Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Thanks Michael_ks for the info about Ellison, very interesting


In the first episode after "The Invisible Enemies, "Wolf 359", the creature can be seen (at least it looks like the same creature) in the photographs that Professor Jonathan Wragg takes of the planet he created in his lab. The pic shows the creature representing the pre-historic period as the planet rapidly ages, another good episode.

At the end, they do show multiple shots featuring one creature in each, representing multiple creatures. I also like how they did the creatures travelling through the sand, it was like the filmmakers put the sand on top of a pool of water and dragged the creature puppet across it.

I just watched "Keeper of the Purple Twilight" earlier today. I loved it, I love Alien invasion shows and pulp style movies and tv shows. The Alien make-up looked fantastic and the story was very interesting. "The Inheritors" had a great ending and an equally great performance by Robert Duvall. I only have 5 episodes to go.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Ron68,

I have loved Wolf 359 for many years. The concept of time in that one (the speed of the growth in the simulated environment) is quite interesting. And again, that eerie soundtrack is in full force, especially when the creature is shown emerging from its environment.

In The Invisible Enemy, I liked it when one of the men (I think it was Buckley) finally realized that the sand was similar to an ocean environment, and that the alien was a 'fish' in that ocean. I also found the men screaming when they had been consumed (yet out of eyeshot from the viewer) to be quite effective. And the information we are given regarding the previous mission was a nice touch.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

I like this episode very much, for all the same reasons. I love the harp laden chord that we hear as the planet is scanned (this follows directly after Patrick O' Neal's surprise ["Much better...?"] at how much clearer the ocular attachment makes the planet's surface appear).

Going back to "Keeper" for a moment, it's always rather interesting how the repeated, heavy sounding 2 note phrase that plays when we see a speeding car ("you gain nothing by suicide") seems to firmly entrench this episode in that B-movie mold. It never ceases to amaze me to what degree musical underscore can shape the aura of an unfolding drama.

It's great conversing with some well informed and appreciative fans of "The Outer Limits" and I'm really enjoying the commentary posted in this thread recently. I don't get the chance to indulge in this series too often. My co-workers and wife...they just don't get it.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Outer Limit fans may enjoy the following short story (or maybe not - hey, you can always just skip this post), but this thread reminded me of something I wrote about the show for my kid. I've got an ongoing letter to my 11 year-old son I started when he was four that I hope he will one day read when older. Anyway, at age 7, I he was showing me some of his Yu-Gi-Oh monster cards and I told him I had some monster cards of my own, and that they were pretty scary. So I pulled out my old Outer Limit cards and showed him ... which lead to this little entry in my letters to him called ...

"That Old Black & White Magic." ....

You quickly rifled through The Outer Limit cards and I could tell that you were somewhat excited to see them. You even wanted to take them to school to show your friends (hey, these are “near mint,” so that wasn’t likely). This gave me great satisfaction to share my own personal version of monster cards with you. But you really weren’t very scared by the cards and, in fact, made a point of saying that they didn’t scare you at all. “Well, if you saw the show they came from, you’d be scared,” I promised. So you called my bluff and said, “Let me see.”

I went straight to my DVD box collection of the original program and put in the first of four discs (all 32 first season episodes of the series were on just four discs). I used the menu to bring up “The Zanti Misfits” episode and used the chapter search to skip directly to the finale with the monster ants attacking the military police in their headquarters. You took one look at the rather primitive animation of the ants crawling out of their small, tin-looking spacecraft and immediately declared, “That’s not scary.”

I was somewhat crushed. What could be more terrifying than loudly buzzing, over-sized ants with human-like faces crawling up your leg and biting you with poisonous teeth? They even killed some of the soldiers before the soldiers eventually shot, stomped or threw grenades to kill them all and basically end their invasion. The ants screamed inhumanely when they were being killed. And yet, still you were unimpressed. You wanted to see more episodes.

