6.6/10125 votes#1 - Pilot (1)
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 4/21/1996
We begin in 1969 with Winston and Derek Rayne driving in their car, in the rain. They end up at a cave. Winston goes in, while Derek is told to remain in the car. Inside the cave, Winston finds a sepulcher (a wooden box). He opens the sepulcher, and a demon skeleton emerges, which tries to drag Winston back in sepulcher, however, Derek runs in and manages to close the box. The demon is trapped back inside. However, Winston dies, but before he does, he gives Derek his Legacy ring. Now in the present day, we arrive at the Luna foundation, an artifact finding organization. Derek owns the Luna Foundation, along with Nick, Alex, and Julia, who also live in the house. As a new artifact is presented to Derek, he gets a vision of a young girl in a graveyard with a wooden box, which looks like the one that Winston opened. Derek assembles Nick, Alex, and Julia in a control room, in which to get to, you must walk through an invisible wall.
Director: Stuart Gillard
Writer: Brad Wright
- 6.4/1077 votes
#2 - Pilot (2)
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 4/21/1996
Alex has telephoned Derek and Nick and told them where Julia is. They headed to the antique store looking for her. Meanwhile, the possessed antique store owner goes to Rachels place. He tells her that he has fixed the box. She opens it and a bright white light emerges, appearing to hypnotize Rachel. The antique owner then turns into Rachels dead husband, Patrick. The two of them proceed to kiss and eventually have sex. However, during sex, he changes back into his original form. Rachel screams and Derek and Nick, who are close by, hear her screams. When Nick bursts in Rachels room, the demon runs, Nick pursues it into a field and kills it. Once the demon is destroyed, Nick glances over to a cross placed in the middle of the field. When he gets closer, he notices that it is Julia on the cross, - dead. Nick breaks down in tears.
Director: Allan Eastman
Writer: Brad Wright, Frank Abatemarco
- 6.8/1077 votes
#3 - Sins of the Father
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 4/26/1996
The episode begins with a young boy screaming from inside his bedroom. The door is locked, and his mother can't get in. When the police arrive, she tells them that her husband is in the room beating her/his son up. The police broke down the door and took the husband away. David tells his wife that it wasn't him who beat up his son in the bedroom, but it was some un-foreseen force. And that Michael is still in danger. The next morning Derek goes to visit David at his home, David has been bailed out of prison by his father. Derek heard about the arrest and wanted to see if it was true. David tells Derek that it wasn't him. David shows Derek a scar on his chest which he claimed he received at the hands of this unforeseen force who attacked Michael. It turns out though, that David was drunk last night. Derek asks David if Rachel will be ok to examine Michael. David agrees.
Director: Allan Eastman
Writer: Brad Wright, Garner Simmons
- 7.3/1066 votes
#4 - Town Without Pity
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 5/3/1996
The episode begins in a religious driven small village. a church service has just ended, and a man makes a run for the woods. He finds a bridge in the woods and begins to cross it, as he crosses the bridge he gets stopped by some strange invisible force. On the bridge a Reverend approaches him, places his hand on the man's forehead, which kills him. (Obviously, people are not allowed to leave the village). At the Legacy House, Nick comes in the conference room and tells Derek that he has uncovered some information on a lost colony from 50 years ago. Nick wants to investigate what happened to it. Derek persuades Nick to take Rachel along. We find that Rachel has had some kind of mid-life breakdown, she can't seem to handle and understand what she has witnessed in the last several weeks. She reluctantly agrees to go with him. Nick and Rachel approach the bridge which the man at the start of the episode, died on. They cross the bridge and enter some kind of portal.
Director: Ken Girotti
Writer: Robert Masello
- 6.6/1064 votes
#5 - The Tenement
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 5/10/1996
As Alex prepares to take slum landlord Kyle Vance to court, she experiences a vision of a red-haired woman in the decaying tenement building. Then, on the witness stand, she finds herself compelled to insist the judge sentence Vance to stay in the building until he completes needed repairs. Later, realizing that an evil force controlled her actions, Alex traces the building's tragic history. Disturbed by what she learns, Alex returns to the tenement to help fight the sensual manifestation of evil that inhabits Vance's crumbling family legacy.
