"There is nothing wrong with
your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling
transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we
wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the
horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image; make it
flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal
clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and
hear. We repeat: There is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about
to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and
mystery which reaches from the inner mind to THE OUTER LIMITS."--
The Control Voice.
I don't want to take anything
away from THE TWILIGHT ZONE, but THE OUTER LIMITS- THE ORIGINAL SERIES
could quite possibly be the greatest anthology series to ever air on network
television. THE OUTER LIMITS was powerful, thought provoking science
fiction television, with a very human quality. Debuting on ABC Television in the
fall of 1963, THE OUTER LIMITS was the brainchild of writers Leslie
Stevens and Joseph Stefano, who served in both as both writers and producers.
During that first season, an astounding thirty-two hour-long episodes of quality
television were produced.
Many of the first season episodes
were gripping science fiction tales, which made some sort of allegorical
political or social statement, but in a veiled way that wasn't always
immediately apparent. In addition to their own contributions, Leslie Stevens and
Joseph Stefano brought in other top writers, who also created intelligent
teleplays that told stories of real ideas with sharply drawn characters. At the
time that they were producing the show, I don’t think Stevens or Stefano had
any allusions about THE OUTER LIMITS making television history, but over
the course of time the show has been elevated to classic stature. MGM Home
Entertainment has made all thirty-two first season episodes of THE OUTER
LIMITS available on DVD in a four disc boxed set by for the price of $79.96.
Disc one, side one contains the
episodes The Galaxy Being, The Hundred Days of the Dragon,
The Architects of Fear and The Man With the Power. The
Galaxy Being stars Cliff Robertson as a radio station engineer whose
broadcasting experimentations allows him to make contact with a being from the
Andromeda galaxy. However, when the power surges, the galaxy being is
transported to Earth with dire consequences. The Hundred Days of the
Dragon features Sydney Blackmer in a tale of an Asian nation replacing a
U.S. presidential candidate with one of their agents, one whose appearance has
been radically altered with the help of a newly developed serum. The
Architects of Fear stars Robert Culp as a scientist who volunteers to be
transformed into an alien, in hopes that an extraterrestrial threat will unite
the people of the Earth against a common enemy. The Man With the Power
stars Donald Pleasance as a professor that invents an apparatus that gives him
incredible power over the electromagnetic spectrum. Unfortunately, his
unconscious mind is able to tap into the power and acts upon its submerged
hostilities.
Disc one, side two contains the
episodes The Sixth Finger, The Man Who Was Never Born,
O.B.I.T. and The Human Factor. The Sixth
Finger stars Edward Mulhare and David McCallum in this tale of the
dangers of tampering with the human evolutionary process. The Man Who Was
Never Born, which stars Martin Landau as one of the last survivors of
the human race, who travels back in time to prevent the birth of the person
responsible for mankind's impending extinction. O.B.I.T. is the
story of the demoralizing effect of a surveillance device that eliminates the
privacy of every person, everywhere. The Human Factor stars Gary
Merrill, Harry Guardino and Sally Kellerman in a story of a crazed Army major
that scientists hope to treat with a new machine that can connect two human
minds, that is, until a malfunction switches his mind into a different body.
Disc two, side one contains the
episodes Corpus Earthling, Nightmare, It
Crawled Out of the Woodwork and The Borderland. Corpus
Earthling stars Robert Culp and Salome Jens in a tale of a man with a
metal plate in his head, who ventures into a geology lab, where he overhears two
strange samples of rocks plotting to take over the world. Ed Nelson, James
Shigeta and Martin Sheen star in Nightmare, a tale of human
prisoners of war who are brutally interrogated on the planet Ebon by their alien
captors. It Crawled Out of the Woodwork stars Scott Marlowe,
Michael Forest, Barbara Luna and Edward Asner in a story of an energy creature
accidentally created at a research lab with an appetite for human life. Philip
Abbott, Peter Mark Richman, Nina Foch, Gladys Cooper and Gene Raymond star in The
Borderland, a story in which scientists have cracked open a door to
another realm. Needing funding to throw the door wide open, the scientists turn
to a wealthy industrialist, who has been seeking a way to contact his dead son.
