The Outer Limits Retrospect

[00:00:00] This podcast is a production of Unfiltered Studios. If you would like to know more about joining Unfiltered Studios, please visit our website at unfpod.com for more information. We are controlling transmission. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. Thrill to the odd outer limits.

[00:00:22] I've been wanting to do this for a while and I'm glad I re-watched a shit ton of it.

[00:01:32] For those who want to find the show, the whole library is on Roku, both versions. Roku, yeah, because I tried Pluto, but they only had season one. Yeah, no, go for Roku, the ads aren't too long and good quality, very haunting. I had always heard of the original 60s show. Obviously, I've seen it all now and, you know, I knew the whole turn down, you know, don't turn down your TV lights. I wrote down the entire thing. If you want to hear it. Yes.

[00:02:02] Is it going to be in a style of someone? Well, I don't know. I'm not as good as doing impressions as everybody else. So. A one and a two. And a. Start over. Take two. Take two. Action. 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.

[00:02:31] 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 a 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.

[00:03:00] You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to the outer limits. Yeah. Yeah. Woo. There. Okay. I'm done. You guys can go on talking. No, that's awesome. That's good. Since they do emphasize light a lot, I almost wanted to do a Christian Bell rent kind of reference. You want me to trust your lights? But I'm not going to do that.

[00:03:24] Well, you know, talking about lighting, you know, the one difference between outer limits and Twilight Zone is that outer limits was more film noir. Yes. Than Twilight Zone. Absolutely. I mean, there was always a bit of a crossover with Star Trek before the 90s one with a lot of film sets. The actors. Definitely a lot of actors. The first one and I definitely saw was the Leonard Nimoy one in the 90s.

[00:03:51] And it was wild because, yeah, he was on that exact episode. But in the 60s one, he was the cop who's not too keen on the guy, the robot being a murderer. And in the remake, he's the legal attorney. But it's not like Twilight Zone where obviously the OG stood out better and had way more creativity before whatever version came out. But like I have no emphasis on which one is better. I think both were very strong.

[00:04:20] Well, try to remind me because I didn't get a chance to rewatch either one of those. But was it like a data thing where they're trying to prove his humanity in a way? I can't remember what it was about. That particular episode, it was a bit of that. But also like just in general, like they all both of them had a lot of steampunk and cyberpunk ideas.

[00:04:41] But much like Twilight Zone and Hills from the Crypt, they did a healthy mixture of, you know, ethical questions and social commentary mixed in with. A writer version is always just so exciting. Like there's just always just some unusual cover up. And it's never to the point of I don't really buy into this, but this is fun. The music, I feel how many people have scored for it, but it was way more moody. They would often bring in even. And I know we've said this about any good anthology.

[00:05:09] If you love the episode so much, it could be its own movie. But I definitely get more of that with Outer Limits, where it's like, oh, man, I can name 20 episodes. That should have been their own 50s B picture. Yeah. Should have been its own alien invasion movie. Should have been its own TV show. Well, like I was watching a couple with Robert Culp, although I didn't get a chance to see one of my favorites this time around. But he did The Architects of Fear, where they're trying to transform him into an alien. Yes.

[00:05:39] So that they can try to convince the nations to work together. And that made me think of Watchmen. Yes. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these pulp authors would watch the show because it was literally speaking their language. What they're putting down as a comic book or as a short story is literally what you're seeing in TV form. Yeah. And to the point, to the point you were making earlier, I think we've talked about this before, but it bears repeating.

[00:06:07] Science fiction at its core is at least ideologically progressive. You're dealing with topics that hit on the ethical side of it and things that make you think beyond what could be happening down the road. Twilight Zone did this to perfection on more than one occasion. Albert Limits did that to perfection. And it comes down to just having that progressive ideology in there.

[00:06:36] Not necessarily today's version of progressive thought, but more of, okay, here's the facts we have. Yes. But what if something happens down the road? Or what happens if this variable changes? Then what?

[00:06:53] And what makes Twilight Zone out of limits, Tales from the Crypt, and any kind of other show in that similar vein so powerful and beloved is that they force us to kick our minds off of what we see. Yes. The tangible, the things that we know are true and makes us think. Bingo.

