A Quick Look at TV: THE OUTER LIMITS

   While The Twilight Zone was noted mostly for it's twist endings, The Outer Limits was known for it's literate scripts and dazzling special effects. An hour program with solid production values (despite the rushed shooting schedules of TV production), The Outer Limits attracted some of the best actors of the period -and featured some of the moodiest black and white photography you'll ever see. Early on, the producers stressed intellectual scripts. As is usually the case, though, the show quickly became known for it's monsters -and eventually it was demanded that the show include a new one each week. Unlike the usual spook anthologies, this show's hour format created the feel of a series of movies for the small screen. Popular episodes included Tourist Attraction (in which a prehistoric amphibian is discovered and captured for study/exploitation), Nightmare (in which a group of space soldiers are mercilessly interrogated by bat-like humanoids of a black planet), and Architects Of Fear (in which a team of scientists and military men think they can end war by giving the world a common unearthly enemy). My favorite may be The Hundred Days Of The Dragon, in which Oriental agents replace the US President with a look-a-like impostor. Still, the episode most will remember is the little number entitled The Zanti Misfits (pictured). In this one, beings from the planet Zanti make an arrangement with the US Army to house some Zanti criminals in the desert. When the prisoners revolt, it's classic B movie excitement as soldiers must fight off hordes of ant-like creatures with human faces! The show was popular, but boasted a higher budget than most such programs. When ratings began to slip in the second season, the network pulled it. The show grew in popularity over time, despite a relatively limited amount of exposure until TNT re-ran the series in the early 90's. Not long after that, HBO (?) created a new version of the series, which ran for several seasons. Back in the 60's, there was even a comic book tie-in and a set of trading cards. The cards used images from the show, but wrote new stories to go with the images. Admittedly, these could be just as imaginative as the show was. In the pantheon of spook anthologies, The Twilight Zone remains top dog. The Outer Limits is a very close second, all the others trailing distantly behind.