THE OUTER LIMITS |
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The Voice - Kevin Conway Stan Harbinger - Joe Pantoliano Darcy Kipling - Leslie Hope Peter Halstead - Robert Hays Gene Morton - Ralph Waite Marlon - Roddy Piper Neal Eberhardt - Ralph Macchio Marty Gilmore - Michael Sarrazin Ted Harris - Cliff Robertson Carlton Powers - Barry Corbin Lil Vaughn - Andrea Martin Marie Wells - Samantha Mathis Thomas Tilford - David Ogden Stiers John York - Carey Elwes Lady Julia - Frances Fisher Aaron Zgierski - Saul Rubinek Prosser - Micahel Ironside Katherine Woods - Marcia Cross Thurman - John Spencer Lester Glade - Ronny Cox Dan Kagan - Daniel Baldwin Nathan Seward - Joel Grey Joe Dell - Bill Cobbs Michael Ryan - Nathan Fillion 
Other Seasons
Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 Season 4 Season 6 Season 7 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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ALIEN RADIOA radio shock jock, who has built a career out of insulting UFO nuts on his show finds his outlook on life is much changed when a caller who has claimed to have aliens inside him sets fire to himself in the parking lot. What is real and what is not has always been a central plank of THE OUTER LIMITS' stock in trade, as has sneaky alien invasions and giving unlikeable people their comeuppance. There is something of John Carpenter's THEY LIVE in this episode;an ordinary man comes face to face with a truth he cannot ignore, but others cannot see. Added to that are alien hunters who are not the nuts they appear to be and cops that aren't the enforcers they appear to be. And then there's the glowing aliens who may or may not be the result of stress-induced paranoia. All of this is based around an intense performance from Joe Pantoliano, whether pulling his performative on-air anger or his rapid degeneration into desperation, and possibly madness. Whatever else you might think, you can't question his commitment. Show regular Leslie Hope is on hand to play a femme fatale and a voice of reason, whilst postulating the unreasonable. The outcome is never really in doubt and this season opener is only a mid-level entry into the show. TopDONORThe inventor of a revolutionary whole body transplant process is the first subject when a murder victim matches his rather unusual medical conditions. During the recovery phase, he moves in with his colleague and starts a relationship, but suffers vivid hallucinations of a woman and child he does not know. Yes, it's THE HANDS OF ORLAC or any of the other versions of the FRANKENSTEIN story where a grafted on body part starts to take over the recipient's life. In this case, though, the donated body isn't that of a killer or villain, but of a family man. Thus, we have the set up for another of THE OUTER LIMITS's repertoire of rather tedious love triangles. Without the likeable presence of Robert Hays as the man with the new body, this would just be a tired and trite re-hash of old ideas and storylines. His presence alone manages to get the audience to the final twist that, if we were being honest, we all saw coming some way off. TopSMALL FRIENDSA convict with a skill for working on miniaturised electronic creates a swarm of tiny robots that can do wonderful things. The other convicts force him to use them as a way of breaking out. Are there really prisons where convicts work in clean rooms and create advanced electronics rather than hammer out number plates. Is that a thing? The conceit seems unlikely, but there isn't much about this story that isn't unlikely. Everyone loves the Professor, the central character and yet there is no obvious reason for it. True, he gives his grandson neat gifts, but to everyone else he is dismissive, rude and thoroughly self-centred. If it wasn't for Ralph Waite playing the part, the audience wouldn't have any reason at all to root for this uninterested, uninvolved ingrate. Yes, he's dealing with his own inner demons over killing someone, but his reactions to everyone else are so strange, and changeable, as to not be a consistent character. His mood is whatever the plot needs it to be at the time. Fortunately, the plot takes its time in revealing where it is going, building up to the home invasion finale through some other familiar prison tropes that are too familiar to be shocking and feel a bit, well, unlikely. TopTHE GRELLWhen rebels shoot down a shuttle, a high-ranking minister, his family and his household Grell slave are stranded and at the mercy of both the rebels and their own prejudices. Slavery is bad. I think we can all pretty much agree on that, but this episode riffs on ALIEN NATION and ENEMY MINE (especially in the design of the Grells themselves) to remake the point that when we empathise, our prejudices fall away. It's hardly a revelation, but the characters have sufficient depth and the story has sufficient twists to prevent it from becoming too preachy. The Grell makeup is excellent and the added effects of glowing saliva certainly add to the overall impression. The performances further enhance the experience. Less successful is the