Maurice Dean Wint in...

Episode 103, Ghostly Voices (12/16/96)

Synopsis--After an wealthy widow, Catherine Cartwright, videotapes her own encounter with something she claims is a ghost, O.S.I.R. Case Manager Dr. Curtis Rollins sets up a covert operation - known only to Cartwright and her physician, Willard Marlowe - in the mansion she owns.

That evening, Cartwright is awakened by a voice she believes is Robert, her dead husband - who is calling her to join him. Putting herself in danger, Cartwright reaches out through an open window to touch him...only to be pulled to safety by her son Jeffrey, who suddenly appears.

As the O.S.I.R. continues its investigation, agents Lindsay Donner and Rollins discover that Cartwright and her late husband attended church regularly, indicating a strong belief in the probability of an afterlife. A videotaped interview with the woman provides additional information supporting her belief that the ghost might, in fact, be Robert's lost spirit.

With the woman's son away on business, Rollins orders complete on-site surveillance; it reveals fiber optic wiring throughout the mansion. A blinding, bright light and a voice awaken the elderly woman and lead her, hypnotically, down a hall filled with moving furniture and a strong wind. Just as Cartwright is about to topple down the stairs, Rollins rescues her...and, spotting a dark figure, confirms the O.S.I.R.'s suspicions about the case.

Episode 104 , Creeping Darkness (12/23/96)

Synopsis--When a mass of impenetrable darkness rises from the floor of a house in Argentina, that nation's government calls in the O.S.I.R. to identify and stop the inexplicable problem.

Case Manager Curtis Rollins leads other O.S.I.R. investigators into the home of Miguel and Claudia Richler, where they send in a probe to gather data from the growing dark mass; the probe mysteriously disappears within it, providing no information. O.S.I.R. physicist/statistician Peter Axon volunteers to enter the mounting darkness - yet, once inside, it's too dark to see anything, and he exists still without any insight. Reports come to the O.S.I.R. that a second similar mass has appeared in China, at the exact opposite side of the globe. Both are growing at exactly the same rate. This research leads the O.S.I.R. to conclude these are not separate incidents, but one single mass dissecting the earth.

Natasha Constantine, O.S.I.R. anthropologist, unearths a local folk legend that might explain the situation. Yet Rollins concurrently comes to a frightening conclusion: At its current rate, the darkness will swallow the Argentinian town within seven days. They must act immediately to destroy it. Moving quickly, the agents evacuate the surrounding area and, in desperation and without any other option, Rollins orders them to use an advanced technological tool. As the O.S.I.R. prepares to launch the complex device, it worries about potential consequences.

Episode 105, Freefall (12/30/96)

Synopsis--Ten thousand feet in the sky, Peter McGrattan's parachute fails to open...but for some reason, rather than streaking through the sky to his death, he deccelerates and lands safely.

The O.S.I.R. is called in to investigate the mysterious miracle and learns that McGrattan's physician, Dr. Stafford, didn't believe the incredible feat until she personally witnessed his second leap. Case Manager Dr. Curtis Rollins convinces McGrattan to postpone his planned third jump until the O.S.I.R. can run a series of tests. None of the tests - nor an amateur video of McGrattan's supposed former dive - can substantiate the man's claim. Taking their study one step further, the O.S.I.R. creates a simulation: jumping 30 feet to the ground--first in a safety harness and then without one--McGrattan is unable to prove his ability.

Even so, the veteran skydiver pleads to be allowed to risk his life for a third time. Rollins agrees, with one requirement: that the Case Manager himself jumps along with him. It's agreed that McGrattan will open the parachute at 2,800 feet, as the two leap from the plane. Instead, confident he can contradict the forces of gravity, McGrattan violates his promise, unbuckles his parachute and free falls. As his team stands by in horror, Rollins works desperately mid-air, racing against the clock, to save a man who believes he can fly from the inevitable disaster that awaits when he cannot.

Episode 107, Phantom Limb (11/4/96)

After a hardworking farmer, Matt Peck, loses his arm in a grisly accident, a series of strange occurrences - many seemingly connected to him - happen at his Pennsylvania home.

To determine the cause of the inexplicable events, Case Manager Curtis Rollins and his team set up a surveillance at the farm. Matt's son, Brad, explains that his father, once so physically active, has been unable to accept the loss. Matt's wife, Sarah, reveals more startling information: once, when walking with her husband, she stumbled...only to feel an invisible hand steady her.