[00:07:22] Could this really happen? Or has this already happened? Yeah. Or what would I do in this situation? And in doing so, like we mentioned, it opens up ideas for social change, ethical questions, the whole nine yards. The very episode about the robot trying to determine its humanity or whether it is a life. That's something you wouldn't get on a sitcom. No. Even if it's – you wouldn't get that on Mork and Mindy.

[00:07:51] You would get that on the outer limits. And it predates the next generation when they did that trial for Data's humanity. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And so Leslie Stevens was kind of one of the brains behind it, and he later was the consultant on the other show. And I mean, I like how both kind of served their purpose. Like, they were all both kind of had a respectable reputation.

[00:08:16] And again, like, to the other shows, like, you know, Twilight Zone, you think of, oh, yeah, Rod Sterling's going to host and then narrate the conclusion. And, you know, the other shows are going to have their Crypt Keeper equivalent. And this one, you know, you just hear the narrator. And he speaks with such authority. You believe everything he's saying. And he only chimes in when the tell has concluded. So I was like, that's cool. Yeah.

[00:08:41] And that's a stark difference from Twilight Zone in that you see Sterling. You see him invade the tell sometimes. Exactly. And he becomes the everyman. He becomes, whereas he's not so authoritative. He does have that presence. Yes. But he is what grounds us. Whereas with the outer limits, it is this, you don't see the voice. You hear the voice.

[00:09:08] And the tone that we use is much more authoritative, much more you have no control over this. Which is an old. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. No, you go ahead. I was going to say that's kind of like a brilliant thing to do for the show. It's like saying you have no control. You're going to watch our show. Yeah. Instead of we did it because we could or because it is. You've got to remove doubt from the viewer's mind before you do anything.

[00:09:35] And I mean, it's like Twilight Zone that I mean, they still adapted a lot of Asimov and Matheson, you know, kind of stuff. But yeah, I applaud them for definitely getting more inside the mind of machines and everything because. You know, usually when a robot enters the equation, it's just to have kind of a barrier for the character to fight against.

[00:10:00] And it's just amazing because like when you look at the 60s ones, like you see even more A-listers before they were known who went on to greater things. And with the 90s one, you were having so many next gen and tells from the crypt guys writing for it. But then to make it even more wild, like the production company was Trilogy Productions. They had done movies like Backdraft and Prince of Thieves and Showtime, much like Stargate. They didn't really value it.

[00:10:28] And once it went into syndication, they were like, we don't want to show it anymore. And I would sometimes encounter it early in the mornings on SyFy and be like, God, that is so disturbing. I have no idea what's going on. The Outer Limits had a seven year run and six years of it, I think, was on Showtime with the final one. Right, right. They did the final season. And unlike most of those premium shows, any of the R-rated content, I never found disruptive or anything.

[00:10:52] It was just that's just how it was just like reading a novel that got a little occasionally explicit. It wasn't ever to the point where I'm like, OK, take it out. Oh, there's nothing worthwhile to watch here. It was just a choice. That'd be more like Russ Myers. Well, it's like I was telling them earlier, Alyssa Milano taking her clothes off and Natasha Henstrich taking her clothes off. You know, I'll give it a win for that.

[00:11:22] Yeah. Fortunately, they're still acting. They're not just the eye candy and everything. And I mean, the 60s one, the sets felt bigger than they really were. And obviously, nowadays, if you ask anyone if they've seen it, they'll do the whole. I've heard about the Star Trek connection or they'll do the whole which are the two episodes that inspired the Terminator that Harlan Ellison sued. And I'm like, oh, no, guys, trust me. There's more to this. Like this was a win for MGM. Yeah, they'll confuse it with Twilight Zone. Sometimes a lot of people. I will see that, too.

[00:11:52] I'm like, no, no, no, no. Stop. Stop. Stop. Oh, I think it stood the test of time just because it's doing what you love in your favorite books and comics. It's just it's they're very pulp tells. They're just very, very organized. Good set. Our direction plot twists like any anthology show.

