Most people think Rod Serling invented the paranormal anthology on television. He didn't. Nine months before The Twilight Zone ever hit the airwaves, a different, leaner, and arguably spookier show premiered on ABC. It was called One Step Beyond. Hosted by the intense, slightly unsettling John Newland, the series didn't rely on twist endings or space aliens. It relied on something much worse: the truth. Or, at least, what people claimed was the truth.
Every episode began with a disclaimer that the stories were based on "actual" documented cases of the supernatural. While Serling was busy using sci-fi to comment on McCarthyism and racism, John Newland was staring into the camera and telling you that a woman in London actually felt her brother die in a shipwreck five thousand miles away. It was raw. It was minimalist. Honestly, it was kind of terrifying because it stripped away the comfort of "it’s just a story."
The TV Series One Step Beyond and the Power of the "True" Story
The brilliance of the tv series One Step Beyond—which ran from 1959 to 1961—was its restraint. It didn't have the budget of the major networks' flagship dramas. It didn't have fancy special effects. What it had was John Newland. He was the director, the host, and the primary creative force. Newland didn't stand on a stage with a cigarette; he walked through the sets like a ghost himself. He’d stand in the middle of a Victorian living room while the actors moved around him, narrating their doom in a calm, authoritative voice.
Unlike its contemporaries, the show focused on ESP, precognition, and astral projection. These weren't "monsters of the week." They were glitches in reality.
Think about the episode "The Dead Part of the House." It’s a simple story about a haunted nursery. But because Newland frames it as a documented case, the typical tropes of a ghost story feel heavier. You aren't watching a writer's imagination; you’re watching a recreation of someone’s trauma. That distinction changed how audiences reacted. You couldn't just turn off the TV and say it wasn't real. The show dared you to prove it didn't happen.
The Sacred Mushroom: A Television First
We have to talk about the mushrooms. In 1961, Newland did something that would be career suicide today. He traveled to Mexico to film an episode titled "The Sacred Mushroom." This wasn't a scripted drama. It was a documentary-style investigation into psilocybin.
Newland actually ingested the "sacred mushrooms" on camera under the supervision of local shamans and scientists like Dr. Andrija Puharich. He wanted to see if the drug would enhance his psychic abilities. Watching a clean-cut 1950s TV host tripping on psychedelics in the name of "research" is one of the most surreal moments in broadcasting history. ABC was terrified. They almost didn't air it. But they did, and it remains a landmark piece of television that predates the 60s counter-culture movement by years.
Why the Atmosphere Worked (And Still Does)
Budget constraints often lead to the best art. One Step Beyond used shadows because they couldn't afford elaborate sets. The music by Harry Lubin was dissonant and sharp. It got under your skin.
- The lighting was stark, high-contrast noir.
- The scripts avoided the "moral of the story" trope common in Serling’s work.
- Episodes often ended with a question mark rather than a resolution.
Sometimes the protagonist just died. Sometimes the ghost stayed. There was no "all is right with the world" ending. It was basically the precursor to the Unsolved Mysteries vibe of the 80s and 90s. It treated the supernatural as a natural, albeit misunderstood, part of human existence.
Comparison to The Twilight Zone and Alcoa Presents
Wait, some people call it Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond. That’s because Alcoa (the Aluminum Company of America) was the sole sponsor. Back then, sponsors had a massive say in what got produced. It’s a miracle the show stayed as dark as it did.
While The Twilight Zone is more famous, One Step Beyond feels more modern in its cynicism. Serling's show was often whimsical or ironic. Newland’s show was cold. It dealt with the Titanic (in "Night of April 14th") and the assassination of Lincoln with a sense of dread that felt historical rather than theatrical. "Night of April 14th" actually aired exactly 47 years to the day after the Titanic sank. That’s the kind of synchronicity the show leaned into.
Fact vs. Fiction: Did these things really happen?
This is where the E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) of the show gets blurry. The writers, like Merwin Gerard and Larry Marcus, took real accounts from the files of the Society for Psychical Research. But "based on a true story" is a loose term in Hollywood.
Take the episode "The Navigator." It tells the story of a stowaway on a ship who somehow knows exactly where a stranded crew is located in the middle of the ocean. The records for such events usually come from 19th-century maritime journals. Are they 100% verified? Probably not. But the show presented them with such sincerity that it didn't matter. The intent was to explore the possibility.
Newland was a believer. He wasn't just a host for hire. He spent years researching these phenomena, which is why the show feels so authentic compared to the "shock-value" paranormal shows we see on cable today. He wasn't looking for a jump scare; he was looking for an explanation.
The Legacy of John Newland
Newland is the unsung hero of 20th-century television. He directed almost every single one of the 96 episodes. That’s an insane workload. He maintained a visual consistency that few anthology shows ever achieve. Usually, different directors bring different vibes, making the series feel disjointed. One Step Beyond felt like one long, feverish dream.
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After the show ended, Newland tried to revive the format in 1978 with The Next Step Beyond. It was in color. It was fine. But it lacked the grainy, black-and-white starkness that made the original so haunting. You can’t recreate lightning in a bottle, especially when the bottle is a low-budget studio in the late 50s.
How to Watch it Today and What to Look For
If you’re going to dive into the tv series One Step Beyond, don’t expect modern pacing. It’s slow. It’s deliberate. But if you watch it at 2:00 AM with the lights off, it still works. The public domain status of many episodes means you can find them all over YouTube, but the quality varies wildly. Look for the restored versions if you can find them; the cinematography deserves to be seen clearly.
Look for the guest stars, too. You’ll see a young Warren Beatty, William Shatner, and Cloris Leachman. Everyone who was anyone in 1960s Hollywood did a turn on this show. They played it straight, which is why it holds up. Nobody was winking at the camera.
Actionable Insights for Fans of the Supernatural
If you want to truly appreciate what this show did, don't just watch it—contextualize it.
- Compare "The Navigator" with modern accounts of "Crisis Apparitions." You'll see the show was remarkably accurate to the psychological reports of the time.
- Watch the episode "The Ordeal on Fire" and then look up the real-life case of the African healer it was based on. The show stayed surprisingly close to the source material.
- Notice the lack of "The Devil." In the 50s, horror was usually tied to religion. One Step Beyond was secular. It posited that the supernatural was a scientific frontier we just hadn't mapped yet. That's a huge shift in perspective.
The show essentially taught us that the world is much bigger and stranger than our daily routines suggest. It didn't need a twist ending to make your skin crawl; it just needed to point out that sometimes, the person you're talking to might not actually be there.
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Next Steps for the Paranormal Enthusiast:
Go find the episode "The Devil’s Laughter." It’s a perfect example of the show's nihilistic streak. Once you’ve seen that, track down the "Sacred Mushroom" documentary episode. It’s a piece of history that explains exactly why we became obsessed with the limits of the human mind in the decades that followed. Turn off your phone, sit in the dark, and let John Newland tell you a story that—according to him—actually happened. It's a lot more fun than scrolling through TikTok.