Disc two, side two contains the
episodes Tourist Attraction, The Zanti Misfits, The
Mice and Controlled Experiment. Tourist Attraction
features Ralph Meeker, Henry Silva and Janet Blair in one heck of a fish story
about a captured amphibious creature, whose fellow creatures go to great lengths
to rescue it. The Zanti Misfits stars Bruce Dern, Michael Tolan,
Robert F. Simon and Olive Deering in a tale of what happens when the Earth is
coerced into becoming the new home for a prison ship from another planet. The
Mice stars Henry Silva as a convicted murderer who volunteers to
participate in an exchange experiment that would send him to the planet Chromo,
while a denizen of their world comes to Earth. Barry Morse, Carroll O'Connor and
Grace Lee Whitney star in the somewhat comical episode Controlled
Experiment, in which two Martians investigate the quaint Earth custom of
murder.
Disc three, side one contains the
episodes Don't Open Till Doomsday, ZZZZZ, The
Invisibles and The Bellero Shield. Don't Open Till
Doomsday features Miriam Hopkins and John Hoyt in the tale of newlyweds
that happen upon an embittered old woman, who lost her husband on their wedding
night, and the alien monster responsible for his disappearance. Philip Abbott,
Joanna Frank and Marsha Hunt star in ZZZZZ, which tells of a queen
bee that transforms herself into beautiful woman for the sole purpose of turning
an entomologist into a human drone. Don Gordon stars in The Invisibles
as a government agent who discovers a conspiracy involving alien parasites that
have taken control of the rich and the powerful. Martin Landau, Sally Kellerman,
Chita Rivera, John Hoyt and Neil Hamilton star in The Bellero Shield,
a tale of a scientist who captures an alien capable of protecting itself with an
impenetrable shield.
Disc three, side two contains the
episodes The Children of Spider County, Specimen Unknown,
Second Chance and Moonstone. The Children of
Spider County features Lee Kinsolving as a brilliant young man who was
born on the same day in the same town as four other brilliant young men, all of
who have mysteriously vanished. Accused of their murders, he is able to escape
the law with the aid of a stranger, who claims to be his father. Specimen
Unknown stars Stephen McNally, Russell Johnson, Richard Jaeckel and
Dabney Coleman in a tale of a deadly plant found growing on the outside of space
station orbiting above the Earth. Simon Oakland stars in Second Chance,
a story about a group of people that get on an amusement park ride to discover
that it is an actual space ship piloted by an alien, who needs their help in
averting the destruction of the Earth and his own world. Ruth Roman and Tim
O'Connor are featured in Moonstone, the story of a lunar
expedition that discovers a strange rock on the moon's surface that turns out to
be an alien spaceship.
Disc four, side one contains the
episodes The Mutant, The Guests, Fun And Games
and The Special One. The Mutant stars Warren Oates
as a scientist caught in a rainstorm on an alien planet, who is mutated into a
creature with the ability to read minds and kill with his touch. Gloria Grahame
and Geoffrey Horne star in The Guests, the story of a man seeking
help after an accident, who discovers a strange house, with even stranger
occupants. Fun And Games features Nick Adams and Nancy Malone as
two humans that are abducted and forced into a deadly competition with two
inhabitants from another world. The stakes are rather high, since the losing
team's planet will be destroyed. The Special One features
MacDonald Carey, Richard Ney, Marion Ross and Edward Platt in this story of a
gifted child's tutor turning out to be not quite human.
Disc four, side two contains the
episodes A Feasibility Study, The Production And Decay of
Strange Particles, The Chameleon and The Forms of
Things Unknown. Sam Wanamaker and Joyce Van Patten are featured in A
Feasibility Study, the story of a small suburban neighborhood
transported to another world to determine if humans are suitable as a slave
labor force. George Macready, Leonard Nimoy and Signe Hasso star in The
Production And Decay of Strange Particles, the story of an accident at a
nuclear research facility that opens a dimensional doorway, which allows energy
creatures to invade the Earth. The Chameleon stars Robert Duvall
as an assassin, who is genetically altered to appear like an alien creature, so
he can infiltrate and kill a group of aliens that have crash-landed on the
Earth. David McCallum, Vera Miles, Barbara Rush and Scott Marlowe star in The
Forms of Things Unknown, the story of two woman that face the man they
have murdered, after an eccentric scientist undoes their crime with the time
altering apparatus that he has invented.
