There is Nothing Wrong With your Television Set...

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. 

The Outer Limits was a science-fiction anthology series that ran weekly from 1963 to 1965. In contrast to the better known Twilight Zone, OL is primarily a 'monster-of-the-week' show. What is most interesting about the series today is watching a lot of well-known actors early in their television careers. Guest actors on the show included William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Martin Landau, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, Adam West, Robert Culp, and Bruce Dern, among others. This will be a common thread in many of the posts on this blog: watching for famous faces is a fun game to play while watching '60s TV. 

This time, I am taking control of your computer to discuss:

"A Feasibility Study" (aired 13 April 1964)

Residents of a suburban neighbourhood awaken to find that an approximately six-block area is surrounded by a dense fog. Telephones and other devices don't work, and when one of the residents, Dr. Holm, drives through the fog, he finds himself in an alien landscape, confronted by weird rock-like aliens. The neighbourhood has been taken to the planet Luminos, where the inhabitants suffer from a disease that renders them gradually immobile. The humans are the subjects of an experiment (the titular feasibility study) to determine whether the inhabitants of Earth will make good slave labour. It transpires that humans are even more susceptible to the disease, although it is transmitted most rapidly through touch. In a noble gesture that saves the rest of the inhabitants of Earth from slavery, the residents of the neighbourhood join hands with an infected man, intentionally contracting the disease as the ultimate expression of mankind's need for freedom. 

 'Do not enter upon or cross this area. Do not touch or remove possibly radioactive dirt or rocks. If you have any knowledge concerning this disappearance, please contact your nearest police department.' It could have happened to any neighborhood. Had those who lived in this one been less human, less brave, it would have happened to all the neighborhoods of the Earth. Feasibility study ended. Abduction of human race: Infeasible.

This is at the same time one of my favourite and least favourite OL episodes: Favourite because of the effects and the story, which surprisingly, even given the potentially maudlin nature of the denouement, is well-written; Least favourite because of the interplay between the characters who populate the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood consists primarily of unhappy suburbanites with awful marriages - the dialogue reinforces this uncomfortable situation over and over again, to the point of feeling like filler. Even in a crisis, most of the characters can't pull together enough to cope with the situation. It is only at the end that they act together as human beings to protect millions of their brethren who they will both never meet and who will never know they have made this sacrifice. The actors are fine and give good performances, they just have too much belaboured negative dialogue to get through. 

The episode was written by Joseph Stefano, who was one of the creators of The Outer Limits, and directed by Byron Haskin, who is best known for directing 1953's War of the Worlds. All in all, I would consider this episode a great example of 60s TV sci-fi, mostly due to the unusual camera angles and innovative makeup on the Luminoids.  

I now return control of the computer to you...