Saturday, August 10, 2013

The Outer Limits - Episode One - The Galaxy Beings



Nice to see that they got a big star for this first episode. Cliff Robertson was a hot property at the time. He's good at playing crazy scientist. I like black and white television shows, especially these science fiction ones that explore the larger issues of man and god, life and death. I like a little morality tale where experimental science doesn't bring a good end to any of the characters involved. It's the heretic and skeptic in me.


Booker observes that the engineer and the Galaxy Being are variations of the television and science fiction tropes of the mad scientist and the invading alien, albeit with a reversal typical of The Outer Limits that both the scientist and the alien are benevolent, and it is the ordinary human beings of Earth who are the villains in the story.

 
 

4 comments:

Erik Johnson Illustrator said...

I've only seen one or two episodes of the original Outer Limits. Probably because no one was running them when I was growing up. They marathoned "The Twilight Zone" on long weekends, and I gobbled that stuff up, but I didn't get much a gander at this show sadly.

Kal said...

Me neither. That is why I got the entire series of the Outer Limits. I want to see how it stands up to Twilight Zone - though how could it possibly be as great. I finally saw a Twilight Zone I NEVER had last weekend. The one with the CLOWN and the other characters in the round room.

Erik Johnson Illustrator said...

I guess I didn't catch on that this was something you were new to as well.

"Five Characters in Search of an Exit"? I remember that episode. I certainly didn't see that one coming. I know theres at least a handful of episode of the Twilight Zone that I haven't seen, but its hard to say if I'd go out of my way to find them since I've seen all of the famed episodes and since I haven't watched the show in quite some time it might take a while to reacquaint myself with the older style and morays of its storytelling.

That being said, The Twilight Zone has been on my mind a lot lately as I'm in a bit of a difficult transition period in life now and am starting to wax nostalgically to the salad days when I grew up watching the show, only to remember episodes like "Walking Distance" or "Once Upon a Time" were a character will longwise long for the safety and simpler times of the past only to discover that the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

How ironic that even in the 1950s, now considered the "safe haven" of American history, people were hopelessly romantic about a time gone by. I guess as long as the Earth keeps turning, people will want to keep trying to turn it back.

Kal said...

That's the one. I had a 'Twilight Zone' guide from Starlog Magazine that you could remove and it reviewed all the episodes. I have read about some episodes I have never seen. Maybe after 'Outer Limits' I will do a Twilight Zone marathon. How strange is that to say?