Sesto senso

The Sixth Sense was one of the very few TV series to delve into the psychic world as a dramatic one-hour show.Dr.Michael Rhodes(Gary Collins)is a university professor who would investigate psychic phenomena and the lives of those it affected.This was a cool show that created some eerie episodes that were best viewed with the lights out.While Rhodes was written as a rather one-dimensional character,Collins brought a warmth & intelligence to the part that made you like the guy.The ESP aspects of the show would be shrouded in a mystery-of-the-week plot.Haunted houses,visions,ghosts,premonitions,psychic powers,you could look forward to chills from such stuff each week.Sadly,the show was re-packaged to run as part of the reruns of the fine Night Gallery show.But they cut the one-hour series back to 30-minutes in doing so,which makes the half-hour episodes incomprehensible & rushed.Still,it was a creepy show for its era(1972)and it was able to do it within the restrictions & lack of imaginations of the network.The X-Files was able to take the concept much further & with the benefits of later day technology & fx.But The Sixth Sense walked the path earlier.

Not everyone has forgotten this short lived tv show. I remember it as very suspenseful and thought provoking. I was a junior in high school when it appeared and my classmates and I thought it was great. Unfortunately, not enough of the country felt likewise and it was cancelled quickly. However, it was intriguing to think that esp was possible. The show was well done but ahead of its' time. Today it would go over very well, as did the movie of the same name.

I recall watching many episodes from this unique series and am disappointed it does not yet seem to be available for purchase. I'd always wondered if the last name of the ESP investigator (Dr. Rhodes) was a play on words in that it matches the first two letters of the famous ESP Researcher of Duke University, JB Rhine.

Each episode had its own challenge, with the good doctor having just enough manifested ESP ability to lead him along the trail of intrigue (remember those zoom-in close-ups of his eyes or ears, denoting his detecting psychic information pertaining to the case?)

I hadn't quite realized the other viewer's comments that at least some of the episodes apparently were repackaged in Serling's Night Gallery series, although I do recall at least one Sixth Sense episode appearing in a Night Gallery feature, yes.

One particular episode of intrigue involved master psychics seated around a table, with starry emblems floating or displayed about the darkened room, attempting to outwit Dr. Rhodes in his pursuit of their misuse of said abilities.

I think Gary Collins did a plausible job of taking the acting role seriously for this series, and would be delighted to obtain a copy of the entire series. Hopefully the original prints are still intact and available for said purpose?

Created by writer Anthony Lawrence, after the 1971 TV movie "Sweet, Sweet Rachel", and supervised during the first season (the first thirteen episodes) as an executive story consultant, the framework of "The Sixth Sense" is detective story but with wild macabre elements throughout the ESP phantasmagoria: delirious visions, hallucinations, apparitions, delusions, nightmares, mind transfers, memories from strangers, premonitions. As in the tradition of the private eye helped by his secretary, Dr. Michael Rhodes is supported by assistant librarian Nancy Murphy who only stays during the first seven episodes. The show's first ambition is to introduce to the audience the paranormal by rational and scientifical means and therefore, Dr. Rhodes plays the edifying and idealistic College professor who encounters hostility and skepticism. Too rigid and anecdotal to turn into a success, "The Sixth Sense" displays good episodes as "The House That Cried Murder", "Lady, Lady, Take My Life" (featuring a psychic lynch mob), "Once Upon a Chilling". Actually, "The Sixth Sense" is the second attempt to spread the ESP genre, after the 1959 anthology "One Step Beyond"--hosted and directed by John Newland; Newland participated in three "Sixth Sense" episodes: "Dear, Joan, We're Going to Scare You to Death", "Through a Flame, Darkly" and "And Scream by the Light of the Moon, the Moon"--, but with a regular conventional character and an early 1970's psychedelic film-making style. Many directors from other Universal fantastic shows worked on "The Sixth Sense": John Badham, Jeff Corey, Daniel Haller and Barry Shear from "Night Gallery" and Allen Barron from "Kolchak, The Night Stalker".

I was just a preteen in the early 70's, but I too fondly remember this show. I was into all things horror and scifi, and compared to Night Gallery, The Night Stalker, and a handful of others, none was as genuinely eerie as The Sixth Sense. ESP wasn't really about reading minds or predicting shapes on the backs of cards, but mostly about ghosts reaching out from the grave for one reason or another. That's about where the similarities with the Bruce Willis movie end. Well, that, and the creepiness factor. I imagine I'd be embarrassed by the early 70's production values if I saw it now, but it's still on my DVD release wish list. And to second another opinion read here, don't even bother with the episodes that were trimmed down to about 22 minutes for inclusion in the dying season of the Night Gallery--they were horrendous, incomprehensible, and totally lost the disturbing edge that was often built over the hour-long version.