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[May 12, 1964] Secrets Beyond Human Understanding (The Outer Limits, Season One, Episodes 29-32)

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by Natalie Devitt

No matter how much scientists, inventors and aliens try to control all the conditions for the experiments they conduct on The Outer Limits, things almost never seem to go as anticipated, and often result in them veering into much stranger territory. The most recent month certainly did not stray from the usual formula of experiments going wrong. Episodes included the following: aliens teleporting a suburban neighborhood and its residents to another planet to determine whether or not to enslave humans, only for the humans to discover this before the study is completed; an accident occurring during a test in a research facility releases an energy that takes over people‘s bodies; an intelligence agent goes undercover as an alien, only for him to adapt to his alien form a little too well; and two women deal with unforeseen complications when they meet an inventor capable of bringing the man they murdered back to life.

A Feasibility Study, by Joseph Stefano

A Feasibility Study is the story of a group of neighbors that wake up one morning to find that things seem a little off. At first, they notice the unusual weather, then some vehicles have difficulty starting and the phones lines seem to be down. One character tells her husband, "It’s not raining, but it’s doing something, and I’ll bet it’s radioactive." As it turns out, things are much more serious that they ever could have been imagined. Their entire neighborhood, including their homes and everything surrounding them, have been teleported while everyone slept to another planet called Luminos.

The people are imprisoned on Luminos for one reason and one reason only; as the opening narration states: "The Luminoids need slaves, and they have chosen the planet off which those slaves will be abducted." The whole thing is part of a feasibility study to see if humans would make suitable slaves for the Luminoids, who grow mentally sharper but less mobile with age. The only problem is that the inhabitants of the neighborhood realize that they have become "human guinea pigs" sooner than the Luminoids expected.

People always compare The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone, and though they really are two different beasts, this episode is a real treat for fans of The Twilight Zone because most of the actors in it have made appearance on that show. Such actors include David Opatoshu, who starred in Valley of the Shadow, Joyce Van Patton, who was in last season’s Passage of Lady Anne, and then there is Phyllis Love of Four O’Clock.

A Feasibility Study includes incredibly realistic acting and impressive set design. The episode is also extremely atmospheric, with no shortage of fog. The score has a noticeably different and more experimental quality to it than most other entries in the series. Nowhere is it more effective than in a scene where one of the characters is driving through the fog as an alien hand reaches out and touches his car’s windshield. All of the subplots in the script work together very well, and only help to elevate the main plot. Overall, the episode was a easily one of the high points of the season. It deserves four stars.

Production and Decay of Strange Particles, by Leslie Stevens

Production and Decay of Special Particles involves an accident at a research facility, which ends up allowing an energy alien to possess the bodies of the employees at the facility one by one. The situation is explained as being similar to "a hole torn in the universe.” All of this leaves the head of the facility, played by none other than George McCready, who appeared in The Twilight Zone‘s The Long Morrow and in the vastly superiorThe Outer Limits’s episode The Invisibles to team up with his character’s wife in order to stop the creature, which is characterized as "something from another dimension" and capable of presenting itself in "a human form". He must also prevent it from getting beyond the confines of the property.

I have to admit that, as much as I was excited to see the show really dive into the hard sciences, this episode required a little too much outside knowledge for the average viewer to understand it, much less appreciate it. With little to no explanation, combined with the issue that the episode does not have much going on visually, things begin to drag real quick. In addition to these problems, there is some stock footage awkwardly edited into the episode and plenty of over-acting.

When I was not brushing up on my physics vocabulary, I spent much of the episode watching men in suits barely moving, with constant crackling noises in the background. While I am happy to see the show do something different with an episode more heavily-rooted in science, even if it involves yet another energy being, the episode needed something else to maintain an audience‘s attention. After taking all of these things into consideration, two stars is all that I can give to Production and Decay of Special Particles.

The Chameleon, by Robert Towne

Robert Duvall, who made The Twilight Zone‘s Miniature worth watching, plays Louis, a man with nothing to lose. Louis is hired by his former employer, the CIA, to undergo a dramatic transformation in order to play the role of an extraterrestrial. He is instructed to "become one of them.” He is provided with a cover story, which includes directives like, "once you are with them, you will tell them that you landed long ago on Earth, crash landed. You remember nothing of your origin. What little language you know, you got from humans.”

