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The Outer Limits (ABC 1963 - 1965)
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Babylon 5 creator/writer/producer J. Michael Straczynski was a close friend of Harlan Ellison.

JMS decided to play a joke on Harlan when they were both attending a SF convention.

He knew Harlan never did any kind of sequels to any of his writings, ever!

So at the convention JMS announced to the audience that they were going to do a sequel to Ellison's Outer Limits episode Demon With a Glass Hand on Babylon 5.

It was to be called Demon On the Run and pick up on the Trent characters many years after The Outer lLmits episode as he arrives on B5.

With a grin, JMS looked over to his friend Harlan who was sitting nearby and enjoyed the look of open mouthed astonishment on Harlan's face.

Thing is it actually sounded like it could've been a very cool sequel if it was for real.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 16, 2022 3:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

I'm surprised that Harlan didn't explode and make a big scene. Laughing

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From: TOL Official Companion.

October 28, 1963, The Man Who Was Never Born.
Written by Anthony Lawrence and directed by Leonard Horn.
Guest stars: Martin Landau and Shirley Knight.

Synopsis: While cruising in Earth orbit, astronaut Captain Joseph Reardon penetrates a non-material barrier that shakes his ship and causes everything aboard to momentarily negative-reverse.

He immediately lands on a blistered, barren stretch of desert and is confronted by a gnarled, robe-clad mutant with a face like petrified lava. The creature addresses Reardon in English, says his name is Andro, that this is the planet Earth, and that the year is 2148---185 years after the date of Reardon's lift-off.

Andro explains that the wasteland Reardon sees is essentially the work of a single man---Bertram Cabot, Jr., who in the late twentieth century nurtured an alien bacterium that got out of control and caused the corruption of human DNA, mass sterility and global plague that resulted in Andro.

Once they decide that Reardon passed through a "time convulsion" in space, the astronaut opts to return to the past, taking Andro with him as proof of the calamity in store for Earth's future. But the second trip through the warp kills Reardon, who fades to nothingness before Andro's eyes. His dying plea: "Find Cabot! Kill him if you have to!"

Back in the Earth of 1963, Andro uses his power of hypnotic suggestion to conceal his true appearance and embark on his desperate quest to seek out Cabot.

"I wanted to do a romantic fairytale," said screenwriter Anthony Lawrence of "The Man Who Was Never Born."

"I wanted to touch people emotionally, with a kind of lyrical, poetic thing not too many people were doing in TV."

In this case the fairytale is Beauty and the Beast. TOL's creator Leslie Stevens had this saying---' give a story a haircut'---which meant altering a classic plot to fit your own devices.

Andro is one of TOL' most tragic heroes. Like the series' more "humane" aliens, he is warm and sympathetic, but also imbued with a sad romanticism that cripples his outlook just as much as it makes him unique and poetical.

The "safe and dear upholstered memories" of his 2148 library make him as much an inhabitant of the nineteenth century as the twenty-second.

Sidebar: This episode is currently available on Youtube where I just watched it and found it compelling There certainly are some illogical plot points within the story that one can decide to accept in a willing suspension of disbelief manner. However, the acting remains first rate in this take on "The Andromeda Strain" plot that was written years before the novel.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Outer Limits: The Official Companion.

"The Man Who Never Was Born" was also Outer Limits' first sheer fantasy, if for no other reason than the broad impossibilities in story logic.

Astronaut Joseph Reardon's convenient disintegration is never explained.

Several fantastic coincidences push the tale irretrievably into the realm of make-believe: that Andro could pilot Reardon's spaceship at all (think of flying one of those nice, familiar 737 jetliners all by your lonesome); that Andro, who says he has "memorized every detail of his life," would fail to instantly recognize Noelle (Shirley Knight) as Cabot. Jr's mother; that Andro's lucky fall to Earth lands him practically in Noelle's backyard at not only the right place, but the right time for his purpose.

Sidebar: Even though I enjoyed this episode of TOL, all of those plot points do indeed lack credibility in regards to the interior logic of the script.

TOL:TOC. The Andro mask supplied by Project Unlimited was so imperfect that most of the Outer Limits crew recalls its ill fit.

"Martin Landau couldn't breathe," said art director Jack Poplin.

Sidebar: I find the visage for mutant-Andro frightening. He appears like a human who has suffered tragically from leprosy. It is only due to the fact that his psychic powers (a side-effect of the Cabot symbiote) allow him to look like a normal human allow him to move in a normal manner among the humans of 1963.