backstory. It is not exactly made clear how a race of beings as intelligence and spiritual as the Grells were immediately taken into slavery by the humans. That is never convincing at all. Fortunately, it doesn't overshadow what is an excellent episode. TopTHE OTHER SIDEA young scientist starts to push the boundaries of his experiments with brain-damaged patients when he makes a discovery that suggests there may be a place beyond brain death. There is absolutely nothing new in this story of an ambitious scientist pushing his boundaries, experimenting on himself, driving away those who love him with his zeal and facing off against the doubting authorities. It is easy to see every development coming long before it actually happens and every development progresses exactly as expected. Predictability aside, the episode is perfectly passable. This is partly down to the committed work by the cast, breathing new life into the old ideas. The representation of the 'afterlife' is overly sentimental, as are the trio that first inhabit it, but that's balanced by the relatively convincing medical setting of the real world. There is enough going on to keep the episode interesting, but it never transcends into anything special. TopJOYRIDEDecades after reporting a close encounter and aborting an orbital mission, an ageing ex-astronaut gets the chance to take part in the first commercial space tourism flight in the hope of proving what he said was true and not a hallucination brought about by a mental breakdown. It isn't often stories are focussed around older people, so it is refreshing to find a tale that is only about older people. This allows a quality cast of older actors to show what can be done with a decent script. Cliff Robertson anchors everything with a nuanced performance as the (potentially unjustly) washed up spaceman searching for redemption. He is matched by Barry Corbin's showboating billionaire and Andrea Martin's tired business magnate, the three giving their characters a life and depth that isn't always the case. Since the episode is more about the characters than the plot, the performances elevate the episode above what is otherwise a fairly standard storyline. The effects are mainly a background of space for the later section of the episode and are up to standard. The twist at the end that is de rigeur with the show is one of the weakest elements. Still, the time spent with the characters more than makes up for that. TopTHE HUMAN OPERATORSA young man lives his life as a virtual slave aboard a sentient, and apparently hostile, spaceship. He fixes the systems and suffers 'the rack' if he disobeys. The arrival of a young woman from another ship, asking him to give her a baby is destined to change his life. The set up for this episode is an excellent one. The idea of a human crewman, second generation, held in thrall to the computerised systems of the spaceship is a novel one and nicely introduced. The introduction of the female crewmember introduces a number of developments that are predictable, but played with enough conviction and charm to keep things interesting. The eventual denoument fails to surprise or convince, but the journey on the way is worth the effort. TopBLANK SLATEA man stumbles into a homeless shelter suffering from amnesia and on the run. He is also carrying a briefcase of what appears to be his memories in liquid form. This is a fairly stock mystery storyline with an amnesiac on the run, slowly regaining their memory and explaining how they lost it in the first place whilst trying to avoid capture by the malign forces pursuing them. There is a twist in the tale, of course, and the whole purpose of the plot is to get to that twist. Unfortunately, it isn't strong enough to support the rather dull nature of everything that happened before its arrival. TopWHAT WILL THE NEIGHBOURS THINKA freak accident in the basement of her building gives hypochondriac Mona the ability to read the minds of her neighbours. At first, the experience is humorous, but then it turns threatening. Since all the neighbours are thoroughly horrible people, it is very hard to care what they will think. Mona is also not very likeable, which doesn't make the narrative any more appealing, especially when she starts a campaign of poison pen letters. The unflattering close ups in which the unspoken thoughts are presented make each person seem even worse and so the inevitable collisions between the various inhabitants of the building are neither shocking nor worthy of cheering. It's not badly done at all, but why would anyone want to spend even the running time of the episode with these people? TopTHE SHROUDA young woman becomes suspicious about the motives of the religious leader whose fertility clinic has given her and her husband hope of having a baby. This is a sort of reverse ROSEMARY'S BABY in which, instead of a coven of witches trying to bring forth Lucifer's son a holy order is trying to bring about the second coming of Christ through strands of DNA extracted from the Turin Shroud. It's a surprisingly clever idea, if you ignore all the problems the Turin