The Outer Limits: "Fun and Games"

Originally published in Astounding Magazine in June of 1944 Fredric Brown’s short story “Arena” has since become a staple of science fiction television, re-purposed -- and sometimes without attribution -- for many diverse series.  

The story has been featured on The Outer Limits as "Fun and Games," on Star Trek (1966-1969) as "Arena," on Space: 1999 (1975 – 1977) as "The Rules of Luton," on Blake’s 7 (1978-1981) as "Duel" on  Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century (1979-1981) as "Buck's Duel to the Death," and later, on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987 – 1994) as "The Last Outpost."

Brown’s influential story revolves around a space war between Earth Man and “intelligent spider” aliens called "Outsiders.”  

During one combat engagement, a human pilot, Carson is beamed from the cockpit of his one-man “scouter,” and transported to the narrative’s titular arena: a planet of blue-colored sand and strange, talking lizards. There, an omnipotent alien explains to Carlson that the cosmic conflict won't be settled between the stars, but in this very ring.  The human will fight an Outsider -- a round, tentacled organism -- to the death.

Should Carson lose this brutal contest, mankind will be wiped out of existence. Contrarily, if Carson prevails in the match, the human race inherits the universe and the Outsiders shall be destroyed.  

In the end, Carson vanquishes his alien nemesis without any significant reservations, committing an act of violence that is a “moral imperative” according to the tale's author.

Written during World War II, Brown’s vignette determinedly suggested an alternative to the horrors of the times.  What if a war could be settled by two individuals -- trained warriors from each side -- rather than by the vast technological and personnel mobilization of nation-states? 

Wouldn’t that solution be better, more reasonable, and a far less messy way to wage war?

Across the decades, the “Arena” story template was been modified dramatically, and Brown’s Darwinian “survival of the fittest” message has frequently been overturned in favor of 1960s anti-war philosophy.   

For instance, in Star Trek’s famous “Arena,” adapted by Gene Coon, Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and a Gorn commander -- like Carson and the Outsider -- are transported to a neutral planet for one-on-one combat, while omnipotent aliens known as Metrons wait to declare a victor, and destroy the loser’s ship.  

But in this iteration -- and unlike his literary antecedent -- Kirk defies the God-like aliens and refuses to kill his opposite number. The focus of this optimistic TV story is on not fighting in the first place, rather than winning or losing in person-to-person combat.

Later iterations of Brown’s outline, namely Space: 1999’s “Rules of Luton, Blake’s 7’s “Duel,” and Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The Last Outpost” similarly stress the “more evolved” moral ideal of resisting an arranged fight; and of defying instead the God-like aliens who desire “bread and circus”-styled entertainment from the warring behavior of other intelligent beings.

Instead of Brown’s Darwinian tale of survival of the fittest, these later programs meditate on the Sun Tzu axiom: “He will triumph who knows when to fight and when not to fight,” and turn the god aliens -- not the war enemy -- into the real villain of the story.

But “Fun and Games,” The Outer Limits’ memorable variation on the “Arena” template -- and the first to air on network TV -- remains determinedly different from such later re-tellings.

Specifically, “Fun and Games” is the only version of Fredric Brown’s story (though not credited as such by the Daystar series…) which doesn't feature an overtly futuristic setting (like the 23^rd century setting of Trek, or the 25^th century setting of the Buck Rogers’ episode “Buck’s Duel to the Death.”)  

Rather, the story takes place in America of the 1960s.

Even more significantly however, “Fun and Games” differentiates itself from its TV brethren by focusing squarely on contemporary, flawed man, rather than on more idealized, knowledgeable men of the Space Age like James Kirk, Buck Rogers or Will Riker.  

Instead, Robert Specht’s teleplay “Fun and Games,” originally called “Natural Selection,” focuses squarely on two 20^th century human outcasts, a man and a woman of less-than-sterling character who quite unexpectedly are called upon by alien gamesters on Andera (very nearly an anagram for the word “arena…”).  Their task: to battle primitive “Calco” aliens…with the survival of the Earth at stake.  

Actually, “Fun and Games’” primary protagonists might even be considered bad people rather than heroes, at least in terms of the standards and traditions of the 1960s.  Benson (Nick Adams) is a small-time hood and ex-boxer with questionable ethics, while Laura Hanley (Nancy Malone) outwardly presents the appearance of sterling character but is actually a divorcee who left her husband because, simply, she didn’t want to be “his mother.”  The Anderan Senator, who lords over the gladiatorial games challenges Laura on her characterization of the marital separation.  

