The World Beyond is the second of two pilots for an occult detective television series. The first pilot, The World of Darkness, also starring Granville Van Dusen as Paul Taylor, premiered on Sunday, April 17, 1977. The World Beyond followed as a sequel on CBS Friday, January 27, 1978.

Sports writer Paul Taylor (Granville Van Dusen) died while undergoing a surgical procedure but was retrieved from the brink of death. His brush with "the world beyond" allowed the dead to communicate with him and ask him to help a living person.

Dead for two minutes and 37 seconds following a motorcycle accident, Paul Taylor hears ghostly voices that draw him to the New England town of Woodvale. Taylor becomes involved in supernatural activity surrounding the Sandford family, whose recently buried patriarch was an apparent suicide.

• Granville Van Dusen as Paul Taylor
• Tovah Feldshuh as Clara Sandford
• Beatrice Straight as Joanna Sandford
• Gary Merrill as Dr. Thomas Madsen

Taylor finds himself on a remote Maine island whose inhabitants are being menaced and killed by a golem made of mud and sticks.

• Granville Van Dusen as Paul Taylor
• JoBeth Williams as Marian Faber
• Barnard Hughes as Andy Borchard
• Richard Fitzpatrick as Frank Faber
• Jan Van Evera as Sam Barker

• The World Beyond at IMDb