THE OUTER LIMITS

Production: USA, 1963-65
Cast: Vic Perrin, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, David McCallum, Edward Asner, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Vera Miles, Martin Sheen, Adam West.

It is quite usual to see big television networks copying each other, producing similar products.
When NBC made “Bonanza”, ABC answered with “The Big Valley”, and ABC’ s “The Addams Family” was cloned by CBS with “The Munsters”.
“The Outer Limits”, produced by ABC, was very much similar to

"The Twilight Zone” made by CBS.
This too was an anthological series, without a regular cast or a regular subject, except for fantasy and quite disturbing stories.
Here too there was an intriguing introducing speech. Strange lines appeared on the screen, then the voice of actor Vic Perrin said: "There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal.
We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat:

there is nothing wrong with your television set. 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" (this speech had other three versions).
To be honest, the common points with “The Twilight Zone” were only these.
First of all, there was not a real competition: in fact, “The Outer Limits” first season was broadcasted more or less in the same year of “Twilight”’s last one.
Then, while “Twilight” had a large number of fantastic stories of various kind, “Outer” focused on monster stories or horror and scary ones.
There’s to say that “Outer” had good scripts but had not a writer like

Rod Serling, who had already abandoned his creature in those years.
Anyway the series had a good success, and there’s people like writer Stephen King who consider it as the best SF TV series of ever. Many stories were written by Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano, who also made the script for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”.
Many famous actors appeared in the series, like Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Vera Miles, Donald Pleasence, and also actors who tied their names to science fiction: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, Grace Lee Whitney (a good part of the “Star Trek” cast), Martin Landau (Space: 1999), David McCallum (Man form U.N.C.L.E., Sapphire and Steel, The invisible man).
The second season’s first episode, “Soldier”, was written by SF writer

Harlan Ellison, and was about a cyborg programmed to fight a future war, which materialized in our world by a time paradox… many years later, this gave to film director James Cameron the subject for his “Terminator” movie, so that Ellison made an action against Cameron, he won it and obtained a percentage on the character’s rights…
Anyway, “The Outer Limits” lasted less than “The Twilight Zone”: two seasons only, with 49 episodes, confronted with “Twilight”’s five seasons and 156 episodes.
The revenge came many years later: “Outer Limits” ’remake was a long and big success, while “Twilight”’ s did not work so well, despite being supported by famous film directors like Steven Spielberg and Joe Dante.

49 episodes, b/w, 60’

First season

1) The Galaxy Being
2) The Hundred Days Of The Dragon
3) The Architects Of Fear
4) The Man With The Power
5) The Sixth Finger
6) The Man Who Was Never Born

7) O.B.I.T.
8) The Human Factor
9) Corpus Earthling
10) Nightmare
11) It Crawled Out Of The Woodwork
12) The Borderland
13) Tourist Attraction
14) The Zanti Misfits
15) The Mice
16) Controlled Experiment
17) Don't Open Till Doomsday

18) ZZZZZ
19) The Invisible Enemy
20) The Bellero Shield
21) Children Of Spider Country
22) Specimen: Unknown
23) Second Chance
24) Moonstone
25) The Mutant
26) The Guests
27) Fun And Games
28) The Special One

29) A Feasibility Study
30) Production And Decay Of Strange Particles
31) The Chameleon
32) The Forms Of Things Unknown

Second season

33) Soldier
34) Cold Hands, Warm Heart
35) Behold, Eck!
36) Expanding Human

37) Demon With A Glass Hand
38) Cry of Silence
39) Wolf 359
40) I, Robot
41) The Inheritors - Part 1
42) The Inheritors - Part 2
43) Keeper Of The Purple Twilight
44) The Duplicate Man
45) Counterweight
46) The Brain Of Colonel Barham
47) The Premonition