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Scifi and Fantasy Forum: Television: The Outer Limits
The Outer Limits
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Just wondering opinions on people's favorite episodes --
I don't know the ep titles, but I like the show.
One that sticks out in my mind is where they used an alien technology to transport a woman to another planet. During the process there is a time when the person is duplicated both here and on the other planet...a safeguard in case something happens and they don't arrive. The operator was responsible for keeping "balance"...ensuring that only one being remains after the transport. In the ep, there is an accident and a woman is initally thought to not have made it to her destination and is revived here. Later, the operator learns she did arrive and must now reset the balance. If he doesn't, the aliens won't continue to work with us and it will be a disaster for all humanity.
Besides the great moral drama, I liked how the aliens looked like dinosaurs. Very creative.
So what are your favs outerlimitsfan? With a username like that, you must have some!
Posted By:  Magus Mar 28, 2004 - 10:34 am |       | It's an awsome show. I like the one where there is a guy on a tv show for murder. He finds out that the net exec framed him. And other stuff like that. Can't really explain it but it was pretty awsome.
| Posted By: Magus Sep 25, 2004 - 03:29 pm | | I now remember the one I liked the most.
There were three military canidates, each vying for a top secret position, one so top secret they don't know what it is exactly.
They work on certain virtual reality equipment and complete missions, simulations and other such tests. Finally they begin to grow suspicious.
They start to sneak out of their rooms and then the main character turns the gun on his co-hort. He says that it's another test and kills the man.
He comes out of a virtual reality simulation. Apparently they were all in it since they came. All the others failed, eventually sneaking out of their rooms. Only he passed.
The possition he'd earned was to act as a guinae pig for the rest of his life. He'd be subjected to agonizing and torturous experiments for as long as he shall live.
One of the first episodes I remember was called "The Galaxy Being". It was about the director or manager of a radio station in a small town in California who was a much admired local citizen and was to receive an award at a dinner to be held in his honor that evening. He also happened to love to tinker and invent and experiment with electronics and especially with radio waves at spectral frequencies that were open and unutilized back then. When not managing the community radio station which employed several D-jays who played records and took song requests he would spend all his spare time experimenting in his small electronics lab located at the base of the stations towering antennae.
As his experiments advanced he needed to sometimes siphon-off power from the radio station which would draw complaints from the stations sponsors as this reduced the transmission coverage and therefore the number of people would hear their commercials. When his wife criticized his obsession with his hobby and implied that in this day of modern full staffed laboratories he couldn't possibly contribute anything of significance to science by himself - [and this is why I remember this episode so well] - he countered that some of the greatest discoveries have been made by individuals like Thomas Edison and others and that it may be precisely because he is not in a big government or commercial laboratory that nature may choose to reveal to him a secret or a discovery that would be otherwise missed or overlooked by the more organized and bureaucratic facilities. I found that sentiment personally motivating and exciting.
When he directs his radio waves to a certain part of the sky, by chance he discovers and communicates with a being from another part of the galaxy who is also an inventor and self-styled experimenter. He and this 'galaxy being' are in the middle of exchanging ideas and comparing notes on the differences of their respective worlds when the interstellar transmission has to be put in a holding pattern as the man gets dragged off to his reward ceremony dinner by his wife. Before he leaves for the party though he very specifically instructs the D-jay in the radio station studio to keep the antennae power exactly where it is set and that he will return shortly. Of course at this point no one knows about the space call he has on-hold in his research shack, not even his wife.
Looking at the studio wall map of the U.S. the D-jay who is a temporary substitute for the normal D-jay who is also at the party, decides to really crank up the antenna power as he is intoxicated with the idea of increasing the transmission strength so that his voice might be heard throughout half the country instead of the small coverage occurring with the weak power setting he was told to maintain.
I won't give away the ending which is very good except to say that while still at the party, the consequences of the power boost that the poor hapless D-jay gave the radio antennae affected the outcome of the intergalactic phone call quite surprisingly and profoundly. I liked this episode because it talked about the importance of the individual in making scientific discoveries, the extreme differences that might exist among all the possible forms that life may take and the importance of dedication and careful attention to detail required for scientific research to succeed.
-Vincent Vega (10-04-04)
| Posted By: Magus Oct 04, 2004 - 03:51 am | | Was that one in black and white, one of the older ones? I think I might have seen that one.
Good point Magus. Yes, indeed it was a black & white picture and methinks one of the very first episodes of this program, the first of its kind which used the new technology of television to reach into your very home, take control of the vertical, modulate the horizontal, change your vision to a soft blur or sharpen it to a crystal clarity as it took you on a journey from within the realm of your inner mind to that of the outer limits of your speculative vision....err....imagination!
-Vincent Vega (10-04-04)
| Posted By: Magus Oct 04, 2004 - 12:44 pm | | 
Yeah, that was from way back in the, before my, day. It's back when The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone were at each others throats for ratings.
I think that The Outer Limits became much better with the modern version. The Twilight Zone was best in the older, original, version.
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