Shroud has as a believable relic, mixing religion and science in a provocative way. Unfortunately, the story doesn't know what to do with the idea. Instead of playing with all the potential theological consequences of such an idea, it turns into a low brow horror plot involving telekinetic foetuses and religious fanatics, with an innocent woman in the middle. David Ogden Stiers is impressive as the overzealous and eventually cold-hearted and murderous minister and Samantha Mathis is fine in the central role, but there simply isn't enough thought in the plot to make the most of the central conceit. Disappointing. TopRIPPERA disgraced doctor becomes convinced that a snakelike alien creature jumping from body to body is responsible for a series of gruesome deaths in the Whitechapel area of London in 1888. Now here's a real novelty in this show, a period episode. It is not a surprise, however, to find a story centred around Jack the Ripper. Science fiction shows seems incapable of resisting revisiting the story of the world's most famous serial killer. The ripper, though, is a background character to what is a story of obsession and redemption. Cary Elwes is the louche disgraced John York, drowning his sorrows in absinthe and brothel visits. Until, that is, he witnesses one of the murders, committed by a glowing snake creature emerging from one woman's body to enter another. Finding himself as a suspect, he works tirelessly to locate and kill the creature, driving away his girlfriend in the process and increasing his guilt in the eyes of the dogged inspector investigating the case. Having played the ripper himself in TIME AFTER TIME David Warner is his usual dependable self as the man chasing the killer. The time and place are well-realised by the production team and the monster is one of the better looking ones for the brief time it spends on screen. The final outcome of the story may lack the oomph of a solid twist, but everything else compensates for that quite nicely. TopTRIBUNALAaron is the son of a Holocaust survivor and had hunted down the man he believes killed his father's first wife and his own half-sister. He is certain of his facts, but does not have evidence enough for a court of law. Then a mysterious stranger arrives with evidence that should be impossible to provide. Aaron is about to become more personally acquainted with his father's experience than he could imagine. Taking on the Holocaust as a subject is fraught with danger. Too glib and you are accused of minimising the horrors of that time. Too grim and you alienate an audience that came just for an hour of science fiction. Tribunal straddles that line with confidence and accomplishment to provide an episode that is filled with emotion, grace and, surprisingly for a story centred about one of the darkest times in mankind's history. humanity. It is, in fact, one of the very best episodes the show has yet produced, deftly combining its frivolous time travel theme with the stark observations of life in a concentration camp. That neither diminishes the other is testament to how good the episode is. The acting is top notch all around, though major praise needs to go to Alex Zahara as the cold-eyed, cold-hearted nazi in the camp. His portrayal makes the unique mode of justice only a science fiction show could produce all the more satisfying. That, though, isn't the end of it. Another twist is pulled out of the hat, a twist that has been set up from the beginning in the way certain scenes have been shot. Be warned, there could be some very runny eyes come the end. Tribunal shows what a series like THE OUTER LIMITS is capable of; tackling difficult aspects of the human spirit through the lens of quality science fiction storytellling to throw our essential humanity (or lack of it) into sharp relief. You can feel the love and respect that everyone involved had for this very special story and very special episode. If you only ever see one episode of THE OUTER LIMITS this is one to be recommended. TopSUMMITWith battle fleets poised to unleash hell upon each other, two teams of negotiators meet on a lifeless planetoid to try and avoid all out war. Suspicions are exacerbated when both sides crash and their histories and prejudices push the hope for peace further away. Take a group of generally good people with equally good reasons to hate and distrust each other, make the stakes high and let them loose on each other; it's a simple recipe for drama and, in this case, an effective one. Filling the cast with reliable performers who can embody their characters quickly and without the need for extensive backstories is the key that elevates the story. Michael Ironside commands the scene from the moment he arrives, all fierce and angry intelligence barely restrained, digging under the skin of his female opponent with unrestrained glee whilst still keeping the desired end in mind. It is Marcia Cross who is the main protagonist, though, and she manages to maintain that focus even when battling Ironside's irresisitible presence. The negotiation sequences are nicely written and excellently played, the core of the episode. The extended sacrifice section at the end seems like an unnecessary addition, tacked on and less believable than anything that had gone before./p>