All of this is being done in order to collect information on an alien spaceship that landed and has already killed the last group of men to patrol the area. It is feared that the aliens in charge of the ship may be carrying "nuclear material,” so people are understandably reluctant to attack the aliens. The only problem is that things go a little "too well.” Louis becomes increasingly difficult to control, and once he is in alien form, his sympathies begin to shift.

Duval brings a vulnerability to the role of a washed up agent before he undergoes the transformation. He then becomes a man-made extraterrestrial, not unlike the man-made creature in The Architects of Fear. The aliens in The Chameleon, are of course odd-looking, with beady eyes and wrinkled faces. They also have veins that bulge out of their bald heads. The major twist with Louis changing sides was interesting enough, but at the end of the day, it is really Robert Duvall’s skills as an actor that earns this episode its three stars.

The Forms of Things Unknown, by Joseph Stefano

Psycho’s Vera Miles plays Kassia, one of two young women who poison the drink of a very unpleasant man named Andre, played by Scott Marlowe in his second appearance on The Outer Limits. Kassia’s accomplice is named Leonora. The ladies stuff Andre’s body into the trunk of a car, and drive around looking for the perfect place to dispose of it. Leonora ends up leading them to a big, old house, where they are told that they are welcome to warm themselves by the fire.

While inside, they notice the sound of several ticking clocks. They are told that the noise comes from "a special room upstairs.” Inside the room is where an inventor named Mr. Hobart "tinkers with time.” His experiments with time have become so sophisticated that he can cause the past to "tumble into the present.” Such experiments could bring Andre back to life, with some pretty disastrous results.

The part of the narrative involving Lenora and Kassia murdering Andre reminded me an awful lot of the 1955 French film Diabolique. Similarities aside, the plot in The Forms of Things Unknown, is a little flimsy. But that almost does not even matter, because the episode’s cinematography and set design are nothing short of perfection. The acting, however, was a little short of being consistently good. That said, Vera Miles delivers a fine performance and has a number of amusing lines. David McCallen returns to the show for another memorable performance after the great The Sixth Finger. Even veteran actor Cedric Hardwicke, who recently appeared in The Twilight Zone‘s Uncle Simon, shows up playing host to all the episode’s craziness. Despite some flaws this hour of the series is still definitely worth the watch. The Forms of Things Unknown earns three and a half stars.

All in all, it has been an interesting month on The Outer Limits.  Most episodes featured the kinds of stories and the quality I have come to expect of this series, while only one entry was a bit of a letdown. With this being the last set of episodes of the season, I have to say it has been a lot of fun watching this show really hit its stride. I cannot wait to see what new creatures and stories are in store for the series in the fall.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]



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[January 16, 1964] Man’s Dark and Troubled History (The Outer Limits, Season 1, Episodes 13-16)

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by Natalie Devitt

This past month on The Outer Limits has been a meditation on man’s past actions and his darker qualities. Over the course of the month, I watched men motivated by greed, aliens target Earth specifically because of their negative perception of people, scientists treat their fellow men like nothing more than laboratory animals, and Martians try to figure out what motivates human beings to kill one another.

Tourist Attraction, by Dean Riesner

While aboard his yacht in South America, millionaire and United States citizen John Dexter, portrayed by Kiss Me Deadly’s Ralph Meeker, captures a fish that is larger than your average fish. In addition to its massive size, one of the men aboard his yacht observes that it “has hands and feet.” Dexter soon finds out that the animal’s extremities are not the only thing special about the creature and that the locals have legends about it.

The fish is frozen and taken to a local university for research, where it thaws out and almost escapes. Hungry for fame, Dexter makes arrangements to bring the being with him when he returns to the states. The only thing that stands in his way is General Juan Mercurio, the dictator of the country. Mercurio is played by Ocean 11’s Henry Silva, and he plans to make the fish part of an exhibit at the World’s Fair, in hopes of boosting the country’s dwindling tourism industry.

One thing that sets Tourist Attraction apart from previous entries in the series is its frequent use of narration. The average episode of The Outer Limits only uses a narrator for the opening and closing monologue, but Tourist Attraction uses it off and on throughout the story, which is frustrating because it does not seem to add much. If anything, the narrator can be a bit distracting, especially since he disappears for a while, just to start again suddenly.