[00:12:15] I can think of ones that didn't completely take off or didn't quite cut the mustard, but I can't think of any where I'm like, good God, didn't even try. You know, I was trying to think with that newer version of Outer Limits. They tried to tie some episodes together to do clips episodes at the end of each season for at least a few seasons, I think. That's what the Stargate guys did later. And it actually, I think, works better here because they're trying to tie in all the bizarre mysteries and government cover ups.

[00:12:44] They're trying to have some. To say they're all connected. Well, yeah. And especially with the ones that they do revisit, like and you'll love this. So Naren Shankar, who was best known as being a science consultant on all the track shows and wrote all the data centric episodes. There was an unwritten rule in the writer's room of the new Outer Limits. You'll love this. Where there was do anything, but absolutely no time travel. Well, there was some time. Right, right, right.

[00:13:14] Because he broke, he helped break that mold. He was like, what if I have this one with Kevin Nealon and what if I do with these other ones? It's like, yes, there were some before then, but they tried to not have that as much. But that's the thing. Naren, you know, there's a reason he's gone on to do other big things like The Expanse. He just had that scientific mind. So there's just like, he can back all this up and make a good story. And then when they released the DVDs, I mean, they released them not as chronological.

[00:13:41] They released them in groups like Aliens Among Us episodes. That was actually pretty smart. Instead of just to collect the season that you may or may not collect. It's like, let's give you a theme. If you like the ones that deal with home invasions or with UFOs, you can get those. Or you can get the ones in the psych wards or in the White House, you know. I got, like, there's eight collections of them. I bought the Sex and Science Fiction one in the Time Traveling Infinity. What a great title.

[00:14:11] Yes. Sex. Is this by Full Moon? Something about that title just appealed to me. I can't put my finger on it. I couldn't. It's science fiction, obviously. Oh, yeah. I swear. Yeah. We'll return after these messages. If you like small town mystery, crazy news, and wild history, then the Florida Men on Florida Man podcast is for you.

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[00:15:37] I haven't really had a lot of conversations with anyone here. It seems like people just go, I respect it, but I don't see any more to it. It's just kind of like, okay. I've always seen it as like, all right, the Twilight Zone was more of a morality play. Yes. And The Outer Limits was science fiction monster of the week, like you said. And there wasn't, you know, a story to be told in it.

[00:16:04] But the thing was, is that I don't remember the Twilight Zone having, you know, aliens that looked like the way they did. Yes. You know, and these stories that were just so off the chart, you know, you'd just be like, you'd be like, okay, I'm going to watch, I'm going to watch The Outer Limits. And you watch it, I'm going to be like, okay, I'm getting, there's a little more entertainment than, you know, there's not that much heaviness in The Outer Limits than there is with The Twilight Zone.

[00:16:34] You know? You found, you found Twilight Zone to be heavier? I found Twilight Zone to be a lot heavier because a lot of it was, was with the writing, you know? No, I mean, absolutely. I almost would have said whimsical. Twilight Zone was more whimsical, I thought. Well, I'm not. With The Outer Limits being the harder edge. I mean, it depends on the episode, but I think what James is getting at is, I mean, I mean, definitely the music is definitely more freakier on the original Twilight Zone, while like with Outer Limits, you know,

[00:17:03] Dominic Frontier's themes are kind of more, I would say Twilight Zone has more sci-fi. I mean, they all have mystery, horror, and fantasy elements, but like, I guess Twilight Zone, you could, you can apply a little more to like everyday life because there's a lot of hard-hitting themes on, you know, prejudice and corruption, and especially the ones involving westerns.

[00:17:28] Well, with Limits, you kind of get more just abstract ideas, or much like Star Trek, you get existing arguments that they then dress up in a sci-fi setting just so people will actually sit down and listen to it. And that brings up an interesting thing that I noticed, the music for both. Yes. Outer Limits was very much boom in your face. You had... Very... Yeah.

