6.8/10170 votes#1 - The Dead We Leave Behind
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 9/15/1972
When Ranger Elliot Brent's pretty young wife Joanna complains of boredom, he buys her a television set. Unfortunately, she starts spending all of her time watching television, to the neglect of her household chores. One day, during an argument, Elliot accidentally kills Joanna. He buries her body in a shed behind his cabin. After that, he starts seeing images of Joanna being unfaithful on the television. One stormy night, a man shows up at the cabin seeking shelter, and Elliot recognizes him as the man Joanna was having an affair with. Elliot kills him, too. But will the dead stay quietly buried?
Director: Paul Stanley
Writer: Robert Specht
- 6.3/10133 votes
#2 - The Concrete Captain
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 9/22/1972
While on vacation, Ed Lucas presents his wife Kate with a souvenir of "The Concrete Captain," a small chunk of concrete with a miniature harpoon sticking out of it. Kate seems to be drawn to the item, continually picking it up and looking at it. Later, she is also drawn to a seaside inn where she and her husband hear the tale of the Concrete Captain and his wife, Katherine. But when Kate becomes ill and starts acting strangely, Ed wonders if the Concrete Captain hasn't returned to try to claim Kate as his own.
Director: Richard Donner
Writer: N/A
- 6.5/10120 votes
#3 - At the Cradle Foot
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 9/29/1972
Paul, a recently divorced man, has a dream that his daughter Emily gets murdered as an adult. Believing it to be a premonition, he goes to the town where this will happen to see if he can prevent it. While there, he falls for Julie the owner of the boardinghouse where he is staying. It turns out that Julie is engaged to Ed, who turns out to be the man who murders Emily in Paul's vision. Chaos ensues as Paul and Ed end up fighting over Julie, and Ed ends up dead. Paul gets off by claiming the death was an accident, but Julie has one more nasty surprise waiting for Paul before he leaves town for good.
Director: Don McDougall
Writer: Anthony Lawrence
- 6.4/10121 votes
#4 - Bad Connection
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 10/6/1972
A young widow, trying to move on after her husband is shot down in Vietnam and presumed dead, begins to receive mysterious phone calls from a man who sounds like her late husband.
Director: Walter Doniger
Writer: John McGreevey
- 6.6/10109 votes
#5 - The Summer House
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 10/13/1972
Martha and Andrew Alcott own a vacation home where they spend their summers. Martha hates the house and, as the summer goes on, it appears she has good reason as there seems to be a malevolent force in the place that is strongest around the well in the basement. Events and scenes become ever more familiar as it becomes clear what the malevolent force is and what it intends to do with the lives of Martha and Andrew.
Director: Leo Penn
Writer: N/A
- 6.8/10130 votes
#6 - Alter-Ego
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 10/27/1972
Bobby is a very bright but very sickly boy with a particular fondness for chess. As he starts fifth grade he is delighted to find that his teacher is the very popular Miss Gilden, with whom he forms a close friendship. Unfortunately, early in the school year, Bobby becomes too sick to go to school. After a short period of time, an alter-ego who looks exactly like Bobby appears and tells him not to worry, he will go to school for Bobby and come home and tell him what he has learned. Unfortunately, the alter ego terrorizes Miss Gilden, ultimately disgracing her and causing her death. As the alter-ego becomes stronger, Bobby becomes weaker until the alter-ego suggests that they play a game of chess to decide who should live as Bobby. With his life as the stakes, Bobby needs to best this evil version of himself. Assistance comes from an unexpected source.
Director: David Lowell Rich
Writer: N/A
- 6.6/1084 votes
#7 - Half a Death
Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 11/3/1972
Christina is a young woman with a twin sister, Lisa, whom she has never met. She hopes to meet Lisa on a visit home but is distressed to find out that Lisa has recently died. Christina begins to hear Lisa calling her at night and then starts to have visions of Lisa in an open grave. She tells her mother about this and discovers some unpleasant family secrets about Lisa. Does Lisa want revenge...or does she simply miss the sister she never had?