The truth is, explains the Senator, Laura’s husband just wanted “help” and she did not want to offer it.

Benson and Laura are hardly paragons of humanity, at least by most Camelot-era ideals.  And yet they are deliberately selected by the Anderan Senator to represent us in the battle to save the Earth.  

Both the questionable natures of the protagonists and the story’s focus on the necessity of killing -- rather than avoiding the fight -- render “Fun and Games” perhaps the hardest edge variation on Brown’s “Arena" in cult-tv history.

Yet, in keeping squarely with Outer Limits tenets, “Fun and Games” also features a “nod to high-minded ideals,” as the concept was described in David J. Schow’s series literary companion.  Perhaps, the episode’s narrative suggests, the trick to winning the Anderan contest is an understanding of when to be savage and when to be civilized. 

Nick and Laura’s opponents, the beastly Calcos, don’t have the same sense of adaptability as their human opponents in this regard.  The male Calco kills his female partner to secure the necessary nutrients for longer-term survival on the arena planet. An ally would have been more valuable to him.

By contrast, the human female, Laura, comes to Nick’s aid at a crucial moment and double-teams the last Calco, assuring human kind “the win.”

If the Calcos are a negative example for the displaced or “electroported” humans to learn from, the Anderans are not really any better.  

The Senator is a taunting, cackling master of ceremony.  It is plain that his highly-advanced people -- no matter how “peaceful” or “affluent” -- are absent human traits such as empathy or compassion.  The Anderan quest for “pleasure” may control and appease their passions, but they are also utterly without mercy, not to mention decency.

With the negative examples of the Anderans and Calcos in mind, the high-minded moral at work in “Fun and Games” involves balancing the ups and downs of human nature; both the impulse to kill and the capacity to work with others for a common goal. The episode presents an even-handed, believable portrait of the species. 

"Fun and Games" opens with images of blood sports; of a 1960s-era boxing match and of filmic recreations of gladiatorial games in Ancient Rome, specifically.  Accompanying these visuals, the Control Voice non-emotionally discusses our human history of competition and sport, and how such games in the modern technological era have been “drained of all but their last few drops of blood.”

This not entirely positive assessment of modern “fun and games” suggests that humans -- or at least some of us -- have lost our desire to be, well, the fittest; that such blood sports somehow keep us “ready” or primed for those life-and-death occasions in which we must rise to such a challenge.  

Without regular contests to firm up those ancient instincts, do humans lack the edge necessary to survive in a hostile cosmos?

“Fun and Games” intimates that in the absence of such “authentic” blood sports, some humans -- of a certain stripe anyway -- seek other avenues to “survive” and confront challenges.  

For Nick Adams, despite his fears and professed lack of courage, this means that he survives as a criminal,  an outlaw skirting the police and involving himself in life-or-death scenarios, like a poker game gone wrong.  He spends his life as a desperate rat in a cage, running forever in place.  But always running, nonetheless…his instincts always heightened.

Although it has been reported “Fun and Games” ran short in its final cut and that producer Joseph Stefano devised the notion of playing a kind of “time loop” in the episode, rerunning the sequence of murder at Nick’s poker game in Laura’s boarding house, the deliberate repetition of time and imagery in the episode actually works to the narrative’s benefit in the final analysis.  

The repeating footage ably suggests that Benson’s life is already a life-and-death contest of sorts, each and every day, in every possible moment. It’s as though he’s trapped on a treadmill, running and re-running in place.  No end. No beginning. Just endless danger.  Endless adrenaline.

For her part, Laura has also checked out of the socially acceptable and decorous behavior of her culture (America of the mid-1960s). She ditched a husband and marriage that didn’t suit her, and now lives alone. Again, this is a brand of survival of the fittest, isn’t it?  

In the battle between fighting for her needs, and for her husband’s needs, Laura’s needs won out.  She made it so.  

Not unlike Nick then, Laura is already a fighter...at least in the contest called life.   In some ways, she is even more a dedicated, hardcore fighter than Nick.  For instance, it is clear that without her assistance, Nick would have lost the Anderan contest to the Calco.  It is also clear that she uses whatever means she can think of to persuade Nick to participate in the Anderan game.

