ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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All Sci-Fi member Pow has contributed quite a few excellent posts which focused on specific episodes in the original five-page thread for The Outer Limits.
I've pasted his text below to start a new thread for this one. Here's what Pow’s fine review.
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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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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)