The first draft of the script was titled "Cry of the Unborn," but was later altered to "The Man Who Was Never Born" as the episodes' title.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 13, 2022 3:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

I remember seeing this episode years ago and liking it more than most of those from the series. Very Happy

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2022 9:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Outer Limits: The Official Companion:

"The Inheritors" November 21 & November 28, 1964. The only two-part episodes produced for TOL.

Written by Seeleg Lester and Sam Neuman. Story by Lester and Neuman, from an idea by Ed Adamson.

Scripted as "The Hui Tan Project" and "The Pied Piper Project."

Directed by James Goldstone who also directed the second pilot for Star Trek: TOS, "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

Plot: After catching a bullet in the brain in Vietnam, Lt. Phillip J. Minns (Steve Inhat) becomes of special interest to Department of Science investigator Adam Ballard (Robert Duvall.)

His EEG now shows a dual brainwave pattern exactly like those of three other similarly wounded soldiers who 'should've died and didn't.'

Ballard finds that the bullets that wounded the four were smelted from a meteorite whose ore, when magnified, reveals a honeycomb effect reminiscent of the configuration of the human RNA factor.

Each of the four soldiers develops skyrocketing IQ and all embark on mysterious individual quests that are all interconnecting. Are they forces for good or evil? It's Ballard mission to discover the truth and stop them if they are a threat to the world. If he can.

Closing narration: The Inheritors are on their way. In a universe of billions of stars, there are places of love and happiness. On this Earth, in this spot, magic settled for a moment. Wonder touched a few lives, and a few odd pieces fell smoothly into the jigsaw of Creation.

Sidebar: The Inheritors is a beautifully done poignant episode of TOL. It unquestionably is also one of the finest stories created for the series.

Sidebar: The fact that it is one of the few episodes that doesn't give us a "bear" as so many episodes were forced to do makes no difference. The story remains powerful and deeply moving.

Sidebar: The only drawback is that the special effect for the big reveal at the end is underwhelming to see. TOL was attempting to create special effects with early 1960s technology. It also was hampered with a restrictive budget. As with so many 60s science fiction television shows, TOL had marvelous writers with fantastic ideas. Unfortunately the productions had limited effects machinery and budgets to execute their wonderful stories.

Sidebar: The Inheritors would be one of the four original Outer Limits episodes (Nightmare, A Feasibility Study, and I, Robot being the others) that would be updated on The New Outer Limits. That says something right there.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2022 10:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

From The Outer Limits Official Companion:

Seeleg Lester's intention was to use "The Inheritors" two-part episode as a series pilot.

Century 21 was the title. Lester got someone at RandCorp to give him a decade-by-decade prognosis of life in the US, leading up to the year 2000. He wanted to have a Secretary of Science' character in the President's Cabinet, and he and his assistant would investigate things of a scientific nature.

For example: Someone discovers a drug that will prolong life to 180 years. Who's going to use it? How do you apportion it? It might become the object of theft or murder.

That problem would go to the Secretary of Science. "I used that character in 'The Inheritors,' and got my ownership of him written into the contract. But CBS wouldn't do the series. They had no imagination. And all the things that RandCorp guy predicted in 1962 have been coming to pass."

Sidebar: What an intriguing concept for a television series. It really could be rebooted today. Contact RandCorp, if it still exists, and sit with their experts and have them project outward what the coming decades may create and develop in all the scientific fields of endeavor.

If RandCorp is still around though I'd not limit my research to just one organization, as impressive as they might be. I'd consult many such corporations and think tanks. That way you could create a plethora of source material for your stories.

Beyond the futuristic predictions you would have to delve into what nefarious political agendas this 'Secretary of Science' would encounter. Not only on a worldwide scale but right in his own backyard.

No doubt there would be American politicians who would use their might to influence, thwart, pilfer, and override the SoS as he goes about his mission. Yes, we do have such men and women serving in our government...sad to say.

What happens when the POTUS & the SoS have a disagreement? Is the V.P. on board with all of this, or a constant thorn in the side for the SoS? Corruption is everywhere in the world, so no end of storylines on that front.

How are the inventors of these new and wonderous breakthroughs affected by their discoveries for good or ill? Their families and co-workers and friends would all come into the picture.

Such a series could have it all with their plots: Espionage, homicides, romance, sex, corruption, power plays, deceit, wars, ethnic cleansing, fall of governments, assassinations, and, yes, even comedy.

This would give the series a vast scope to tell their stories each week. And it would certainly be different from any other TV show on now, or in the past. What a welcome breath of fresh air from the tsunami of law enforcement,
courtroom, and medical dramas that these unimaginative networks trot out each and every fall for viewers. Each and every one of these types of series have been a zillion times. Sometimes quite well, other times quite poorly. Point being is that we will never have a lack of these genres....ever!