One of the many elements of The Outer Limits I’ve always appreciated is its realistic rather than idealized depiction of human beings.  There is optimism inherent in that view; a deep respect for human resourcefulness and tenacity. However, the series is not shy, either, about revealing humanity at his most savage (“The Zanti Misfits”), or his most fearful (“The Architects of Fear.”)  “Fun and Games” remains a delight because it paints a balanced picture of the human animal, simultaneously remembering the savage past and hinting at an enlightened future. 

Sometimes, mankind is willing to fight and murder, but in the case of the Anderan bread and circuses, these acts are for a very worthy cause: the survival of the species. Delightfully, the Control Voice’s final meditation about “human qualities” directing mankind to a better future in the “great darkness” of space (or the future) takes an important step beyond “Arena’s” literary narrative.   Even if the battle for survival is at hand, we would do well to wage that war with the best angels of our nature, “compassion” and “love.”    

In some situations, murder and violence may indeed be Fredric Brown’s “moral imperative,” but we don’t have to relish or enjoy these occasions.

The Outer Limits: "The Zanti Misfits"

Imagine you're a little kid again. The year is 1963. And it's a Monday night.

You've just adjusted the channel on your (black-and-white) TV set to ABC. The Outer Limits is airing, and this week's "transmission" from the Control Voice involves the creepiest alien creatures you've ever seen: skittering, howling, relentless, big-eyed ants known as Zantis.

And during the final act of this Joseph Stefano-penned nightmare, these Zanti Misfits are EVERYWHERE.

They're crawling down walls, attacking American soldiers, and jumping -- literally -- out of the woodwork of a hotel-turned military installation in Morgue, CA. So...it's pretty much an unstoppable onslaught of alien bug-eyed monsters.

In vetting this harrowing denouement, the classic TV anthology truly lives up to producer Stefano's famous mission statement: "The viewer must know the delicious and consciously-desired element of fear..." (Gary Gerani. Fantastic Television, Harmony Books, 1977, page 57).

Another story element that Stefano always insisted upon in each episode of The Outer Limits was a focus on some important aspect of "the human condition." "The Zanti Misfits," directed by Leonard Horn, lives up to this dictum too, revolving specifically around the contemporary problem of what a"civilized" society should do with its criminals.

Here, the U.S. Government is "co-erced" by the technologically-advanced alien Zantis into accepting on our soil a shipment of their extra-terrestrial criminals. The draconian Zantis are described by the teleplay as being "perfectionists" and are genetically incapable of executing their own kind, even their most heinous law-breakers.

The Zanti Misfits encounter two small-time Earth criminals, played by a very young Bruce Dern and Olive Deering, upon landing in the California desert. This unexpected incident could cause the destruction of the Earth since the Zanti insist on privacy for the prisoners. And it is learned very quickly that Zanti have no qualms about killing human beings.

In the end, the Zanti escape their prison ship with their guards and overrun the town of Morgue, now the U.S. "warden" post for the prisoners. The U.S. Army and an inexperienced military historian, Stephen (Michael Tolan) fight for their lives, and it's utter chaos in the aforementioned final scene. 

The Zanti are finally taken out with fire, with rifles...and with good old-fashioned bug foot-stompin.'

The kind-hearted general in command of the installation (Robert Simon) fears a Zanti reprisal for this violent response from Earth men, but a transmission from the Zanti home world reveals a surprise and, indeed, some sense of relief.

"It was always our intention that you destroy them," the Ruler reveals, referring to the Zanti criminals.

In other words, the Zanti were banking on destructive human nature to resolve their problem of housing criminals. And...it worked. As the final narration from the Control Voice points out rather trenchantly, the Zanti solution is not a human one or an in-human one. It's just a...non-human one.

What I appreciate most about The Outer Limits, and the reason why it remains worthy of extensive study and remembrance today, is the fact that each episode of the series is shot in exquisite and expressive horror-movie fashion. This episode opens, for instance, with an establishing shot of a sign reading "Restricted Area: Do Not Enter," which raises viewer anxiety and fear. What's behind the sign? What's behind the fence?

As a book-end to this mysterious opening shot, "The Zanti Misfit's" final composition reveals another sign, this one cast-off on the ground, disordered and revealing the name of the desert town: "Morgue."

Of course, the hotel and surrounding lands have been turned into a literal morgue, at least for the Zanti...so the sign transmits, with much gallows humor, a sense of truth. The bottom-line is that this TV drama from 1963 features, in some important ways, a deeper sense of classic film style (and film grammar) than many of the major motion pictures produced today.

