Charles Aidman plays Carl Archer, a recovering alcoholic released from rehab trying to reconcile with his estranged wife Helen(played by Julie Adams) and young son Stevie(played by Charles Herbert). When an apparition of Helen appears to him urging him to hurry to a silver mine that has collapsed, trapping them both, he cannot believe that in fact his wife was in two places at once, and a Doctor(played by William Schallert) trying to help him keep his sanity is even more skeptical - until two eyewitnesses to the event make him think otherwise... Good cast and story in this fairly typical episode that is still entertaining and memorable.
7 Reviews
Spooky....but true?!
planktonrules19 May 2018
The old TV series "One Step Beyond" was odd in that it claimed that the stories you were watching were real...or at least they are based on what people CLAIM happened involving the supernatural. As for me, I don't believe any of this...though I will admit that the show was well made and often enjoyable to watch.
In this story, Carl Archer (Charles Aidman) is an alcoholic who has destroyed his marriage. He's just gotten out of treatment for the drinking but his wife (Julie Adams) is not unusual for not believing he's changed....and wanting to take a wait and see attitude about the sobriety. In the meantime, a tragedy occurs when (WHY???) Carl's wife and son are exploring around an old mine...and here is where the supernatural comes into the story.
While Charles Aidman is a name few would remember, he was a terrific actor who did a lot of television work. Here the story works because he did a great job of it...and it didn't hurt that he was supported by Julie Adams and William Schallert. Overall, fascinating and with a nice twist....that still left me thinking 'nope...didn't happen'!
In this story, Carl Archer (Charles Aidman) is an alcoholic who has destroyed his marriage. He's just gotten out of treatment for the drinking but his wife (Julie Adams) is not unusual for not believing he's changed....and wanting to take a wait and see attitude about the sobriety. In the meantime, a tragedy occurs when (WHY???) Carl's wife and son are exploring around an old mine...and here is where the supernatural comes into the story.
While Charles Aidman is a name few would remember, he was a terrific actor who did a lot of television work. Here the story works because he did a great job of it...and it didn't hurt that he was supported by Julie Adams and William Schallert. Overall, fascinating and with a nice twist....that still left me thinking 'nope...didn't happen'!
Epilogue
Prismark1023 June 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Carl Archer is a recovering alcoholic who has been told that he had a hallucination by Doctor Sanders.
His estranged wife Helen took their son Steve to an old abandoned silver mine. It collapsed and trapped Steve.
Helen drives out to Carl and ask for his help. He rushes to the mine and manages to find his son. Two other men also arrive to help.
However Carl is shocked that the collapsed mine killed his wife.
How did she manage to summon Carl? Also what was that noise in the desert that the two men heard?
Was it a gush of wind or a woman's frantic screams.
It starts of as a mundane story of an alcoholic who realises he has made mistakes and wants his family back.
It was probably silly to visit an old mine but the twist works well.
Charles Aidman who plays Carl Archer definitely exercises his lungs as he shrieks throughout the story. At the ends he decides he does not need the doctor's medication.
His estranged wife Helen took their son Steve to an old abandoned silver mine. It collapsed and trapped Steve.
Helen drives out to Carl and ask for his help. He rushes to the mine and manages to find his son. Two other men also arrive to help.
However Carl is shocked that the collapsed mine killed his wife.
How did she manage to summon Carl? Also what was that noise in the desert that the two men heard?
Was it a gush of wind or a woman's frantic screams.
It starts of as a mundane story of an alcoholic who realises he has made mistakes and wants his family back.
It was probably silly to visit an old mine but the twist works well.
Charles Aidman who plays Carl Archer definitely exercises his lungs as he shrieks throughout the story. At the ends he decides he does not need the doctor's medication.
