Today we gots another great episode from THE OUTER LIMITS, this time, Captain Harris is mysteriously strangled at a military base while operating the Outer Band Individuated Teletracer, or O.B.I.T. machine. Senator Orville, played by Peter (THE CRAWLING HAND) Breck, arrives at the base to investigate the murder and learns that there are several bases with the O.B.I.T. machine, which can monitor in a video display the privacy of any person, anywhere! During his investigation, the Senator asks for information about O.B.I.T., such as who is the manufacturer, price, who bought them, but, no user has any information about the machine.
Here's Captain Harris using the O.B.I.T. machine to check out what certain people are up to, when...
Out of nowhere, a horrible monster creeps up and strangles his ass, then, disappears!
Senator Orville arrives to investigate the murder, he greeted by the General and the supervisor of the project, the very weird looking Mr. Lomax.
Besides the strange glasses, Mr. Lomax, played by Jeff (IN COLD BLOOD) Corey, has super hairy hands, kind of a clue that something isn't quite, you know, right!
The Senator questions a number of people, Mr. Lomax is last on the list...
Lomax shows the Senator, who's fascinated by its capabilities, how the infernal machine works. I threw in the second photo because it's just plain weird!
Dr. Scott, played by Harry Townes, breaks down and shows the Senator how to locate the one person the machine couldn't trace, and, he exposes the monster!.. Wait,
what?!
Lomax starts ranting and his movements are the same as the creature in the monitor! He sez that puny Earthlings are doomed, and, his race is coming to take over!!
Then, he changes into the monster and simply disappears! I'm a little confused, but...
The Earthlings are stunned, what in the Hell are we going to do, we're doomed, God help us... Well, that's a wrap, we will be back on Wednesday with more Wild 'n' Weird Dungeon Cargo!
It's a big cliche to say this about a SF story, but O.B.I.T. becomes more relevant all the time.
ReplyDeleteWhen OUTER LIMITS was cancelled in the second season, they had an unfilmed script in the pipeline, WATCHBIRD, which also would be relevant today.
ReplyDeleteThe WATCHBIRD story, if filmed, would have predated the movie MINORITY REPORT by decades in the nailing-people-ABOUT-to commit-crimes department. An interesting script to read, by Francis Cockrell (EXPANDING HUMAN).
The Robert Sheckley short-story was eventually adapted in 2007 as an episode of the very short-lived MASTERS OF SCIENCE FICTION TV series:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0779497/
This was the first episode of Outer Limits that I remember seeing around 1964 here in Australia. I started off sitting right in front of the TV and as it got scarier I moved further and further back until I was peeking at the TV from behind the couch as the monster made the same movements as the human. It totally freaked me out! At the moment I'm waiting for the blu-ray set of Outer Limits season 1 to arrive in my mailbox.
ReplyDeletecheers!
Paul
Whoever canceled the
ReplyDeleteOuter limits, made a
Big Mistake !��
Please bring it back!