MGM Home Entertainment has made
all the season one episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS- THE ORIGINAL SERIES
available on DVD in their proper full screen aspect ratios. The black and white
transfers look very good, rendering a crisp and well-defined image. A lot of the
cinematography is a bit stylized, but still looks quite good on DVD. The film
elements used for the transfers display very few age related blemishes and
noticeable film grain is very minor. Blacks are very inky and solid, while the
whites are clean and the image produces a rather nice grayscale. Contrast can be
a bit stark at times, depending upon the intended look of a particular episode,
but otherwise it is reasonably smooth. Digital compression artifacts are well
concealed on the four dual sided, dual layered DVDs.
THE OUTER LIMITS
episodes are presented with their original soundtracks in Dolby Digital
monaural. The soundtracks are either very well preserved or have been digitally
cleaned, because the sound is very crisp, without appreciable background hiss or
traces of surface noise. Age and recording technology of the mid-1960s does
limit the fidelity of the monaural tracks, but they still manage to sound quite
good and are worth amplifying for Dominic Frontiere's main theme and episodic
scores. There are no other language track or subtitle options encoded onto the
DVDs. Animation and sound serve to enhance very cool interface for the
interactive menus. Through the menus, one can choose a particular episode to
view, as well as chapters within each episode.
Without a doubt, THE OUTER
LIMITS- THE ORIGINAL SERIES is one of the greatest shows to ever air on
television, be it anthology, or otherwise. MGM has done a terrific job bringing
season one of THE OUTER LIMITS- THE ORIGINAL SERIES to DVD. The
presentations look and sound great, plus the DVDs offer fans all thirty-two
episodes; totaling twenty-seven hours and twenty-two minutes of entertainment
for a bargain price of $79.96. This is a must have collection that belongs in
just about every DVD library.
"There is nothing wrong with
your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling
transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we
wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the
horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image; make it
flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal
clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and
hear. We repeat: There is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about
to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and
mystery which reaches from the inner mind to THE OUTER LIMITS."--
The Control Voice.
I don't want to take anything
away from THE TWILIGHT ZONE, but THE OUTER LIMITS- THE ORIGINAL SERIES
could quite possibly be the greatest anthology series to ever air on network
television. THE OUTER LIMITS was powerful, thought provoking science
fiction television, with a very human quality. Debuting on ABC Television in the
fall of 1963, THE OUTER LIMITS was the brainchild of writers Leslie
Stevens and Joseph Stefano, who served in both as both writers and producers.
During that first season, an astounding thirty-two hour-long episodes of quality
television were produced.
Many of the first season episodes
were gripping science fiction tales, which made some sort of allegorical
political or social statement, but in a veiled way that wasn't always
immediately apparent. In addition to their own contributions, Leslie Stevens and
Joseph Stefano brought in other top writers, who also created intelligent
teleplays that told stories of real ideas with sharply drawn characters. At the
time that they were producing the show, I don’t think Stevens or Stefano had
any allusions about THE OUTER LIMITS making television history, but over
the course of time the show has been elevated to classic stature. MGM Home
Entertainment has made all thirty-two first season episodes of THE OUTER
LIMITS available on DVD in a four disc boxed set by for the price of $79.96.
Disc one, side one contains the
episodes The Galaxy Being, The Hundred Days of the Dragon,
The Architects of Fear and The Man With the Power. The
Galaxy Being stars Cliff Robertson as a radio station engineer whose
broadcasting experimentations allows him to make contact with a being from the
Andromeda galaxy. However, when the power surges, the galaxy being is
transported to Earth with dire consequences. The Hundred Days of the
Dragon features Sydney Blackmer in a tale of an Asian nation replacing a
U.S. presidential candidate with one of their agents, one whose appearance has
been radically altered with the help of a newly developed serum. The
Architects of Fear stars Robert Culp as a scientist who volunteers to be
transformed into an alien, in hopes that an extraterrestrial threat will unite
the people of the Earth against a common enemy. The Man With the Power
stars Donald Pleasance as a professor that invents an apparatus that gives him
incredible power over the electromagnetic spectrum. Unfortunately, his
unconscious mind is able to tap into the power and acts upon its submerged
hostilities.
