Review of The Outer Limits

There is perhaps nothing worse in tv history than the fact that the Outer Limits is such a little known show. The huge amount of superb acting, wonderfully engaging plots, plot twists, and cinematography will leave viewers wanting more, especially in regards to the first season, which delivered classic episode after classic episode. I can write about how amazing (most) of the episodes are all day long, but it's no substitute for actually watching them yourself. The show was, and still is, often compared to Twilight Zone, which is probably the reason it tends to be overshadowed by its much more popular contemporary. Twilight Zone episodes were much more flexible in the regard that basically any normal situation can serve as the setting and backstory for an episode, and they often featured normal people stuck in strange scenarios that they can't run away from. Outer Limits on the other hand was much more limited in what it can have its episodes about since it was always, first and foremost, a sci-fi show. Somewhat predictably, the first season is much more memorable than the second, and featured such masterfully done episodes as the Architects of Fear, where a scientist agrees to turn himself into a horrifically mutated alien and land at the United Nations building in New York in order to get the countries of earth to stop fighting each other and focus on the extraterrestrial threat instead. The final minutes of the episode show the alien ship landing at the science lab where the now mutated scientist used to work, and the creature is so frightening it was actually censored for many years in some parts of the world. Another standout is The Man Who Was Never Born, in which Martin Landau plays a time traveler who is in a race against time to stop the birth of a scientist who will be destined to create an incurable disease that lays waste to the entire planet. Even without seeing the episode, it is obvious how the writers of The Terminator may have been inspired by this. As the show began its anticipated second season, things got a bit muddled. There are still some very good episodes here, with Demon With a Glass Hand being among the best of the entire show. The plot centers around Robert Culp who plays a seemingly ordinary human being who can't remember anything about his life beyond a day or two ago. It soon becomes obvious that he is being hunted by aliens who come from hundreds of years into the future set in a world where the earth is being overtaken by them, so as a last resort the humans release a "radioactive plague" to kill the invaders. One of Culp's hands is a supercomputer made of glass that is able to communicate with him, but it cannot tell him why the aliens want him dead until all its missing fingers are returned to it. At the end of the episode, the newly restored hand now tells him that all the humans of the future are electronically transcribed on a piece of metal, and the metal is actually inside Culp's abdomen. As humanity's sole robotic sentinel, it is his job to protect the human race from any threats it may encounter over the coming centuries. Unfortunately, the majority of season 2's episodes do not hold a candle to this one, but they are still worth watching since they are twice as long as twilight zone episodes (probably why they weren't as popular). Just to be clear, The Outer Limits is a masterfully directed show with some of the best sci-fi writing I've seen to date. The show also features big name actors, many of whom at the time were unknown, such as Martin Landau, Donald Pleasence, Robert Culp, Sally Kellerman, Cedric Hardwicke, and a very young Martin Sheen. If you consider yourself a fan of science fiction, and love watching and reading about technology that might possibly exist, please watch this show because it is one of the best.