A woman's cry
sol12181 August 2011
***SPOILERS*** It happened just the way he says it do a screaming and out of control Charles Archer, Charles Aidman, tells his good friend and psychiatrist Dr. Sanders, William Schallert, about the experience he just went through. Having dried out for some six weeks from his alcohol addiction at the local detox center Charles wanted to get his life and family back together but his long suffering wife Helen, Julie Adams, just didn't trust him anymore. It's little Stevie, Charles Herbert, the couple's 10 year old son who wants to give pop another chance but that's held off until later by Helen as she takes Stevie on a sight-seeing trip to a long deserted silver mine in the Nevada desert.
Stevie snooping around the mine and hitting rocks with a hammer to entertain himself sets off a major landslide that just about buries him alive! Back home a startled Carl is shocked to see an almost unorganizable and soot covered Helen show up looking like she just survived the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake telling him that Stevie is in serious trouble and to get back to the silver mine in order to help save his life. At the mine a desperate Carl does find Stevie barley alive and together with Sam & Jim, Roy Glenn & Don Kennedy, who show up from out of nowhere end up saving his life.
***SPOILERS*** It's here that things get really weird in that Stevie instead of being grateful that his life was saved runs back into the silver mine to save his mom Helen who's buried and later found dead under the rubble! How could Helen have been in two places at the sane time! Both buried alive at the silver mine and showing up at her and Carl's home after she was already dead? It's just an hallucination Dr. Sanders tells Carl and gives him a prescription for some strong sleeping pills to sooth his shattered nerves. It's then that Sam, who together with Jim was on the scene of the mine disaster, shows up to see if everything is all right with both Carl & Stevie. It's after Dr. Sanders leaves that Sam tells Carl this amazing story in how he and Jim were summoned to to mine to help save both Stevie and Helen.
It wasn't a phone call, or anything like that, that summoned Sam and Jim to rush over there but a woman's desperate scream for help that was carried across the dry desert terrain by a mysterious wind. It's very possibly that very same woman who cried out for help and got Sam & Jim to show up at the silver mine was the very woman who mysteriously showed up at Carl's place to get him to rush over to the silver mine to save little Stevie! Could she have been what turned out to be the ghost of late Mrs. Helen Archer?
Stevie snooping around the mine and hitting rocks with a hammer to entertain himself sets off a major landslide that just about buries him alive! Back home a startled Carl is shocked to see an almost unorganizable and soot covered Helen show up looking like she just survived the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake telling him that Stevie is in serious trouble and to get back to the silver mine in order to help save his life. At the mine a desperate Carl does find Stevie barley alive and together with Sam & Jim, Roy Glenn & Don Kennedy, who show up from out of nowhere end up saving his life.
***SPOILERS*** It's here that things get really weird in that Stevie instead of being grateful that his life was saved runs back into the silver mine to save his mom Helen who's buried and later found dead under the rubble! How could Helen have been in two places at the sane time! Both buried alive at the silver mine and showing up at her and Carl's home after she was already dead? It's just an hallucination Dr. Sanders tells Carl and gives him a prescription for some strong sleeping pills to sooth his shattered nerves. It's then that Sam, who together with Jim was on the scene of the mine disaster, shows up to see if everything is all right with both Carl & Stevie. It's after Dr. Sanders leaves that Sam tells Carl this amazing story in how he and Jim were summoned to to mine to help save both Stevie and Helen.
It wasn't a phone call, or anything like that, that summoned Sam and Jim to rush over there but a woman's desperate scream for help that was carried across the dry desert terrain by a mysterious wind. It's very possibly that very same woman who cried out for help and got Sam & Jim to show up at the silver mine was the very woman who mysteriously showed up at Carl's place to get him to rush over to the silver mine to save little Stevie! Could she have been what turned out to be the ghost of late Mrs. Helen Archer?
Holy smokes
mcintoshalyssa2425 December 2021
Warning: Spoilers
A father that was once alcoholic tries to make it up to his wife and son. Then he begins to have predictions of his wife & son being trapped in a mine-shaft during a cave in. Trying to prove he's sober and hasn't been drinking-turns out he was right in the end. The boy was rescued in the end yay! His wife died? Geez, Newland. That's dark.