I cued up an episode called, “The Mice,” that featured what appeared to be a man on two legs covered from head to waist with a huge blob of snot-like gelatinous material and with two protruding, claw-like hands. It was, obviously, a man in a costume fitted with a huge blob of jelly-like substance on top, and wearing two claw-like pincers over his hands. You watched this “Jelly Man” picking lake scum up with his claws and stuffing it in what appeared to be a slit-like mouth. You watched the Jelly Man running through a forest back to a laboratory. You watched the Jelly Man use his claws to attack and, apparently, kill one of the workers in the laboratory where the creature had first been transported to Earth. And you watched as they eventually put him back in that same transporter and sent him back to the planet he came from. And that was it. No major reactions from you. But you somehow couldn’t take your eyes off the Jelly Man until you had seen every moment of him featured in this episode.

That very same night you insisted mom come in and lay down with you as you went to bed. You insisted that she leave the closet light on throughout the night. And a few minutes after you had finally fallen to sleep, your mother came out to the living room where I was watching television on the couch and scolded me for scaring you with the “Jelly Man.” She went to bed mad. And as soon as the bedroom door closed, I found myself reacting in a most peculiar manner. I was grinning from ear to ear. An old black & white TV show that scared me as a kid more than 40 years ago could still scare a kid today. It may have been the “Jelly Man” and not the human-faced crawling oversized ants with the poisonous teeth, but it still counted. The old black & white mojo still worked. I shouldn’t be proud about scaring you with this stuff, but when you so cavalierly wrote off one of my most powerful childhood fears with a smirk and a casual remark, “That’s not scary,” well, I can’t help but feel glibly vindicated. And so I grinned.

Here it is a week later and you are still insisting on sleeping with the lights on in the closet and still secretly talking about the “Jelly Man” with your mom (even 7 year-olds have their pride about not admitting they’re scared to Dad, particularly when they’ve already made a very public scoffing to him). I’m sorry. I apologize.

But just wait until you see the episode with the space rocks that come alive and cover your face with a smothering black blob.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Cool discussion yes!

My thoughts; While Demon with a Glass Hand is my hands down favorite, some of the episodes mentioned are also favorites and classics, The Soldier, Zanti Misfits and the Sixth Finger. Culp was really good as Trent and it's fun to see Martel before Star Trek.

I didn't see mention of three of my all time favorites. I saw them as a young kid and they stuck with me; The Bellero Shield and the haunting ending, The Man Who was Never Born and A Feasibility Study. Makes me think twice about driving into fog!

As a Trek fan, I always liked Cold Hands, Warm Heart and I, Robot was also a childhood rememberance as being a strong and effective story.

But I see very little talk about Behold Eck! That one is up there with the best of them. I really liked the main character's understanding and efforts and open mindedness in helping the alien creature. And the creature's experiences on Earth. And then the touching ending when he gets home and the doctor gets together with his assistant.

Finally, the Premonition is another childhood favorite. I remember being a little scared by the being in the other dimension and the race to save their child and being in another location to get back to their time. And the last episode, The Probe is fun. And the early version of the Horta that shows up on Star Trek is here as a large bacteria! And Fun and Games is another good one. This and Star Trek's interpretation of the original short story are great episodes.

Almost forgot Controlled Experiement. Grace Lee Whitney before Star Trek and Barry Morse and Carroll O'Conner in a great comedy!

I can't discuss music like you guys can, but this show definitely had very strong music and the score was integral to the story telling.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Michael,

Yes, I know the phrase you're talking about in Keeper of the Purple Twilight. Had I been Warren Stevens, and actually seen Ikar in the back seat of the car when I turned around, I probably would have driven off the road. (BTW, I think the Schow book discusses the lighting at this point--how we have dusk, then complete darkness, and then dusk again.)

I too enjoy these discussions. I've thought about this show for years, and I've discussed it with very few people. It's great having a thread on this Board where our ideas for this wonderful series can be shared.

I agree wholeheartedly. Joseph Stefano once wrote a short essay on how the music permeated the show at different psychological levels, and how it could not be separated one iota from what we see on the screen (without losing something integral to the overall fabric of the show). It may be in the liner notes to the CD sountrack of TOL; I'll have to check to be certain.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

One of my all time favorites and what a perfect cast. The desparate scream that Sally Kellerman as Judith gives when she first realizes that she may be permanently entombed in the force shield never fails to send shivers down my spine. IMO, Ms. Kellerman was highly deserving of an Emmy for her portrayal as a modern Lady MacBeth. The range of emotions she enters in the course of the episode is quite a thing to behold. The dialog in this episode is just exceptional.


