By SCOTT McLEOD
It's hard to know what scared my colleague.
Perhaps it was the exploding light bulb, haunted bathtub or bleeding foot, or maybe all the talk about Ordinary Nightmares and You Guys Really Scaring Me.
Whatever it was that spooked the hard-nosed Herald reporter, it forced her to switch off the Friday night thriller The Others (TV2, 8.30) and seek out a workmate with an even tougher constitution to watch it through to the final credits.
Any programme that manages to blend the above-mentioned creepy bits into the first couple of scenes even before the opening credits roll has obviously set out to do some pretty serious spooking.
And the remarkable thing is that every scene included something at least trying to be scary.
The idea is this: a bunch of people with supernatural skills and who live in very dark houses band together and set out to deal with the paranormal problems that are amazingly prevalent in their all-American community.
The gang is a kind of psychic A-Team, each with their own particular brand of mental skill.
Among them is Warren ("I see things that aren't there") sixth-sense Albert, sensitive Ellen, spiritual medium Elmer and empathetic Dr Gabriel.
But the main hero is shaping up as college student Marian Kitt, who has a Fearsome Talent.
Cue the mandatory Mulder-and-Scully-type sexual tension, which you can bet will stay unrequited for 200 episodes or more if the show goes on to last that long.
In this case, hunky Dr Gabriel gets all protective of spunky Marian, takes her on a first date to a terrifying tunnel and administers his first kiss as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after she nearly drowns while zonked on booze and drugs.
Any script like that is obviously aimed at the same folk who watch The X-Files and Millennium, as publicity for the show openly admits.
The blurb speaks of taking viewers where "gripping paranormal ability and supernatural events are part of everyday life."
It's also "very spiritual and at the same time very scary," according to co-executive producer Glen Morgan.
In fact, The Others is produced by the same people who made The X-Files and also seems to involve the same lighting crew.
A modern American city casts creepy shadows reminiscent of gas-lit Victorian London. Industrial torches the size of tree trunks cast pitiful pools of light. Even the college library looks as if it was filmed in a crypt.
The programme is said to have been dreamed up by extremely rich director Steven Spielberg and there's no doubt that a fair bit of cash has been spent on stuff like sets, special effects and makeup - even if many of those things are used for cheap shocks like dead people jumping out of bathwater and vases catching fire.
All of which is perfectly legitimate, of course, for a show that sets out to scare.
Whether it achieves that aim depends on the viewer. Many will find it just a little too much to stomach, but X-Files fans may well find themselves abandoning all social life at 8.30 pm each Friday.
TV: So you thought The X-Files was scary
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