THE OUTER LIMITS |
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Theresa Givens - Amanda Plummer Jamie Pratt - Michelle Forbes Alicia - Heather Graham Joanne Sharp - Catherine Mary Stewart Carter Jones - Ally Sheedy Stranger - Michael Sarrazin Rachel Carter - Debrah Farentino Sam Stein - Mark Hamill Norman Glass - Matt Frewer Nancy McDonald - Bonnie Bedelia Sandford Valle - M Emmett Walsh Howie Morrison - Neil Patrick Harris Linden Styles - Clancy Harris Trent Davis - Brent Spiner John Skokes - Robert Patrick Chief Weapons Officer - Graham Greene Cadet - Wil Wheaton Melissa McCammon - Sheena Easton Trevor McPhee - Jon Cryer Jack Henson - David Hyde Pierce 
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Season 1 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)
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A STITICH IN TIMEA series of apparently motiveless murders leads to a scientist who was only a few years old when the first killing was carried out and the gun that was the murder weapon in all the killings hadn't even been made by then. The detective in the case establishes that time travel is the key and that her own life has been altered beyond all tolerance. Ah, time travel paradoxes, we love them. To be fair, this episode starts from an intriguing premise, comes up with believable motivations and then moves on to well-considered conclusions. It's anchored by two good performances, one from Michelle Forbes as the detective at the heart of the case who is grieving for a recent loss and Amanda Plummer who is probably the world's expert at portraying tortured women. Their relationship makes the episode, but the ideas on show here are compelling and neatly woven into a well-told story. TopRESURRECTIONAfter the human race is wiped out by biological warfare, its surviving android servants clone a new human to give rebirth to humanity. Unfortunately, there are those androids who have come to believe that the only way to truly serve humanity is by letting it stay dead. An interesting set up is wasted on a story that starts nowhere and goes nowhere before ending in an obvious, but unbelievable conclusion. There are biblical overtones in the creation of Adam and Eve and the crucifixion of one of the androids and the futility of the new man's love for an android with only 'limited emotional response to stimuli', but the story could have been told as effectively in half the time. Nick Mancuso and Heather Graham are effective as the two androids who create the new life, but Dana Ashbrook is a total charisma black hole as the hope of the human race, in the end undermining the rest of the story. The military androids look good though, despite being pretty useless against a single unarmed human. TopUNNATURAL SELECTIONA couple wrestle with the morality of paying for illegal genetic engineering on their unborn child. Everyone seems to be doing it and when the husband is thrown out of work because of the first wave of enhanced children coming into the workforce, he knows what he must do. There is, however, a possible side effect. One in thousands will reject the engineering and turn into a mad killing machine. Forget the story (it's easy to guess how this is going to play out and what is going on next door, but the concepts that it plays with are current and critical to the whole thrust of current work on gene cures. Much like the film GATTACA it posits a frightening world of 'them' against 'us' and the dark downsides that go with the bright future for the few who can afford it. Designer babies is a sure way to create a hellish society it would appear. And whilst your struggling with the weighty issues that are raised, the plot plays out in the fashion that you always thought it was. The truth is, though, that you'll be thinking about this story for longer than most. TopI HEAR YOU CALLINGA female reporter overhears a conversation that puts her life in danger from a man with violet eyes and the ability to find her wherever she goes. He warns her off her investigation into a missing writer, but she refuses to be warned and eventually he turns his attention, and his ray gun, on her. Is he all that he seems, however? Ally Sheedy is the damsel in distress and she proves to be a very real one because she never fights back or goes all Rambo. She is thrown by the predicament that she finds herself in, but continues to investigate because it's the only thing that she knows how to do. Michael Sarrazin, however, is asked to do nothing except keep his eyes open as wide as he can to make the most of the violet contact lens effect. The resolution is more effective than the rest of the episode deserves, but it is an acceptable time passer. TopMIND OVER MATTERThe CAVE (computer-aided visual environment) allows a doctor to enter the mind of his patient and help them overcome their mental issues from the inside. When the woman that he secretly loves is put into a coma, he enters her mind to profess his love, but finds that she is being threatened by a dark and shadowy creature that might be the computer itself. Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill stars as the doctor struggling with crippling shyness and ethical issues in this episode, which suffers, appropriately enough for a story centering on mental illness, from a split personality. Whilst it wants to talk about technological solutions to mental problems, medical ethics confronting personal need and also be a love story to boot, it then twists off into a mad computer story that fails to convince and ends with a twist that any short story reader ought to see coming a mile away. Even so, it's competently acted, the special effects of the CAVE system are nicely done and it doesn't outstay its welcome. TopBEYOND THE VEILA failed suicide is sent to a care home for people suffering delusions of being abducted by aliens. The head doctor's methods are unorthodox to say the least, which leaves the patient wondering if he is really trying to help or whether he is really an alien trying to keep the secret from the outside world. This story goes for the paranoid atmosphere big time. The asylum is a cross between ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and a castle in a gothic horror story in the way that it is shot. It's all shadows and slanting angles and deep focus. This does help establish the inmates' state of mind, but it can't keep the obvious fact that the aliens are real and are part of the hospital a surprise twist. The aliens are obviously mannequins, but they are quite well realised and it is only the fact that their mouths never move, can't even open in fact, and the limited movements that show them up. TopFIRST ANNIVERSARYHaving married the perfect woman, Norman believes that he has it all, but a few strange events start him to believe that his perfect world is less than that and that his perfect wife is not all she appears to be. Since the story shows that Norman's wife and her best friend are in fact aliens capable of making those around them see what they want right at the very beginning, there is no mystery to be solved here, only showing how Norman comes to find out the truth and his inevitable reaction to that, something that is not enough to sustain the running time of the episode. Matt Frewer is the nominal star, but performances are uniformly fine, rather than outstanding. TopTHE STRAIGHT AND NARROWA corporate executive places her troubled son in a boarding school with an enviable reputation for results in moulding respectable members of society. The rules are ones of isolation - no contact until graduation. The boy finds that the school is playing with mind control in order to create a generation of controllable servants who will one day rule the country and possibly the world. Ryan Philippe doesn't make for the most convincing rebel ever put on the screen, but compared to most of the other performers he gives a masterclass of acting. Peter Donat's Principal is by the book evil to the point of pantomime and the other boys are all robotised and so act like robots. In the end the episode plays out much as expected, every twist coming just as it should and right where it ought to be, making it all rather flat and dull. TopTRIAL BY FIREOn the day of his inauguration, President Halsey is whisked into an underground bunker where he is told that something is on a collision course with Earth that will end all life. This turns out to be the precursor to first contact with an alien species, but the question is whether that contact is friendly or an invasion. Robert Foxworth is the President in question and he gets some tough decisions to make on his first day. You can't accuse this episode of being short of incident and the supporting characters are well sketched in the time available. The main issues are that the aliens look completely false and it is fairly obvious from quite near the beginning that the aliens are friendly, just misunderstood, so that the sudden switch from dove to hawk by the man in charge rings hollow. TopWORLDS APARTAn astronaut downed on an ocean world with some big alien predators manages to get a message back home. That message is received decades after he disappeared because he has passed through a wormhole. His lover, now a married woman and head of the space agency, must try to find a way to bring him back and to deal with her own contradictory emotions. Bonnie Bedelia stars in what is effectively a character study of a woman who is torn between her husband and her one time lover. All the stuff about wormholes and giant carnivorous jellyfish is all just science fiction trimmings to brign about the conflict in her emotions. She is easily capable enough of dealing with this stuff and gives it a bit of class that it really doesn't deserve. It's all very competent, but there is a very real sense of 'what was the point?' at the end. TopTHE REFUGEIn the wake of a global catastrophe that has left the world in the grip of a constant snowstorm, an amnesiac stumbles into a protected location, but the residents seem ill-matched and ruled over by a tyrant who delights in tormenting them. The resolution of the mystery as to what is going on in the big log cabin is far less interesting than the mystery itself. The set up is annoyingly hackneyed (Amnesia? Really?), but it is necessary for the strange relationships inside the house to play out and the mystery itself to come into focus. Is it a time loop, a hallucination, an alternative reality, a broken brain? Pondering the question is more interesting than the actual explanation proves to be. The jewel in the crown of the episode is the performance by M Emmett Walsh as a horribly slimy and manipulative overlord who orders everyone else about and keeps them in order through personal