The Outer Limits

THE OUTER LIMITS has been described as a bug-eyed monster show, and this is correct in the very loosest sense. However, it is so much more. Of all the sixties science fiction television programmes - and there were many - this was definitely one of the few which received practically universal critical acclaim. It is appropriate then that we mark the passing of fifty years since its first screening with a celebratory piece.

The series was initially devised by Leslie Stevens, who had learned a great deal of relevant information about the media business as a young man, whilst holding a menial position with the touring group of Orson Welles. Stevens wrote and directed the pilot episode, The Galaxy Being - about an alien being brought to Earth via an experimental radio beam - which was to set the required standard for subsequent scripts, before taking on the mantle of Executive Producer. A back seat was taken from that point, with Stevens writing and directing only three other stories. He was busily involved in pilots for future projects. In the early production stages, Stevens brought in Joseph Stefano as permanent Producer, and it was he who better deserved the credit for the series' outstanding success.

Stefano's impressive pedigree was already established; he had written countless scripts, among them the one for Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO movie, adapted from the novel by Robert Bloch. It was Stefano who introduced certain elements to the programme to create a unique magnetism for viewers, and a maintained high standard, both in script content and production values. One of these elements was what he fondly tagged the "Bear". This was in the majority of cases a chillingly realised monster or alien, or alternatively, a major visual effect for each story, by Projects Unlimited. There were many original creations over the two seasons, inspired by excellent scripts from Stefano and others. 

In addition to contributing no fewer than ten intelligent adult scripts himself, Stefano commissioned the talents of well known science fiction writers with good experience of turning out well structured, original and balanced tales of wonder and terror. The most notable of these was Harlan Ellison, who scripted two classic stories from the second season, Soldier and Demon with a Glass Hand, both of which won the coveted Hugo Award. 

The most competent directors were utilised whenever available. Gerd Oswald directed fourteen of the forty-nine episodes, including the majority of the better scripts. Many of the others, such as, James Goldstone, John Brahm, Byron Haskin and Felix Feist, went on to direct for, amongst others, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA and STAR TREK. On the writing stakes, Harlan Ellison of course won himself yet another Hugo Award with the fondly remembered Star Trek script, City on the Edge of Forever. Cinematographer Conrad Hall skilfully enhanced the eerie feeling of otherworldliness with tension setting unusual camera angles, and good use of light and shade. The programme proved to be a useful career springboard for such actors as, Robert Culp, David McCallum, Martin Landau, William Shatner, James Doohan, Leonard Nimoy and Adam West. The chilling music for season one was courtesy of Dominic Frontiere, whereas Harry Lubin's second season version was a little more melodic, losing the unearthliness conjured by the stories themselves.

THE OUTER LIMITS had the working title of Beyond Control well into pre-production, before being changed in time for airing. The Daystar-Villa di Stefano Production, backed by United Artists, materialised on ABC TV in America in 1963, but found its way to Britain the following year.

In the US, ABC were pleasantly surprised by immediately rocketing viewing figures. When they discovered the popularity of the programme, they spread the screenings over two years. However, the success of the first season was not generally emulated by the second. Ben Brady took over as Producer from season two, when Stefano resigned after repeatedly being refused the opportunity to direct some of the shows. Although there were some competent scripts, the latter part of the season reverted to standard monster SF, losing those elements of Stefano's which had lifted THE OUTER LIMITS above the mass of average series around at the time. One such factor was the moral of the tale. This was a project which attempted to explore every facet of humanity, including the folly of certain characteristic actions, as well as all sides of reality, insanity, space, time and changing emotions. The ratings slumped, persuading ABC to drop the show halfway through that season. With colour TV having been established for a few years now, ABC decided that nobody wished to watch monochrome anymore. Personally, I would much rather view quality black and white than trash colour. 

In Britain, it premièred on 16th April 1964. Vic Perrin's regular voice-over was heard for the first time, accompanied by the visual screen turning to static, to be replaced by the white line of outside influence.

"There is nothing wrong with your television set.

Do not attempt to adjust the picture.

We are controlling transmission.

We will control the horizontal.

We will control the vertical.

For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all you see and hear.

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."

