THE OUTER LIMITS |
|
|
The Control Voice - Kevin Conway Simon Kress - Beau Bridges Cathy Kress - Helen Shaver Col Simon Kress - Lloyd Bridges Frank Hellner - William Sadler Rachel Rose - Nancy Allen Spencer Deighton - Charles Martin Smith Karen Heatherton - Rae Dawn Chong Dr McEnerny - Bruce Davison Jack Pierce - Josh Brolin Bill Trenton - David Warner Lydia Manning - Annette O'Toole Major John Skokes - Robert Patrick Cadet Bree Tristan - Nicole de Boer Stephen Ledbetter - Richard Thomas Hannah Valesic- Alyssa Milano Jessica Winter- Marlee Matlin Thurman Cutler - Leonard Nimoy 
Other Seasons
Season 2 Season 3 Season 4 Season 5 Season 6 Season 7 Season 4 Other Anthology Shows Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams Masters of Science Fiction Metal Hurlant Chronicles Stephen King's Nightmares & Dreamscapes Ray Bradbury Theater Twilight Zone(1985-1989) Twlight Zone (2019)
|
SAND KINGS- Part 1Simon Kress has spent a good part of his scientific career studying the Sandkings, a lifeform found in the Martian sands. He is sure that they are potentially intelligent, but the military's fear of the organisms escaping leads to the project being halted when one reaches an upper level of the research facility. Kress manages to save some eggs, though, and starts a colony in his barn. The research, though, leads to an obsession that drives a wedge between Simon and his family. what does that matter, though, when he is worshipped as a God? The new updated version of THE OUTER LIMITS starts with a two part story in order to show its intentions of providing stories with depth and scope rather than just entertaining short tales with a twist. Whether that is a good thing is questionable since the first part of a two-part story is certain to leave a sense of disastisfaction which might not be what you want in the pilot episode of a new series. Anyway, this starts off as an action thriller as a Sandking is chased through the research facility and then becomes a more domestic story as we are introduced to Kress' wife and son, father and dog. This is all pedestrian stuff as we learn of the troubled relationship between Kress and his father. There is nothing new here even if the stunt casting of real life father and son Lloyd and Beau Bridges adds a slight frisson to things. Helen Shaver is her usual dependable self as Kress' wife. The Sandkings are almost bystanders to all of this, providing only a justification for Kress' obssessive behaviour. TopSAND KINGS- Part 2The Sandkings are growing smarter and smarter with each generation and have taken Kress to be their God. When his research is threatened once again, he uses them as his method of execution, but that releases them into the house and Kress is faced with the possibility that he has released an organism that could wipe out all life on Earth. The experiments continue, but remain a background to Kress' slow deterioration into madness. Actually, it's not too slow now, galloping apace as he is willing to commit murder, lose his family and see an alien poison destroying his body rather than face his own insanity. It's all goign to end in tears, of course, and would have if we cared at all about the characters, which quite frankly we don't. TopVALERIE 23A wheelchair-bound scientist is given the chance to test out the new synthetic companion, but finds himself in a budding relationship with his therapist, much to the companion's dismay. There is nothing about this story that is not completely predictable, but the presence of William Sadler at least keeps the attention. Nancy Allen is wasted as his physical therapist and nascent love interest, but she has done the woman in peril enough times to be able to do it in her sleep. Sofia Shinas is slightly exotic and off-note as Valerie, just what the part needs. Why, though, would anyone designing the perfect companion programme in jealousy and anger? TopBLOOD BROTHERSTwo brothers find themselves at odds over how a company on the verge of a medical breakthrough should be run, with murderous consequences. Charles Martin Smith is the good brother, Martin Kemp is the bad brother and, well that's about it really. This story is fairly dull and could be part of any soap opera were it not for the work being done in the lab. TopTHE SECOND SOULThe N'Tal come to Earth from a dead planet asking for the bodies of our dead that they can reanimate and inhabit. The leader of the body provision programme starts to suspect that the newly reanimated aliens are up to something that might speed up the provision of bodies. The moral dilemma over providing bodies to the aliens is the interesting core to this story and the fact that the man chosen to run the programme does not, in fact, like the aliens is a nice touch, but the plot falls apart towards the end since what the aliens are doing in the warehouse is so innocuous that they would have just asked for, and been given, permission. Why on Earth, though, would anyone designing the perfect companion programme in jealousy and anger? TopWHITE LIGHT FEVERA research scientist is making huge strides in saving the lives of heart attack victims, but it is all in the name of saving one old, rich man. There is, however, something in the hospital wiring that is stalking the billionaire and the doctor comes to believe that the thing is Death itself. There is an awful lot of 'so what' about this episode. It moves along quite nicely, is pretty well acted and offers up some ethical issues about the rights of patients no matter what their financial status, but these are only given scant examination and the actual storyline about the billionaire being pursued by cold lightning never really seems to come to mean anything. TopTHE CHOICEAggie is a girl with a secret. She has telekinetic powers that manifest themselves when she is upset, leaving her alone and confused. When she is expelled from school, her parents advertise for a home teacher and get Karen, a woman who also has powers and wants to help. On her trail, though, is a man who claims that Karen is really a kidnapper of children. There is a touch of Stephen King's FIRESTARTER in this story, dealing as it does with psychic-powered individuals on the run from shadowy government agencies, but it isn't half as much fun. The story is determinedly low key, leading to a denouement that is hard to swallow. TopVIRTUAL FUTUREJack's