Disc one, side two contains the
episodes The Sixth Finger, The Man Who Was Never Born,
O.B.I.T. and The Human Factor. The Sixth
Finger stars Edward Mulhare and David McCallum in this tale of the
dangers of tampering with the human evolutionary process. The Man Who Was
Never Born, which stars Martin Landau as one of the last survivors of
the human race, who travels back in time to prevent the birth of the person
responsible for mankind's impending extinction. O.B.I.T. is the
story of the demoralizing effect of a surveillance device that eliminates the
privacy of every person, everywhere. The Human Factor stars Gary
Merrill, Harry Guardino and Sally Kellerman in a story of a crazed Army major
that scientists hope to treat with a new machine that can connect two human
minds, that is, until a malfunction switches his mind into a different body.
Disc two, side one contains the
episodes Corpus Earthling, Nightmare, It
Crawled Out of the Woodwork and The Borderland. Corpus
Earthling stars Robert Culp and Salome Jens in a tale of a man with a
metal plate in his head, who ventures into a geology lab, where he overhears two
strange samples of rocks plotting to take over the world. Ed Nelson, James
Shigeta and Martin Sheen star in Nightmare, a tale of human
prisoners of war who are brutally interrogated on the planet Ebon by their alien
captors. It Crawled Out of the Woodwork stars Scott Marlowe,
Michael Forest, Barbara Luna and Edward Asner in a story of an energy creature
accidentally created at a research lab with an appetite for human life. Philip
Abbott, Peter Mark Richman, Nina Foch, Gladys Cooper and Gene Raymond star in The
Borderland, a story in which scientists have cracked open a door to
another realm. Needing funding to throw the door wide open, the scientists turn
to a wealthy industrialist, who has been seeking a way to contact his dead son.
Disc two, side two contains the
episodes Tourist Attraction, The Zanti Misfits, The
Mice and Controlled Experiment. Tourist Attraction
features Ralph Meeker, Henry Silva and Janet Blair in one heck of a fish story
about a captured amphibious creature, whose fellow creatures go to great lengths
to rescue it. The Zanti Misfits stars Bruce Dern, Michael Tolan,
Robert F. Simon and Olive Deering in a tale of what happens when the Earth is
coerced into becoming the new home for a prison ship from another planet. The
Mice stars Henry Silva as a convicted murderer who volunteers to
participate in an exchange experiment that would send him to the planet Chromo,
while a denizen of their world comes to Earth. Barry Morse, Carroll O'Connor and
Grace Lee Whitney star in the somewhat comical episode Controlled
Experiment, in which two Martians investigate the quaint Earth custom of
murder.
Disc three, side one contains the
episodes Don't Open Till Doomsday, ZZZZZ, The
Invisibles and The Bellero Shield. Don't Open Till
Doomsday features Miriam Hopkins and John Hoyt in the tale of newlyweds
that happen upon an embittered old woman, who lost her husband on their wedding
night, and the alien monster responsible for his disappearance. Philip Abbott,
Joanna Frank and Marsha Hunt star in ZZZZZ, which tells of a queen
bee that transforms herself into beautiful woman for the sole purpose of turning
an entomologist into a human drone. Don Gordon stars in The Invisibles
as a government agent who discovers a conspiracy involving alien parasites that
have taken control of the rich and the powerful. Martin Landau, Sally Kellerman,
Chita Rivera, John Hoyt and Neil Hamilton star in The Bellero Shield,
a tale of a scientist who captures an alien capable of protecting itself with an
impenetrable shield.