Mine too and I believe "Premonition" is my earliest childhood memory where tv is concerned. The man trapped in an "interdimensional" world is very cleverly photographed (shimmering, negative image) and it's coupled with some very chilling music to boot.

What I singularly enjoy about "Fun and Games" so much is Nick Adams' standout performance. I love his callousness when confronting 'The Senator' and especially his near nervous breakdown when faced with the prospect of returning to prison. I've always thought of this as being the most heart wrenching scene of the entire series. The episode is nicely photographed and lit by Conrad Hall also. "Fun and Games" has always seemed a bit closer to the original 1944 short story ("Arena", by Fredric Brown) than the "Star Trek" episode of the same name, eventhough the credits fail to acknowledge it.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Hollywoodaholic,

What an awesome story! I brought those cards to school, along with baseball cards, and a host of other t.v. show cards. I also (foolishly) lost them either by playing 'topsies,' 'farsies,' or 'leanies.' (I am probably dating myself bigtime using those phrases, but that's okay.)

The 'Jelly Creature'--I can still see that picture on the card. I believe it had a black background, with the creature in the center of the card. And who can forget Warren Oates' pic with the enlarged eyes in The Mutant? If I recall correctly, Mr. Zeno's transport (where you see his nervous system for a brief moment) was also on one of the cards, and it read "The Transparent Man."

Well said--very descriptive. I actually only saw that episode for the first time a couple of years ago, and it was awesome. (And I'm in complete agreement when you say, 'but it still counted.' Most definitely. )

That was a joy to read.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Nelson,

I love A Feasibility Study. I find the final 'not feasible' to be quite telling--very blunt, and said with emphasis. This is the episode that also stars another future Trek actor, David Opatoshu (he played Anon 7 in A Taste of Armageddon). There was a neat technique used when the engine for the car eventually materializes; I also loved the Luminoids, and the imaginative story line regarding their inability to move.

I've often thought that the technique used in Behold Eck! to show a two-dimensional being could have worked well in TOS when the Tholians were on screen. (Before ENT, much of the speculation centered around the Tholians being two-dimensional beings.)

Controlled Experiment and The Premonition are both interesting for their use of time (and stoppage of same). The elevator sequences, and the rewinding and fast-forwarding, are worth the price of admission for me. Our children love both of those episodes. Nice comparison too--the early Horta! I'm guessing that that is once again Janos Prohaska as The Probe.

Another thought about A Feasibility Study-- has anyone else noticed that the ostinato figure (I think it's a B-B-D played over and over) lasts for a very lengthy part of the episode? It's in three-quarter time, and continues to sound throughout (I believe) the first twenty or so minutes of the show. In my experience, it is very unusual to hear one figure such as this played for as long as we do.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Michael_ks:
Michael,

I have to admit, I never saw it coming when Judith (Kellerman) realizes she cannot escape. The first time I saw it, I was mesmerized by the brilliance of the concept.

The scenes in the desert (around the crash site) are among my favorite sequences in the episode, along with the very slowly moving tricycle (note the close-ups on the face during the freeze frame--they don't do television like that any more) and the eventual realization that time has stopped (or slowed way down) by the girl's mother and father.

I'd love to have a boomerang like that. I thought it neat how they beat insurmountable odds, too. This is another episode with props that eventually made their way to TOS. And Gerd Oswald was again very deliberate and imaginative behind the camera. Had I ever become a director, Gerd Oswald is one with whom I would have wanted to study. Incidentally, the voice of the Senator is IMO abrasive and frightening in its own right. I thought it was Abraham Sofaer (whom we know as one of the baddies in Demon With a Glass Hand, and as one of the Thasians in Charlie X from TOS); it turns out to be Robert Johnson.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Great story, Hollywoodaholic

I enjoyed "Wolf 359" quite a bit but enjoyed "The Invisible Enemy" more. I agree about the men's screams, pretty chilling. I love it when things aren't always seen but left to our imagination instead. I really like how the characters had a time limit to save Adam West's character and the choices they made.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

I prefer "Soldier" more than "Demon With..." but only barely. I think mainly because of how Kagan got to get to understand Qarlo, it just felt very real. I love stories, like in "Demon...", where a character has to find and gather up objects in order to complete his/her mission. I also love how Ellison packs so much character and story into such a short time frame. He seems to do more in 50 mins of TV than a lot of 2 hour movies do.


