Dead Ringer

This story won't be the one which I will remember the most, I assure you, but all the elements needed for this fantasy and eerie TV show are here. Many questions will be asked by riveted audiences, and I admit it's engrossing, not bad at all, but I begin to get a bit tired by those very unlikely stories, supposed to have really happened. This kind of very scheme of paranormal and unbelievable stories. This one, for instance, did not impress me at all, but that doesn't remove anything to its quality in the story telling. I have seen far more exciting episodes before, more unpredictable and providing a rewarding twist in the end. Here, I am still wondering....

In "Dead Ringer" (ep. 2-11) We meet Bill Quentin (Williams) who is brought to distraction by his wife's mysterious illness. She suddenly has a fever and then suffers from dreams that frighten her. When she recovers, she is always anxious about there being bad news in the newspaper. Especially reports of fires.

The doctor (Prentis) is baffled by Esther Quentin's (Norma Crane) mystery ailment. But when Esther convinces her husband to get the chief of police to come over, he is even more baffled. Esther confesses that she had a twin sister when they were growing up in the orphanage. She explains that there was a fire, and since then her sister has been insane and goes around setting fires, usually to orphanages and church run schools.

At first the chief is skeptical, but when Esther insists that she can "Will" her sister to call, he agrees to return to further investigate her claims. The next evening, the phone rings and a mysterious woman asks for Esther. Suddenly Esther has a vision of a church school being torched. The chief calls the school, which is in another town, miles away. While he is on the phone, the fire alarm breaks out and the nun he is speaking with must evacuate the school. Later they learn that no one was harmed.

Finally Esther insists that her sister will be at the train station and they must go and arrest her or the fires will continue. When Bill and the chief arrive at the station, a mysterious woman who resembles Esther is there. She looks frightened by their appearance and rushes into the station. When the men look inside, no one is there! They discover only one more thing, a call to the orphanage where Esther and her sister lived, results in the discovery that Esther did have a sister and that the girl was killed in the fire! Was the dead girl burning buildings? Or was it Esther causing the fires with her "fevers". What was the real problem? John Newland again explains that the events were real. The transfer of the episode is very good, the acting by Norma Crane is top notch. Well worth seeing this episode.

Bill Quentin watches as his wife, Esther, suffers from a strange fever. Fires rip through a series of buildings. The following day, Esther wakes bright and healthy. When she learns of a new fire, she tells the local police chief that her twin sister, Emily, is responsible for them.

It's a pretty good storyline; I have always had a fascination with twins and the connections that they have. That theme is partially explored here, though I'd suggest the solution as to what happened is rather vague, leaving audiences to conclude what they think actually happened.

It's the 1950s, so expect plenty of hysterics from Esther. Had she carried on like that for much longer, Bill would more than likely have had her committed, had the smelling salts failed, of course.

The acting in general was pretty good; Norma Crane delivers a fine and convincing performance as the troubled woman; she certainly injects a load of energy into her performance.

John Newland seemed as baffled at the end as the viewers.

7/10.

Tale of two twins is the focus as Norma Crane plays Esther Quentin, a housewife who has fallen into a deep fever, where she claims to have a psychic vision of that twin sister, who is reputedly an arsonist in the process of burning down an orphanage. Grant Williams("The Incredible Shrinking Man") stars as her concerned but disbelieving husband, as indeed Esther 's vision is dismissed as being nothing more than a fever-induced delusion by both her doctor and the police. Eventually the claim is checked out with surprising results for all... Medium episode has an interesting enough premise but only generates a passable degree of dramatic fire.