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Spaceman
Season 3, Episode 6
Thumb The-Haunting-Hour Spaceman 2
Air date November 10, 2012 (original)
January 19, 2013 (director's cut)
Written by John Esposito
Directed by Neill Fearnley
Episode Guide
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"Intruders"
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"Red Eye"

"Spaceman" is the sixth episode of season 3 of R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour: The Series. It aired on November 10, 2012.

Summary[]

When lonely boy Aaron buys a vintage space toy helmet from a woman who is throwing out her old stuff, he begins hearing voices from the helmet and thinks it's an alien trying to contact Earth -- but discovers a more disturbing truth.

Plot[]

Aaron is a lonely boy who's obsessed with space and space travel. His mother encourages him to go out and make friends, but none of the other kids want to play with him. Aaron happens upon Mrs. Hollinger, a woman throwing out boxes of old belongings, and interests Aaron in a toy space helmet with a two-way intercom from 1959. One night, while Aaron is sleeping, he begins hearing static from inside the helmet. Despite not having batteries inside, a red light on the helmet blinks on and a voice comes on, saying "Space Commander 1, it's Space Commander 2, do you read me? I'm alone. Alone on a dark planet. Do you read me?"

The next day at breakfast, Aaron tells his parents about the space helmet. They dismiss it as being a dream. Aaron returns to Mrs. Hollinger's house to tell her about the space helmet. She warns him that not to answer another transmission, then makes a desperate call over an old radio to an unknown voice that Aaron is in too deep on their plans and to cancel the space mission. Aaron hears the voice over the radio again and tells his parents about it. His parents begin worrying about his sanity. Aaron tries to get the voice to stay with him so he can prove that it exists, but once again, it disappears. Aaron brushes it off as a joke.

When his parents leave the room, Aaron speaks to the voice inside the helmet, who tells him that he's on a dark planet and needs to find a way out and into space. Aaron happily accepts the mission. Aaron packs his things and heads out to find the voice over the helmet. (In the director's cut, Aaron asks the voice how he can communicate, since the helmet has no batteries. The voice answers that it's advanced communication.) Aaron reaches his destination -- which turns out to be at the house where the strange woman he met before lives. Aaron makes his way up the stairs and to the attic -- and finds a skeleton in spaceman clothes seated in front of a pretend computer. Mrs. Hollinger comes up to the attic and reveals that the skeleton is her son, explaining that he died at a young age after being sick and was just as interested in space exploration as Aaron is.

In the original ending, Mrs. Hollinger asks Aaron to leave, but Aaron says it's okay, and that he will keep her son company, volunteering to stay with him and play "Spaceman" with him forever. On the director's cut version, the ghost of Ms. Hollinger's son forces his mother to make Aaron his playmate, and Aaron is forever trapped in the attic with Ms. Hollinger's son.

Cast[]

Video(s)[]

R.L._Stine's_The_Haunting_Hour_-_"Spaceman_Director's_Cut"

R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour - "Spaceman Director's Cut"

R.L._Stine's_The_Haunting_Hour_-_"Spaceman"

R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour - "Spaceman"

Trivia[]

  • Karin Konoval also appeared in the season 1 episode "Wrong Number" and the season 2 episodes "The Most Evil Sorcerer: Part 1 & 2".
  • Mrs. Hollinger's house is the same as the house in "The Black Mask".
  • This is the second episode with an alternate ending, the first being Scarecrow. However in this case the alternate version was aired a few months later.
  • According to Neil Fearnly, he and Neil fought over which type of ending to go with. Both were shocked and they went with the happy version. Eventually Neil's original vision was allowed to be aired, hence the director's cut.
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