains syndicated to this day. Because the copyright has lapsed on at least some of the episodes",[1] several distribution companies have released episode packages using 16mm syndication prints rather than the 35mm originals, resulting in uneven audio and video.[citation needed]
John Kenneth Muir's book An Analytical Guide to Television's One Step Beyond, 1959–1961 presents the history of this TV series including a synopsis and analysis of the episodes.[2]
Contents
History
Created by Merwin Gerard and produced by the prolific producer Collier Young, the program was hosted by John Newland, "your guide to the supernatural" (also credited as "Our guide into the world of the unknown"). Newland presented tales that explored paranormal events and various situations that defied "logical" explanation. Unlike other anthology programmers, the ABC network series episodes were presented in the form of straightforward thirty-minute docudramas, all said to be based on true events. Initially, the program included the corporate name of sponsor Alcoa as part of its full title.
One Step Beyond filled the time slot at 10 p.m. Tuesday vacated by the crime/police reality show, Confession.
Topics
Among its varied tales, One Step Beyond dealt with premonition of death ("The Lincoln Assassination") and disaster ("Tidal Wave", "Night of April 14th"); astral projection ("The Long Call"); the existence of ghosts ("The Last Time"); and wildly improbable coincidence ("The Glider", "Death on the Mountain", etc.).
Appearing actors
Many not-yet famous actors appeared in these productions, including Elizabeth Montgomery, Charles Bronson, Yvette Mimieux, Warren Beatty, Christopher Lee, Beverly Washburn, Robert Blake, Cloris Leachman, Mike Connors and Pernell Roberts. A total of ninety-six episodes were filmed.[3]
Reruns
Following its first run cancellation in 1961, the series continued to be shown throughout the United States in syndication until the early 1980s. It was then re-made by Gerard and Young, this time for first-run syndication in 1978, as The Next Step Beyond, once again hosted by Newland (who also directed most of the episodes). It ran for one season.
Then, for its re-release to television on the Sci-Fi Channel in the 1990s, the opening and end titles were brought up to date with new theme music and graphics designed for the time, as if the show had continued into the 1990s.
Despite the public domain status on most episodes, the series is now copyrighted by Worldvision Enterprises (the successor to the original distributor, ABC Films), the series' syndicated distributor that is known today as CBS Television Distribution.
Music
Harry Lubin composed the music for the series with a soundtrack album ("Music from 'One Step Beyond'") released by Decca Records in 1959. The most well known tracks of the series were Weird (originally composed by Lubin for the score of an April 1955 Loretta Young Show episode, "Feeling No Pain"), usually played when the supernatural aspect of the episode was being discussed and Fear that became the musical theme of the series.
The Ventures included a cover version of the show's main theme Fear on their highly acclaimed 1964 Dolton Records release The Ventures in Space. It was also covered by the Finnish surf-revival band Laika & the Cosmonauts on their compilation album Gravity. The second season of The Outer Limits used a variation of Fear for the end titles.
The avant-garde metal band Fantômas' song of the same name from the album The Director's Cut was inspired by the show's opening theme.
Episodes
Season 1: 1959
22 episodes
Episode # Title Director Writer(s) Original AirDate Production Code 1 "The Bride Possessed" John Newland Merwin Gerard January 20, 1959 2900 A bride begins to predict features of an area she's never seen. 2 "Night of April 14th" John Newland Collier Young / Larry Marcus January 27, 1959 2903 A woman has a nightmare that her fiancé dies by drowning. The next day he announces that the couple will honeymoon aboard the Titanic. 3 "Emergency Only" John Newland Collier Young February 3, 1959 2901 Coming out of a hypnotic trance, Ellen Larrabee predicts a dangerous train trip for a skeptical witness. 4 "The Dark Room" John Newland Francis Cockrell February 10, 1959 2905 A woman photographer on assignment in the south of France is almost strangled by one of her subjects. 5 "Twelve Hours to Live" John Newland Merwin Gerard October 30, 1959 2902 After an argument with his wife, a man drives away in a storm and she suddenly receives signs that he is in danger. 6 "Epilogue" John Newland Don M. Mankiewicz February 24, 1959 2906 Carl Archer, a recovering alcoholic travels to Nevada to try and patch things up with his wife. His wife Helen and son Stevie visit a nearby silver mine when the mine collapses. 7 "The Dream" John Newland John Dunkel March 3, 1959 2907 Herbert Blakely is on night patrol in the coastal town on lookout for Nazis when he dreams about bombs destroying his home where his wife is. 8 "Premonition" John Newland Paul David March 10, 1959 2904 Debbie Garrick has everything including a premonition of her own death. Skip Young of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet guest stars as Martin. 