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The Outer Limits

The Outer Limits, Season 2, on DVD

What a great blast from the past!

We weren’t sent season one of this groundbreaking science fiction television show, unfortunately, but we’re pleased as punch with what MGM Home Video has done for season two.

The season was only 17 episodes long, but there’s some great stuff here. Our personal favorites are “Demon with a Glass Hand,” a nifty time travel/end of the world-type thing written by Harlan Ellison, and “I Robot,” which not only gives us a young Leonard Nimoy in a supporting role but which is a story that was kind of remade in Star Trek The Next Generation’s terrific episode “The Measure of a Man.”

But there isn’t really a stinker here; even the weakest episodes are still entertaining and enjoyable for SF fans.

Okay, the production values are relatively cheesy, as are the special effects, but what else would you expect from early 1960’s television? Besides, anyone who’s enjoyed such programs as Dr. Who and even SCTV can attest that cheesy effects don’t affect good writing and acting - and there’s both on display in this three disc set.

In fact, some of today’s movie/TV content makers could take a lesson here: it isn’t the nifty CG effects that make a story, it’s the story!

The Outer Limits was a contemporary to the original Twilight Zone series, though while TZ dabbled in science fiction it was OL’s raison d’etre. Usually, the shows featured a “monster of the week,” though not always. In the abovementioned episodes there are no monsters; there are aliens in “Demon,” but the despicable creatures in “Robot” were humans prejudiced against the robot in the story.

Anyway, other good episodes include another Ellison offering “Soldier” and the two parter “The Inheritors” (with a young Robert Duvall). And “Wolf 359” is not only a nifty yarn but is a location in space-time that would be used effectively by Star Trek The Next Generation decades later in the fabulous “ograms such as Stargate SG-1, Andromeda, Enterprise, and the like - oh yeah, and the new Outer Limits - it’s worth your while to check out what the generations before you gobbled up excitedly some forty years ago.

It’s great stuff!

The three disc set uses both sides of all three discs and the video quality is very good overall. Oh sure, it’s still black and white full frame, but that’s what was shot so that’s what we should get - and the images are for the most part sharp and clean and feature good contrast.

Audio, not surprisingly, is a weaker link, but what can you do?

There are no extras, which is a darn shame, but you do get pretty good capsule descriptions of all 17 episodes inside the package.

 

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