One other downside to the episode is that it is hard to watch Tourist Attraction and not think that it may be a little too heavily influenced by Creature from the Black Lagoon and the two sequels that followed. Even with all the things counting against this episode, for some reason I found myself entertained. It is not nearly as sophisticated or as artistically ambitious as something like last month's Nightmare, but it is enjoyable, and would probably not be out of place as the B movie in a double feature. Tourist Attraction earns three stars from me.

The Zanti Misfits, by Joseph Stefano

The Zanti Misfits takes place in a ghost town in California. Professor Steven Graves, a “historian of interplanetary events”, performed by television actor Michael Tolan, goes to observe a penal ship from the planet of Zanti land in what is supposed to be a “non-hostile sequence.”

The Zanti have an agreement with the United States government, where the government allows the aliens to land their spacecraft in the deserted town and use it as “a place of exile for their criminals and misfits.” If the government does not properly secure the area and maintain their privacy, the extraterrestrials vow “total destruction.”

As luck would have it, the aliens are in the process of landing their spaceship when the Zanti spot a couple, played by Bruce Dern and Olive Deering. The couple are fleeing the scene of a crime and have driven into the restricted area. Thinking their privacy was been invaded, the Zanti are determined to make sure there were no witnesses to their landing, and later reveal a surprising reason for picking Earth for their colony, which is that they view humans as “practiced executioners.”

This episode's creatures are certainly memorable, with their ant-like bodies and faces that look all too human. As interesting as the Zantis look, the episode’s greatest strength aside from the story, is probably its use of stop-motion animation, which is best captured in a sequence where the Zanti chase after Olive Deering’s character, Lisa. The entire thing is shot in broad daylight, but the stop motion combined with buzzing sounds of the Zanti make it enough to give anyone nightmares. All in all, this episode is the standout of the month, which is why it earns four stars.

The Mice, by Bill S. Ballinger and Joseph Stefano

Henry Silva returns for a second trip to The Outer Limits this month. In The Mice, he plays a convict named Chino Rivera, who volunteers to be a test subject in an experiment. In the experiment, Rivera will teleported to the planet of Chromo. In exchange, Chromo will send one of their beings. When Chromo transmits one of their inhabitants, the scientists encounter a being infinitely more dangerous than Rivera.

Tourist Attraction did not do much to showcase Silva’s talent as an actor, but The Mice certainly does. Silva makes a convicted murder the most likable character in the whole story, even when the other characters do not treat him with the respect he deserves and he has to remind them that he is person, just like them.

What would The Outer Limits be without the crazy monsters and aliens? The Mice certainly delivers one of the strangest monsters I have seen yet, one that resembles a glob of mucus. Also, like most episodes of the series, it does not hurt that the episode is beautifully filmed. The Mice receives three and a half stars from me.

Controlled Experiment, by Leslie Stevens

Carrol O'Connor and Barry Morse star as two Martians in Controlled Experiment. Barry Morse, who most Twilight Zone fans will recognize from A Piano in the House plays Phobos One, an alien who enlists the help of television actor Carrol O'Connor's character, Deimos, to understand the "process of Earth creatures destroying each other." Shortly before a murder in committed, their fellow Martians inform them of the time and location. Once they receive the information, Phobos One and Deimos bring a machine that helps them manipulate time and rush to a local hotel lobby, where they wait for the murder to take place.

As the Martians play with their devise and change time, a number of special effects are utilized. There are times that the images on screen resemble film negatives. Other times, images come into and out of focus. The men from Mars freeze time and replay events that have already occurred. When events are replayed, sometimes they are in slow motion, while other times things are sped up. Controlled Experiment is similar to the previous episode Borderlands, because it does not have the strongest story but it often looks fantastic.

The whole thing felt a bit long to stretch out for a full hour, especially since the Martians replay the same event over and over. It works for a while, but then starts to wear thin. One thing worth noting is that this episode marks the show’s first foray into comedy, even if it is making light of a serious issue. Due to its visual achievements, it is better than The Twilight Zone's attempts at humor, but it is far from the most memorable entry of The Outer Limits. I can only give Controlled Experiment two and a half stars, which are primarily for its special effects and cinematography.