Top DESCENTA mild-mannered scientist researching the genetic components of dominant behaviour in primitive man experiments on himself when he is threatened with funding cuts. Genetic engineering provides an opportunity to revisit the story of a weak man giving himself a more confident and dominant personality, living is life better than before. Things start going his way, but there is always a price to be paid and that is inevitable and predictable, even before it was embodied in the title of the episode. The cast do what they can with the uninspired plot and dialogue, but in the end, every beat of the story is seen coming a mile off and the outcome fails to engender sympathy for any of the two dimensional characters. TopTHE HAVENThe Haven is a high-tech, ultra-secure building for single occupants who want to protect themselves from the people around them. When the power fails, a small group finds themselves fighting for their lives against the very systems designed to protect them. Artificially intelligent buildings have been imprisoning their inhabitants in science fiction for a long time. It's a familiar trope. The increasing detachment and fear of modern living add to the mix and then there is the reason why the AI has turned on its residents, another trope that has become familiar. That said, these unoriginal elements have been woven together into an entertaining tale of survival, a modern equivalent of the 70s disaster movies. The characters are drawn with just enough depth to make their eventual fate matter, though the episode will not last long in the memory past its ending. TopDEJA VUThe civilian head of a military project into matter transportation finds himself locked into a time loop when the latest experiment goes disastrously wrong. Can he work out what went wrong or will he be forced to enter another loop, with each getting shorter than the one before. This GROUNDHOG DAY episode shows up in almost every science fiction show ever, the day repeating itself over and over until either disaster strikes or the main character finds out what caused the issue, and the loop, and puts it right in the nick of time. There is nothing here that alters the formula at all, but it's a pretty good formula and familiarity is pretty much baked into the plotline. There is, of course, a reveal right at the end as to who the villain of the piece is, but that's not much of a reveal as it's pretty much obvious from the beginning. The penance paid, however, is innovative. TopTHE INHERITORSThree people mortally injured by shrapnel from an exploding meteor get up from the autopsy table and walk away. A doctor in the Medical Examiner's Office tries to understand how this is possible and is forced to take a leap of faith with his comatose wife. A fairly standard, and not all that interesting, episode follows three alien-infested human bodies who have a purpose on Earth, a purpose that involves dying patients and that they claim is in the best interests of both those patients and the race of another planet, also dying. The procedural side of the story is unoriginal and plodding, with the usual inabilities to convince people in authority about what is going on and the even more unconvincing ability to procure materials enough to fashion an alien device pretty much overnight. What sets the episode apart is that it doesn't spoon feed its outcome. The main character has to take a leap of faith, but the outcome of that leap of faite is not shown. We are left not knowing if he was right or duped. The probability is heavily stacked in one direction, sure, but it's a refreshing change that a final scene proving it is not included. TopESSENCE OF LIFEIn a post-plague future, obeience is prized and feeling too much is frowned upon. A man who peddles a drug allowing people to experience time with their lost loved ones is therefore a criminal of the highest order. One of the finest of the chasing agents gets close enough to an arrest to experience the effects of the drug for himself. The set up for this episode is much more impressive than the story that plays out within it. The repressive regime is hinted at just enough to create a plausible reason for the drug dealer to be considered as public enemy number one by the authorities. This position is immediately undermined by the presence of Joel Grey in the role, creating a sympathetic and desperate, but hardly evil antagonist. Sadly, his performance cannot be matched by that of Daniel Baldwin. There is little subtlety in his central performance, over-emoting throughout, but that is matched by the lashing mood swings in the piece, from the schmaltzy love of his partner subplot (which sets up a completely predictable twist in the tail of the tale) to the horror-inflected middle section visitations from his 'partner from the id'. Both performance and direction seem a bit histrionic, especially when juxtaposed against Grey's more subtle and nuanced presence. The