One Step Beyond Episode

Tommy, A book is out by John Muir called "An Analytical Guide to One Step Beyond" with synopses of all the 96 episodes which ran over 3 seasons (1959-1960)and were hosted by poker-faced John Newland. The Titanic one, Night of April 14th, aired on Jan. 27, 1959 and featured Patrick Macnee (he of John Steed, AVENGERS fame) and Barbara Lord as Eric Farley and Grace Montgomery. A woman who is afraid of water finds her hubby has book passage on- you know...TITANIC! Has anyone seen the 2002 remake of OSB- called "Night Visions" which debuted June 14th?(Macnee)
 
34 episodes are available on VCR through Amazon.com- but NOT the one WE want! Muir's book, by the way costs 40 bucks!!Of course I barely..ahem.. remember the series- being in my (cough) playpen you understand.
 
I have the episode in my vault somewhere. John Newland, the program host refers to some strange coincidences about the Titanic that I can't recall off the top of my head and a couple of them didn't sound familiar.

John Kenneth Muir, the author of that book incidentally, has written similar books on "Space 1999" and "Battlestar Galactica" (one of the few things in life I have a greater passion about than the Titanic) and he usually does a good job of amassing information but sometimes he gets carried away with his literary critique style to fall in love with analyses that don't stand up to scrutiny.

Incidentally, this was Patrick Macnee's second go round in a Titanic related TV episode, having played Thomas Andrews in the Kraft Television production of "A Night To Remember" several years earlier (and his first "Avengers" co-star Honor Blackman was in the movie version of ANTR).
 
I didn't want to veer off Jason's thread about ghostly links to the Titanic story so I'll post this here in case anybody wants to watch the episode talked about in this thread. Not everybody's cup of tea but I like old tv shows and this episode has been talked about in various threads over the years. There were many old tv shows that had stories about Titanic in the 50's and 60's.
 
Years ago I bought a whole collection of then available DVDs of the One Step Beyond show. I don't think it was complete because some episodes were believed lost. After seeing a few episodes, I found them disappointing and shelved the cases away at the back (I think the terrible one with Cloris Leachman as a photographer got me finally based against it) . Not sure if the episode above is one of them, but could be; I'll need to check when I get back to the UK in just over a month.

Overall, a very very poor relation to the original The Twilight Zone series.
 
Arun Vajpey said:
Years ago I bought a whole collection of then available DVDs of the One Step Beyond show. I don't think it was complete because some episodes were believed lost. After seeing a few episodes, I found them disappointing and shelved the cases away at the back (I think the terrible one with Cloris Leachman as a photographer got me finally based against it) . Not sure if the episode above is one of them, but could be; I'll need to check when I get back to the UK in just over a month.

Overall, a very very poor relation to the original The Twilight Zone series.
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Yes. They had some good episodes but not the quality of many of the Twilight Zone one's. I liked a lot of the TZ episodes but some fell flat for me. About 1/4 of them I'll watch over and over again...the others not so much.
 
Steven Christian said:
I liked a lot of the TZ episodes but some fell flat for me. About 1/4 of them I'll watch over and over again...the others not so much.
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Agreed. Episodes like To Serve Man are very dated but still great fun to watch. I found Eye Of The Beholder rather overrated but still good.

Oddly, the 60s original series of The Outer Limits did nothing for me, even the so-called 'classic' episode Demon With The Glass Hand. But I do like the 1990s revival and have the full set on DVD.
 
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I watched the One Step Beyond Night of April 14 episode last night and found it be entertaining. The ship used in the episode resembled the Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth more than the Titanic, but I digress. I'm a decade and a half younger after the show went off the air, but I've always appreciated the older tv shows. They don't make them like they used to anymore.
 
Jason D. Tiller said:
I've always appreciated the older tv shows. They don't make them like they used to anymore.
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You said it. These days we are mired in Political Correctness and pseudo-realism.

There was a similarly themed British TV show called Out Of The Unknown that aired between 1965 & 1971. The hour long episodes covered dramatizations of several very interesting short stories and novellas from well known sci-fi writers like Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, William Tenn, Clifford Simak......to name a few. For some warped reason, it was apparently SOP to destroy such recordings in those days after the series was completed, a practice that was stopped only in 1978. The 50 to 60 minute episodes were highly thought of but because of the 'wiping' only 21 out of 49 episodes currently exist. But there have been recent rumors about other surviving episodes in private archives and so there is still a modicum of hope.
 
Arun Vajpey said:
You said it. These days we are mired in Political Correctness and pseudo-realism.

There was a similarly themed British TV show called Out Of The Unknown that aired between 1965 & 1971. The hour long episodes covered dramatizations of several very interesting short stories and novellas from well known sci-fi writers like Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, William Tenn, Clifford Simak......to name a few. For some warped reason, it was apparently SOP to destroy such recordings in those days after the series was completed, a practice that was stopped only in 1978. The 50 to 60 minute episodes were highly thought of but because of the 'wiping' only 21 out of 49 episodes currently exist. But there have been recent rumors about other surviving episodes in private archives and so there is still a modicum of hope.
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I'm starting to miss the old days when we as a society weren't so politically correct and overally sensitive to everything, as I get older. But again, I digress!

I hadn't heard of that show before. What a travesty to destroy such (what would be considered now) vintage recordings. Hopefully some surviving episodes can be saved. Back to the One Step Beyond episode, I did enjoy seeing Patrick Macnee who played his role magnificently. Splendid actor he was.
 
Jason D. Tiller said:
I'm starting to miss the old days when we as a society weren't so politically correct and overally sensitive to everything, as I get older. But again, I digress!
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Exactly my thoughts. I often compare the two Ocean's Eleven films. I love the old 1960 original with the Rat Pack in peak of their form. The film was sexist, politically incorrect and the plot a touch improbable but who cares? It was gloriously ATMOSPHERIC compared with the tepid 2001 remake with its "Mouse Pack" pretenders.
 
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I always liked the "Night Gallery" episode where a ship rescues a lone survivor in a lifeboat. The lifeboat says Titanic. Nobody believes the passenger that their ship will sink and he couldn't be from Titanic so long ago. At the end the camera shows the ships name..."Andrea Doria". It was his purgatory to go from shipwreck to shipwreck forever.
 
Steven Christian said:
I always liked the "Night Gallery" episode where a ship rescues a lone survivor in a lifeboat. The lifeboat says Titanic. Nobody believes the passenger that their ship will sink and he couldn't be from Titanic so long ago. At the end the camera shows the ships name..."Andrea Doria". It was his purgatory to go from shipwreck to shipwreck forever.
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I wasn't aware of this show or episode. Thanks Steven, I've got something else to watch tonight.
 

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