I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Blistering performances.

"The Outer Limits" is one of those shows in my opinion, that displayed great promise via its first few episodes. Indeed, episodes like "Hundred Days of the Dragon," "The Man with the Power," "The Galaxy Being," "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork" and "The Invisibles" contain some truly memorable moments of Science Fiction television. The writing and the acting are quite exceptional. Sadly, it is downhill there after. A lot of the episodes don't seem to have been fleshed out with strong narratives. In other cases, the ideas are so far fetched as to be rather ridiculous. Regarding the second season, the episodes "Demon with a Glass Hand" and "Soldier" get the series onto a more even keel. It's a shame that most of the others couldn't have been of a high calibre. The production values are pretty good though, certainly well above average. I am only too aware that "The Outer Limits" is compared with "The Twilight Zone" as they were both broadcast at the same time at one stage. There is little reason to compare the two shows as they are different in style as well as in storytelling. "The Twilight Zone" is more of a Fantasy series, where as "The Outer Limits" opted for being more of a broad kind of Science Fiction series. This consisted of stories exploring alien worlds, encounters with alien life forms on earth, astronauts in outer space etc. Personally and for sheer storytelling, I shall always prefer "The Twilight Zone" as the high quality was always there. However, the one advantage "The Outer Limits" had was that it was more comfortable in the one hour format. We have such a vast roster of actors to watch: Martin Landau, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Culp, Harry Guardino, Sally Kellerman, Donald Pleasence, David McCallum, Cliff Robertson and others. The kind of talent we rarely see these days. I would sum up "The Outer Limits" as a flawed masterpiece but it backfired in spectacular fashion.

!!!!!! Suggestive Spoilers !!!!!!This is a show that is possibly most remembered by the audience for its opening narration : " There is nothing wrong with your television set . Do not attempt to .... " which is a pity . Certainly THE TWILIGHT ZONE seems far more fondly remembered even though it's an inferior anthology series . In fact I would say when it comes to American Sci-Fi television only the early seasons of THE X FILES surpasses TOL in any way . This is pulp sci-fi at its most cerebral and compelling and whilst not every episode is a masterpiece it's always entertaining TOL was broadcast on American television in 1963 the same year the BBC produced a show in Britain called DOCTOR WHO . Both shows share a common ground but where as Doctor Who started off as an educational family adventure series where stories alternated between historical dramas and SF adventures, from the outset TOL had a monster fixation along with imagery . This was down to producers Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano who felt the show needed a monster in every story euphemistically called a " bear " in order to grab the audiences attention To be blunt these " bears " have dated very poorly to an audience who have spent their lives on a diet of Hollywood blockbusters but the producers deserve some credit for making the aliens appear .... well alien . All too often American TV shows have aliens who appear human because it either saves on the budget or because the production team lack any imagination . It's not a show that had totally convincing landscapes or aliens but this leads to a form of affection . Can anyone say Nightmare is dreadful television when you see a young Martin Sheen being tortured by demonic monsters in what looks like a small , bare television studio ? Most episodes are shot very much in a film noir style which lends to a gloomy , brooding atmosphere . Try and imagine Mickey Spillane on acid and that sums up a great many episodes It's the stories themselves that are important and like all great pulp science fiction it's a combination of the mind blowingly original material mixed in with literary roots . Nightmare owes a nod to THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE , while The Man Who Was Never Born steals an important line from Doestoevsky . Interestingly the same line is reused in Genesis Of The Daleks in 1975 . MACBETH is the inspiration for The Ballero Shield whilst I Robot owes more than a nod to FRANKENSTEIN both the novel and the 1933 film version . Where some stories fail however is that they're resolved a little too easily . The Man With 6 Fingers temporarily seems unable to read someones mind at a crucial point and when someone mentions rain in Speciman Unknown you'll know what will happen next None of this is plagiarism but when THE TERMINATOR was released in 1984 James Cameron found himself the victim of a lawsuit from Harlan Ellison who claimed that the film had stolen ideas from his two contributions to TOL Soldier and The Demon With The Glass Hand so Cameron settled out of court . To be honest one can't help wondering why Cameron didn't go to court since the two episodes have very little in common with the film save for a premise of people from the future going through time to present day America . In fact the original TERMINATOR shares much of the 1972 DOCTOR WHO story Day Of The Daleks where plot and time travel paradoxes are concerned . Perhaps Louis Marks should have sued Cameron too ? TOL has left a legacy and that involves Betty and Barney Hill who claimed under hypnosis they had been abducted by aliens . Strangely when they described in great detail the aliens they claimed abducted them the description was identical to the one that appeared in The Bellero Shield which was broadcast a couple of weeks previous to the hypnotic sessions . The case seems to have turned in to a meme of sorts since for 40 years when someone claims to have been abducted by aliens they're always the ones described by the Hills . It makes you wonder what the world would be like today if the show had never been produced or sort of legal cabaret Harlan Ellison would have brought if he'd written an episode with bug eyed monsters ? In short THE OUTER LIMITS is American television at its most cerebral and imaginative and most of all its most entertaining . It hasn't dated very well but for anyone who has enjoyed science fiction B movies or or Gothic horror or film noir then it's must see television because it combines the three genres very well

For British viewers, 'The Outer Limits' was a ground-breaking piece of science fiction and fantasy. An import from The USA and screened on 'the other side' - ITV, as it then was - which was the only alternative to the ubiquitous BBC, this programme set a whole new standard in originality and budgeting.Beginning with a rather pretentious voice-over claiming to control the the television set and some silly hokum to reinforce the myth (I switched our set off and on again just to prove him wrong) the same narrator went on to offer an enigmatic intro to the story that followed.Subjects varied, and were often a tour-de-force for the imagination. Sometimes the effects were of such a frightening nature that, released as a feature-film, they might well have called for an X-rating at the time. The 'Zanti Misfits' certainly cost me a few sleepless nights.We would probably laugh at the effects today, but many of the underlying themes about science, politics, manipulation and control, and life itself, were very intelligently explored, as they are in all good sci-fi. For those of us with crows feet, the series was a revelation.

I was just getting out of the air Force in 1963 at age 21. I never missed an episode in all the years it ran on network TV. It is my all time favorite Sci-Fi show. Intelligent, far reaching and creative. I watched all the re runs while they were still coming on TV but alas, I guess they are not being shown any longer. Just reading the comments of the people on the forum I have found kindred spirits who appreciate something great that happened to us as we experienced the Outer Limits over the years. All the wonderful present day stars and great character actors that we saw make their early TV debuts were on the show. I have so many favorite episodes that I won't mention them here as others people have named them exactly as I would have. I wish people today could appreciate what the writers and actors who put on the show gave to us in the area of science fiction TV. FYI,I found out that on Netflix using the Watch Now feature for members I can watch the entire first season 32 episodes on my PC for free. A total of 4 discs, the second season is only available to rent the last 17 episodes on 3 discs.