scientific dreams come true when Bill Trenton finances his virtual reality machine that also happens to give a glimpse of the future. The glimpses that the machine starts to give, however, are of Jack's death, possibly at Trenton's hand. Can the future be changed? If you can see the future could you change it? Should you change it? What if the future you prevent turns out to the preferable to the one that replaces it because of your actions? It's all fairly old time travel standard stuff and the treatment here doesn't exactly add anything new. Josh Brolin and David Warner are perfectly fine as anothe scientist getting obsessed with his work and thus almost losing his marriage and the big, unscrupulous tycoon respectively, but there's nothing in the script to challenge either of them. Nor the audience. TopLIVING HELLA man's life is saved by the implantation of an experimental chip in his head. It soon becomes clear, though, that something has gone wrong after he starts to suffer violent imagery. Yes, it's the old 'seeing through the killer's eyes' routine, given a technological makeover involving a computer chip embedded into the brain. What then follows is basically a short version of THE EYES OF LAURA MARS. It plays out in a fairly solid straightforward fashion with an outcome that might not be what you were expecting, but does at least save it from being completely average. TopCORNER OF THE EYEA priest whose faith has been shaken by the crushing poverty and homelessness that he tries to tackle every day suddenly finds that he is faced with creatures that look like demons, but who offer him the angelic gift of healing. Through him, these beings hope to gain acceptance in the world, but does ugliness without not also mean ugliness within. There are the possibilities in this for all kinds of questions to be asked about faith and the conflict between inner and outer beauty, but these are all squandered by a story that is more interested in the thriller aspect of the alien beings manipulating a good man into being their mascot. It's a waste of a good cast. TopUNDER THE BEDA therapist treating the traumatised sister of a kidnapped boy discovers aspects of the case that echo his own situation decades before and point to the existence of an ageless predator. The cops discover an anicent threat whilst dealing with a modern crime. It's hardly a new or revolutionary story, but the solid cast deal with it well, imbuing their characters with more depth than the script deserves and raising the episode above its hackneyed storyline. The creature, when it is finally unmasked, is unconvincing and the supposedly chilling coda is nothing more than predictable. TopDARK MATTERSA hyperspace accident draws a cargo vessel into a starless void that holds two other ships that never managed to escape. One is an alien vessel, the other contains the dead bodies of its human crew, including that of the first mate's brother. As the crew look for a way to escape, they are assaulted by what appear to be ghosts. This episode plays around with some heavyweight ideas about religion, the afterlife, communication and sibling rivalry, but never quite pulls it together into a coherent whole or takes any one of these subjects and really gets a hold of it. The set up is the kind of thing that happened every few weeks in the STAR TREK franchise, so it is neither fresh nor exciting, no matter how hard the small cast work to try to add a bit of weight to the lightweight plot. It would have worked better without the whole sibling rivalry thing with its attendant flashbacks. TopTHE CONVERSIONA white collar criminal who has spent time in prison for a crime that he did commit, goes back to his old company and kills three people in a bungled act of revenge. On the run and with a bullet hole in his side, he ends up in tavern in the hills where he meets a strange man who seems to be able to tell the future and seems very badly to want to help him. Directed by actress Rebecca DeMornay, who appears early on as a woman who tries to prevent the killings in a very seductive fashion, this episode rises above the majority of them thanks to the essential mystery of the man in the tavern. Played by John Savage in a wonderful performance of edgy, almost desperate goodness, he is the figure of interest, not the fugitive. Is he an angel, a time traveller, an alien? Ultimately, the explanation is a tad less magical than the story deserves, but by that point it really doesn't matter and for once the story has an uplifting ending. TopQUALITY OF MERCYA fighter pilot, taken prisoner in a war against a reptilian race, is thrown into a cell with a young woman who is slowly and irresistibly being transformed into one of the aliens. The story here has been used in a number of ways in any number of shows, but having a hero thrown into a cell with someone unknown only to build up a relationship based on familiar bonds that prove not to be real is nothing new at all whatever spin is put on it. Unoriginal though it might be, it is pretty well done. The single set (OK there's an air shaft as well, but that's just being picky) is impressive and alien, as are the aliens in their armoured suits. The makeup effects that slowly turn a woman away from her humanity are also pretty well done as well. Which brings us to the two-handed cast. Robert (TERMINATOR 2:JUDGEMENT DAY|) plays the tough veteran well enough, though with few surprises along the way and it is left up to Nicole DeBoer to pull out the acting stops as the woman slowly losing her humanity against her will. It's a nice performance and lifts the episode above its average plotting and script. TopCAUGHT IN THE ACTA young woman is turned into a carnal machine when an alien influence leaps from a small meteor and then takes her over. She has sex with men and then absorbs them. The cops are soon on the case as is a scientist who received information from the girl's boyfriend. Sex, though, might not be enough for the creature, perhaps what it really needs is love. Alyssa Milano (CHARMED) sheds her inhibitions and her clothes in this surprisingly brazen episode. Not one for the family audience. The alien that comes out of the meteor is impressively realised, better than the one it turns into at the end. Saul Rubinek (WAREHOUSE 13) gives a dotty professor performance that seems to be a trademark of his. The story is straightforward enough, but the frank sex angle and the bloody aftermath of an interrupted session raise it to a more adult level. