The Hidden Thing

This is a pretty lame episode. I just don't get the ending. I also had a much better ending in my mind--I was thinking the whole time how shocking it would have been to find out the license plate number was the mother's. But instead we are just left confused and wondering why I even bothered to watch this episode in the first place. Quite a let down, which is very rare for an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode.

It's almost the same feeling you get when writing out a comment on an episode at the IMDb and finding out it won't let you because it's too short and you have to add a few more lines to reach the minimum 10 lines. If it doesn't work this time I'll have to go back and add some more adjectives that are synonyms for lame: which describes this Alfred Hitchcock episode and also the IMDb commenting rules.

What a curious cute episode this story, very simple to tell and with a terrific and terrifying ending, again simple but hair rising. Unusual twist ending. A hit and run scheme, very often used in anthology crime shows, as the hitch hiker scheme, or blackmail one. Revenge too. This plot also is very close to common folks who look like so many audiences. I highly recommend you this episode. You won't regret it. I don't want to spoil you this story. Just watch, watch and enjoy. I don't know any of the actors and actresses, but that's not important, the directing and acting are above average. Good watch.

"The Hidden Thing" did have potential to be good. Robert Stevens was the most prolific director of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' and was responsible for some truly fine episodes, including in Season 1. This is not the first appearances on the series for Biff McGuire and Robert H. Harris, they were in previous episodes and both were watchable. The idea for the story was intriguing even if not original. While the series had its weak points, when it hit particularly high it was brilliant.

Brilliant "The Hidden Thing" turned out not to be by any stretch of the imagination. Really did want to go against the grain, considering its potential, and say that it is not as bad as others are saying, but to me it is that bad. It is a strong contender for the worst episode of Season 1, and none of the things the episode was seen for come off well. Considering the potential, "The Hidden Thing" really should have been so much better and everybody involved deserved much better than this. And no, this actually is not a case of one aspect completely ruining things.

It is not a complete disaster. Harris has enough pretty good moments and gives the only halfway decent performance of the episode, the reaction to being called a nut is indeed priceless. Hitchcock's bookending always entertain, and it is amusingly written and nicely staged here.

Also thought that the episode doesn't look too bad, though there are better looking episodes of the series, and the main theme for the series is deservedly iconic.

Unfortunately, that is it when it comes to the praise for "The Hidden Thing". Am another person that thought that the acting was not good, especially at the beginning. McGuire does not look at ease here and there are no fireworks in the chemistry throughout. Stevens' direction is uninvolving and lifeless, had a hard time believing that it was Stevens directing. The dialogue tends to be clunky.

Story-wise, "The Hidden Thing" is pretty much a mess. It is thin, while also trying to rush through the second half, and lacks any kind of suspense. Also found it pretty silly too when it increasingly lost credibility later. The characters are mere ciphers with motivations that are vague at best and not delved to anywhere near enough, so actions made no sense and made the characters look stupid. The worst thing about the episode is the ending, while not single-handedly ruining it it brings it down considerably. Calling it a head-scratcher is being far too kind.

Overall, weak. 3/10.

I'm watching all of the episodes right now and have just seen this one. It is by far the weakest episode. The twist at the end just fails and it feels like the writers really didn't know where they were going with it. A very bad ending to a bad episode.

As with most other reviewers, I was disappointed with this episode because of the limp, head-scratching finale. I didn't detect overtly bad-acting per se, as others did, but accepted the 2 principals at face-value. Always interesting as to how, in scenes where a person's hit by a speeding-car, there's not a drop of blood to be seen anywhere on the pavement. I don't mind that, though, as it's simply too gruesome a thing to contemplate, especially coming into people's homes back in the mid-50's, with pretty-strict network-standards. As usual, I found Robert Harris compelling but obviously-strange. When he kept insisting on helping Dana recover his memory, to the point of harassment, I'm surprised that Dana or his mother didn't call the authorities, which they never did. It seems the police, even back in the 50's, would've had Dana see a professional psychologist, to help restore the guilt-ridden guy's memory. I also find it unfair of characters, in such stories as this, to insist that someone like Dana "snap out of it", "pull himself together", "it's been a full-week now since the accident. You should be getting-over your depression & guilt", and such as that. Noone in real-life can bounce-back that quickly when dealing with a traumatic-experience. Harris' character, Hurley, the aggressive "memory-helper", is never investigated. Dana & his mom just accept his vague, non-explanations. At the very least, I thought perhaps Hurley was just trying to "force" Dana into recalling the hit & run driver's license-plate no., possibly, in fact, he, Hurley, WAS a psychologist, maybe one even provided by the police---the point being that, if Dana knew or suspected this, he might really have frozen-up & refused to remember. Since Hurley's techniques worked in the long-run, it seems the police should've been jumping-for-joy, not simply dismissing the odd-man as a well-known kook. Overall, I found this episode compelling until the last 30-seconds or so. Amazingly, the more I watched Robert Harris, the more I realized how much he resembled the famous 19th-century French-author Gustave Flaubert, who wrote "Madame Bovary". Do a comparison. As I said, amazing!