In between these book-end "sign" shots, the episode finds time to orchestrate a terrific upside-down, claustrophobic of Bruce Dern surrounded by rock, expressing well the idea of death. And -- for 1963, anyway -- the Zantis are rendered pretty convincingly through stop-motion photography, especially in close-up.

I've pulled some screen-shots of these famous alien beings (probably the most famous of all Outer Limits bears...) and you can see for yourself the amazing detail on their faces, around their mouths and lips, for example. Amazingly, the Zanti are also depicted by the production as unique individuals. There's one alien criminal with facial hair ...a beard, actually. I wasn't expecting that level of differentiation in alien insects, nor so much attention to detail either.

These malevolent creatures are shot well too. Horn's camera frequently zooms-in jarringly on close-ups, and gives the audience full-on, disturbing views of these little buggers howling and complaining about their treatment and predicament. When a chase sequence in the desert is presented -- with the Zanti pursuing Olive Deering's character -- Horn goes with a hand-held camera, and the sudden herky-jerky nature of the camera really gets the blood boiling.

I know Hollywood is currently working on a feature-length remake of The Twilight Zone. Well, if The Outer Limits ever gets the same silver-screen treatment, "The Zanti Misfits" would be a prime candidate for inclusion in the project. The alien villain of this installment is extremely memorable (and disgusting...) and the central scenario is tense and involving.

The Outer Limits often concerns the idea of humanity confronting himself at the rarefied frontiers of science.  "The Zanti Misfits" is about man's willingness to kill, and more trenchantly, his willingness to kill that which is physically repugnant to him.  The alien Zantis plan the death of their criminals "perfectly."

The Outer Limits: "The Sixth Finger"

In “The Sixth Finger,” The Control Voice ponders the “wonders” or “terrors” that evolution may have in store for humanity across the next 10,000 years.  

The narrative then shifts to an old English house where a scientist, Professor Mathers (Edward Mulhare) is working in a state-of-the-art laboratory and hoping to “speed up the slow process of evolution.”

In an impatient and aggressive coal-miner named Gwylim Griffiths (David McCallum), Mathers finds his opportunity. 

Gwylim volunteers to act as guinea pig in a dangerous experiment that will transform him into the man of the future, a being who – hopefully -- can grow beyond passion and self-destruction.  Gwylim sees his transformation as an attempt to escape a lifetime of “breathing coal dust” in the dark.

Mathers’ experiment is successful, but as Gwylim evolves (and adds a sixth finger on each hand…), some crucial element of humanity is subtracted from his mental gestalt.  Gwylim becomes all cold intellect, and loses the capacity to feel, and even to love. When he kills a woman with telekineses, he feels no remorse for his actions.

Worse, Gwylim sees the local village and its ignorant inhabitants as a mortal threat to him; a threat that must be destroyed at all costs…

“The Sixth Finger” is a sort of trademark episode of The Outer Limits (1963 – 1965), and perhaps for good reason.  The story has a good, easy-to-comprehend hook, that man must not tamper in God’s domain, and the “bear” or monster -- a dome-headed, white-skinned David McCallum -- is both convincingly presented, and memorable in visage.

However, even though “The Sixth Finger” can be described in pedantic and clichéd terms, it remains a great episode of the cult-TV anthology because of McCallum’s character, Gwylim, and his aspirational quest.

When we meet Gwylim, he is covered in coal dust, excessively violent, and in love with beautiful Cathy (Jill Haworth). 

But he realizes that he can never give her the kind of life that she deserves.  He is “too smart” to remain stuck in the coal mining town for the rest of his life, but there is no opportunity for him to do anything else.  

Thus, he is effectively ensnared or trapped, and the episode symbolizes this trap with an expressionistic image.  At one point, the camera focuses on Gwylim’s balled-up fist as a visualization of his grim determination.  From this coiled fist, the viewer gets the sense that he is ready to do anything -- even kill-- to escape the meaningless life that has been “chosen” for him by fate (or is it God?)

Gwylim’s ambition to escape the limitations of his life is matched only by the ambition of Professor Mathers, a man who helped to create the atom bomb, and -- out of an intense sense of guilt -- is now desperate to engineer an “end to war.”  It doesn’t matter the cost.  Mathers desires for man to “mature” out of warring and hostility so badly that he doesn’t care that he must push, or force the issue.