[00:17:55] And you compare that to Twilight Zone, that had a little bit more mystery to it. So it's almost like you're dealing with, on the one hand, you've got... Yeah. You've got more of a... With Outer Limits, you have something that's more dynamic, more in your face, more like a full brass section, whereas Twilight Zone kind of felt almost like somebody, almost like somebody, a group of people playing a violin. Yes. It's got that... And I think it really... It really...

[00:18:25] It really kind of accented... Yes. Just the overall approach to it. I mean, Outer Limits, yeah, definitely more abstract ideas, but it was a theme music that got boom that says, okay, you are locked in. Yes. And the thing... I'm sorry. The only other thing that I can think of that even remotely comes close to that, as far as sound is concerned, is the end of almost every episode of The Prisoner. Yeah. Yes.

[00:18:54] You hear that slamming of the jailhouse door. Yeah. It's not adventure music, but it is very bleak. It's very much just like... It's very... Making good use of the foley. It's as good as you could get a theater experience on that small screen at that time. But when you think about the intros to both the shows, The Twilight Zone was like, you're entering a dimension, the dimension of time, the dimension of space, you know. This was... Okay. That's bringing you into it. Yes.

[00:19:24] You opened the door to keep imagination. Yeah. Outer Limits is... We're taking this over. You can't do anything about it. We're taking this over. We can do what we want. Yes. And to be honest... Yeah. To be honest, it is... I see it now. I just had an idea because on the one hand, Outer Limits is very overt with that. Yes. Twilight Zone is just the opposite.

[00:19:53] It's more of like... It's like Outer Limits is bad cop. Yes. Twilight Zone is a good cop. See? I love when anyone here does perils. That's how you break it down. Well, and then you had episodes like the one with Burgess Meredith where he's wanting to read books and not deal with people. And then all the people are gone and he has all the books he can read. That's a good point. Twilight Zone would have stuff where it's kind of like what X-Files would echo.

[00:20:22] It's like someone sees something they can't explain. It's a phenomenon. And they're like, if I even tell this to someone, they're going to think I'm crazy. But I know something's wrong. And Limits kind of does more with... Yes. Like the Meredith episode. You deal with a lot of characters. I mean, Crip would do this too. But to Limits' credit, they... Without being an actual cynical tell, they'll just have a character who is a smartass or an antisocial genius.

[00:20:52] And so you go on a bigger frill ride while also being like, oh man, there's no way they're getting out of this alive. They're just... They're too smart. Everyone wants them dead in this cover-up or whatever is being broadcast. But to all three shows' credits, at least they didn't go to the point where you're just like... You know, you didn't even try with the mystery or the... You just try to be shocking for no reason. Like they cover all their bases.

[00:21:21] And especially when they're doing science fiction. Like it is hard sci-fi. Well, Zone is kind of a freaky morality tell. Like it makes... It's even bigger if you have a more active imagination. So then it goes places you didn't know it was possible, you know? Well, it's like Outer Limits was more sci-fi. Twilight Zone did sci-fi. It dealt with more fantasy elements as well. Mm-hmm. You know? And kudos to the themes.

[00:21:47] Like Dominic Frontiers, again, like you guys are saying, they're making use of that symphony orchestra. And Mark Mancina, good one as well. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. You know, just... It is like a death symphony, I call it. Like it is... It is giving you that invite into inevitable peril. Well, also again, yeah. I mean... But yeah, James, I think, is right. Like Zone is kind of just a little more relatable kind of fears that everyone has had at one point.

[00:22:17] And introducing them into a concept. And yeah, Limits, like Gil's saying, is just... Oh, just very hard sci-fi. You know, just all these ideas that... Even some stuff that you've definitely, you know, read in book form that you're just now seeing illustrated on screen. You're like, yeah, you know, that was perfect casting. That was... And I mean, why do you think... But both shows definitely make use of the George Romero formula. Just have one or three locations.

[00:22:46] And then kind of have a claustrophobic kind of execution of someone, you know, again, just... And I think Outer Limits keeps from being formulaic by... Again, you know, especially when they were reusing stuff or having loose sequels to stuff. They still try to have a different way of introducing it or ending each tell. I never felt like any casting was off.

