Under the Bed

Generally speaking, I liked this episode. It reminded me a bit of the "Twilight Zone" episode where the little girl goes through the wall, into another dimension. They hear her crying in the night. If you want to make it so your child never sleeps again, let them watch this. The little boy reaches under the bed to get his Teddy Bear and is grabbed by something down there and taken away. This is the set up. What ensues is some very strange activity on the part of the authorities. Given the supernatural elements, the conclusions reached by the power that be are pretty hard to fathom. The use of databases to narrow down things really pushes the envelope. Timothy Busfield (Thirty Something/Field of Dreams/The West Wing) is a child psychologist who pairs with his girlfriend, a police detective to solve the case. Busfield lost his older brother who "just disappeared" in the woods when he was six and has a father who has never been able to deal with that loss. While the conclusion is acceptable, the road to the discovery is a bit bumpy. Also, if the little girl is stupidly put in danger time and time again. Still, a decent episode.

This episode, like the last couple, doesn't quite feel as much like wasted potential as most episodes so far. They have a decent cast, a decent (if kinda overdone) premise, and they don't try to do too much with it.

The effects for the 'creature' are pretty good too, all things considered, and they don't overhype or under-deliver when they do finally reveal the 'boogeyman'.

In the end though, I do still kinda feel like my memories of this show as a whole are far too coloured by rose-tinted glasses as it's still not living up to what I remember. Maybe it'll start to pick up a bit over the nest few...

At the behest of the police, child shrink Dr. Jon Holland (Timothy Busfield from "Studio B on the Sunset Strip") starts to help a little girl who witness her brother get pulled under the bed by someone or something. First suspecting the absentee father and treating it as a kidnapping case, when that doesn't pan out. They try hypnosis with consequences that Jon isn't ready for. He must re-examine his past to solve this mystery. The chemistry of the believing in the strange Dr. Jon and the highly skeptical female college along with the subject matter, it suddenly hit me that I felt like I was watching a B-grade copy of an X-files episode rather than a true Outer Limits episode. And not a very good one at that. Definitely not one of the better shows of the series (or even just the first season)

My Grade: D+

One child disappears and the search is led by a local psychologist with an open mind and a skeptical policewoman, who quite resembles Mulder and Scully. In fact, by the story, characters, realization and the overall atmosphere, this could easily be an average "The X Files" episode.

6/10