Twilight Zone – Little Girl Lost… #6

I’m going to write about my top 10 favorite TZ episodes in the next few weeks…Most of the Twilight Zones are like songs to me…to be enjoyed over and over. The Twilight Zone is not really an ordinary TV show. It’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE. This is my personal choice for #6 on my list.

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: Missing: one frightened little girl. Name: Bettina Miller. Description: six years of age, average height and build, light brown hair, quite pretty. Last seen being tucked in bed by her mother a few hours ago. Last heard: ‘ay, there’s the rub,’ as Hamlet put it. For Bettina Miller can be heard quite clearly, despite the rather curious fact that she can’t be seen at all. Present location? Let’s say for the moment… in the Twilight Zone.

I always thought Poltergeist borrowed heavily from this Twilight Zone episode. Both girls were lost in another dimension and it Poltergeist plays out much like this episode. The inside of the dimension in this episode is done really well.

A couple awakens in the night to hear their daughter Tina crying. When the father, Chris, enters her bedroom, however, she is nowhere to be found. She can be heard as if she is still in the room, but not seen. Moments later, the family dog, Mac, runs into the room in a state of agitation, goes under the bed and vanishes just like Tina. Panicking, Chris and his wife Ruth call their physicist friend Bill, who comes over immediately and begins to investigate, moving the girl’s bed and looking for the “opening.”

Chris and Ruth are nonplussed, but suddenly Bills hand seems to disappear through the bedroom wall, and he explains that he thinks Tina and Mac are trapped in another dimension. He draws on the wall with chalk and outlines the opening, explaining the theories about alternate dimensions. Suddenly, Ruth realizes that she can no longer hear Tina. The adults move around the house in a frenzy and finally hear her voice again, seemingly coming from another place, as well as the dog’s barks. Bill says to let the dog lead her back out, and Chris repeatedly calls Mac… Will they get her out safely?

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration: The other half where? The fourth dimension? The fifth? Perhaps. They never found the answer. Despite a battery of research physicists equipped with every device known to man, electronic and otherwise, no result was ever achieved, except perhaps a little more respect for and uncertainty about the mechanisms of the Twilight Zone.

Cast

  • Rod Serling (Narrator)
  • Robert Sampson (Chris Miller)
  • Sarah Marshall (Ruth Miller)
  • Tracy Stratford (Tina Miller)
  • Rhoda Williams (Tina’s voice)
  • Charles Aidman (Bill)

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball fan, old movie and tv show fan... and a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

25 thoughts on “Twilight Zone – Little Girl Lost… #6”

  3. I swear that was the longest 4 and a half minutes of my life! It doesn’t look familiar but I’m glad to revisit it to tie up those loose ends in my mind. I can see why a child would be extremely scared watching it. The spinning and fuzziness of the other world was something that just wasn’t on TV in those days.

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    1. I thought they did that dimension really well. I really think the makers of Poltergeist took a lot of this and turned it into their movie.

      For some reason it reminded me a little of those “moon jump” giant balloons that carnivals had at one time. You know the round ones with the little windows like portals…the way they did it looked so good.

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      2. You’ve never seen any of the Poltergeist films? Oh, girl…the first is the best but, they are all creepy. They used real skeletons in one scene & didn’t tell the actors.

        There is also a special somewhere about the “curse” of the film.

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      5. Space monsters are fantasies in one’s imagination that can never harm in real life. These poltergeists are a little too close to home. I don’t need those seeds planted in my already overactive imagination.

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      7. You know, that never occurred to me. Carol Ann was much like Tina. The only difference was, Tina didn’t have entities after her.

        I don’t remember moon jump giant balloons. Got a picture?

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      10. They were round and you would go into a flap and it was blown up…you could feel the air inside…it was a jumpy pretty much but with round plastic portholes as windows…I’m looking…I don’t know what to call it

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      12. This WILL drive me insane….I’m not stopping until I find one. It was shaped like a flat basket ball…usually brown and faded yellow. You would walk up small steps into the flap and jump up and down in them.

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