Director: Jerry Ciccoritti
Writer: Frederick Rappaport
- 6.5/1059 votes
#6 - The Twelfth Cave
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 5/17/1996
The Episode begins in the desert where a team of surveyors are digging in a cave. One of the men there finds a jar buried deep underground. He opens the jar and finds a scroll inside, he opens the scroll, and the writing on the scroll glows red. He seems to have become hypnotized by it. He then murders his two colleagues. In the Legacy House, Derek tells the team that an old friend, Randolph Hitchcock, wants to donate an ancient artefact to the Luna Foundation. He wants to meet Derek and the rest of the team that night. When Randolph arrives, Derek tells the other Legacy members that Randolph was once a member of the Legacy, but he was forced out years ago. Randolph gives Derek the jar from the desert. Derek opens the jar and takes out the scroll. Randolph wants Legacy to examine and preserve the scroll. On a dock, we see a man wearing a mask, holding a silver cross.
Director: Allan Eastman
Writer: Robert Masello
- 6.7/1061 votes
#7 - Man in the Mist
Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 5/24/1996
The episode begins with a sea ship in trouble. A telescope smashes which releases a man. At the San Fransisco dock, a man appears out of the mist and heads into a bar, he stands in a puddle if water and it freezes, the bar then freezes, he shouts the name ""Carolyn"" and then collapses. He has been taken to the local hospital. There, the machines freeze, and the hospital beds also freeze. There is a sort of mini earthquake. Rachel arrives at the hospital to examine him. The Doc shows Rachel a book that he had in him, a 19th Century book in perfect condition. Rachel briefly meets him, but he escapes. He runs out of the hospital and notices a toy boat in a shop window, he begins to have visions of the trouble ship from the start of the ep. Rachel and Alex, go to the dock/bar where this man collapsed. There is another mini-earthquake, Rachel knows that he is near-by. They meet up with him, and Rachel tells him that she will help him remember his past. They call him John Doe.
Director: Mario Philip Azzopardi
Writer: James Cappe
- 6.9/1057 votes
#8 - Ghost in the Road
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 5/31/1996
The episode begins with Nick in a bar. There is a couple sitting next to him. They begin to have an argument. Nick begins to talk to the woman, and her boyfriend gets jealous. Nick and the boyfriend get into a fight, Nick punches him to the ground. The couple then leave. On their way home in the car, Jerry starts slapping Wendy, she gets out of the car and walks away, he reverses into her and places her in the car boot. He then pushes the car over a cliff. Several months later, Nick is driving up that same road. He sees a woman standing in the middle of the road. He gives her a ride. He recognizes her from the bar. The next morning (they were driving all night), Nick drops her off at a Caravan site, however, she disappears. Nick asks this elderly couple if they have seen her. The couple tell Nick that Wendy has been dead for five months. Nick looks shocked! At the Legacy House, Derek and Rachel discover a secret room behind a cupboard. They find a statue of Jesus Christ.
Director: Neill Fearnley
Writer: James Cappe
- 7.5/1066 votes
#9 - Doppelganger
Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 6/7/1996
The episode begins with Derek having a dream. He is in a coffin, at first dead, with all the Leagcy members standing over him. He wakes, but no one notices. He is then in an Egyptian tomb, lying on a stone table. A woman cuts open his chest, he wakes up. In his bedroom, he sees a young girl, Kali. She asks his, ""Are you the one"". She attacks him, and tells him to forget what he saw, that this is only a dream. Kali moves over to a picture on Dereks table, a picture of Rachel and Kat, Kali looks at Kat and smiles. (A sinister smile). The next morning at Clairemont School, Kat is beginning school. She gets teased by older girls and runs away. In the bushes, Kali appears and tells Kat that she is her new best friend. Kali attacks the other girls with an invisible force. Rachel is called to the school to collect Kat. She's been suspended because of what happened to the other girls. Kali appears in the school corridors, but Rachel can't see her, only Kat.