Granada showed only thirty-four of the forty-nine episodes, in a drastically altered running order to that of US production. Between April and October 1964 they screened twenty-five stories, beginning with The Hundred Days of the Dragon, and ending with Second Chance. A further nine were screened between July and December 1966, starting with the two-part The Inheritors, and finishing with Demon with a Glass Hand. A few other ITV regions purchased the programme, but showed even less stories, so that for much of the country it disappeared without a trace. 

THE OUTER LIMITS finally received the full coverage it deserved fifteen years latter, in 1980, when the BBC bought and on BBC2 screened every episode of both seasons. Again the transmission sequence was rearranged. They began each run with one of the outstanding stories, mixing the good from the first season and the not so good from the second. Between March and July there were seventeen, commencing with Demon with a Glass Hand; nineteen followed between August and March 1981, kicking off with The Zanti Misfits; with the final thirteen airing between April and July 1981. Subsequently, the series was picked up by BSB satellite, and survived the mergence with Sky for another full screening. Since then there has been repeated screenings of this classic show, the most recent being on the Talking Pictures channel.

On occasion the programme has been compared to Rod Serling's original series of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. The format is undoubtedly similar, but the standard of content is incomparable. In my humble opinion, the worst examples of this Stevens / Stefano project easily reach the heights of the better TWILIGHT ZONE episodes. It is difficult to analyse just what made some stories so popular. Fans will of course have their personal favourites. As for me, the two most outstanding and memorable scripts were, The Zanti Misfits and The Invisibles, and I can only tell you what made them so enjoyable for me. 

In the former, a spacecraft lands near a long abandoned western town. A military group awaits the appearance of alien criminals from Zanti. When the ship is discovered, curiosity allows the aliens to escape and overrun the town and the military. The suspense of the story steadily builds, leading up to the revealing of this story's "Bears", spider-like creatures with near-humanoid faces. The final five minutes is truly astounding, as the creatures run amok, scuttling across the ground and running all over the walls. Arachnophobes on two continents were probably sent into convulsions upon viewing this one. 

In The Invisibles, a suspicious investigator goes undercover in a mystery organisation, where he witnesses members subjecting themselves to mind infiltration by a large parasitic alien. When he himself is forced to undergo the process, he is obliged to fight the creature invading his head and overcome the manipulation to carry out the dangerous instructions he has been brainwashed with. This episode is a true classic. I do not use the word lightly. The image of the creature - being lifted from a box, making chilling metallic grunting rasping noises, and being placed on the subject's bare back to attach itself to the spinal cord with a stinger-like part of its body, with the creature's bug-legs moving back and forth mechanically and the human screaming out in pain and terror - has stayed with me since it was first shown by the BBC. More recent screenings has not lessened the effect.

Both of these were penned by Stefano, although it is thought The Invisibles was based on the Robert A. Heinlein novel, The Puppet Masters. Other titles worthy of a mention include the following: In I, Robot, a mechanical man is falsely accused of murder and due for destruction, before the owning family appoint an attorney to protest its innocence. It is a credit to the script and acting combination that the robot is given a likeable personality so that sympathy is induced. This is based on the Isaac Asimov short shory from his I, Robot collection. Don't Open Till Doomsday sees a young couple spending their wedding night in a room unoccupied for years, but containing a box which the human nature of curiosity dictates they open. Inside is a deadly creature. In Fun and Games, a man and woman are forcefully taken to another world where they must fight against the representatives of other worlds for the survival of their own. Behold, Eck! centres upon one of those effects-created aliens. Eck is a transparent shape which seems to be constructed of twinkling lights. A noted eye surgeon sees the being with a pair of his newly designed glasses. When a few of his patients see it and word spreads, he fights to protect it from xenophobic aggressors. 

In many series the monster effects are let down by a shallow or non-existent plot, or a strong plot is overshadowed by a laughable creature creation. The strength of THE OUTER LIMITS was that both were strong and ably complemented each other. The main purpose of the series was to frighten an intelligent audience; if it failed to succeed at that level, it certainly kept the majority riveted. It took no prisoners, seizing you by the throat from the opening scenes, depicting a moment to come later in the story, and refusing to let go until the closing credits. It is just a shame that none of the TV regions appeared to realise what a treasure they had. The appreciation for this amazing show has continually increased over the years, and it is universally considered to be far superior to The New Outer Limits, which emerged in the 1990s and ran for seven seasons.

