It’s Eerie Shows month. Last week we learned about Alfred Hitchcock Presents, a thriller anthology show. Today we have another anthology series of science fiction themes – The Outer Limits. The show examined the nature of man every week and included many classic science fiction themes such as life in outer space, time travel, and human evolution.
The original title of the show was Please Stand By. It was on ABC from 1963-65. Joseph Stefano was the producer for season one and the creative guiding force, writing more episodes than anyone else. He was the writer of Hitchcock’s film, Psycho. Harlan Ellison, a prolific writer, wrote two episodes for season two. Robert Towne wrote a script for the show and later received an Oscar for his writing for Chinatown.
The show also employed a well-known cinematographer in Conrad Hall. He worked on a variety of television shows and in film, winning Oscars for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, American Beauty, and Road to Perdition; he was nominated for another seven movies.
The shows began with a Control Voice saying:
“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.”
Seasons one and two were a bit different with season two focusing more on hard science. Sometimes we forget that special effects were not something these crew members had much experience with on television. Often, the cast was experimenting, just trying to find solutions to creating these new effects. Robert Justman, who was one of the assistant directors on the show, talked about how they created monsters on the show in his Television Academy interview. He said for one of the first monsters, they had planned to use a negative image instead of a positive one, but that was not enough. He got the idea to rub the image with Vaseline and it created these iridescent spots on it which gave them their monster.
The music for season one was by Dominic Frontiere and season two was supplied by Harry Lubin. Frontiere was credited with 59 shows and films, including Matt Houston and Vega$. Lubin was best known for his music on The Loretta Young Show and One Step Beyond.
Season one garnered good ratings and their fans were very loyal. However, the ratings dipped in season two after changing focus and moving from Monday to Saturday night. Stefano knew that competing with The Jackie Gleason Show on Saturday night meant the show was over, and he left before season two started.
The episodes of The Outer Limits were often confused with The Twilight Zone, not only by viewers but by actors appearing in them. We’ll learn more about The Twilight Zone next week.
Another fan of the show was Gene Roddenberry. He was often on set, and the show would become a big influence on Star Trek later in the decade. A lot of the crew, cast, costumes, and props on The Outer Limits made their way into Star Trek episodes.
Like so many shows, this one was revived in 1995, and it ran for seven seasons.
I’m not sure why but I don’t remember watching this show in reruns the way I did The Twilight Zone. Maybe it was not shown as often or maybe it was on when our family was watching other shows, but it was interesting to learn what made it different from The Twilight Zone. I’m not sure how many of the “monster” episodes would compete with the special effects of today, but it’s worth taking a look at a few of them and the science they not only developed but the technology that was invented.
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