episode #091 - Little Girl Lost

Air Date: 3/16/62    written by Richard Matheson, based on his short story    Directed by Paul Stewart

This one was about an inter-dimensional doorway opening up in a typical suburban home; in the middle of the night, the parents are awoken by their little daughter crying and find that, even though they hear her in her bedroom, they cannot see her. The father calls a friend (Charles Aidman) who happens to be a physicist; he determines that this opening into another dimension exists on the wall at the head of the bed. The rescue of the daughter hinges on the abilities of the family pet, a dog, and on the physicist's guesswork about the unusual situation.

This episode doesn't have any real surprises and is a bit ho-hum, but it does suggest that incidents such as poltergeist activity (as in the film Poltergeist-1982) are 'in reality' passages to an alternate dimension, an explanation more to do with scientific theory rather than ghosts and the occult. Aidman was well cast as the scientist; much of the episode involves him speaking at length about the theory of what is going on, and his voice is almost hypnotic. The shots of the other dimension are very surreal. BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10