And at first Gwylim does evolve in wondrous fashion.  

He learns to play the piano brilliantly (though he writes off his skill as “only a matter of mathematics and a degree of manual dexterity…”). He reads dozens of books too.  He develops his mind (and foregoes sleep, even…) and becomes a philosopher of sorts. 

Gwylim’s growth and ascent away from humanity is nicely contrasted in “The Sixth Finger” with the nature of the village locals, who are mired in the past and virtual prisoners to their parochial world-view. They don’t want to acknowledge anything different or new, and see the handiwork of the Devil in every new feat of science.  They see in the old Gothic house not a state-of-the-art laboratory, but an affront to everything they have ever believed and known.

When Gwylim evolves beyond remorse, beyond pity, he sees no value in the locals, who, by his judgment, will not be truly “civilized for a million years.”  Eventually, however, he evolves out of the need to destroy them.  Instead, he just wants one thing: to continue his evolution.  So even as an advanced being, Gwylim still possesses human ambition, a driving desire to move forward.  And thus Gwylim keeps pushing, spurring his evolution ever closer to infinity, with the help of Cathy; the woman who took him “out of the blackness” in the first place.

In expressing his aspiration to escape his lot, and to be a better man, Gwylim proves anything but a monster or villain.  Indeed, he remains a character easy to relate to. He practically aches to give Cathy a better life, and to find true happiness. He hungers for something more than what life has given him.

Eventually, Gwylim dies while attempting to go forward, and the Control Voice concludes that Mather’s experiment was “too soon, too swift.” 

The lesson is therefore one about the impatience that both men have demonstrated with the present.  Some things cannot be rushed, or pushed, “The Sixth Finger” notes.  Some states -- like ignorance or hostility -- must be endured until we are ready, as a species to move past them together.  That’s just the human condition, and even with the best of intentions and with the aspiration to be better than we are, we can’t trick our way out of it.

“The Sixth Finger” imagines both terrors and wonders in mankind’s future, but the part of Gwylim that endures from stage to stage is, on some level, also an admirable one.  It’s the part of our human nature that aches to know what is next, no matter the personal cost.

The Outer Limits: "O.B.I.T."

In “O.B.I.T,” which first aired on November 4, 1963, Senator Orville (Peter Breck) opens an official inquiry at Cypress Hills Defense Installation regarding the murder of a technician at the facility.  

Although obstructed by the bureaucratic administrator Byron Lomax (Jeff Corey) at every turn, the Senator soon learns that the technician’s death occurred while he was operating a top-secret machine called O.B.I.T. (Outer Band Individuated Tele-tracer) which could spy on any individual anywhere within the facility…or even a 500 mile radius.

The Senator seeks to learn more about the unusual device and its use by Lomax.  He fears that, among other things, O.B.I.T. -- a so-called “Peeping Tom Machine” -- represents “an end of privacy” for Americans, and the beginning of a constant surveillance state.  

For expressing these viewpoints, the Senator is accused of “undermining” national security by the Pentagon, which sponsors Cypress Hills’ research. 

In the end, Orville’s murder inquiry leads to Lomax, the one individual whom O.B.I.T. cannot seem to spy upon.  

When Lomax’s image is finally projected on the O.B.I.T. viewing screen, the frightening truth behind the surveillance machine is revealed at last.

With surprising accuracy, this episode of The Outer Limits (1963 – 1965) predicts the surveillance state in the United States of America.  Specifically, “O.B.I.T.” showcases Defense Department employees “spying” on other employees, and even their own family members. In the way only art can accomplish, this Outer Limits episode explains why spying on a free citizenry is never a good thing. 

In the first case, the spying becomes habitual, and then, eventually, irresistible. As one military officer confesses on the stand to Senator Orville: “I can’t not look!  It’s like a drug…a horrible drug…an addiction.”  

In other words, the O.B.I.T. machine (and the capacity to read private e-mails and listen to private phone calls) activates and encourages some universal sense of voyeurism in people; something that even the best of us can’t always resist. This voyeurism is what O.B.I.T. terms “the most mortal weakness:” our capacity to watch and judge others while we reserve “privacy” for ourselves.

Secondly, “O.B.I.T.” diagrams how constant surveillance can have a stifling impact on art, on work, and on simple human interactions because everyone is terrified to be “seen” or “heard” even in what they would rightly assume are their most personal moments.  

