Le sixième sens

In January 1972, "The Sixth Sense" began as a midseason replacement series on ABC and was a 60 minute episode per Saturday evening. (ABC had quickly dispatched most of their new shows that had begun earlier in September of '71.) While not a runaway hit by any stretch of the imagination,especially when your main audience would've been watching "Mission: Impossible" on CBS, the show was picked up for the following fall (in the same killer time slot)and was a distant memory by winter. While not nearly as subversive as "Kolchak" or even "The X Files," the series had a distinct flair for creepiness for early 1970s standards. Having seen some of the cut and paste jobs done in the syndication package, I can say without doubt that the show was much more interesting at its full 60 minute length. One hopes that with the new interest in old TV shows on DVD, Universal might dust off the sixty minute episodes for those of us who often championed shows without a prayer on ABC.

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".

This show aired in the Fall Season of 1972-73 and was quickly forgotten, probably due to it's genre (paranormal drama) and it's half-hour length. It centered on a professor (Gary Collins who actually acts in this) who explored cases of the mind, e.g. ESP and telekinesis.

Sadly, no one really remembers this series and the fact that a popular movie came out with the exact name makes it even more of a rarity. Not a bad show, it will cause somewhat of an air of suspense, all in a bite-size package.

Fortunately, this series was reedited into the syndication package of "Night Gallery" (which itself was badly edited) and can be seen wherever half-hour segments of "Night Gallery" is being shown. The only difference is in the very beginning where the typeface is different and a few more credits given to Anthony Lawrence and one other person. There is still the Rod Serling prologue (which he was paid handsomely for) and even some paintings to accent these episodes. Not a bad fate for a half-forgotten TV show.

It's two-hour pilot, "Sweet Sweet Rachel," is often aired as a movie. If anyone has a copy of this pilot or some of the episodes, please email me. I would be very interested in completing my collection.

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.

It was indeed on in 1972, thought it was fall of 72. It was a syndicated show i believe that it was on weekends on Channel 40 WHYN TV back in those days. Channel 40 is still very much around today and is known as WGGB in Springfield Mass. They were great for showing many syndicated shows on Saturdays and on Sundays.

Yes, that is the first time i ever saw Gary Collins. His was a serious character on the show. They delved into the super natural and tried to solve cases of some sort. My mother and i loved the show and we watched it avidly!!! So it probably has more fans than you think. It was well written, well acted, and well presented!! I was 16 and a junior in high school back then. Good Memory!