Original Story by David Bennett Carren | ||||||||||||||||||||
Directed by John Hancock | ||||||||||||||||||||
Original Airdate - October 25, 1985 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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"If She Dies" has a sweet premise...that the dead can come back to help the living. As someone who finds the idea of ghosts helping the living intriguing, this episode is one I would love to put toward the top of my favorites list. Something about it holds me back from doing that, however, because it's just slightly off; the sum of its parts doesn't add up. I'll list my concerns about the episode. Tony Lo Bianco is just not convincing as the father. He's upset, but just not heartbroken enough to sell his performance. He is especially ineffective when trying to portray confusion and terror; he ends up looking at the girl ghost as if she's come in to ask for a glass of water. There is no wonder or fear in his expression. Nan Martin is a wonderful actress who can play comedy or tragedy, but she's rather stiff and formal in this. Andrea Barber is cute but barely there as a presence. She spends most of the time in a coma, so her impact on the story is negligible. The one person who is rather good in "If She Dies" is Jenny Lewis, who plays the young girl ghost. She does have a ghostly presence that hovers over the episode, from the moment she appears on the orphanage rooftop. Unfortunately, her performance cannot help the integrity of the story. The story just doesn't jell, and the acting isn't good enough to cover up some of the listlessness of the story. I may be prejudiced in my view of this story, because I've seen this topic, a child who comes back from the grave to try and help the living, done successfully, and done better, one year before the New Twilight Zone aired. Granada Television produced an eight-part series based on classic ghost stories called "Shades of Darkness," which was broadcast on PBS "Mystery!" in 1984. Some of my favorite stories were adapted for this, such as Edith Wharton's "The Lady's Maid's Bell," and "Afterward." A completely unknown story by C. H. B. Kitchin called "The Maze" was also adapted for "Shades of Darkness," and it's one of the best ghost stories I've ever seen; eerie, sweet and compelling, with Francesca Annis in the lead role. One story adapted I had not ever read, by May Sinclair, was "The Intercessor." The story deals with mythic themes of family dysfunctions, betrayals, power, control, and shame, and the television adaptation tackled all that in one hour. It truly had some of the scariest scenes I've ever watched, on TV or in films. The protagonist in "The Intercessor" was a small girl ghost, who couldn't help being scary but was trying to assist her family. I wonder if the writer of "If She Dies" was familiar with Sinclair's story, or had seen the version on Mystery!. It seems so to me, because one of the scenes in the NTZ episode closely paralled what had happened in the Mystery! adaptation. It's that, or it's coincidence. I still enjoy "If She Dies," but I can't put in higher up on my favorites list because of the issues I'm noted. On a side note, the "Shades of Darkness" series is out on DVD and available online at Amazon. If you enjoy ghost stories, you must buy this set. It is classic, it is priceless, and it literally has the best ghost story adaptations I've ever seen, and I've spent my life tracking down every ghost story and its adapation I could. |
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