"Bellero" was a really strong episode, this was my favourite of the Landau episodes but Kellerman steals the show. Her performance was just perfect. I really felt bad for the woman and her baby in "A Feasibility Study", just imagining them both getting infected and being stranded there, especially when the baby never had a chance at a normal life. I'm not a big Star Trek fan but I liked seeing some of the actors on TOL and I'm glad Nimoy get a larger role in "I, Robot"

This was the episode that messed up on my first copy of the disc, the first 30 mins was unwatchable and the last 20 mins froze badly. I watched as much as I could then re-watched it on my replacement disc. Great episode! I love the design of Eck. One of the things I love about TOL is that the Aliens or monsters aren't always malicious in their intent and the humans, while having good intentions, don't always follow the right course. This episode and the "The Inheritors" showed that quite well. "Inheritors" also had a great speech at the end delivered by Lt. Minns.

I just watched "The Premonition" earlier today, such a great episode. The whole story idea of the married couple being stuck in a time warp in order to save the kid was very intriguing. It's one of my favourites, I love time travel stories of all types. I haven't watched Probe yet. I enjoyed "Fun and Games" too, it was nice to see Nick Adams outside of a Godzilla movie, I'm not very familiar with his work. I never knew this episode and the Star Trek one were based on the same source material.

I don't know much about music either. Usually I get to caught up in the story and characters, that I don't always hear the music but when I do, I find it to be excellent.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

There are some episodes I just have not watched yet on these sets, and I've had them for a few years! I just saw Keeper of the Purple Twilight. It had an interesting premise, but didn't really work for me. The Inheriters I have not seen in many years and I don't remember it much.

I was just reading the episode review of Behold Eck! in Schow's book. I didn't realize it was considered a poorly realized episode and frowned upon by the producers. I still like it!

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Attachment 779

No, this isn't eBay, but I thought the people on this thread might enjoy seeing the Outer Limits cards in their entirety. The color is a hoot, but the odd thing is how they basically created entirely separate stories and names for the monsters on the cards. I'll have to post in 6 parts for all cards because of file size.

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This one's out of order, but I had to shrink it a bit to make the file size. The Zanti Misfits are here.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Wayne, thanks for posting those card images. I remember as a young child having the crap scared out of me by the Outer Limits (during its original run), and those cards with their images remind me of those experiences. I believe that I actually had a few of those cards many, many years ago.

After reading through this great thread, I'm going to have to break out the DVDs and watch some of these episodes again.

- Walter.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Thanks for those screen shots of the Bubbles, Inc. cards, Wayne. I happened to check out ebay myself yesterday and was having fun with those captions while browsing the seller pics. A couple favorites:

"The Clay Man's Next Victim" (Andro, from "Man Who Was Never Born")

"The Television Terror" (The Galaxy Being)

[A stab at executives who just never could fathom the concept behind OL?]


"The Brainless Glob" (Box creature from "Don't Open 'till Doomsday")

[Rather auspicious caption for a being that came close to "uncreating the universe"!]

By the way, the Rittenhouse cards released in 2002 sure are nice.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

What are the Rittenhouse cards? Are they of the original series?

BTW, was not the episode with Andro, "The Man Who Was Never Born," one of the saddest stories ever aired on television? The music, the theme, the story, and two great actors (Martin Landau and Shirley Knight) added up to an emotional wallop that still haunts to this day.

