The OUTER LIMITS

   US tv series (1963-5). A Daystar/Villa di Stefano Production for United Artists, ABC TV. Created Leslie Stevens, also executive prod. Prod Joseph Stefano (season 1), Ben Brady (season 2). Writers included Stefano (many episodes), Stevens, David DUNCAN, Robert Towne, Harlan ELLISON, Meyer DOLINSKY, John MANTLEY, Jerry SOHL, Otto O. Binder (Hyperlink to: EandoBINDER), Clifford D. SIMAK and Ib Melchior. Dirs included Byron HASKIN, Leonard Horn, Gerd Oswald, Charles Haas. 2 seasons, 49 50min episodes. B/w.

   TOL, which featured a new sf story each week, is often regarded as the classic sf-anthology series. Though leaning towards the HORROR or MONSTER-MOVIE end of the sf spectrum, the series was often innovative inboth style and subject matter, and many of its writers either were sf professionals or knew the genre well. The pilot episode, "The Galaxy Being", written and dir Stevens, concerned an ALIEN made of pure energywho is accidentally absorbed into a 3D radio transceiver on Earth. Harlan Ellison contributed 2 episodes: "Soldier" (1964), about anultraconditioned soldier from the future who is projected back in time and finds himself in a typical 1960s US household - a precursor of The TERMINATOR (1984) - and "Demon with a Glass Hand" (1964), perhaps thefinest episode, about an ANDROID, pursued by aliens, who has the entire human race coded in his internal circuitry. Actors who appeared in the series - many of them then unknown - included Leonard Nimoy, Robert Culp, William SHATNER, Bruce Dern, Donald Pleasence, Martin Landau and DavidMcCallum. The bizarre make-up that was such a feature of the series was the work of Fred Phillips, John Chambers and, primarily, Wah Chang.The talented cinematographer Conrad Hall worked on the 1st season, and the series was visually striking. Only stupid programming (it was shifted to a time-slot opposite the hugely popular Jackie Gleason Show) led to the series' cancellation halfway through the 2nd season. TOL was, on the whole, more imaginative and intelligent than its more famous competitor on CBS, Rod SERLING's The TWILIGHT ZONE. The Outer Limits: The OfficialCompanion (1986) by David J. Schow and Jeffrey Frentzen is about the series.

   JB/PN