The Bishop on fear

'Long Distance Call', an episode of season two of the orginal Twilight Zone, looks to be for all money in its first five minutes more mawkish guff in the 'Night of the Meek' vein, as lackadaisically obvious as 'The Eye of the Beholder', akin 'The Lateness of the Hour' in taking far too long to get to nothing much at all—so much so that an impatient Bishop started fast forwarding it. This was a mistake. Charles Beaumont (here writing with William Idelson) was never one to let his audience down, and gently sinister goings on follow what turns out to be an aspartane rather than saccharine opening act.

But the real reason to watch this is a moment from archtypal (though mostly unheard of) sixties blonde Patricia Smith. Marvellously young and beautiful and free of any sort of acting, prepare yourself as hard as you like for the moment she picks up her son's toy phone. It does not so much chill the blood as the cerebral fluid and curdle the placenta of pregnant women.