Director: Allan Eastman
Writer: William Bleich
- 7.1/1058 votes
#10 - The Substitute
Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 6/14/1996
The episode begins in a Catholic school. A geek is being bullied by the school jock, Brad, in the library. The geek manages to evade Brad and finds an ancient black magic book. Later Joe (the geek) and two of his friends enter a morgue. They find a jar with a preserved hand inside, they take the handout and lay it on the floor. They light candles around it and perform a ritual. Slowly, the hand comes to life, the other two run off, Joe stays. The next day, at the Legacy House, Philip is asked to go to a school, where a faculty member has vanished without a trace in the last 24 hours. At the school, the two boys who were with Joe seemed shocked and a bit frightened still. Joe, on the other hand, seems extremely calm. Philip prepares to leave for the school when Nick tells him that he is going to. (Nick wanted to work with Philip on his last mission as part of the Legacy). At the school, a new teacher arrives (to cover for the missing teacher), he introduces himself as Mr.
Director: Brad Turner
Writer: Jerry Patrick Brown
- 7.0/1058 votes
#11 - Do Not Go Gently
Season 1 Episode 11 - Aired 6/21/1996
Liz Barrow, an old friend of Nicks, is with her fiance when she has an asthma attack and falls into a coma. She finds herself in a dark mysterious place and sees a young boy killed by a large monstrous shape. At that moment she awkes and watches as the boy in the next bed, the same boy from her 'dream', dies. She gets her fiance, Kevin. to contact Nick and get him to iunvestigate the hospital. Hoping he can find out what is going on there before she to falls vitim to the monster in her dreams.
Director: Michael Robison
Writer: John Shirley
- 6.2/1048 votes
#12 - The Crystal Scarab
Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 6/28/1996
Clayton wants to save his daughter, Samantha, who has a fatal illness. Clayton buys a scarab and a ring from a merchant. The scared, he is told, will heal whatever it touches. However, the ring needs the life force of a human to work. Clayton puts the ring on, the life force is sucked out of him and it put into Samantha. She is now cured, and Clayton, who looks half dead, runs away. Samantha and Clayton have known Derek for years. He allows Sam to stay at the Legacy House, while they try to find Clayton and work out how Sam has been cured so quickly. Later that night, Sam collapses, Clayton has no more life force to give. She needs another source. Sam is now back in the hospital, in a coma. The scarab has let Clayton live, so that he can pass the ring onto another host. On the dock, a robber steals the ring and puts it on. The ring draws life out of him. In the hospital, Sam is once again cured.
Director: Brad Turner
Writer: Hart Hanson
- 7.0/1053 votes
#13 - The Bell of Girardius
Season 1 Episode 13 - Aired 7/12/1996
Miranda Blake, the curator of one of the Legacy's museums, calls Derek when there is a break in at her workplace. When Alex checks the inventory she realises that the only thing missing is The Bell of Giradius, a mystical item reputed to bring the dead back to life. The questions the Legacy need to find out are where is the Bell, who took it and does the recent death of Miranda's fiance have anything to do with it's disappearance?
Director: Joseph L. Scanlan
Writer: Robert Masello
- 7.3/1053 votes
#14 - Fox Spirit
Season 1 Episode 14 - Aired 7/19/1996
While checking down in the sewers a couple of city maintenance men find an ancient urn holding ashes. One of them tips the ashes out and continues on with his work. After the two men separate to work in different areasone of them is attacked by a ghostly Chinese woman. The next morning the Legacy gets a call from a Chinese friend who asks them to help investigate the circumstances behind the two missing maintenance workers.
Director: Allan Eastman
Writer: William Bleich
- 7.1/1048 votes
#15 - The Thirteenth Generation
Season 1 Episode 15 - Aired 7/26/1996
During the 17th Century a suspected witch is 'tested' by being dunked in water, as she goes to her death she curses the next thirteen generations of the Witchfinders family. While guest lecturing at a Boston University Derek gets involved in a series of murders/deaths that seem to involve the same family and could be connected to the long rumoured curse.
Director: Brad Turner
Writer: Garner Simmons
- 7.0/1049 votes
#16 - The Dark Priest
Season 1 Episode 16 - Aired 8/2/1996
An amulet is stolen from the Legacy house. It once belonged to a cult leader and suspected sorcerer who was killed by Nick's father, also a member of the Legacy. The two brothers who stole it are the sons of Levon Zoltar, the cult leader, and they know how to release the magical powers held in the amulet. Magics that need a human sacrifice to power them!