Needless-to-say, I purchased the original The Outer Limits when it emerged on DVD, but there are now two 11-Disc Blu-ray HD complete collections: a standard one, and a now hard to find (at a reasonable price) Limited Edition Australian-issue Collector's release which incorporates a book and additional extra features. I urge you to catch-up with this 1963 ground-breaking series in whichever format you can.

"We now return control of your television set to you..." 

It's nearly forty years since THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES mini-series hit our TV screens in the UK, and approaching the celebratory seventieth anniversary of the original book's first publication in the US. we ask the question: Did the TV version achieve what it originally intended? 

Based on the 1950 (in the US) novel, The Silver Locusts, by Ray Bradbury, one of the most prolific science fiction and suspense writers of our time, the attempt to adapt it for live action has been an ongoing effort virtually from first publication - with little success.

Bradbury was approached shortly after publication by producer John Houseman at MGM Studios who discussed the merit of a feature film based on the book. His choice for director, Vincente Minnelli, never materialised and no doubt this was one of the main reasons why it was finally considered unfeasible.

Seven years later Bradbury worked alongside short story writer Sidney Carroll to make it work as a Broadway musical. Also involved in this version was REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE composer, Leonard Rosenman. After a few months of intensive writing, the project coordinator, David Susskind decided to turn it into a comedy. Bradbury failed to convince him it should be treated seriously, and so returned the advanced money to escape the contract.

Actor Kirk Douglas' company, Byrne Productions, purchased the rights for one year, with the intention of creating a series for TV, but this one hardly progressed beyond the original idea. 

In 1960, Bradbury returned to MGM. This time he penned a screenplay. As expected by the writer, when he presented the finished product he was promptly dismissed. Likewise, in 1962, a script written for Alan Pakula and Bob Mulligan - who were connected to the film, TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD - was received at the time of the first Viking photos from Mars. The pictures showed no canals or vegetation, causing the studios to quickly lose interest. 

A few years afterwards the story was picked up yet again for a stage production in Paris, presented by Jean-Louis Barrault. Bradbury was excited with the sets being built, and drawings showed prospective gigantic marionette Martians. Everything looked promising until students raided the venue, L'Odean, and it was decided that all future projects would be scrapped. However, it was retrieved in an alternative play which ran for several months. Bradbury also had his own stage format production which played in America during the mid- to late-seventies.

Now we reach the version in question. It was 1976 when Ray Bradbury was contacted by NBC television - amid the news of the Viking craft's touchdown on the surface of the Red Planet - who were keen to film a definitive adaptation. One of his conditions of acceptance was that they employ Richard Matheson to write the screenplay.

Matheson's pedigree was almost legendary. His previous credits included for the big screen: THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, and many Roger Corman films, incorporating, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, and FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. There was also DUEL, written for Steven Spielberg's directorial début. For the small screen he contributed countless short story scripts for THE TWILIGHT ZONE and NIGHT GALLERY. During the seventies Matheson was considered one of the best fantasy writers of America.

Named as executive producers were Charles Fries - famous for his 1970's live action THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN series; or should that be infamous! (Actually, I quite like it) - and Dick Berg. The producers were Andrew Donally and Milton Subotsky (screenplay and producer of the two Dalek movies), although the latter withdrew from the project prior to its release. Special effects and photography were handled by two previous Oscar winners, Briton John Stears and Ted Moore, respectively. The direction was by Michael Anderson. 

The overall line-up was already beginning to look impressive, but the inclusion of certain well-established and household names made this look increasingly like the ultimate professional representation of classic science fiction. These faces included Rock Hudson, Roddy McDowell, Gayle Hunnicut, Darren McGavin, Robert Beatty, John Cassady, Fritz Weaver, Barry Morse and Nyree Dawn Porter. 

The official go-ahead was given by NBC in 1978, and filming commenced March of the following year. Around June of 1979 it appeared on US TV as a mini-series of three two-hour parts. With advertisements this was closer to ninety minutes each. With the help of a quite stunning poster, the completed product was edited down in the Spring of 1980 for film release in Europe. The BBC, who had purchased the original format around July of 1979, finally screened it on BBC 1 between 9-23 August 1980. 