“It’s the most hideous creation ever conceived,” one Cypress Hills employee observes in the episode. "No one can laugh or joke. It saps the very spirit.”

Cunningly, “O.B.I.T.” also examines the rationale of those who desire to expand use of the “peeping tom” machine, namely national security. The machine, it is said, “is highly valuable in eliminating undesirable elements.”  

No doubt that’s true. But in the end, who among us can stand up to the scrutiny of 24-hour surveillance?  Once a person’s every thought and private action is known, down to the last, most minute degree, how are we to know that even the best of us wouldn’t be then considered an “undesirable” element by the voyeurs?  By what standard of perfection do the voyeurs judge those whom they observe?

It’s accurate to say, of course, that we have no O.B.I.T. machines today, but the debate about our government’s right to read our e-mails and listen to our calls continues, and this episode, by Meyer Dolinsky imagines where the spying could possibly lead: to a world in which “acts of private passion” could be used to blackmail members of Congress, the media, or our families. I love that the name of the device is OBIT, because what this episode discusses is the very death of freedom in America that comes inevitably with “the end of privacy.”

Before anyone suggests I’m climbing on a political soap box here, I should note that I am one of those people who frets as much about business -- Big Tech -- interests getting an O.B.I.T. device as I do about the government having one. At least in the case of government, there are some good people -- conservatives and liberals both -- acting for legitimate causes to prevent future terrorist attacks.  But why, precisely, do commercial interests have any right to know my personal business?

So the modern “surveillance” state is as much about out-of-control capitalism as it is national security and that’s one element of the landscape that “O.B.I.T.,” made in the 1960s, doesn’t foresee. 

Another joy of “O.B.I.T.” is the director, Gerd Oswald’s, film noir approach to visuals. One of the spies operating the O.B.I.T. machine does so from a seedy hotel room, and we see the word “hotel” flashing in the background, suggesting the sleazy aspect of his work. This isn’t something to be done in daylight, or in respectable place.

At another juncture, the episode cuts to Lomax during the inquiry. We are treated to an extreme close-up of his eyes and spectacles, or eye-glasses. This choice of imagery accents the importance of “sight” and “seeing” to Lomax, and the circular spectacles mirror, in some crucial fashion, the circular O.B.I.T. screen.  

The Outer Limits was always a series about man confronting his inner demons on the technological cutting edge, and “O.B.I.T.” is no exception.  “I saw a monster!” one character notes during the narrative.  That monster, we find out here, is not merely an alien spying on the human race, but our very human propensity to invade the privacy of others and attach judgments to what we see.

The Outer Limits: Opening Montage

The introductory montage to the science fiction anthology The Outer Limits (1963 - 1965) is an exercise in simplicity, discipline, and foremost...control.

The context of the introduction is the "control" of our TV set by an outside force, and that idea seems appropriate given that many stories featured on the series deal explicitly with the ways that man finds his (moral) way in a new space age world of technology.

The introductory montage begins with a pinprick of light at the center of our TV screen, as our mysterious voice-over narrator -- The Control Voice (Vic Perrin)--  informs us over a high-pitched buzzing sound that there is "nothing wrong" with our television set.  

Instead, an exterior force is "controlling" transmission, determining what we see and hear.

This total control of our vision and hearing via our own technology -- TV -- is then demonstrated. The force controlling transmission turns up and down the volume, and, in the following sequence, assumes control of the "horizontal," and "vertical." 

There is an impression, perhaps, of being toyed with. More aptly, the overall impression is of being commandeered by a (perhaps alien...) force of great authority and knowledge.

This element of control is established once more in the next shots, as the Control Voice informs us that our picture can be rolled, or made fuzzy.  

The same force can cause the picture to appear as a "soft blur" or in "crystal clarity," and in image of our nearest "outer" frontier is seen: the moon.

Next, we return to the sine-wave imagery that began the montage and are instructed that for the next hour we should "sit quietly" while the Control Voice determines all that we see and hear.  

The good news is that a great adventure awaits, one that leads us from the corridors of the "inner mind" to the "outer limits."

The series title zooms out toward us portentously, and we are prepared for a journey to the frontiers of knowledge.  

The Outer Limits intro does a lot with very little, and brilliantly establishes a sense that, as viewers, we are surrendering to a force outside ourselves, one who may or may not be benevolent.

Below you can see a video of this effective montage in all its glory.