As dark as The Outer Limits has been recently, it has been mostly rewarding to watch and it has expressed hope for a brighter future. To wit: the closing monologue to The Mice, which states, “Wouldn’t it seem that the misery known and understood by all men would lead Man not to deception and murder, but to faith, and hope and love?”

(Did you read about all the ways the Journey expanded last year? Catch up and see what you missed!)



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[December 19, 1963] Veiled Secrets (The Outer Limits, Season 1, Episodes 9-12)

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by Natalie Devitt

[Time is running out to get your Worldcon membership! Register here to be able to vote for the Hugos.]

It seems that during this past month of The Outer Limits almost everyone has a secret. Whether it’s aliens plotting to take over the world, prisoners of war resisting their interrogators, a research facility with a monster hidden away in the back of a laboratory, or phony mediums pretending to make contact with the dead; everyone is going to great lengths to hide something…

Corpus Earthling, by Orin Borsten

Robert Culp returns to The Outer Limits. This time for Corpus Earthling, which is adapted from Louis Charbonneau’s novel by the same name. Corpus Earthling is not quite as strong of a story as Culp’s last outing on the series, The Architects of Fear, but it is not without its charm. Corpus Earthling is the story of Doctor Cameron, portrayed by Culp, who while working in the lab one day, overhears two aliens plotting to take over the world. According to the show’s narrator, these extraterrestrials are posing as "two black crystalline rocks: unclassifiable. Objects on the border between the living and the nonliving."

If this sounds silly, bear with me. Despite rocks not actually being able to speak, there is reason to believe that Cameron’s ability to hear the rocks communicating may be the result of a plate that was implanted in his head. Or could it just simply be him imagining things because of the injury that led him to get the plate in the first place? Worried that he may be losing his grip on reality, Cameron and his wife, wonderfully played by Angel Baby actress Salome Jens, decide to take the honeymoon that they had been postponing. The couple take off to Tijuana, unaware that the rocks have already possessed the body of Cameron’s colleague, Doctor Temple, played by television actor Barry Atwater. Temple follows Cameron and his wife all the way to Mexico, vowing to catch Cameron at any cost.

The last time rocks from outer space seemed this threatening was the 1957 film, The Monolith Monsters. Like The Monolith Monsters, Corpus Earthling is probably not for everyone, but that’s okay. Both are perfectly enjoyable to me. The rocks at the center of this story resemble two Jell-O molds that jiggle every time they communicate with one another. They also morph into other shapes that at times are no more scary than the title creature from William Castle’s The Tingler before eventually controlling Doctor Temple’s body. Once the alien rocks take over Doctor Temple‘s body, the episode improves dramatically. Temple becomes cold and emotionless. He speaks with a strange echo. Additionally, Temple ages rapidly and looks like a ghoul from Carnival of Souls.

Cinematographer Conrad Hall did a terrific job with this episode. Corpus Earthling uses shadows to create a dark atmosphere, and as a result the episode feels like a horror movie. The viewer knows Doctor Temple is stalking them and could be lurking in the shadows at any moment, and whatever the viewer does not see, they can fill in with their imagination. I am sure some may find the whole alien possession thing a little too much like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but I personally think Corpus Earthling is just creepy good fun. It may even be the show’s spookiest episode yet. All of this is reason enough for me to give it three and a half stars.

Nightmare, by Joseph Stefano

The aptly titled Nightmare follows a group of soldiers who board a rocket from Earth to the planet of Ebon. Ebon is according to the show’s narrator a " black question mark at the end of a dark foreboding journey.” When the men reach Ebon, they are taken as prisoners of war. The soldiers are told that they have no hope to escape and they are forced to undergo interrogations, which the inhabitants of Ebon or the Ebonites as they are called, refer to as "exploratory interviews.” In addition to the interrogations, the Ebonites can control any one of a person’s five senses. The Ebonites use this ability, along with a mind altering substance, in order to get information from the soldiers. Not surprisingly, that information comes at a pretty steep price.

The set design for Nightmare could not be more minimal. The cold and sterile appearance of the set is a perfect fit for the story. Instead of filling up the space visually, the episode focuses on outstanding acting from a terrific group of actors, a well-written script, and a musical score that could not be more appropriate. While the entire cast for Nightmare is top-notch, it is Jim Shigeta’s performance that really stands out. A pretty intense episode is made even more terrifying by the makeup and costumes worn by the actors playing the Ebonites, with their wings and very pronounced brow ridges.