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily better. TopTHE VOYAGE HOMEA manned mission to Mars discovers writing in a cave and a pod that vents something. Since time is short, the three-man crew cannot stay and investigate further. On the way back, the ship is hit by a meteorite and one of the crew discovers that at least one of his colleagues is now an alien copy. Michael Dorn makes an appearance without the cranial ridges of Mr Worf (STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION). The plot otherwise is a mixture of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD and IT!THE CREATURE FROM BEYOND SPACE. The creature effects are variable and the story actually works best when it is dealing with the meteorite disaster and the aftermath rather than with the alien stuff, that being rather hackneyed. TopA NEW BREEDA pioneering scientist has created nanobots, microscopic machines that alter living cells at the molecular level, curing all ills. He wants to go to the animal testing stage, but the university board are wary. His terminally ill brother injects himself with the devices and finds his cancer in full remission within a week. He become something of a superman with perfect vision and the ability to hold his breath for ages. but then the nanobots decide that the ultimate human is not perfect and start to improve on the design, first by adding gills. A nice idea goes a bit awry in this story as nanobots go off the rails. The provision of gills makes sense since the humans were testing underwater breath holding, but giving two eyes in the back of the head is a really silly moment and adding other enhancements that leave the brother sick and in pain makes no sense at all, even from the nanobots' perspective. And if you didn't see the closing twist coming a mile off then you weren't paying attention. TopTHE MESSAGEWhen a deaf woman's implants fail to restore her hearing, her husband and doctor don't believe that she is picking up some sounds from somewhere. A janitor at the hospital, who was once a NASA scientist before suffering a psychotic break, believes her and believes what she is hearing is a distress signal form alines in trouble. Marlee Matlin (CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD, THE WEST WING) gives such a winning performance in this episode that you can forgive all its shortcomings. The fact that Larry Drake turns in an equally likeable performance as the formerly disturbed NASA man creates a pairing that could carry almost any story. Though this is ostensibly a story about errant technology picking up an alien signal, it is really about the way we deal with people who have physical and mental health issues. The heroes here are both likeable, capable people who are sidelined by society and able bodied/minded people solely because of their issues. As such, their struggle to achieve their goal despite the obstacles being put in their way by ordinary people is both universal and a plea for understanding and tolerance from the unafflicted. It's an important subtext that isn't rammed down the audience's throats, but simply couched in a smart sci-fi story. As a result, it's a step above the usual. Smart, touching and with a brace of great performances, this episode offers up what the show can do at its best. TopI, ROBOTA scientist is killed in his lab, apparently by the artificial human that he has been building and refining throughout his career. When the man's daughter determines to save the robot from the inevitable destruction order, she enlists the aid of one of the foremost legal minds. He, though, is not keen to take on the case and then is faced by the need to save the robot by proving it should stand trial for murder. OK, a robot on trial for its existence has to prove its sentience in order not to be pulled to pieces. Not exactly an original story and having Leonard Nimoy play the attorney (he played the robot in the original series) doesn't improve matters enough to hide the fact that we have seen this before, and better, elsewhere. At least the robot is impressively non-human. TopIF THESE WALLS COULD TALKA professional debunker of mediums and the paranormal is begged by one of his adversaries to come to the old house that she believes holds the spirit of her son captive. He eventually agrees and starts to believe her story, but the truth of the matter is buried in science, not the supernatural. A familiar haunted house set up, but the two main characters that inhabit it are interesting enough to overlook that. The debunker is clearly based on Houdini, but the contrast between him and the believer maintains interest through the initial, quite spooky, bits. Then the story shoots off in a quite different direction, making nonsense of everything that has gone before and ultimately undermining it. TopBIRTHRIGHTA US senator is forced to go on the run when a car accident reveals abnormalities about his physical makeup. What would happen if one the replacements in INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS forgot he had been bodysnatched? That's the basic premise of this episode, which runs like a story from any show about human-shaped aliens invading our planet by stealth. The final twist even feels like it was borrowed frome somewhere better. Like many of the stories that have preceded it, this is an old idea that is presented in a solid enough fashion, in this case a spy on the run from his own people format. There's nothing new or surprising about it, but it moves at a decent clip and the performances are reliable. The transforming alien and the senator's degenerating body are presented in suitably organic fashion, up to the general standards of the effects in these episodes. On the whole, a solid entry, but nothing out of the ordinary. TopVOICE OF REASONA man comes before a committee with what he believes to be incontrovertible evidence that the pre-eminent threats to the human race come from alien intrusion. The season ends with a clips show that uses the committee hearing as an excuse to use bits from several previous episodes. The framing device is quite well acted, but if you have already seen the other episodes then this is a total waste of time. Top |
