ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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All Sci-Fi member Pow has contributed quite a few excellent posts in the original five-page thread for The Outer Limits which focused on specific episodes.

I've pasted his text below to start a thread for this one. Here's what Pow posted.
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"O.B.I.T." was first broadcast on November 4, 1963. Written by Meyer Dolinsky and directed by Gerd Oswald.

"I'm very much in love with freedom," said Meyer Dolinsky. "But I'm also concerned that we do have restraints against extreme totalitarianism. The political focus of 'O.B.I.T.' is all mine; it's a reverse on the H.U.A.C (House UnAmerican Activities Committee) thing.

These people, far from helping a free society, are really its worst enemy, in the sense they breed so much hostility and fear that they curiously accomplish the very thing they are trying to prevent. Witch-hunting is the wrong way to go about it."

Meyer's fears certainly reflects the former POTUS, 'Don the Con', and his followers to this day...not to mention the majority of the GOP.

This episode of the series was one of their more prescient ones ever produced.

We've all read articles and seen segments on television about just how intrusive the government of the U.S. is in regards to snooping on its citizens with today's state-of-the-art eavesdropping technology.

I recall seeing a news segment that revealed the operation called Eschalon(sp?) that involved the government listening into citizens private phone calls.

"People with nothing to hide have nothing to fear from OBIT" Lomax claims. Because we can trust those in power to do the right thing and never abuse their office?
Anyone care to take a close look at the history of any nation who makes such promises? It ain't pretty.

Originally, Dolinsky established the OBIT machines all across the globe in his script. In order to cut costs that concept was eliminated.

Dolinsky wrote that an X-ray type of camera that could see through buildings was to be the invasive machinery for this piece.

However, the network wanted to see a monstrous machine (the requisite 'Bear' that ABC insisted upon for each episode); and so one was created.

In this case I thought that the network wanting a fearsome looking contraption to spy on individuals was on the money.
The OBIT monitor & console are cool looking and make for a menacing presence.

The Wah Chang~sculpted OBIT mask would turn up in an episode of The Munsters (1964~1966) titled "If A Martian Answers" from January 21, 1965.

The OBIT console would later become the center of the worldwide communications network used by Mr. Waverly (Leo. G. Carroll) on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1964~1968)

Ironically, esteemed actor and teacher Jeff Corey who played Byron Lomax was blacklisted in the 1950s. I'd love to have known what his thoughts were regarding the subject matter of this classic episode?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)