humiliation. In comparison to him, all the other characters are somewhat anaemic. TopINCONSTANT MOONA physics professor sees the moon turn an unaccustomed bright colour and surmises that the sun has gone nova and destroyed the far side of the planet. The shockwave is heading in his direction and will arrive in less than five hours. With only a short time left before the end of the world he reaches out to the woman that he has secretly loved, but can he live a lifetime in one night? This is a mood piece as there is no twist in the tail (well, maybe a slight one, but nothing that you would really call a twist). It is about two people trying to find each other at a time of crisis. Michael Gross is fine as the professor at the heart of matters and Joanna Gleason is always good value for her screen time, but you can't help thinking that THE OUTER LIMITS isn't really the best place to deal with ordinary human relationships. Sure, the end of the world is coming, but that is just background and an excuse for the love affair to happen. Simply put, this is 'nice', but you might be left at the end with a big sense of 'so what?'. TopFROM WITHINA neurodiverse young man becomes the last defense for humanity when the discovery of a dinosaur skeleton comes with a side order of brain-eating parasitic worms. Apart from the worthy message that the neurodiversity is not necessarily a handicap and the innate grossness of worms sliding in and out of orifices, this is your basic bodysnatchers tale crossed with a zombie apoocalypse. The worms regress their hosts to violence and sexual activity to stimulate the brain chemicals on which they feed, along with the salt prevalent in the mines from which the town derives its income. This is as reasonable an explanation as you're likely to get in a story such as this. Neil Patrick Harris plays the young man of the hour pleasantly enough, but pleasant is the order of the day, at least at the start of the episode. Just about enough time is taken to set up the major characters as generally nice ordinary folk so their behaviour when they are infested is more impactful. The hero's vulnerability raises the threat and tension levels a bit, but the outcome never in any doubt and the manner of its coming about is predictable. TopTHE HEISTA group of freedom fighters hijack a military shipment only to find that they have something on their hands far more deadly than the stinger missiles they were expecting, deadly and after them. This episode has barely a plot to speak up, but that's just the set up for a game of cat and mouse in a warehouse between something unseen and alien and a group of humans who can't even get on together. The human characters aren't very believable, especially those who are meant to be urban guerillas (one even wears a beret for God's sake), but the icy locale makes up for that. The freezing effects are quite well done, but the shattering bodies are far to clean and icy to convince. Where are all the bloody bits inside the ice? There is a moderate amount of tension throughout, but it's hard to get excited about the fate of a bunch of people that you don't even like. TopTHE AFTERLIFEA soldier, wrongly convicted by a military court of murder is revived after his execution and given the option of taking part in a medical research programme or actually being executed. He is injected with alien DNA and turned into a monster that the military then hunt to test their readiness to combat the new threat, learning only at the end end that it is they who are being tested. Clancy Brown is a the centre of this story and manages to hold it together with his considerable presence. The plot is fairly slight and the director is in love with the high-tech cell that has been created for the show, but it is the human story that manages to stay relevant through the military machinations and betrayals. Simply put, this is 'nice', but you might be left at the end with a big sense of 'so what?'. TopTHE DEPROGRAMMERSAliens have subjugated the earth and use brainwashed humans as their slaves. One such slave is sprung from his scheduled brainwash update by members of the resistance who attempt to break his programming with the help of his wife in the hope that he can be used against the leader of the occupying forces. Erich Anderson may be the brainwashed slave slowly coming out of his induced coma, but this is Brent Spiner's show all the way. Playing the dedicated, and ruthless, deprogrammer with a relish that belies his 'emotionless' performance as Data in STAR TREK:THE NEXT GENERATION. Sadly, the plot itself has been seen before and the twist in the tail can be seen coming from a long way off. It's still competently done and is delightfully downbeat in the denoument. TopPARADISEA deputy encounters a young woman in a bar, gets picked up and then freaks out when she suddenly ages to death after sex. A second woman is found dead in similar condition and then the deputy s elderly mother shows up as a younger woman. Can the sheriff and his doctor wife figure out what is going on before her mother becomes the fourth victim of this strange curse? Now this is how a short mystery is supposed to be played out. Something is happening and it s weird. The characters can barely believe it, have to sort out the clues and eventually get to an answer that, unfortunately, turns out to be less interesting than everything