[00:23:15] And I'll get to that in our Outer Moments episode. But I mean, kudos for this being a smash hit for MGM. And it is wild how each version was just kind of one of those... It's like, yeah, it's a good show. And then when it went, it went. But at least it left a good impression versus we got sick of it, you know. There's a reason... No, go ahead.

[00:23:42] I think ABC knew when to end it. Yes. Well, they moved... Because it aired on a different night in the first season. And it did well. But it dropped drastically when they moved it to another night. I think they moved it to a Saturday night. It's the oldest misfire in the book. Everyone will change it. And unfortunately, if you change too many time slots, people just forget when to set the tape, you know. Thankfully, we don't have to deal with that anymore.

[00:24:11] We don't have to anymore. And so now when people do it, I'm like, yeah, tell me you want to kill this show without telling me you want to kill it. Wild. Wild. But definitely can't recommend anymore. Like, just... You're going to be blown away anytime you see an episode. You're just like, man, how abstract. How larger than life. How creepy. Without having to show a single drop of, you know, blood.

[00:24:40] How fascinating without having to have a good actor deliver a boring sci-fi expo dump. Like, just... You storyboarded this. And if there's one thing they do not as well as Zone, but similar effect, they will have some just... Again, like any good horror maestro, they'll make good use of the music. But then sometimes they will just cut away and you're like, I can only imagine the danger that happened off screen or the outcome.

[00:25:09] Like, it's in my mind now. I decide the ending, you know. I was just thinking... Instead of being a cheesy cop-out where you're like, come on. It was just starting and you ended it, you know. I was just thinking we're talking about Monsters of the Week for Outer Limits. Yes. And boy, they had uglier creatures in their show than Twilight Zone did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll kick another stab at this. Ow!

[00:25:38] Yeah, exactly. But the point being... But there's another show who kind of dipped into the Outer Limits approach, at least for the first season, then started to move away from it. And that was Smallville. Yeah. Smallville started out as the Monster of the Week or the Freak of the Week. That's true. And it was all centered around the kryptonite or something.

[00:26:06] Before they had escaped test subjects or other government guys who are like, let's add some more red tape to this, you know. Yeah. But once they got out of that first season, they started working on more complex storylines. And I think that's... And I think that's... You can draw a line directly from that to the way the Outer Limits brought their stories to life. Yes.

[00:26:36] And that's just it. But I think... Kudos for anyone who can make a sci-fi concept last a while. And even those doing horror anthologies. Because like... Especially when you're being told by the network, make this easy to syndicate. But then at the same time, you know, you still need character growth. Otherwise, it becomes the billionth, you know, Western cop show or doctor show. And there's not much change. And it gets annoying even if you have to...

[00:27:05] I see people getting into arguments on whether they like serialization or not. I'm like, just have evolution of a character, you know. Like, obviously, you're going to have an episode that someone doesn't care for inevitably or didn't make as much progress. But that's okay versus nothing ever changes. And then you quit after a while because it's not interesting anymore. Well, the new Outer Limits kind of had a thing where you're talking about characterization and stuff. Well, they had... Yes. You know, they had anthology episodes.

[00:27:34] Like, there was single episodes. And then they had other episodes where later on, they'd have a callback to that previous episode. And it felt earned as opposed to we ran out of ideas, you know. Yeah. What was our highest rated one? Let's go back to that. It's like, no, I want to... I got more to say on that. So let's... Right. There's more to explore here than... Let's have a part two. Yeah. And even to their credit, like, the episodes would still kind of stand well on their own.

[00:28:00] So even if you didn't like the first part of that one, they were doing a conclusion or follow-up to it. It's like, still... It's very... It's like going to a cool convention and having all these scientists who you can pick their brains on. And you can be there for hours. And then when you want to leave, you can. But it was time and money well spent as opposed to... I just got bored after a while, you know.

[00:28:29] It's definitely a lot of great minds who... I've never heard of any foul play behind the scenes on any of these shows. It seems like everybody always had cool ideas and put their creativity to use instead of, you know, we got to make a spooky, you know, radio show that's on the air. You know? Kudos to anybody who can make any format work. Those guys are always my heroes because it's hard.

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