Director: Brad Turner
Writer: Grant Rosenberg
- 6.6/1047 votes
#17 - Revelations
Season 1 Episode 17 - Aired 8/16/1996
A small girl has a horrifying experience at a private school and accuses one of the teachers of being a monster. As Rachel used to go to the school the headmistress calls her up to ask her for help. She hopes that Rachel will be able to find out what really happened before the school is ruined by the scandal. As she investigates Rachel realises that she has no memories of being at the school at all! She knows she went there but can remember nothing and that begins to really worry her.
Director: Allan Eastman
Writer: Frank Abatemarco
- 7.3/1045 votes
#18 - Bones of St. Anthony
Season 1 Episode 18 - Aired 8/23/1996
Dr. Cornell, a reknowned geneticist working at San Francisco University, is scared to death and then literally ripped apartby an unknown energy. The Legacy gets involved when a friend of Nick's who performed the autopsy calls him in. In a connecting incident Derek is investigating why a large number of church bells all rang themselves at 10.06pm the night before.
Director: Helen Shaver
Writer: Robert Masello
- 6.9/1046 votes
#19 - The Inheritance
Season 1 Episode 19 - Aired 8/30/1996
Rahel recieves a letter from her aunt's lawyer informing her of her death and that as she is the last living relative she will inherit everything. She goes to her aunt's funeral, with Kat, and finds that something is happening inside the house. Derek has a premonition that sometihng is going to happen to Rachel and tells her that she needs to be careful while inside the house.
Director: Brad Turner
Writer: William Bleich
- 7.6/1043 votes
#20 - The Signalman
Season 1 Episode 20 - Aired 9/6/1996
A psychic/supernatural occurence debunker and physicist, Dr. David Praeger, is working for the army at an old railway station & tunnel in Powderwash, Colorado. The army is planning on opening a nerve weapon disposal site nearby and he is there to find out what causes the magnetic fluctations in the area. While investigating he starts seeing the 'ghost' of a signalman telling him to 'pull the switch'. Alex finds out where he is after dreaming that he is in danger and, as much as they dislike the man's work the Legacy go to try and save him.
Director: Brenton Spencer
Writer: George Geiger
- 6.8/1041 votes
#21 - The Reckoning
Season 1 Episode 21 - Aired 9/13/1996
A 300 year old seer who helped out Derek's father on a number of occasions appears at the Legacy house to mysteriously warn him of a dead man who will return to life.
Director: Michael Robison
Writer: Garner Simmons
- NaN/100 votes
#22 - A Traitor Among Us
Season 1 Episode 22 - Aired 9/20/1996
Three senior members of the legacy arrive at the house and say that they have received a letter accusing Derek of running the house in an improper manner. Derek is put on trial at the house for several days where Nick and Rachel have to submit evidence about Derek. Things start to look very grim for Derek and when Rachel goes to see him in a room where he is kept locked up he asks her to bring him a shaving mirror and some sacred knives from the house's vault. Using the mirror he notices that one of the three people who came to put him on trial does not have a reflection in the mirror and that he always has the blinds closed before he enters a room. The trial is about to conclude with a guilty verdict where Derek is asked to make a closing speech. Derek says that for some time he has felt something wrong with the legacy, like a cancer growing among them, he reveals that it was himself who made the allegations against him so he could bring everyone together. He approaches the male repre
Director: Brenton Spencer
Writer: Bill Froehlich
The Best Episodes of Poltergeist: The Legacy Season 1
Every episode of Poltergeist: The Legacy Season 1 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of Poltergeist: The Legacy Season 1!
The adventures of the members of a secret society known as the Legacy and their efforts to protect humankind from occult dangers.
Genre:Drama
Network:Showtime
Season 1 Ratings Summary
"Pilot (1)" is the best rated episode of "Poltergeist: The Legacy" season 1. It scored 6.6/10 based on 125 votes. Directed by Stuart Gillard and written by Brad Wright, it aired on 4/21/1996. This episode is rated 0.2 points higher than the second-best, "Pilot (2)".