The Sixth Finger

David McCallum is shown playing classical piano in one scene. Rather than using a piano double, it actually is his own playing. McCallum was trained from a very early age in both oboe and piano, and is capable of playing to professional standard. His father was leader of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

David McCallum plays a coal miner who wants more for himself so he gets transformed into a weird creature.

The storyline of someone is a lesser job wanting something big time is well explored. Who could not like this episode? Who could not like the creature make up? I would love to see this episode in colour!

I personally liked McCallum more in the coming episode - The Forms Of Things Unknown - as I would put that hour as McCallum's best work ever! However, The Sixth Finger is fine, but to me at least, it is not one of the best hours of the series.

Trivia: the guy inside the ape costume was also be in an ape costume in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea/Lost In Space/Land Of The Giants.

Professor Mathers experiments on Miner Gwyllim Griffiths, the experiment concerned speeds up the evolution process.

I can only imagine this episode gave kids and adults alike the most incredible nightmares imaginable, credit to them for creating a truly unnerving watch.

A truly imaginative storyline, with a commanding lead performance from the excellent David McCallum, plus some rather effective special effects, all of these elements make for one of the show's most creative and effective episodes.

Some of the family members sound as though they've come from the width and breadth of The British isles, with a multitude of regional dialects, and some Irish thrown in for good measures.

8/10.

David McCallum stars as Gwyillim Griffiths, a poor but bright young man in a rural Welsh mining village who is hired to be a lab assistant to a kindly research scientist named Professor Mathers(played by Edward Mulhare). He volunteers to subject himself to a breakthrough invention that somehow can accelerate the state of human evolution thousands of years, but this gives Gwyillim increased intelligence, and physically transforms him as well, which frightens the local villagers, though his girlfriend Kathy Evans(played by Jill Haworth) remains the one person he can still connect with before it is too late... Provocative episode with fine script and makeup effects that distinguish it, along with lines like "Your ignorance makes me ill and angry."

Truly one of my favourite OL episodes, but I have to agree with the other UK reviewer about the truly extraordinary world that it creates for British audiences.

Not only is the town apparently located in Wales whilst the cast all speak in a sort of bastardised Yorkhire dialect (with a couple of Cockney accents thrown in), but - and this slays me every time I watch "Sixth Finger" - the motorcycle cops who square off against the creature immediately reach for their sidearms. For those non-Brits who aren't aware, few of our policemen back in the 1960s would have been allowed anywhere near a pistol or rifle. (Even today only specially-trained officers are allowed to carry guns.)

For all that, it's a cracking tale, very well told, with great performances from the leads. Sadly, as I pen this review I note that Jill Haworth passed away just a few weeks ago, of natural causes but at only 65. RIP.