I almost thought they had confused the title of this "Twilight Zone" episode with possibly "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" as this one certainly seemed to bear the Master's imprint.
A little girl turns up sat outside the apartment of a young female schoolteacher. Out of kindness she invites the little girl in but there's something about the little girl's manner and the things she says which unsettle her. She claims to know everything about her, right down to sharing a long-forgotten childhood nick-name and even a burn on her arm.
The little girl asks her if she saw a face earlier in the day of someone she remembered from long ago and she admits she did. Then the doorbell goes and a man is there who starts talking about the woman's troubled childhood when she had a memory black-out after witnessing as a little girl her own mother's murder.
What is this disquieting man's link to her past and why does the little girl run away when he comes to the door? The explanation is ingenious as the episode hurries towards its big reveal.
This excellent psychodrama is one of the best I've seen on Series One - unsurprisingly, it's one of Serling's own stories which I always remember as being the best of the series, sort of like when Hitchcock directed one of the shows from his own show.
Julie Andrews lookalike Janice Rule is convincing as the haunted teacher while the child actress playing little "Markie" certainly gave off that eerie "Village of the Damned" childhood vibe with Sheppperd Strudwick doing his best Joseph Cotten / Uncle Charlie as the villain.
A very good episode, it made made me wonder how good a Serling / Hitchcock collaboration might have turned out if someone had put them together.
A little girl turns up sat outside the apartment of a young female schoolteacher. Out of kindness she invites the little girl in but there's something about the little girl's manner and the things she says which unsettle her. She claims to know everything about her, right down to sharing a long-forgotten childhood nick-name and even a burn on her arm.
The little girl asks her if she saw a face earlier in the day of someone she remembered from long ago and she admits she did. Then the doorbell goes and a man is there who starts talking about the woman's troubled childhood when she had a memory black-out after witnessing as a little girl her own mother's murder.
What is this disquieting man's link to her past and why does the little girl run away when he comes to the door? The explanation is ingenious as the episode hurries towards its big reveal.
This excellent psychodrama is one of the best I've seen on Series One - unsurprisingly, it's one of Serling's own stories which I always remember as being the best of the series, sort of like when Hitchcock directed one of the shows from his own show.
Julie Andrews lookalike Janice Rule is convincing as the haunted teacher while the child actress playing little "Markie" certainly gave off that eerie "Village of the Damned" childhood vibe with Sheppperd Strudwick doing his best Joseph Cotten / Uncle Charlie as the villain.
A very good episode, it made made me wonder how good a Serling / Hitchcock collaboration might have turned out if someone had put them together.