The Next Step Beyond Season 1, Episode 9: Portrait of the Mind

1

Tsunami

On the West Coast, an autistic 12-year-old boy is the only person aware of an approaching tidal wave, but how can he communicate this critical information to all those in danger?

2

The Return of Cary De Witt

Following an appendectomy with complications, Cary DeWitt awakens after a ten-day coma. When he visits Tahiti soon after his recovery, however, everybody insists he has been there recently - despite the fact his body was unconscious and 6,000 miles away in a hospital. Worse, DeWitt's "waking spirit" racked up a sizable hotel debt, and had an affair with a beautiful, and important, young native named Tiare.

3

Possessed

A couple desperate to save their marriage embark on a doomed road trip. As they drive over a dam, wife Caroline is suddenly possessed by the spirit of a dead Hispanic woman. Her husband and the authorities are confounded by the event, but the possession has a purpose: dead Maria Robles wants to prove that her husband, incarcerated in the local jail, did not murder her.

4

The Love Connection

There is a strange, psychic bond between young gymnast Jill August and the catatonic, mourning Harriet Jessup - despite the fact the two have never met. When Jill awakens from an unexpected coma, she is possessed by the spirit of Harriet's dead daughter, Karen. Karen's purpose in returning from the beyond is to tell her grieving mother that love never dies.

5

Ondine's Curse

A man suffering from Ondine's Curse, a rare condition which mimics death, is left for dead after an encounter with a violent hitchhiker. His wife, the only person aware of his strange condition, utilizes her psychic abilities to locate her husband before he is laid to rest.

6

Dream of Disaster

A pregnant woman has fierce, violent nightmares of a plane crash in which a Cessna 172 goes down and crashes into her room. Her husband, an air-traffic controller, comes to believe her premonition as real-life events unfold just as she foresaw. He moves her to a motel for safety - but that shift of location could be the very catalyst which triggers the disaster.

7

Ghost Town

A fashion model inexplicably experiences a vision of murder, unaware that what she is witnessing is a crime more than a quarter-century old.

8

Drums at Midnight

An angry would-be heir resorts to voodoo and witchery to get her share of the wealth when she learns that her young stepmother is the main beneficiary of her dead father's enormous estate. The would-be heir finds, however, that the black arts are not to be trifled with.

9

Portrait of the Mind

When apprehended for the robbery of a liquor store, an innocent ex-con must depend on the psychic abilities of a police artist who can draw the psychic impressions left behind in the subconscious of the robbery eyewitnesses.

10

Other Voices

Upon his return home from a party, a man has a powerful premonition of a drunken party-goer murdering his wife. Hoping to prevent the act of murder, Walter acts on his unusual precognition.

11

A Matter of Pride

A powerful hypnotic suggestion implanted before his last fight plagues down-on-his-luck boxer, Manny Guzman, and may be the only thing that can save a young diabetic from certain death.

12

Ghost of Cellblock Two

A fifty-year-old murder and a vengeful spirit play roles in this unusual mystery about a young woman, mistakenly arrested, who finds herself in a haunted prison cell.

13

The Legacy

The ghost of a dead railroad worker utilizes his grandson's highly-detailed toy railroad cars and diorama to pinpoint to authorities the exact locations where a ruthless criminal plans to derail trains.

14

Cry Baby

While her husband is away for a weekend at a "back to nature" seminar, Susan Elston is cornered in their isolated mountain home by an intruder bent on rape. At the seminar, Susan's husband hears the persistent cries of a baby-the cries of the as-yet unborn child in Susan's stomach-calling him home to help his wife.

15

Greed

The Barlows, a financially troubled couple, face a future of bankruptcy, creditors, and debt. Forced to stay in a run-down hotel, the Barlows are shocked when a story that could solve all their problems materializes on Phil's typewriter. The story concerns two brothers, the Whittakers, who succumb to greed and corruption in their mountain search for gold.

16

Out of Body

When Susan Lambert is found murdered in the mountains, her fiance Randall Priest is arrested and tried for the crime, even though he insists he was far away, meditating, during the incident.

17

Key to Yesterday

Following his father's death, a young man named Daniel reopens a theater closed nearly 30 years earlier. The establishment once belonged to Daniel's father, and it could be the key to solving a murder committed long ago. As Daniel grows more intrigued by a psychic vision, he learns that adultery is the least of his father's sins.

18

Woman in the Mirror

A man who has gotten away with the murder of his wife sees justice finally reach him each time he looks in a mirror. He is finally undone by his guilty conscience.

19

The Haunted Inn

A lost traveler receives directions to a nearby inn from a beautiful woman in a flowing white gown.

20

The Pact

A gypsy prophecy from the distant past continues to haunt three siblings, even after twenty years. But is the prophecy actually a self-fulfilling one?

21

Sin of Omission

In the upstairs bedroom of their newly purchased house, Diane Hollis hears the cries of a child in pain. Diane believes she is going crazy, but soon she and her husband both witness apparitions in their living room.

22

Thunderbolt

A freak storm spurs a shared premonition of death for two very different individuals.

23

The Confession

A man is convicted of murdering his wife, but he knows he is innocent - despite a persistent mental fugue which seems to confirm his guilt. As events snowball, the man realizes he may be witnessing the mental confession of the killer.

24

Trance of Death

After a freak accident during a karate class, Sharon Weaver begins to develop powerful psychic abilities - abilities which come in handy when the daughter of a friend finds herself in deadly danger.

25

To Fight a Ghost

A lonely woman is desperate for closure after three years of worrying about her husband, an archaeologist missing and presumed dead in Venezuela. When she is attacked in the park by an ex-student, Cathy LeMasters gets her answer at long last, and the spirit of her husband comes to her defense.