Saturday Morning Flashback: Land of the Lost: "The Orb."

The third episode of Land of the Lost’s final season, titled “The Orb,” is only a slight improvement over the disastrous second installment, “Survival Kit.”  

Here, Enik (Walker Edmiston) is transformed suddenly into a clone of Mr. Spock, adopting the term “logical” no less than seven times in a twenty-two minute span. I counted, because the use of the term became so egregious after the first couple of uses.

Of course, “logic” is Spock’s buzzword, derived from his planet’s obsession with logical behavior.  Why should Enik -- the resident alien of Land of the Lost -- suddenly adopt this obsession with “logical” behavior?  In all of Land of the Lost history, in every Enik episode -- if you added them up -- he wouldn’t have used the word logical seven times. It’s insulting here, and even as a kid I knew that Star Trek was being ripped-off.  I felt cheated, but also baffled.  Enik was a well-established, well-defined character by the third-season.  Why was he being re-written as a Spock clone?

In “The Orb,” the Sleestak spontaneously decide to eradicate all humans in Altrusia and believe that the key to doing so involves a mystical Sleestak orb that will plunge the world into total, permanent darkness.  Unfortunately, this plan -- making it permanently night -- was also at the heart of “Blackout,” the second-to-last episode of Land of the Lost’s second season. There, the Sleestak used a secret second clock pylon to freeze time.

So…in a relatively short span, the Sleestak have forgotten they already attempted this plan...and it didn’t work the first time.  Permanent midnight in Altrusia means, as that episode explained, that the moths that fertilize Sleestak will die in the cold. Permanent night is thus a death sentence not for humans, but for the Sleestak race.  

Alas, there’s no sense of continuity between this installment, and “Blackout.”

In hopes of acquiring the orb, the Sleestak capture Enik and Chaka (Philip Paley) in the hopes that the Marshalls will come for them and retrieve the orb from the God in the pit.  Fortunately, Will (Wesley Eure) happens into a pylon that no one has ever seen before, and it unexpectedly grants him invisibility. Invisibility, it turns out, is quite handy in stealing the orb and releasing Chaka and Sleestak.

Long story short: the writing here is just unbelievably bad. Forget Enik’s aping of Mr. Spock. Forget the fact that the Sleestak strategy was just attempted…five episodes ago in terms of chronology.  

But isn’t it awfully convenient that Will should develop the power of invisibility just when that one, specific power can solve the crisis of the day?  In a sense, all of dramatic writing is about fashioning manufactured crises, but a problem arises when there is so much contrivance involved.  That’s the case with “The Orb.”  The contrivances stack-up.

On top of all these concerns, “The Orb” is the second episode in row in which Holly (Kathy Coleman) has virtually nothing of consequence to do. There is a case that could be made that she is the true main character of Land of the Lost, but the third season so far simply dismisses her as a little girl, and lets Will and Jack do the heavy lifting.  

And in terms of Jack (Ron Harper), one can see why he proves necessary to the series in this episode. He brings a long a new influx of important equipment from matches and antibiotics to flare guns and flashlights.  All those items, incidentally, make it much easier to solve the problem of the week. That established, the moments with flares lighting a dark Altrusia are memorably wrought.

I’m a long-time admirer of Land of the Lost, and not one to dismiss the third season out of hand. But between “Survival Kit” and “The Orb” one can detect that the series is on a fatal downward slide.

Land of the Giants: "Crash"

The final Irwin Allen sci-fi TV initiative of the 1960s, Land of the Giant (1968 - 1970) ran for two seasons and fifty-one hour-long episodes on ABC, and involved a group of desperate castaways trapped on a dangerous world of gigantic humanoids and other over-sized threats.

The first episode of Land of the Giants, written by Anthony Wilson and directed by Irwin Allen, "Crash" commences on the far future date of June 12, 1983.  

A sub-orbital ship, The Spindrift, encounters "solar turbulence" upon final sub-orbital approach to London.  Before long, the small vessel crashes on a strange world, and the crew and passengers encounter the peculiar dangers of this planet, namely giant spiders, cats, lizards...and (apparently) humans.

The Spindrift crew contingent includes Gary Conway as Captain Steve Burton (Gary Conway), co-pilot Dan Erickson (Don Marshall), and Betty (Heather Young), the stewardess or flight attendant.  


