STILL IN CONTROL OF OUR TELEVISION SETS. 'THE OUTER LIMITS' TURNS 50!

Not your normal family album! The diverse aliens of THE OUTER LIMITS strike a pose. Images: ULIKE/MGM.

With American television firmly entering its golden age into the early sixties, a wealth of classic TV series would forever imprint themselves onto the minds of a generation of viewers. The western was the main king of the small screen then, but the worlds of fantasy and sci-fi were soon catching up, capturing healthy audiences and critical interest, led primarily by the soon classic anthology series that went beyond sight and sound, travelling the mental and physical borders of imagination and terror that were THE TWILIGHT ZONE- still the most influential series of its kind, and creator Rod Serling's greatest literary achievement. Springing in many way from its success, but also its antithesis in some respects, and equally just as well crafted, came 1963's THE OUTER LIMITS created by PSYCHO adaptor Joseph Stefano and soon well-respected Executive Producer Leslie Stevens. This was a show whose anthology stories could also go anywhere, often into even darker and scarier realms than anything experienced in TWILIGHT, and boasted some of the finest writers ever assembled for the small screen (including Robert Towne, Harlan Ellison and Jerry Sohl) and incredible guest casts (Robert Culp, Martin Landau, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Henry Silva and many others), but THE OUTER LIMITS would ultimately be best remembered for the many diverse, fascinating and often truly scary creatures that would emerge through its storytelling (nicknamed "Bears" in the scripting process) which became deservedly iconic in the years to come, achieved mostly through the ingenious imagination and physical crafting of top designer/sculptor Wah Chang. Also building pivotal atmosphere and mood setting would be the supreme music of Dominic Frontiere, one of a of a rare breed of television score composers who really knew his craft and helped make the incredible stories even more indelible in viewers minds (later contributing equally great music for the Roy Thinnes starring alien thriller THE INVADERS). With strong production values and often almost cinematic direction (from the likes of Byron Haskin, Gerd Oswald and James Livingston) its no surprise that so many of the gifted talents who worked on this show would become so pivotal to the foundation building of the equally iconic- even more so- success of another sci-fi series, this one shot in colour only a few years later: Gene Roddenberry's infinity traversing STAR TREK.

Cliff Robertson makes first contact with The Galaxy Being.

Its opening titles and subtly powerful control voice (provided by the late Vic Perrin) being one more key factor in the shows continued presence in pop culture history, THE OUTER LIMITS now celebrates it's satisfying landmark Fiftieth Anniversary today (its impressive original launcher, The Galaxy Being, written and directed by Leslie Stevens, starring Cliff Robertson as a man in touch with an alien being through radio/video waves, setting the standard for what was to come). I'll never forget my first impressions of the show in the seventies-my brothers sixties card collection of the series various monsters scared the living daylights out of me a four-year old, so much so that I had my parents hide them from me!, whilst my later first viewing of the series in the early eighties, late-night Fridays on the UK's BBC 2, proved equally memorable! Despite the odd wonky episode in its later, less acclaimed second season (of which Stefano, the key creative force of the series and its top writer, had left the series due to friction with network executives over the shows direction), THE OUTER LIMITS continues to resonate with audiences and lives up to its reputation as one of the best genre series ever created.

Compilation art card for the series.

Here's a look back at KOOL TV's top ten THE OUTER LIMITS episodes...

THE ARCHITECTS OF FEAR. Robert Culp undergoes a unique transmogrification into an alien being, in an attempt to unite the peoples of Earth away from war.

The superior intellect. David McCallum in The Sixth Finger.

THE SIXTH FINGER. An eternally youthful David McCallum makes an impression as a big-headed (literally) human guinea pig whose mental powers make him superior to mankind- and soon a threat that must be stopped at all costs!

The mutant Andro (Martin Landau) returns to Earth.

THE MAN WHO WAS NEVER BORN. Martin Landau stars in this haunting love story, as a future man travelling back to the past to save his loved one and humanity from a terrifying mutated future.

A weird criminal makes an impression in The Zanti Misfits.

THE ZANTI MISFITS. Alien prisoners resembling spiders with grotesque human faces arrive on Earth and terrorise a desert town. Guest starring Bruce Dern.

An Ebon alien in Nightmare.

NIGHTMARE. A group of humans soldiers are terrorised by their alien captors, the Ebon, in a tense morality play.

THE INVISIBLES: A race of alien parasites begin their secret infiltration of mankind in this tense thriller starring BULLITT's Don Gordon.

A rare colour shot of the trapped alien from The Bellero Shield.

THE BELLERO SHIELD. Martin Landau and Sally Kellerman make their second appearance in the series, as a trapped alien is inadvertently caught in the ambitious and deadly machinations of a powerful scientist and his controlling family.
 

Michael Ansara's Soldier, trapped in 1960's Earth.

SOLDIER. The template for James Cameron's THE TERMINATOR franchise, and Harlan Ellison's first classic episode for the series, as a soldier from the far distant future (Michael Ansara) is accidentally sent back int time to the 1960's, and soon has to get used to life away from the war zone. But is soon transpires that one of his enemies has also made the journey back and prepares to renew battle.

Adam West sees his foe in The Invisible Enemy.

THE INVISIBLE ENEMY. Crash-landing on an alien planet, two astronauts (Including BATMAN's Adam West) have to fight off devouring threats from a race of alien sand sharks, in a gripping story made long before JAWS!

Robert Culp is the Demon with a Glass Hand.

DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND. Robert Culp is an amnesiac fugitive on the run, on a lonely Earth now invaded by the mysterious Kyben. But what has happened to Humanity? And what is the ultimate purpose of his talking hand? Season Two's finest hour, in another superlative script by Harlan Ellison.

With additional thanks to John Scoleri's excellent website for certain episodic images: We Are Controlling Transmission