other performers get barely a chance to make an impact, delivering neither a previous partner worthy of such love and guilt nor a current love interest who does anything more than make cow eyes at the hero. TopSTRANDEDA high school misfit finds a crashed spaceship with an injured shape-changing alien crew member who seems to understand him better than even his own family. High school's not great for geeks. This is not exactly news. Family's don't always get along. Also not news. Sometimes parents seem to favour one child over the other, even if they don't mean to. More non-news. There is very little of interest at all in this story. There's so little that even a subplot about a strength patch allowing the kid to overcome a bully at school can be inserted without the aid of a crowbar. It is true that the father is a little bit odious and so when he asks his son to choose him over the supportive alien simply because he is, well, alien the plea comes across as more than a little hollow. The true identity of the alien and the twist at the end are so obvious it's hard to understand how the characters can't figure it out immediately. This is one to leave stranded. TopFATHERS AND SONSWhen his beloved blues-playing grandfather starts to mentally degenerate after being admitted into retirement home and his loathed father starts to become a sudden computer genius, a would-be musician suspects some sort of foul play, but could not imagine how they could be linked. A plush retirement home mistreating its residents in order to make profits? That's a storyline as relevant today as when this episode was first shown. It's an emotive and important subject and the episode manages to treat it respectfully for the most part. The profit motive is developed later on to provide a bit more depth, and science fiction, than simply stealing their children's money for substandard treatment. The depiction of mental decline is quite emotionally hardhitting at first, but is then given the sci-fi twist that dilutes it a bit, but it is a sci-fi show after all. What helps immeasurably is that the characters are more believable than is often the case. Bill Cobb is a defining presence as the blues-singing oldster, anchoring the episode, but Eugene Byrd does a good job of making his central role of an angry young man much more nuanced than the shrill teenager he must have appeared on the page. Their relationship makes the episode work. The evil axis of profiteering scientist (with a weak argument of preserving what would be lost from the older generations in the younger ones) and domineering father (who could have used a lot more explanation in terms of his anger and envy over his son and father's relationship and his own failed dreams) are bland and forgettable. Considering their differing outcomes, they should both have been better developed. Once again, the themes outshine the plotting, but the characters and main performances are enough to overcome this and make it one of the better episodes of the show recently. TopSTARCROSSEDArchangel is a neutral city on the border between Human and Hing controlled areas of Eastern Europe. The owner of a coffee bar finds his own personal neutrality when an ex-girlfriend shows up carrying a parasite that could end the alien occupation. If they can find a way out of the city, that is. CASABLANCA is a stone-cold classic, so if you're going to base your story it you are asking for unfavourable comparisons from the outset. Unless your story is very, very good indeed, of course. Starcrossed is not very, very good indeed. In fact, it's a barely average episode of the show. The aliens look like humans for the majority of the time, so it plays as a bad film noir rather than science fiction. The city is reduced to a bar, a garage and a back alley. The bad guys have gloves that burn as they hit, but that's about the extent of the special effects. Relying on a plot stolen from one of the great films is one thing, but you need to have a cast that will be worthy if you are to avoid anything but derision.. Nathan Fillion (FIREFLY) is a fine screen presence, but he is hardly Humphrey Bogart. None of the other members of the cast can match up to their counterparts even a fraction as much as Fillion does. Throwing in a topless sauna scene and a couple of musical numbers doesn't help much either. If you've never seen, or don't much like, CASABLANCA, then there might be just enough here to get you through the running time, but otherwise this is going to be nothing more than a massive disappointment and possibly even a sacrilege. TopBETTER LUCK NEXT TIMEA detective trying to understand a bizarre shootout in a deserted warehouse finds herself faced with some stories she finds very hard to believe. End of the season means the traditional clips show. This time it's a police interrogation framing device, that works well enough on its own, but builds up to an ending that gives the aliens a bit more of an interesting backstory than might have been expected. Unfortunately, it's not enough to overcome the general lack on interest that a repeats show generates. Top |