The passengers include the Dr. Smith-like trouble-maker, Alexander Fitzhugh (Kurt Kaszner), a young boy, Barry (Stefan Arngrim), the beautiful Valerie (Deanna Lund), and an impatient businessman, Mark Wilson (Don Matheson).

In "Crash," Steve and Valerie are captured while exploring the jungle surrounding the downed Spindrift and abducted to a laboratory inside a scientist's (Dan Watters) insect specimen container.  

The alien scientist -- a dead ringer for a young George Lucas -- discovers his unusual trophies, and straps the helpless captives to specimen slides, where he prods the helpless humans with scalpel and pencil.  

In short order, Dan and Mark engineer a rescue, exploding a gas line in the giant's laboratory as a distraction.

All together once more, the Spindrift team takes refuge in a garbage dump, even as an angry dog nears...

Like much of Irwin Allen's work in cult television, Land of the Giants is long on production values and action, and short on inventive character development or social commentary. Here, in the premiere episode, the same existential threat repeats again and again.  In "The Crash," our heroes are endangered by one gigantic creature after another, which leaves the women screaming in terror.  

It gets a bit old before even the first hour is over...

Despite the relative emptiness of the narrative in terms of stock characters and villains, "Crash" remains quite an accomplishment in terms of special effects and production design.  The mist-enshrouded jungle studio set, for example, is colossal, and more-than-convincing for its day.  

Additionally,  it's important to recall that Land of the Giants was crafted well before the age of CGI and digital effects, so the over-sized sets and props all had to be constructed, and then meticulously matched with "regular"-sized live-action footage.  By and large, the special effects haven't aged very much at all, and are still incredibly effective.  This is as it should be: each episode of Land of the Giants was budgeted at a then-whopping $250,000 dollars.

Sometimes, the strong effects actually do create high drama. Good tension arises in "Crash," for instance, when the George Lucas lookalike giant pursues the escaping Earthers to a small gutter, and then stretches his arm into the tunnel after them, shouting "come back."  The scene represents a dazzling and effective blend of viewpoints and effect techniques.  

In terms of the continuing series, "Crash" also sets the tenor for Land of the Giants.  Here, Steve and Valerie quickly debate about whether or not they should attempt peaceful communication with the planet's giants.  Valerie wants to try, but Steve insists they will merely be treated as "six inch tall" freaks. 

Very rapidly, it is Steve's view of things that legitimized by the events of the episode, since even a scientist is not inclined to treat the tiny people very well.

By episode's end, the castaways from the Spindrift, including Barry's dog, Chipper, end up at "the bottom of the barrel," a garbage dump, and encounter a vicious dog there.   Already the die is cast: this is a world of danger, and the giants are to be treated as enemies.

Over the course of two years, Land of the Giants presented much information (some of it contradictory, if memory serves) about the planet of the Giants.  The Giants, for instance, had an awareness of Earth's existence and were also conscious that transit between the two worlds was possible.  Yet, at the same time, the giants did not seem to be as technologically-advanced as Earth of 1983.  Various episodes of the series saw the castaways either attempting to repair their ship and leave the dangerous planet, or effect change on the planet itself, which seemed to be ruled by a repressive totalitarian state.

I grew up watching Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space, but not The Time Tunnel or Land of the Giants.  Accordingly, I find the latter two programs a bit difficult to "get into" today, and even a bit empty in terms of ideas, characters and situations.   In short, I admire how Land of the Giants looks in terms of design and execution, but that isn't enough to keep me tuned in for the full fifty-one hours.  

Rather, I see Land of the Giants as intriguing because it fits entirely Allen's basic formula in science fiction television: showcasing, essentially, how technology can go wrong, stranding people in time, outer space, or other hostile environmental domains.  

In at least three of Allen's programs -- excluding Voyage --  the technologically-superior people end up forsaking the advanced tools of technology to "live off the land," more or less, and embrace a more primitive, pioneer life-style.   I suspect Allen's TV work looks this way, in part, because of the popularity of the Western genre on television in the 1960s.  

But also, as you can detect in many Star Trek episodes of the day ("The Ultimate Computer," for instance), there existed a general distrust of technological progress in the late 1960s, mainly in the form of computers and automation.  I submit that Lost in Space, Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants all key off both the rampant techno-phobia of the decade while also hoping, contrarily, to tap the "Camelot"-styled optimism of the age as well.  These two opposing impulses make Allen's series somewhat schizophrenic, but also damn interesting, at least on a broad, analytical  level.