In a confrontation with Rollins, Matt - angry at the O.S.I.R.'s presence - accidentally knocks over a glass of beer. Instead of falling off the table, however, it flies across the room. Caught on surveillance thermal image videotape, the incident reveals a secret energy that shapes itself into a human arm. Even faced with the evidence, though, Matt refuses to believe the action is connected to him.

Although the O.S.I.R. wants to stay and teach Matt how to control the power they believe he possesses, the farmer orders them off his land. Moments before they depart, Matt discovers his grandson, Joshua, hanging helpless from a beam high in the barn. Climbing up to save the child's life, Matt must either work with his limited facilities...or believe in, and take control over, his mysterious power.

Episode 109, Clara's Friend (11/18/96)

Case Manager Dr. Curtis Rollins learns that Belinda Preston apparently met Bobbie, her daughter Clara's friend, but didnªt realize the "girl" was an apparition. While the ghostly being has significantly improved Clara's previously solitary ways, the Prestons want the strange phenomenon stopped.

As they inspect the house, the O.S.I.R. agents encounter Bobbie...but she never registers on their scientific equipment. They do, however, get a clearer sense of the ghost from Clara; as the child reveals one of their secret conversations, the dialogue she recounts suggests that Bobbie is a spirit from the first half of the 20th century. This evidence takes on new meaning when psychobiologist Lindsay Donner interviews a woman whose grandmother, Barbara Winston, previously owned the Preston home. Barbara - known as Bobbie - had entered a coma the same time that Clara's friend of the same name had first appeared.

Loose ends come together when, viewing an old home movie of the elderly woman, the O.S.I.R. concludes that Clara's playmate and the old woman's spirit are the same. Faced with a unique challenge, the investigators launch a dangerous experiment to try, via Clara, to lure Bobbie's spirit back to the body from which it left...with no idea how it will affect the comatose woman.

Episode 116, The Light (2/1/97)

After being clinically dead for a minute, Rollins pulls through and pieces of what happened to him start to surface. Despite his own amnesia, co-workers recall that he hastily left them to respond to a call, refusing back-up; deciding to follow, O.S.I.R. operatives arrived to find Rollins wounded and his alleged shooter jumping off a bridge. The story becomes even stranger when it's revealed that Rollins once worked as a "profiler" and his near-deadly encounter was likely with a longtime target, the White Crow Killer, whose creepily-unique M.O. was recently, suddenly linked to two murders. Even more bizarre, Axon and, now, Donahue see Rollins - or an exact duplicate of him - walking injury-free down a street; then, they see him on hospital security video. Could Rollins be in two places at once? Or has his near-death experience produced a duplicate? In this case, O.S.I.R. members are both investigating a potential paranormal incident...as well as being witnesses to it.

Through regressive hypnosis, Rollins confirms that his bridge encounter was with the White Crow Killer. He also recalls having a near-death experience in the ER during which he watched a duplicate of himself rise and walk out into the darkness - taking with it the part of Rollins' mind that understands what drives the killer.

The O.S.I.R. agent's experience turns from strange to dangerous when the ER physician who saved his life, Dr. Burr, is missing and believed abducted. The White Crow Killer, aka Dr. Stanley Forbes, a researcher obsessed with the secrets of the afterlife, turns up dead not far from the bridge where he jumped. And Rollins' fingerprints are found in Dr. Burr's office. Rollins, still hospitalized, becomes the chief suspect in the abduction (while his supervisors wonder if he will ever be able to effectively lead O.S.I.R. investigations); not far away in Forbes' old lab, his duplicate is aggressively conducting eerily similar experiments on Dr. Burr.

Determined to solve his duplicate's crime and clear his name, Rollins struggles to call forth his old profiler skills and remember the unique qualities of the White Crow Killer that will lead them to the criminal. As he carries out his own research, his O.S.I.R. allies have a dangerous first-hand encounter with the duplicate; able to overwhelm it, they take the doppelganger into custody.

In a lab, the duplicate is first questioned by the O.S.I.R.; he claims to be Forbes, doesn't recognize any of them and refuses to reveal where Dr. Burr is hidden. Rollins, watching from behind one-way glass, decides he is the only one who can solve the puzzle. Stepping into the room, he is determined to do whatever is necessary to bring the two warring forces together. As Rollins launches his mission, he can't guarantee whether the dangerous fusion that is his goal will save the life of Dr. Burr...or even whether it will eliminate the real Curtis Rollins.