that had led up to it. That s a shame because it s an beguiling mystery and it s nice to see the older generation involved for a change, but the explanation is given as a chunk of flashback commentary and the final resolution leaves a taste of so what in your mouth. TopTHE LIGHT BRIGADEA last ditch effort to destroy the alien race that has been locked in war with humanity almost fails as an enemy attack leaves a bomber crippled in space. A lowly group of spacers must fight their way through the crumbling ship to deliver the payload, becoming heroes along the way. Forget the heavy-handed symbolism of using Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem in the plotline and deal with this as a rip-roaring adventure yarn and you'll get more out of it. The struggle to the armoury is beset with problems to be overcome, but there is also a strong amount of characterisation on show. Wil Wheaton's idealistic cadet learning the truth about war and heroism from bitter experience may only be a step away from Wesley Crusher in STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, but he has Graham Greene's war weary veteran and Robert Patrick's cynical ex-pow to guide him. All three give good quality performances, making the most of a script that is a good story with some actual depth. This being a sort of sequel to The Quality of Mercy those who have seen that episode will have prior knowledge of the crafty alien nemesis the crewmen are facing. Those that haven't are possibly in the better position to enjoy the twists and turns of the plot right up to the final reveal. This is how it should be done with a smart plot carrying the messages inside with no sense of being po-faced or portentous. One of the best stories to date. TopFALLING STARA pop star who used to be able to fill 70,000 seater stadiums is on the skids and decides to swallow a bottle of pills, but is stopped by a ghostly image in the mirror. The other woman explains that she is a time tourist from a sterile future who believes the star's music can change the world. The time police, however, have a different opinion, one that requires the pop star's death. Sheena Easton has the voice to convince as a singing star (especially since she was one) and does OK in the acting stakes, but the idea that the music she is making can change the future development of society is undermined by the fact that it's generic light rock with no lasting power. If the audience isn't humming it straight after the show then how can it change anything. The set up with the face in the mirror is nicely done, but it descends into general action running around and there is a shadow over the whole thing that is its similarity in backstory to BILL AND TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY. TopOUT OF BODYFollowing a road crash and her temporary death, a woman scientist and her husband try to recreate her out of body experience by scientific means. Religious fundamentalists messing with their work, however, cause a mishap, leaving the woman trapped in the spirit world. Some absolutely atrocious special effects from the very beginning denoting the effects of out of body experience means that this story is never going to be taken seriously. Making the religous types so one-dimensional doesn't help and neither does not knowing what to do with the woman once she's disembodied. TopVANISHING ACTA man wakes up after a car accident to find that ten years have passed and his wife is just a little bit angry with him. When he wins her back but then wakes up to find that another decade has gone and she is now with his 9-year old child and a new husband he is somewhat perturbed. Another decade leap and the family realise that he s not just doing a runner, but something deeply strange is happening. Subsequent jumps implicate alien beings, but can they stop his decade leaping before he outlives his entire family? An intriguing little tale, this is somewhat marred by the fact that it is obvious from very early on that aliens are involved. The scenes showing visits to an alien environment give away the truth right from the start which is a shame as the decade jumping is a nice idea and not knowing aliens were involved would have enhanced the mystery aspect as well as the emotional impact on the characters involved. Jon Cryer is perfectly fine as the man unstuck in time, although he looks too young to be married right at the start, stuck on moustache or not, let alone by the end. TopTHE SENTENCEWhilst demonstrating his virtual prison for government officials, a researcher must submit himself to his own punishment machine in order to save an innocent man. When he fails, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to a real prison for twenty years. The twist that lies at the heart of this story isn't so much predictable as inevitable. Fortunately, David Hyde Pierce's portrayal of a man coming to terms with the real life consequences of his virtual world building is compelling enough make the episode worth spending the time to watch, even when it is so obvious how it's going to end up. Through denial, rebellion and into acceptance, his descent and rebuilding under the harsh prison regime isn't given quite the time it needs to be convincing, but it is impressive all the same. And at least we were spared having to watch another compilation of clips like at the end of Season 1. Top |