The western shows have all ridden into the sunset, but cop shows, lawyer shows, and doctor shows pop up continuously with no end in sight.

Rant over.
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 27, 2022 1:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Outer Limits: The Official Companion by David J. Schow and Jeffrey Frentzen.

"Nightmare," Broadcast 2 December 1963
Written by Joseph Stefano
Original title: "Ebon Struck First"
Directed by John Erman

A war between worlds had long been dreaded. Throughout recent history, Man, convinced that life on other planets would be as anxious and belligerent as life on his own, has gravely predicted that some dreadful form of combat would inevitably take place between our world and that of someone else. And Man was right. To the eternal credit of the peoples of this planet Earth, history shall be able to proclaim loudly and justly that in this war between Unified Earth and the planet Ebon, Ebon struck first. Ebon: Its form of life unknown; its way of life unpredictable. To the fighting troops of Earth, a black question mark at the end of a dark, foreboding journey.

A six-man multinational strike force led by Col. Stone is captured and made prisoners of war by the Ebonites, satanic, bat-winged, gargoyle-like aliens who wield control wands that can manipulate the five human senses.

The "exploratory interviews" of the humans by the Ebonites now begins.

Arguably Outer Limits' best-written show, "Nightmare" is a tour de force of ensemble acting and illustrates just how resourceful the program's cast and crew could be when squeezed by the limitations of time and budget. Assistant Director Robert Justman hung a lot of black velvet, to transform the set into a featureless kind of limbo area, heightening the impression that the whole show is an experimental stage drama.

Writer Joseph Stefano: "I had some very strong problems with the government situation at that time. Space was not bad; space agencies were not bad. But I had little faith and virtually no trust, in the people in charge of the Space Age. 'Nightmare' wasn't written out of cynicism, but out of deep suspicion. If you think of that in terms of 1963 or '64, it's shocking and disturbing. Now, of course, nobody's surprised. It took a few years for the government to prove I was right."
_______________________________________________

Thoughts: Sad but true. The majority of Americans felt in the 1950s and 1960s that ours was an honorable and just nation who would never do any wrong to other nations, or to our own citizens. If you said the least thing negative about America to an American you had a fight on your hand. Factual history has blown that image out of the water.
_______________________________________________

TOL Companion: Stefano suggests that for all its deadliness, soldiering is still a childish game.

Despite its staginess, "Nightmare" is surprisingly intellectual TV drama, and the series' most potent view of phobia and conspiracy.


Last edited by Pow on Wed Nov 30, 2022 11:18 pm; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 30, 2022 10:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I found this interesting chapter in The Outer Limits: The Official Companion book.

Joseph Stefano: "We initially sought out science fiction writers, and they were the worst! They didn't seem to have any concept of what film writing was about." Among the earliest visitors to the Villa di Stefano bungalow were Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and The Twilight Zone's own Charles Beaumont. "I told Lou Morheim (story editor) that we'd better forget these guys. We did pay for some scripts we didn't shoot, and we got other scripts from well-known writers that were just unproduceable."

Sidebar: I recall reading somewhere that fine science fiction writers do not always make for fine scriptwriters for a SF television series. Being a talented novelist does not always translate into being able to adapt those skills to producing scripts for a SF TV show. They are two different skill sets that few can transition between. One issue is that many SF writers don't comprehend the limited budgets of a television production company. These writers continue to write with their imaginations at full power and without any limitations. They create scripts that would require a multi-million dollar feature film budget and a three-month shooting schedule. Noted author Harlan Ellison was one of the few writers who was able to tackle TV. Ellison admitted that some excellent SF authors he knew and were friends of his did not possess the abilities to be screenwriters and it took a different set of "muscles" to be able to successfully write for film and TV as opposed to literature.
Sidebar: Now we know why SF TV shows did not always manage to hire well known SF authors for their series. It wasn't a reluctance on the part of a SF production staff because "they knew better" than a seasoned SF author. It was often due to the authors not comprehending the complexities of TV production.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 01, 2022 11:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________________

I'm not a screenwriter, but I do tend to think in terms of my stories being told visually, so I actually might be fairly good at it. But I'd be bored to tears if I tried to write a screenplay. It has to contain a minimum of descriptions, and it replies heavily on the dialog to tell the story.

A screenplay is basically like a blueprint for a house. It shows the structure of the house and its dimensions.

A novel, however, is like a painting. It shows all the colors and textures of what the painting depicts. It can be sharp and detailed in some parts (like the face in a portrait), but completely abstract in the surrounding area.

I like to "paint with words". That's how I tell the story — with words that create mental images.
Very Happy
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