▶ "One Step Beyond": Episode of the Week (10/01)

"THE TIGER" -- SEASON (3) EPISODE (33). June 20 1961.
COMMENTARY (spoilers alert): The familiar conceit of "the comeuppance" is mated to a story of "mind over matter" in "The Tiger," another one of those delicious "One Step Beyond" episodes that finds a truly despicable woman meeting her just desserts at the hands of a psychic or paranormal event.
Though the format is a familiar one, the joy of this particular story is in watching a nasty, arrogant governess become undone by a little girl's fantasy that her pet tiger (an imaginary friend) has come to life. Before long, fantasy is reality and the furniture is being mysteriously ripped apart by the claws of some invisible monster. Soon the cruel governess realizes she has picked the wrong child to pick on and meets her unpleasant (but oh-so-deserved) destiny.
It so easy to hate Mrs. Cartwright in this episode. To little Pamela, this tyrannical woman has "Scaredy Eyes" (a wonderful, child like description of the adult woman, and one worthy of Stephen King). Worse, Mrs. Cartwright's behavior is absolutely atrocious. She locks Pamela in a closet at one point and then casts her into a dark basement while she goes out to see a movie. This wicked caregiver, a reference to fairy tale stepmothers like those in Cinderella perhaps, finally gets torn apart by a marmalade yellow tiger and a little girl whose wish has come true; and despite the violence: the audience has found itself wishing for just such a conclusion.
"The Tiger" may not be progressive or original material (this was at least the tenth instance of the comeuppance on "One Step Beyond"), but it is wicked, enjoyable fun and a memorable show. Fitting in with themes from the past: a child is seen to be the possessor of vast psychic powers ("Make Me Not a Witch", "The Burning Girl"), and the scales of justice are righted when the tiger makes lunch out of the governess . . .
From John Kenneth Muir's definitive book "An Analytical Guide to Television's One Step Beyond": • ▶ "One Step Beyond" Ba...