ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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This episode is so darn good it makes up for several other clunkers in the series, all by itself! :

The terrific cast includes talented and dignified Barry Morris (Space: 1999), Carroll O'Connor (All In the Family), and Grace Lee Whitney (Star Trek TOS, but with much better hair).

The premise is very clever and intelligent — and loaded with charm and humor! The pacing if skillful, even though the FX whenever the time-altering unit is activated go on far too long.

As a flaw, however, that's very forgivable.

But less forgivable, in my opinion, is the plot's resolution. The alien scientists who are using a device to affect time (by slowing it down, speeding it up, and stopping it) end up causing a potential time paradox, and the alien's bosses tell them to fix it . . . or else!

If you don't remember the episode and you decide to enjoy it again, be prepared to like everything about it. . . except the weak ending.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Controlled Experiment.
Broadcast 13, January 1964. Written and directed by Leslie Stevens.
Guest stars: Barry Morse, Carrol O'Connor, Grace Lee Whitney.

"Who has not seen the dark corners of great cities, whose small and shabby creatures wander without purpose in the secret corners of the night? Without purpose? There are those whose purpose reaches far beyond our wildest dreams . . . "

No one believed Leslie Stevens when he proposed to complete an Outer Limits episode in four days . . . until he went ahead and did it. At $100,000, it was the cheapest Outer Limits ever. Stevens dubbed this last-minute lifesaving technique the "bottle show" --- as in pulling an episode right out of a bottle, like a genie. Constructed for three simple sets and five characters, the show is reminiscent of a filmed stage play, and cleverly stands precepts from other Outer Limits shows on their heads. Humankind's misinterpretation of benign alien intelligence is reversed here into the comical confusion Phobos experiences over the hows and whys of Earth people.

"Who knows? Perhaps the alteration of one small event may someday bring the end of the world. But that someday is a long way off, and until then there is a good life to be lived in the here and now."

Who knows? is the question posed at the end by the Control Voice, which then puts forth the oddly inappropriate idea that the future doesn't matter, but the "here and now" does. This sentiment was atypical of both Stevens and The Outer Limits, with its party line of cosmic responsibility and the balances of justice.

The Outer Limits: The Official Companion.

Sidebar: I recall this episode as being dull. Then again, I haven't seen it in ages.

[WadeVC]