If this episode was pure fiction, it would be considered too unoriginal to see the light of day - just an ordinary time-slip story or 'déjà vu'. But it is both the strength and weakness of the One Step Beyond series that it is based on real-life events, though only indirectly. This gives the producers a licence to play tunes on the truth, which we can only guess at.
An American diplomat, Stuart, is invited to his first English country-house weekend, and is shocked to hear a loud argument in the next room. Pushing open the door, he sees a couple fighting in evening dress, the man beating the woman to death with a poker. Yet a moment later, the room is empty.
Joining the others downstairs for a drink before dinner, Stuart is astonished to see the same woman entering the room wearing the same dress, as though nothing has happened. As he quizzes her nervously and she tries to reassure him that all is well, her husband comes in, also dressed the same, and accuses her of flirting with Stuart.
Their argument continues loudly through dinner, where it is obvious that he mistrusts her and that she despises him. Both are well-cast, the wife played by the powerful Narda Onyx and her husband by Francis Bethencourt of the startling horror-film countenance.
But it is left to your programme-host John Newland, and not this reviewer, to disclose what is presumably the real-life ending, exactly a year later, when the same couple are staying in the same room, but Stuart is not among the guests. We can't tell you more, but Newland's smooth patter about mental radio waves coming round and round may or may not be just moonshine.