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
Writer: Henry Slesar
- 7.4/10172 votes
#8 - House of Evil
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 11/10/1972
When Grandpa arrives for a visit, he brings two special gifts for his granddaughter, Judy, a deaf mute. One's a special doll house, an exact replica of the one Judy lives in with her family; the other is the ability to "hear" his thoughts without speaking. But Grandpa's intentions aren't as benign as they seem. Will Judy be able to save her family before Grandpa destroys it?
Director: Daryl Duke
Writer: Robert Bloch
- 6.2/1089 votes
#9 - Cry of the Cat
Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 11/24/1972
A handsome rodeo star falls in love with a seductive young woman. With growing horror, he starts to realize that she is somehow connected to a series of deadly cougar attacks on the rodeo's crew.
Director: Arnold Laven
Writer: William Bast
- 6.4/10110 votes
#10 - Elegy for a Vampire
Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 12/1/1972
Co-eds are being murdered on a small university campus, all drained of their blood with two small marks on their necks. The late Professor Pendergast, who had been investigating the idea that vampirism is caused by a blood disease, has been sighted at two of the attacks.
Director: Don McDougall
Writer: N/A
- 6.7/10111 votes
#11 - Touch of Madness
Season 1 Episode 11 - Aired 12/8/1972
Janet inherits her mother's house when her mother dies in a mental institution. When she first arrives at the house, she meets her cousins Hattie and Jonathon, who welcome her warmly. She decides to stay at the house and fix it up so that it won't be condemned. However, neither the house nor Hattie and Jonathon are what they seem to be, and Janet begins to fear for her own sanity as a terrifying past merges with an equally terrifying present.
Director: Robert Day
Writer: Halsted Welles
- 5.8/1097 votes
#12 - Creature of the Canyon
Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 12/15/1972
A widow is stalked by a vicious dog that once belonged to her late husband, but which now lives with a sinister neighbor. Even after the dog turns up poisoned, she believes it is still stalking her.
Director: Walter Doniger
Writer: Del Reisman
- 7.4/10140 votes
#13 - Time of Terror
Season 1 Episode 13 - Aired 12/22/1972
Terror ensues when Ellen Alexander wakes up alone in a hotel room, with no sign of her husband, Harry. Inquiries at the front desk yield the answer that he has checked out without her, and eventually lead her to Brett, who helps her find the answers she is seeking.
Director: Robert Day
Writer: N/A
- 6.2/10103 votes
#14 - Death's Head
Season 1 Episode 14 - Aired 1/5/1973
Carol, a woman who hates insects, is unhappily married to Steve, an amateur entomologist. She secretly loves Steve's business partner, Larry, and would like to make their affair a permanent arrangement. One day while shopping, she encounters a gypsy who sells her something that will help her achieve her goal without leaving any traces. However, when Janet carries out her plan, she begins to be terrorized by a Death's Head moth, and discovers that things are seldom as simple as they seem, and that every action has its consequences. The series was retitled "Circle of Fear" beginning with this episode and no longer utilized the opening and closing segments featuring Sebastian Cabot as the host.
Director: James Neilson
Writer: Rick Blum
- 6.5/10121 votes
#15 - Dark Vengeance
Season 1 Episode 15 - Aired 1/12/1973
While working at a construction site, Frank unearths a curious box which has no latch for opening. He takes it home and finally opens it, only to discover a broken mirror and a toy horse. However, once the box is open, his wife Cindy begins to have nightmares about the horse. Delving into her own past, Cindy discovers that the toy horse is cursed. Can she and Frank break the curse before they become its next victims?
Director: Herschel Daugherty
Writer: Peter L. Dixon
- 6.4/10114 votes
#16 - Earth, Air, Fire and Water
Season 1 Episode 16 - Aired 1/19/1973
Six artists move into an abandoned storefront where they find a trunk containing six colorful glass containers filled with powerful black magic. Their artworks begin to take on a whole new meaning until, one by one, the artists vanish.
