I miss the day when science fiction could be fanciful and there weren’t hordes of fanboys complaining about the physics are all wrong or that you can’t contact and materialise a being from another planet using a radio station antenna. Imagine making a film today and using Academy Award winning actresses in a story about drilling into the centre of the Earth because the core has stopped spinning, and in the core you were setting off nuclear explosions to restart it and then trying to get out of the core to survive. Who knows what they would call such a film!?
Well actually ‘the day’ was well before I was born in the time of forbidden planets and flying saucers, twilight zones and of course the outer limits. But I love the old black and white science fiction stories, possibly more than our current stories.
So I picked up The Outer Limits season one and two and checked out the very first episode ‘The Galaxy Being’ a story about a guy who runs a radio station and uses it to listen to microwaves. He accidentally contacts an alien in the Andromeda Galaxy. It is fascinating idea and that’s probably what I love about these old shows, the stories are uninhibited by the population having a greater scientific knowledge. It’s imagination all the way as we talk about three dimensional television and the wonders of radiation and microwaves.
The alien is surprisingly good, I mean really clever for the day. It’s a guy in a brown rubber suit shot in negative film. Cleverly if you want to see what the suit actually looked like you can run the image through Fireworks and just click invert (or I’ll just do it for you).
The alien doesn’t quite understand everything he is being told and for some reason having contact with someone outside his species is seriously forbidden. Of course thanks to an egotistical DJ who cranks the power up the alien is pulled into our galaxy and left to wander around on a Saturday night without a date.
Before the unpleasantness hits the fan though the guy gets to talk to the alien about death, taxes and god.
I love this episode and if you can look past the primitiveness, the black and white and the fact that its science is naive then you might too - check it out if you get the chance!
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19/03/2008 at 1:50 pm Permalink
Yeah, I love that kind of stuff, too. I remember reading through some Ray Bradbury short stories with someone, and we were saying how cool it was to read stories where a rocketship landed on some strange new world AND THEN…
without us having to care how they got there, or where exactly the planet was…
The alien who lives in the glove compartment of my car says he’s so tired of the mechanics always asking him what kind of warp drive his saucer uses when I take the car in for servicing (Oh, and he says he wants his Outer Limits tape back by the weekend - he has friends coming round).
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19/03/2008 at 6:12 pm Permalink
The ‘outer limits’ image could almost have been one of those Polish posters
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19/03/2008 at 7:05 pm Permalink
I’d love to grab one of these. Though sometimes people went overboard with the sci-fi(atleast as far as the cinematography went) and what you ended up pissed you to the core. for e.g : 2001,A Space Odessey .
19/03/2008 at 11:34 pm Permalink
John - that’s why I dig the classic black and white monster movies and sci fi films - sometimes it’s just cool to watch something that isn’t scientifically accurate but still has an interesting story to tell.
19/03/2008 at 11:36 pm Permalink
Arjan for the weirder episodes they would have probably had very sensible posters LOL
23/03/2008 at 11:09 pm Permalink
Funnily enough, I just picked up both box sets myself the other day at a bargain price. I’m a huge fan of Serling’s original Twilight Zone (which I already own on DVD), but haven’t ever really seen any Outer Limits. Looking forward to it.
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24/03/2008 at 9:26 pm Permalink
Rol - I’ll be interested in reading what you think - let me know if you post about it or of course you can always leave a comment here!
The main difference I think is that Twilight Zone is all about the twist (usually anyway) where Outer Limits is all about the self contained story - the story itself is twisted not waiting for the pay off at the end. So it’s nice that they can both be brilliant on their own rather than competing.
15/04/2008 at 5:34 am Permalink
Just finished watching this episode, I found it haunting, moving and the scene in the shop eerily beautiful. Some parts were comic, especially the police and military roles, and this added to it. The sense there the producers had limited technology makes it more satisfying. I love ‘Night of the Demon; for similar reasons.
15/04/2008 at 7:58 pm Permalink
Hi Andrew - I’m really glad that you enjoyed it too and have summed up some of my own thoughts very neatly in what you’ve said. I’m sad to say I haven’t sat down and watched any more episodes after watching the first two. Eventually when life settles down a little I’ll get back into them.