Disc three, side two contains the
episodes The Children of Spider County, Specimen Unknown,
Second Chance and Moonstone. The Children of
Spider County features Lee Kinsolving as a brilliant young man who was
born on the same day in the same town as four other brilliant young men, all of
who have mysteriously vanished. Accused of their murders, he is able to escape
the law with the aid of a stranger, who claims to be his father. Specimen
Unknown stars Stephen McNally, Russell Johnson, Richard Jaeckel and
Dabney Coleman in a tale of a deadly plant found growing on the outside of space
station orbiting above the Earth. Simon Oakland stars in Second Chance,
a story about a group of people that get on an amusement park ride to discover
that it is an actual space ship piloted by an alien, who needs their help in
averting the destruction of the Earth and his own world. Ruth Roman and Tim
O'Connor are featured in Moonstone, the story of a lunar
expedition that discovers a strange rock on the moon's surface that turns out to
be an alien spaceship.
Disc four, side one contains the
episodes The Mutant, The Guests, Fun And Games
and The Special One. The Mutant stars Warren Oates
as a scientist caught in a rainstorm on an alien planet, who is mutated into a
creature with the ability to read minds and kill with his touch. Gloria Grahame
and Geoffrey Horne star in The Guests, the story of a man seeking
help after an accident, who discovers a strange house, with even stranger
occupants. Fun And Games features Nick Adams and Nancy Malone as
two humans that are abducted and forced into a deadly competition with two
inhabitants from another world. The stakes are rather high, since the losing
team's planet will be destroyed. The Special One features
MacDonald Carey, Richard Ney, Marion Ross and Edward Platt in this story of a
gifted child's tutor turning out to be not quite human.
Disc four, side two contains the
episodes A Feasibility Study, The Production And Decay of
Strange Particles, The Chameleon and The Forms of
Things Unknown. Sam Wanamaker and Joyce Van Patten are featured in A
Feasibility Study, the story of a small suburban neighborhood
transported to another world to determine if humans are suitable as a slave
labor force. George Macready, Leonard Nimoy and Signe Hasso star in The
Production And Decay of Strange Particles, the story of an accident at a
nuclear research facility that opens a dimensional doorway, which allows energy
creatures to invade the Earth. The Chameleon stars Robert Duvall
as an assassin, who is genetically altered to appear like an alien creature, so
he can infiltrate and kill a group of aliens that have crash-landed on the
Earth. David McCallum, Vera Miles, Barbara Rush and Scott Marlowe star in The
Forms of Things Unknown, the story of two woman that face the man they
have murdered, after an eccentric scientist undoes their crime with the time
altering apparatus that he has invented.
MGM Home Entertainment has made
all the season one episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS- THE ORIGINAL SERIES
available on DVD in their proper full screen aspect ratios. The black and white
transfers look very good, rendering a crisp and well-defined image. A lot of the
cinematography is a bit stylized, but still looks quite good on DVD. The film
elements used for the transfers display very few age related blemishes and
noticeable film grain is very minor. Blacks are very inky and solid, while the
whites are clean and the image produces a rather nice grayscale. Contrast can be
a bit stark at times, depending upon the intended look of a particular episode,
but otherwise it is reasonably smooth. Digital compression artifacts are well
concealed on the four dual sided, dual layered DVDs.
THE OUTER LIMITS
episodes are presented with their original soundtracks in Dolby Digital
monaural. The soundtracks are either very well preserved or have been digitally
cleaned, because the sound is very crisp, without appreciable background hiss or
traces of surface noise. Age and recording technology of the mid-1960s does
limit the fidelity of the monaural tracks, but they still manage to sound quite
good and are worth amplifying for Dominic Frontiere's main theme and episodic
scores. There are no other language track or subtitle options encoded onto the
DVDs. Animation and sound serve to enhance very cool interface for the
interactive menus. Through the menus, one can choose a particular episode to
view, as well as chapters within each episode.
Without a doubt, THE OUTER
LIMITS- THE ORIGINAL SERIES is one of the greatest shows to ever air on
television, be it anthology, or otherwise. MGM has done a terrific job bringing
season one of THE OUTER LIMITS- THE ORIGINAL SERIES to DVD. The
presentations look and sound great, plus the DVDs offer fans all thirty-two
episodes; totaling twenty-seven hours and twenty-two minutes of entertainment
for a bargain price of $79.96. This is a must have collection that belongs in
just about every DVD library.