Episode 222, The Egress (5/11/98)

NOTE: Although Wint left the series after Season 1, he did make a cameo appearance in the Season 2 finale.

Office of Scientific Investigation and Research (O.S.I.R.) Chief Analyst Peter Axon receives an emergency call for help from his old MIT colleague, Dr. Leon Schraft, warning that, "This is the big one." Axon and O.S.I.R. Security Coordinator Ray Donahue respond immediately to the call. But when they arrive at Dr. Schraft's secret research facility, he's nowhere to be found. And, based on the condition of the facility, it looks as if someone has beaten the O.S.I.R. to the scene and made off with what would have been key evidence.

Searching the facility, the investigators find an imposing metal and stone archway replete with flashing lights, warning tape and computer circuit boards. When Donahue moves across a line painted on the floor for a closer look at the fascinating structure, it fires up and begins to hum and shake violently. Grabbing his colleague and pulling him back to safety, Axon realizes that this is unlike anything he's ever seen.

Case Manager Matt Praeger arrives at the investigation site, but there's still no sign of Dr. Schraft. Leading Praeger to the mysterious Arch, Axon is mesmerized by the sound emanating from the structure. As he absently walks towards the structure it again begins to stir, Praeger yanks him back and cautions him to stay behind the yellow line.

Returning to the mobile lab, Praeger watches a video disc he received from his recently slain friend and advisor, Michael Kelly. On the disc, Kelly ominously warns Praeger that certain O.S.I.R. operatives are working without moral or ethical accountability while searching for the paranormal phenomenon they call "the big one."

Going on to draw uncanny parallels between P.T. Barnum's Dime Museum freak show exhibit and a series of recent O.S.I.R. investigations, Kelly leads up to Barnum's famous last exhibit - The Egress (or exit). Joined in the screening room by Senior Data Analyst Lindsay Donner, Praeger seems to have bought into Kelly's story. Convinced that the odd archway is the "Big One" and an "Egress," he realizes how palpably close to the edge this case might take him and his team.

Standing on opposite sides of the arch, Praeger and Axon perform an experiment where Axon attempts to throw a baseball through the center of the Arch. But, on its way through, the ball is engulfed by the swirling center and never reaches the other side.

As Axon moves towards the structure to try to comprehend this latest oddity, a man shouts at him to stop. The man, an intern on the research project (played by actor Corey Haim), then leads the O.S.I.R. team to a gruesome discovery - half of a dead body.

O.S.I.R. Pathologist Dr. Claire Davison and Dr. Anton Hendricks examine the decomposed remains of the body. The intern goes on to explain that a group of scientists were drawn into the Arch and that this man was half consumed before being pulled from the Arch. Then, when the intern ran to get help, he found the research office being ransacked by a group of men who systematically removed all off the research information and equipment related to the Arch experiment.

The team's ongoing search of the research facility is marked by further tragedy. Intrigued by the afterworld, Dr. Anton Hendricks is lured into the mass of the arch by the voices of his late wife and daughter. Getting too close to the center, he suddenly disappears inside. Shaken by the loss of Hendricks, Praeger sternly interrogates the research intern who yields a few new leads. Praeger heads to the mobile lab and bursts into the office of O.S.I.R. Director of Operations, Dr. Frank Elsinger. Elsinger confirms Praeger's suspicion that the research facility and the arch were both O.S.I.R. operations from the start.

Elsinger goes on to reveal that Praeger and his team were assigned to the case specifically in to uncover any leads on the team of O.S.I.R. scientists that disappeared into the arch. Then, when he learns that Schraft is still alive and in custody, Praeger demands to be taken to the missing scientist. At first, Schraft stonewalls Praeger, but once Praeger reveals that his team has a communication link to Hendricks inside the Arch, Schraft warms up and the two men discuss using this to rescue Hendricks and to further the research into the arch.

When information on the case reaches the press, Praeger is convinced there's an information leak inside the O.S.I.R. Praeger quickly (and wrongly) assumes it is Axon and confronts him. Then, Donner shocks Praeger as she reveals that she is the leak and admits her motivation came from a desire to expose Elsinger's questionable ethical activity. The surprises keep coming as individuals believed dead turn up alive and cases already closed seem ripe for reopening. By the close of this cliffhanger we're not sure who lives, who dies and who still works for the O.S.I.R.?

For more information on Psi Factor, check out the official web site HERE.
For the Ultimate Psi Factor Links page (a great site), look HERE.