A lesson on why not to take your kid into an abandoned mine. The Conclusion saves this one!
b_kite28 October 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Episode 6 starts as Carl Archer (Charles Aidman) is a recovering alcoholic, who his wife Helen (the beautiful Julie Adams) is about to divorce. Carl has just completed his stint in rehab and tries to convince Helen to take him back that he is a changed man, she agrees to thank about it, while her and her son Steve (Charles Herbert) go on a trip to an old abandoned silver mine (because we all know that's a great idea) as usually thinking after about 4 minutes inside part of the mine collapses and Steve becomes trapped Helen appears back at the hotel to tell Carl of the accident and when he gets there he gets a big surprise...
I thought this one was OK it starts out pretty good, but, when the mom actually takes her son in an apparently dangerous silver mine one has to wonder why on earth you would do this without anyone with you, and you know pretty much whats going to happen here, it was here I was afraid the story was going to be just like the last episode another "trapped character in peril" episode, It does a little, but, fortunately turns into some what of a ghost story and what happens is a pretty good conclusion, and not an abrupt ending like several episodes of the series have had so far, even tho this is the 2nd ghost story in the last 3 episodes. The acting here is good and decent, Julie Adams of "Creature from the Black Lagoon" fame does a nice job, but Charles Aidman over acts a little in a silly scene were he goes running out of the mine screaming is just hilarious even tho Its meant to be serious. Overall, I think the conclusion saves this one pretty good.
I thought this one was OK it starts out pretty good, but, when the mom actually takes her son in an apparently dangerous silver mine one has to wonder why on earth you would do this without anyone with you, and you know pretty much whats going to happen here, it was here I was afraid the story was going to be just like the last episode another "trapped character in peril" episode, It does a little, but, fortunately turns into some what of a ghost story and what happens is a pretty good conclusion, and not an abrupt ending like several episodes of the series have had so far, even tho this is the 2nd ghost story in the last 3 episodes. The acting here is good and decent, Julie Adams of "Creature from the Black Lagoon" fame does a nice job, but Charles Aidman over acts a little in a silly scene were he goes running out of the mine screaming is just hilarious even tho Its meant to be serious. Overall, I think the conclusion saves this one pretty good.
Braving the Psycho-babble
Goingbegging22 October 2021
After yawning through John Newland's mini-lecture about hallucinations, you actually get to enjoy some of the finest acting to be found in any of the episodes of 'One Step Beyond' in this thoroughly unlikely tale of a little boy rescued from a collapsed silver-mine in Nevada.
Professional but nothing more, as the recovering alcoholic, is the top-billed player Charles Aidman. It is down the list that the quality emerges. Julie Adams as his wife, not only the picture-perfect home-maker, but carrying astonishing conviction with every word, every move, every gesture. William Schallert as the psychiatrist, handing out the psycho-babble, superficially believable, both to us and to the patient. Roy Glenn as the miner who saves the boy's life, speaking his few lines with heartwarming sincerity. And the kid himself, Charles Herbert, justly nicknamed 'One Take Charlie', surely the most plausible child-actor of them all, nothing short of genius in my view, yet who ended up like the rest of them, uneducated and nowhere to go but drug-land...
Professional but nothing more, as the recovering alcoholic, is the top-billed player Charles Aidman. It is down the list that the quality emerges. Julie Adams as his wife, not only the picture-perfect home-maker, but carrying astonishing conviction with every word, every move, every gesture. William Schallert as the psychiatrist, handing out the psycho-babble, superficially believable, both to us and to the patient. Roy Glenn as the miner who saves the boy's life, speaking his few lines with heartwarming sincerity. And the kid himself, Charles Herbert, justly nicknamed 'One Take Charlie', surely the most plausible child-actor of them all, nothing short of genius in my view, yet who ended up like the rest of them, uneducated and nowhere to go but drug-land...
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