9 "The Dead Part of the House" John Newland Michael Plant March 17, 1959 2909 After the death of her mother, a haunted nursery and three dolls help a young girl reconnect with her dad. 10 "The Vision" John Newland Larry Marcus March 24, 1959 2908 French troops stop fighting and desert their trenches during World War I. 11 "The Devil's Laughter" John Newland Alfred Brenner March 31, 1959 2910 Authorities are having trouble with convicted killer John Marriott: they can't seem to execute him. 12 "The Return of Mitchell Campion" John Newland Merwin Gerard April 7, 1959 2914 A man is known by everyone on a small Mediterranean island he has never visited. Soon, he too remembers being there before, but he was in the hospital at the time of the supposed visit. 13 "The Navigator" John Newland Don M. Mankiewicz April 14, 1959 2913 A stowaway sends a ship off course to the China Seas and refuses to say why. 14 "The Secret" John Newland Michael Plant April 21, 1959 2915 An unhappy woman is befriended by a man who lived and died long before she was born. 15 "The Aerialist" John Newland Jack Mills / Larry Marcus April 28, 1959 2917 A distraught and depressed circus performer is protected from a fall by an unlikely savior. 16 "The Burning Girl" John Newland Catherine Turney May 5, 1959 2921 Wherever teenager Alice Denning goes, fires start. 17 "The Haunted U-Boat" John Newland Larry Marcus May 12, 1959 2921 A German U-boat attempts to evade detection from the sonar of the American and British ships. But their location is repeatedly betrayed by the noise of a rhythmic banging sound coming from the submarine. 18 "The Image of Death" John Newland Larry Marcus May 19, 1959 2919 A French nobleman kills his wife but he can't get rid of her ghost, who's haunting his new lover. 19 "The Captain's Guests" John Newland Charles Beaumont May 26, 1959 2920 A married couple from New York rent an old house along the New England coast that the locals consider a very unhappy place. 20 "Echo" John Newland Merwin Gerard June 2, 1959 2918 A man is found innocent of his wife's murder. Her brother arrives from New Zealand and precipitates the real culprit's capture. 21 "Front Runner" John Newland Don M. Mankiewicz June 9, 1959 2924 With the death of his rival during a race, a jockey is stricken with an unknown ailment as revenge reaches out from beyond the grave. 22 "The Riddle" John Newland Larry Marcus June 16, 1959 2923 An irrational hatred in an American tourist on the Bombay-Calcutta Mail Railroad train is considered in terms of metempsychosis -- the transmigration of souls. For full listing of the 96 episodes see One Step Beyond episodes.
A complete list of episodes, with links to cast lists and synopses, is available at TV.com.
Official DVD release
CBS Home Entertainment (distributed by Paramount) released what they called The Official First Season on DVD on September 15, 2009.[4]
One Step Beyond is the first pre-1973 in-house production of ABC to get a DVD release from CBS/Paramount. Other shows once distributed by ABC Films (which became Worldvision Enterprises) were either released by CBS/Paramount because the company owns the libraries of the actual producers of the shows (such as The Fugitive or The Mod Squad), or were released by different companies because ancillary rights are owned by other entities (such as George of the Jungle).
In any event, this new release contains all the first season episodes in new prints (most of them edited from their original network airings, as CBS says in a disclaimer) with all the original music as broadcast. While it includes the generic syndicated opening, among the extras are the original main title sequence (with sponsor tags by Alcoa), an expanded version of the series pilot, and the aforementioned revised main title sequence created for a Sci-Fi Channel run in the 1990s.
There is also a 4 disk set released by Mill Creek Entertainment titled "The Very Best of One Step Beyond". It contains 50 episodes.
References
- ^ "Trivia for One Step Beyond (1959)". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052442/trivia. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ About this book: An Analytical Guide to Television's One Step Beyond, 1959–1961. http://books.google.com/books?id=VcFZltNy-lAC&dq=An+Analytical+Guide+to+Television's+One+Step+Beyond&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ "Episode list for One Step Beyond (1959)". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052442/episodes. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ http://tvshowsondvd.com/news/Step-Season-1/12104
External links
- One Step Beyond at the Internet Movie Database
- An interview with John Newland, host of One Step Beyond
- Watch old episodes of One Step Beyond
- Watch One Step Beyond Intro YouTube
- Watch One Step Beyond at www.archive.org
See also
Categories:- Anthology television series
- 1950s American television series
- 1960s American television series
- 1959 television series debuts
- 1961 television series endings
- Paranormal television
- American Broadcasting Company network shows
- Television series by CBS Paramount Television
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
