One Step Beyond: The Promise

The show opens with the narrator saying none of us are prepared when the psychic world is thrust upon us. There's some kind of store and a woman is in there are verbally attacks the guy behind the counter as being a foreigner. That guy is an ex-German prisoner of war who is living in England (for some reason.) He also happens to be William Shatner. The date is sometime in 1949.

The guy is named Carl and talks about how his wife is pregnant. Carl is also a bomb-defuser. The narrator notes that Carl's plane was shot down and he was taken as a prisoner-of-war.

Then the episode goes to the past when Carl and one other guy are being kept in a room. An English officer comes in and says he'd like some help going through bombed-out buildings to rescue people. He can't force them to do that (Geneva Convention rules). Carl volunteers and the other guy gets mad at him.

The guy working with him thinks the house is cleared and leaves. There's a small collapse and then Carl hears someone, removes some debris and finds a trapped person and a bomb. Carl explains to the guy that the bomb is a delayed-action type. He studied the bomb and thinks he can disarm it.

It's obvious that Carl has turned against war, probably now that he sees close-up what war does to people. The woman he saves is named Lois.

Then it's back to the original time. George is the guy he's working with and he's the one to try and defuse the bomb. (Many bombs were found in such situations after the war. Some actually continue to show up even today in the countries that were subjected to bombing.)

There's an accident and George is hurt but not killed.

George can't work any more on the bomb and Carl says he will handle it but it will be his last time defusing bombs. Carl talks about how fathers 'breathed the first breath' into the mouth of their new-born child. (I do the review as I watch the episode. I think the bomb is going to explode and kill Carl.)

His pregnant walks comes into the store to talk to him. Carl's having a major problem with the bomb. There's some oxidation on the inside. (It's been there for at least four years if not more.)

As I expected the bomb explodes killing Carl.

Some time later and she has had her baby but doesn't seem to want to have anything to do with it. A nurse comes into the room and complains saying that her husband needs to be told the hospital has certain rules and regulations. The nurse says she saw him with the baby in his arms. The nurse said he was speaking German and it turns out it was the same thing a father would say as he 'breathed life' into his baby. 'From those who came before you I pass on the breath of life' is what the nurse heard him say (but in German, not English.)

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