The three parts of THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES were titled, The Expeditions, The Settlers, and The Martians. The first, set during 1999, follows the fate of three manned expeditions to Mars. A female native, Ylla, experiences a series of dreams about the arrival of men from space. When the visions become obsessive, her husband dons a war mask and dispatches the new arrivals from the Zeus Project. The astronauts of Zeus II land to discover a village identical to the one they grew up in. In it they find friends and deceased relatives which separate the men and lull them into a false sense of security. The third expedition, led by Col. John Wilder (Rock Hudson), finds the Martian people dead from a chicken pox epidemic. Jeff Spender (Bernie Casey), a crew member disturbed by the realisation of such a wonderful culture destroyed, becomes psychotic, and believing himself to be the last Martian survivor, begins killing the crew to protect his false homeland. 

The Settlers is set in 2004, and centres on the mass colonisation of Mars, and more primarily on several characters each looking for the answers to their problems on another planet. A fresh start. Anna and David Lustig seek their missing son, Sam Parkhill (Darren McGavin) and wife Elma want a successful restaurant business, and Father Peregrine (Roddy McDowell) desires to meet the physical existence of Christ. All are granted their wish in a quite unexpected manner. Then all life on Earth is desecrated by nuclear holocaust.

The Martians - who are now the humans, of course - set in late 2006, sees the colonists isolated from their native Earth. No more ships (the Silver Locusts) arrive carrying people and supplies. The Parkhills have a restaurant adjacent to what was to be the major highway; but now they have no customers. The corrugated iron town constructed by the humans quickly becomes a slum, with litter, graffiti and seedy nightclubs. John Wilder begins to despise the influence of such negative human culture on a world that is not their own. A true Martian makes his presence known to Wilder, explaining his resigned attitude to the desecration with "out with the old, in with the new" philosophy. 

THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES had all the ingredients of a classic show, without ever quite pulling it off. It's difficult to analyse exactly just what went wrong. The effects, although not outstanding, were passable. The make-up and particularly the Martian face and glittering eyes was impressive, as was the Martian war mask, costume and stone architecture. There were some nice moments, as when the missing son, Lafe, appears to the Lustigs during a thunderstorm; when Spender loses his grip early on; and the scene where the priest is visited by a vision of Christ. 

However, these magic moments were few and far between, so it's logical to assume that the original Richard Matheson teleplay containing Bradbury's heavy influences was drastically altered. This, along with an apparent desire to force the concept down the throats of mainstream viewers, left the finished product barely comprehensible (even Rock Hudson, the star of the show, left the strong impression he was disorientated throughout the filming).

EXCLUSIVE!

PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR THE SINGLE MOST EXCITING EVENT IN BRITISH TELEFANTASY HISTORY!

It has recently been revealed that DOCTOR WHO and THE TOMORROW PEOPLE will combine for a never to be repeated one-off television extravaganza.

A reliable source within Amblin has illicitly announced that the notion was forwarded by one individual, an avid childhood follower of the seventies format of the latter programme. This person persuaded production chiefs, searching for tight and professionally written new scripts and reworking of established classics, to attend a private screening of The Rameses Connection and The Living Stones, the most recent stories in the updated and subtly altered version. Impressed with high production values and competent special effects for a relatively low budget children's drama, they eagerly adopted the idea, contacting Central TV here in England.

Central agreed the combination in principal, but refused to compromise the copyright to them, even temporarily. Therefore, a joint venture was proposed, which means an English crew will work with an American production company to create a collaborative juxtaposition for two of Britain's best loved telefantasy serials.

A rudimentary premise has the present day quintet of Tomorrow People, joined by a handful of "New Race" original characters, accompanying the new Doctor in the TARDIS to the near future to aid him in dealing with a rogue faction of Tomorrow People which has forced its way into uncompromising positions of power. Although virtually all studio work will take place in America, it is hoped that location camera work will take place in both England and the USA.

Due to the obvious commitment involved in the Anglo-American project, the running time will be extended from the standard fifty-minute episode proposed by Fox TV to a two- or even three-hour feature length show. This little piece of history will be dropped inconspicuously into the middle of the forthcoming series, and should hit our small screens towards the latter part of the year or early 1996. Alternatively, in the event Fox decides against running with the series, this storyline will be televised individually as a second pilot in a bid to generate further interest in DOCTOR WHO. The emphasis is to be placed firmly on convincing acting ability and above average production, rather than an effects-laden piece. The production team is to consider commissioning a maximum of three universally known quality actors/actresses to offer the process significantly greater pulling power.