Special Delivery

The Haunting Of Cassie Palmer – The Third Eye

 

 

 

Classic Nick Wed. 10 – Haunting of Cassie Palmer

First of all Happy Halloween!!!

To round out our look at The Third Eye series I’ve saved my favorite show for last and since it’s Halloween it is defiantly appropriate! The show is The Haunting of Cassie Palmer; the series was based on a novel by Vivien Alcock and first broadcast on February 26, 1982 by TVS (Television South) and aired in the United States on Nickelodeon as part of the series The Third Eye.

This is the story of 13-year-old Cassie Palmer who is the seventh child of a seventh child. Cassie's mother is a psychic medium who holds tea readings and sayonses (sp?) in their small flat to make ends meet. She claims to be a true physic but admits to using "old tricks of the trade" on those particular nights when she doesn't feel up to par for the evening.

On one of those evenings Mrs. Palmer has tricked a woman into thinking that she is communicating with her deceased husband by brushing her face with a feather. When the clients threaten to prosecute her. Mrs. Palmer pleads with them not too as such an action would render her homeless.

Mrs. Palmer explains to Cassie that as the seventh child of a seventh child that she would develop great psychic powers, which would mature as she did, but Cassie has no wish to be a psychic. Still out of desperation to protect her mother from charges of fraud Cassie goes to a cemetery to try to call up the spirit of Charlotte Webb who died as a small child. But something goes horribly wrong when instead of calling up the young girl a dark figure appears from behind a tombstone. He tells her his name is Deverill and wants to know why she's summoned him. Frightened Cassie runs away.

After Deverill appears to Cassie several more times she finally tells her mother who invites him for tea. He complies but vanishes before her mother can discern if he is a sinister or benevolent entity.

Eventually, as a result of poor business and Mrs. Palmer’s bad reputation, the Palmers have to sell their house and move to another town. When Cassie tells Deverill of their plans he reveals to her that when he was alive he buried a small treasure in the floorboards of a house in town.

After a wrestling with her conscious Cassie decides that Deverill is an evil spirit sent to temp him and attempts to have him vanquished but not before the gentlemen from the physic society has a car wreck on the way to the Palmer household.

Frightened Cassie runs to the graveyard and asked the good spirits to help her vanquish the evil Deverill. The graveyard fills with ghosts who have come to Cassie’s aid and eventually Deverill is gone for good.

When it is all over Cassie and her older sister Mary go to Deverill’s old house and the owner agrees to let them check her attic. The girls find the treasure and they are able to help their mother buy a lovely home on a small pond.

==Cast==

*Cassie Palmer: [[Helen Probyn]]

*Mrs. Palmer: [[Elizabeth Spriggs]]

*Deverill: [[Geoffrey Rose (actor)|Geoffrey Rose]]

*Tom Palmer: [[Stephen Bint]]

*Mary Palmer: [[Ruth Adcock]]

==Crew==

Director – Dorothea Brooking

Writer – Alfred Shaughnessy

Producer / Executive Producer – Anna Home

Original Music Composer – Kenyon Emrys-Roberts

Production Designer – John Newton-Clarke

Stunt Arrangers – Sue Crossland & Paul Weston

==Availability==

There was only one season of this television program, which consisted of six half-hour episodes. At this time it is not commercially available for sale.

==Trivia==

Charles Shaughnessy  (Shane Donovan – Days of our Lives and Maxwell Sheffield – The Nanny) is the son of Alfred Shaughnessy who wrote The Haunting of Cassie Palmer

Classic Nick Wed.6 – The Third Eye

In the spirit of Halloween this month I will be focusing on the Nickelodeon anthology mini-series known collectively as “The Third Eye” which begin airing on Nickelodeon in January 1983.

This hodgepodge of mini foreign shows consisted of a variety of serials from the UK and New Zealand and included: "The Haunting of Cassie Palmer" (1982),  "Under The Mountain"(1981), "Children of the Stones" (1976), and "Into the Labyrinth" (1981).   Later “The Witches of Grinnygog” was added to this line up however it never aired in this collection and was shown later as a Special Delivery.

What made The Third Eye so unique was that it wasn’t silly, upbeat programs that kids were used to, these shows were.  They were live action, sci-fi / supernatural theme, their strange and somewhat their bizarre nature and unclear target audience made them something of a novelty that hasn't been seen since its time on the Nickelodeon Network. The unifying theme of the show (and hence the name of the title, and opening montage sequence) was that of children with psychic powers.

Before each episode an on-screen announcement would read the following statement: "The following is a science-fiction program, and may contain some startling scenes. This show is intended for older children."

Then we see a room of children all standing in a black room with thin light beams fanned out over the floor. As the camera moves through them we hear: "Somewhere in the crowd, sometimes you find someone very special. Someone who hears the unheard, someone who understands the mystery. Sometimes, there's someone who sees with the third eye!" At that point the camera would stop on a child in the back of the crowd with an eye on his forehead them a series of natural disasters flash by.

And while the person responsible for developing the series for Nickelodeon is unknown its loyal followers have never forgot this short series and still lives in their hearts even to this day, and I should know because I’m one of them.

Starting next week I will begin posting about each series in order from my least favorite right up to Halloween night where I will finish out with my favorite show in this series.