Overall, this is a great episode that captures what happens to men when they are put under extreme stress. Recent events delayed this episode’s airing, but it was definitely worth the wait. It receives five stars.

It Crawled Out of the Woodwork, by Joseph Stefano

In It Crawled Out of the Woodwork, an accident at a center for energy research called NORCO results in the creation of a large cloud of energy. According to the law of the conservation of energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed. Since the researchers cannot destroy the cloud, and also so they can study it, it is kept hidden in a room in the back of a lab that is often referred to as "the pit.” Unaware of NORCO’s secret, Michael Forest stars as Stuart Peters, who relocates to California with his younger brother Jory, played by Scott Marlowe, intending to join NORCO’s team of researchers. Before his first day on the job, Peters and his brother decide to sneak a peek at NORCO, so they get in the car and drive by the property. When the men pull their car up to the gate, they are told by a guard to "look fast, but nobody is allowed to hang around here.” Unbeknownst to them at the time, the guard scribbles a note on the inside of a book of matches which he hands to one of the brothers, saying "Don’t come back. NORCO doomed.”

The next day after reading the note, Stuart mentions it to his boss at NORCO. Behind his back, Stuart’s boss gives instructions for Stuart to be lured into the pit, where Stuart is drained by the creature of his energy and passes away on the spot. Jory is never notified of his brother‘s death. Days later, a reanimated Stuart shows up at the apartment, but this time he is wearing what appears to be a pacemaker, even though he never had a history of heart problems. He and Jory get into an altercation, which results in Stuart falling into a bathtub filled with water. The water destroys the pacemaker and kills Stuart once and for all. A gentleman by the name of Sergeant Siroleo, portrayed by Edward Asner, is assigned to investigate Stuart’s death, and what he uncovers has to be seen to be believed.

We are only on the eleventh episode of The Outer Limits and we already have another being that relies on energy. You may recall a similar monster in The Man with the Power. The creature in It Crawled Out of the Woodwork is unique in the fact that it is not the usual man in a costume with special effects makeup and prosthetics on his face. Aside from its somewhat disappointing first appearance, the monster is created using mostly special effects, which is a welcome change of pace (though I have grown so fond of the usual man in a suit).

Like most previous episodes, It Crawled Out of the Woodwork benefits from having a great cast of actors that feed off of each other and help to make an otherwise decent story good. I give It Crawled Out of the Woodwork three stars.

The Borderland, by Leslie Stevens

British actor Barry Jones stars in The Borderland as Dwight Hartley, a man desperate to make contact with his dead son, Dion. Mr. Hartley enlists the help of a medium by the name of Mrs. Palmer, played by theatre and film actress Gladys Cooper. Those not familiar with the character actress would probably recognize her from The Twilight Zone’s Nothing in the Dark and Passage on the Lady Anne. Mrs. Palmer arranges a séance and claims to have success communicating Mr. Hartley’s son, until two scientists who happen to be at the séance, Ian and Eva, expose Mrs. Palmer as the scam artist that she is.

Later, Ian explains to Mr. Hartley that he and Eva are working on an experiment that they hypothesize will help them to go beyond The Borderland to cross over to the fourth dimension. Also, that all they need is access to a larger magnetic field and a more powerful power source. Eager to repay Ian and Eva for helping him with Mrs. Palmer, Mr. Hartley offers to fund their project under the condition that it can be used to try to make contact with Dion. The only problem is Mrs. Palmer has secretly devised a plan to ruin the experiment.

Despite a somewhat interesting premise, great actors and being incredibly well-shot, The Borderland failed to really entertain or move me. A story about a man wanting to reconnect with his dead son has the potential to bring tears to a person’s eyes, but none of the characters were really developed enough for me to care about them. The scenes involving Mrs. Palmer trying to sabotage the experiment were pretty silly and seemed very out of place with the rest of the story. I have no choice but to give two stars for what was easily the least enjoyable episode this past month.

The mysteries of The Outer Limits continue to keep me under the show’s spell. The Borderland was the only real letdown in an otherwise almost consistently good month.



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