Director: Alexander Singer
Writer: N/A
- 6.9/10116 votes
#17 - Doorway to Death
Season 1 Episode 17 - Aired 1/26/1973
When a family moves into a new apartment in San Francisco, young Robert starts exploring and discovers the empty apartment upstairs. He opens a door and sees a cabin in the woods, with a man chopping wood who beckons to him. Robert brings his younger sister, Jane, to meet "the man upstairs," who expresses an interest in meeting their older sister, Peggy. When Peggy goes upstairs and opens the same door Robert had opened, she only finds a closet. However, strange noises emanating from the empty apartment, and wet footprints in her own bedroom, cause Peggy to visit the apartment again, and this time, she finds a terrifying surprise waiting for her.
Director: Daryl Duke
Writer: Jimmy Sangster
- 6.4/10103 votes
#18 - Legion of Demons
Season 1 Episode 18 - Aired 2/2/1973
Beth is a shy young woman who has come to the city to share an apartment with her friend, Janet. Janet gets Beth a job at the company she works for and tries to encourage Beth to come out and socialize with their coworkers. Beth declines. But when Janet turns up missing and Beth fills in at Janet's job, she meets Janet's friends and all is not as it seems. Beth must find out what happened to Janet and see if she can prevent the same thing from happening to her.
Director: Paul Stanley
Writer: Anthony Lawrence
- 6.3/10115 votes
#19 - The Graveyard Shift
Season 1 Episode 19 - Aired 2/16/1973
Fred Colby is a former actor, who now works as a security guard at the studio where he used to film movies. He and his wife, Linda, are expecting their first child together. The studio is closing in a few weeks, and is plagued by a neighborhood gang, who sneak in after hours. While chasing the gang, Fred discovers that something else is roaming the deserted studio, something that threatens not only him, but his wife, and his unborn child, and he must find a way to prevent harm from coming to all of them.
Director: Don McDougall
Writer: Mann Rubin
- 6.7/10100 votes
#20 - Spare Parts
Season 1 Episode 20 - Aired 2/23/1973
A doctor has donated his eyes, vocal chords and hands for transplant with three individuals. The ghost of the doctor then begins to act out through these patients while they are in the hospital to seek vengeance on his widow who he believes murdered him.
Director: Charles S. Dubin
Writer: N/A
- 6.2/1092 votes
#21 - The Ghost of Potter's Field
Season 1 Episode 21 - Aired 3/23/1973
While at Potter's Field cemetery doing research for a story, reporter Bob Herrick sees a ghost that resembles him. He shakes the matter off, assuming that he's seeing things because he's overtired. But when he encounters the same ghost in his office, and at his apartment, he begins to worry. While his friends John Walsh and Mark Riceman scoff, his girlfriend Nisa King realizes that this is a doppelgänger who is trying to take over Bob's life by isolating him from his friends. As the doppelgänger grows stronger, presenting great danger to Bob and his friends, Bob tries to find out whose spirit the doppelgänger is in order to prevent it from taking over.
Director: Don McDougall
Writer: Bill S. Ballinger, Richard Matheson
- 7.2/10107 votes
#22 - The Phantom of Herald Square
Season 1 Episode 22 - Aired 3/30/1973
Art student Holly Brown is sketching in Central Park one day when James Barlow introduces himself to her. He offers to take her to lunch and, intrigued, she accepts. Holly is charmed by James and begins seeing him, but as soon as she does, she finds herself terrorized by an old man. As her relationship with James grows, she is surprised to discover the connection between James and the old man. But even bigger surprises are awaiting her when she discovers the truth about James.
Director: James H. Brown
Writer: N/A
The Best Episodes of Ghost Story Season 1
Every episode of Ghost Story Season 1 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of Ghost Story Season 1!
Ghost Story is an American television anthology series that aired for one season on NBC from 1972 to 1973. Executive-produced by William Castle, it initially...
Genres:DramaMystery
Network:NBC
Season 1 Ratings Summary
"The Dead We Leave Behind" is the best rated episode of "Ghost Story" season 1. It scored 6.8/10 based on 170 votes. Directed by Paul Stanley and written by Robert Specht, it aired on 9/15/1972. This episode is rated 0.5 points higher than the second-best, "The Concrete Captain".