User Reviews

This is indeed a very disappointing episode considering the cast of professionals including Carolyn Jones, Steve Forrest, William Windom and Robert Mandan. Jones returns to the family summer house, and her husband, whom she claims got there the night before, is nowhere to be seen. She goes through a few frightening situations, apparently locked in a room where there's some scratching heard, and the next thing you know, she's out and about acting like nothing happened. Her encounters with various friends in the community have meaningless points, yet from there, she's seemingly screaming while alone at random for no reason.

While Jones is certainly always fascinating to watch, you really don't get to know anything about her character based on the writing. The other characters also seem to serve no purpose, and when the husband (Forrest) shows up, it's obvious that they hate each other. But that's it, and outside of Jones indicating that she has had thoughts of killing him, there's no real mystery except why this didn't have a stronger plot and a conclusion that goes somewhere. Not looking good for this series. Six episodes in, and only two are winners.

When this was a new show, we high school aged viewers didn't get much interested over this series, it was regarded as an also-ran NIGHT GALLERY. It was given a "Death spot" by NBC, up against ROOM 222 and THE ODD COUPLE, and it was cancelled in June 1973, without bothering to go all summer in reruns.

Saw this particular show today, and I must conclude they had a very tepid product. This has a very basic story about a woman that is alone in a house, plagued by visions that may or not be of her murdering her husband. That Sebastian Cabot's introduction tells us that she's caught in an endless replay of events only helps kill any possible suspense that might build. But it's a long, s-l-o-o-o-w story anyway. Did they have to show us, for instance, in nearly real time, Carolyn Jones drive up to the house, get out and take two shopping bags out, go into the house, set them down, then go out to the car again, take two more bundles of groceries, go back into the house, and set them down too? This sort of thing is just padding beyond any excitement.

Martha and Andrew Alcott (Carolyn Jones, forever Morticia Adams, and Steve Forrest, Greg from Mommie Dearest) spend their summer in a vacation home that Martha hates, but there are plenty of reasons for that, mostly that there's an evil force in the basement that wants to destroy them.

This episode of Circle of Fear/Ghost Story was directed by Leo Penn, whose acting and directing career started in 1945 and continued all the way to 1995. Despite him making 27 episodes of Matlock, 6 Hart to Hart shows and The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, he's probably better known for being the father of Chris, Michael and Sean Penn.

This episode comes from a story by British writer A. M. Burrage and was adapted by Seeleg Lester (a story consultant on The Outer Limits and the writer of the episode "The Inheritors") and Richard Matheson.

Over and over, Martha has a dream where she finds out that her husband is cheating, so she pushes him down a well, only to wake up and nothing has happened. Again, again and again. Is this a memory, a premonition or just a dream?

Sadly, this is one of the episodes of the show that just kind of drags. But don't give up, because there are some decent ones coming soon.

However, it looks gorgeous, and that's probably because Bill Butler was the director of photography. Perhaps you've seen his work in Jaws, Damien: Omen II and Demon Seed.