▶ "One Step Beyond": Episode of the Week (10/8)

"THE OPEN WINDOW" -- SEASON (2) EPISODE (7). November 3 1959.
COMMENTARY (spoilers alert): The window is a perfect object for "One Step Beyond" to construct an episode around. As a whole, this anthology TV series seeks to be a window or a portal to the unknown, and "The Open Window" literalizes that metaphor by landing a strange psychic vision just across an alley, through an open window.
And just as one might also consider the television set to be a window into another world (both are square boxes, both are view ports into other places, and both feature a wealth of "stories" beyond their parameters), the window in Tony's apartment serves the identical function. It grants access to another time and place, in this case the galaxy of the paranormal. Accordingly, much of the is rendered in deep focus, with Tony's apartment in the foreground and the window and mysterious tenant of the other apartment in the background, behind the framed "box" of the window. In other words: the audience is given a view of Tony viewing the other apartment. Importantly, what occurs behind that window is very much like a TV show permanently set on rerun mode: a constant loop of a woman going about the preliminaries of her own death.
This comparison between the world of television and this psychic phenomenon is even extended to the dialogue of "The Open Window" when a hotel manager notes that running his establishment is "better" than watching TV. That is, he finds his hotel as interesting to "watch" as he does television. Tony could make the same argument. By comparing Tony's startling "peek" into the world across the street and the viewer's "peek" into the TV world, "One Step Beyond" seems to tender a comment on man's voyeuristic impulses, and even his tendency to believe what his eyes tell him whether it be on the tube in the living room or as "real" across the street.
At the time "The Open Window" was produced, TV was still relatively young, and the overall effect of transmitting stories into the family living room was still not fully known. Indeed, the effects are not fully understood now. "The Open Window" seems to demonstrate a fear that TV will make man less sympathetic to the lives of others. The impulse to watch, to be a voyeur, may become more important than the need to interact, to help. This fear is epitomized in the hotel manager's blasé attitude: he is more interested in the comings and goings of the hotel denizens than the possibility that someone may have died in one of his rooms.
Tony is also a "watcher" at first, at least before he bursts into action to save a life. He even declares that he "wants to see something exciting" to help him develop as an artist. And then, as the image is rerun, he comes to fear his sanity -- a selfish reaction, perhaps, caused by the numbing effect of his witnessing the suicide attempt in rerun mode multiple times. "The Open Window" is quite interesting in this social subtext, also reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window."
All manner of excuses are made about the psychic phenomenon that occurs in "The Open Window". Has the Cassandra of the Week (Tony) had too much to drink (another example of alcoholism rendering a man's eyewitness account invalid) (?) Has he had a recurring nightmare (?) Has he witnessed a mirage due to "temperature inversion" (?) Or has time somehow skipped a groove, allowing the future to appear in the present (?) The latter appears the most likely, and that would be a solution also suggested in stories such as "Delia" and "I Saw You Tomorrow." However, rather than generalizing the concept (the universe altered time to save one woman), one could also make a case that Tony had a premonition: a view of the future that appeared in the present.
"The Open Window" is significant historically for an early appearance by Louise Fletcher, the 1975 Academy Award winner for best actress in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Nubile and charming in "The Open Window," Fletcher spends most of the episode cavorting about Tony's apartment in a skimpy bathing suit. On top of its interesting comments on voyeurism, "The Open Window" also dramatizes the sexist attitude of the time it was produced, as happened from time to time on "One Step Beyond" . . .
From John Kenneth Muir's definitive book "An Analytical Guide to Television's One Step Beyond": • ▶ "One Step Beyond" Ba...

[@maureen8745]

Had a friend in elementary school. One day as we rode the school bus she saw a house on fire and asked the bus driver to stop but the bus nor anyone else saw what she saw and thought she was crazy. The next morning the road was blocked by fire trucks and that house was on fire.

[@patriciahayes2664]

Some people have the gift of foresight, and it sounds like your friend was one of them.

[@Mountlougallops]

So fortunate that these shows still exist!

[@victoriaseekret7253]

Yes,I agree 💕🙏

[@rochellekeels8026]

Love the black and white shows, I'm greatful , Thank you❤️

[@zero_bs_tolerance8646]

Thank you.

[@Lolabelle59]

Really love these Episode of the Week picks. "What am I supposed to do. Just push a button, or something?" The Push-Button Age. Great to see future Best Actress Louise Fletcher ("Jeannie") when she was just starting out. Love Newland's epilogues, and this one is no exception.

[@droberts8703]

Very good

[@thomasromano9321]

She hasn't played a bitch like Nurse Ratched yet.

[@ToniHunterOne]

It's Nurse Ratched!!! Who knew?

[@ZYX84]

Complicated, and impressive!

[@paultaylor914]

The future "Big Nurse"

[@spidermoth1170]

Looking forward to next week's episode This week's as usual very interesting ❤ 🥂⚘⚘⚘

[@lurycharles-pierre1223]

Same here

[@mellisande638]

I'm really enjoying these weekly picks! Bravo😊👏👏👏👏 they're brilliant!💜💜💜

[@deborahwallace9801]

So grateful for shows like this what a thrill hi John been a long time:-) still LoVeU

[@Harbalz]

This was a real gas!

[@usmale4915]

Hello Weekly Viewers! "The Open Window" is a great episode! Thank you for the upload! PS: I'm hoping the next episode will be "TIDAL WAVE", I think it's the best episode of OSB. "Vanishing Point" is also very good!

[@lurycharles-pierre1223]

👍

[@rochellekeels8026]

Beautiful cat

[@matilda1505]

“ The executioner “ is my favourite.

[@subgizer9244]

Now I want to know..."How did he know?"

[@ZYX84]

It’s just that simple… 80% of questions are actually statements in disguise… The other 20% you may never know… Good night

[@MountainRaven1960]

So Jeanie gave up modelling and became a psych nurse.

[@one-step-beyond-1959]

Yes . . . we all make bad choices in life.

[@pennyburns3718]

👍

[@stephanieclini3834]

Que la Paix soit avec Vous. Excellente année 2022 à tous !

[@one-step-beyond-1959]

Thank you . . . and best wishes (!)

[@MrTwenty20video]

Good stuff.

[@FlowerLady-tv3ys]

Now that was creepy!! I enjoyed this episode.

[@kevmodee1866]

Nurse Ratchet is hot!!

[@one-step-beyond-1959]

Just don't let her hear you say that . . .

[@kevmodee1866]

@@one-step-beyond-1959 lol. She may give me a lobotomy I recon. 😂

[@ingridfong-daley5899]

I'm just re-watching this episode, revelling in the Louise Fletcher-y awesomeness. But on re-viewing, can I just say that the entire 'doctor and his wife' scene was some SERIOUS passive-aggressive dysfunctional household writing. "I'm the wise doctor, saying a whole bunch of ignorant and insulting crap to everyone in hi-lar-iously demeaning tones... watch my wife smile, kiss me, and just 'roll her eyes' at my boyish disrespect/moderate abuse... and my dismissal of my 'best friend's' hallucinations." The doctor is REAL in. ;)

[@johniedebt6522]

🙏 Prophecy, God work's so we can work😔

[@myrnalane7928]

O1 04 2022