P.S. - And it included another plot point that James Cameron nicked for The Terminator - the child/man/scientist whose birth needed to be prevented to save mankind.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

They sure are, Wayne and they are quite well made. I have the basic 72 card set (which can be currently purchased on ebay for just $4.99) and a few of the 'chase cards', but alas, none of the autograph cards:

Outer Limits Trading Cards - 2002


A firm fan favorite and it's easy to see why. Martin Landau's performance is top notch and I'm especially fond of the way he delivers his lines in the scene where he confronts Betram Cabot Sr. ("You are going to marry a very lovely girl..."). Dominic Frontiere pulled all the stops in this one to give us his most lyrical score of the series. Every now and then I enjoy listening to the GNP Crescendo soundtrack to OL which features the complete score. Too bad just the one volume to the music was produced.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Wayne, THANK YOU for sharing those card scans. And the story about your son was cool too.

On the subject of the music, I'm listening to GNP/Crescendo's soundtrack (on my iPod) as I type this. I really wish further volumes had been released... the music from "The Forms of Things Unknown" still haunts me all these years later. And the Lubin scores from season 2! Love 'em.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Yikes! I just had to buy one of those Robert Culp as Trent OL autograph cards on eBay. Thanks for the link, Michael!

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Any of you guys familiar with this site? It's my favorite website devoted to OL:

'+' (p.s.--that's a weird looking link, but it works)

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Yes, thanks a bunch for posting those pics of the cards. These are the ones I owned, I believe in the late 1960s. They were among my favorite cards, and I had over a thousand different types of cards at the time.

Michael_ks:
I am quite pleased that I picked that one up years ago as well. I think a few more of my favorites are the music to Nightmare and Hundred Days of the Dragon.

Wouldn't it be cool if Frontiere and Lubin were reading this thread? I think they would have good feelings about how much their art is appreciated.

Incidentally, I watched The Duplicate Man last night. I had forgotten how effective the Megazoid is in that one. But even as much as the 'bear' may have stolen the show years ago when it first aired, I must say the storyline that caught my attention was the thought that was put into the duplicate man, and why he had to be destroyed after five hours. I got chills when I heard one of the actors say that not all of them were able to be destroyed, and that when they were not, they survived with the memories of those whom they duplicated. This is the stuff of which great sci-fi is made.

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Cool cards! Thanks for posting them. Reminds me of my childhood!

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

Michael ks,

Thanks for that link. I will have a peek at it from work tomorrow (I have dial-up from home, and it didn't load too well).

I wanted to mention a couple of other things that send chills up my spine in this series. For me, I think the first best opening of any episode (I mean prior to the opening music) I have ever seen in TOL is the introduction to The Children of Spider County. It's not only the dark road, and the car crash as the alien is seen coming out of the woods, but also the unbelievably effective sound effect that is nearly synchronized with the viewers' having seen the alien's true form. I can't really describe the sound effect, except to say that it reminds me somewhat of the Martians' ray-gun sound effect in the original The War of the Worlds.

But this is only part of the effect. As the face of the alien fades, and the sound effect diminishes, we see and hear some split-second editing which transitions seemlessly into the pungently-dissonant opening of the credits that we are all accustomed to hearing before we see "The Outer Limits" flash on the screen. The two sounds--one concluding the opening scene and the other introducing the opening credits--must be seen and heard to be believed. I know of no other moment in the series that is quite like it.

Another wonderful segment has to do with The Mutant. It too occurs near the beginning, around ten or so minutes into the episode. Reese Fowler has done his best not to shake hands with the newly arrived Dr. Riner--he instead adjusts his glasses to give his hands something to do. After the introductions have been completed, and the death of the communications expert is (albeit very cryptically) explained, the group moves from the right of the screen off to the viewers' left. Reese is the last one to move in the same direction, and again keeping his distance, the musical track changes to convey that 'other-worldly' and ethereal sound world whic

Re: Outer Limits (Original Series) - Why Rereleased?

I just finished off my set and the episode "The Probe". I liked it a lot, especially how they were able to figure out what was going on, what the creature was and how to communicate with what little info they had. I love the music in this one. Too bad season 2 ran so short, I really got into it, more than I did with season 1, which I hope to watch again someday.

Those cards look awesome!