THE OUTER LIMITS SEASON 2 - TOP 5 BEST EPISODES FROM THE FIRST HALF OF SEASON 2

So, here we are again. Back in the realm of the Outer Limits as we enter the first half of season 2 which originally aired between September 19th 1964 to January 16th 1965.

If I'm being honest, I've struggled a bit with getting through this. I'll lay my cards on the table here and now - so far season two isn't a patch on the first season, not by a country mile.  When I was compiling my two top fives for the first season, I found that I was having to leave episodes out. Some of my favourite episodes didn't even make the list as the quality was so consistently high. Season two though...I'm struggling to even find five that I enjoy enough to include in the damn list.

That said, none of the episodes in season two are actively bad, The Outer Limits is still a quality production, it's just that they're lacking something. That something is Joseph Stefano.

Stefano was the series co-creator and creative driving force in the first season, he produced the series and wrote the majority of the episodes, it was Stefano who introduced the "monster of the week" element which made the first series so memorable and fun. However, by the time the second series went into production Stefano had moved on to be replaced by Ben Brady.

Brady bought his own vision to the series, and arguably, it wasn't as successful. The "monster of the week"/horror element was largely dropped in favour of more psychologically based "hard sci-fi" concepts. The theme tune was changed, resulting in a new composition which was nowhere near as atmospheric. The original theme wasn't a great piece of music admittedly but it's discordant electronic backing track at least made it sound like a sci-fi show, the new theme sounds more like something you'd expect to hear in a vintage romance movie. It just doesn't draw you in like the original did. The new format clearly didn't capture the imagination of the audience either, ratings fell and The Outer Limits was laid to rest until it's revival in 1994.

Here then, in reverse order are the top 5 best episodes of the first half of The Outer Limit's difficult "second album"...

5 - BEHOLD ECK !

A quirky episode about a stranded friendly alien that can only be seen via a special pair of glasses. I wouldn't be surprised if this episode wasn't an influence on John Carpenter's They Live which shared a similar central premise. Eck is an interesting alien, he comes from an alternate plain of existence which only exists in two dimensions. He's cheaply executed but well realised and it's at least nice to see a decent alien in this season, even though he's not really up there with the best examples from the first season.

4 - CRY OF SILENCE

This episode should have been called "Attack of the Killer Tumbleweed From Space". Its very cheesy and goofy, like a 50's drive-in movie.  A suburban couple break down in the desert and come across an alien intelligence that can animate and control animals and plant life. This leads to various attacks of sentient tumbleweed, bullfrogs and boulders. The actors are clearly holding the "attacking" weeds up to thier own faces and thrashing around unconvincingly and the boulders are clearly polystyrene. However, this episode has a lot of charm and is a good slice of cheesy fun.

3 - SOLDIER 

From the pen of writer Harlan Ellison, Soldier is generally considered to be one of season two's better episodes. It tells the story of a timelost trooper from a future war who finds himself zapped back in time to present day Earth pursued by his enemy who is hunting him down. The soldier is taken in by a scientist who tries to socialise him into learning present day etiquette. It is a story of friendship and sacrifice, of two men overcoming thier societal and cultural differences. It's well scripted and well acted and is an overall enjoyable episode.

Ellison wrote two episodes for The Outer Limits - Soldier and Demon with a Glass Hand, both these episodes have elements which Ellison claimed where the inspiration for James Cameron's The Terminator movie in 1984. Ellison successfully sued Orion pictures and recieved both a royalty pay out and a credit on The Terminator as a result.

2 - DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND 

Harlan Ellison brings us another tale of a time displaced soldier being hunted down by an enemy from the future. Here, the soldier, Trent,  played by Robert Culp has a cybernetic glass hand that doubles as a sentient battle computer. However, some of the fingers are missing and Trent is suffering from amnesia. Trent must find the missing fingers so his memory can be restored whilst defending himself from the alien attackers. Demon with a Glass Hand is a tight and taught exercise in suspense with a good central performance from Culp. Its a lot faster moving and much less talky than many episodes of The Outer Limits and as a result makes a pleasant change of pace. 

1 - WOLF 359

Wolf 359 tells the story of a scientist who clones a planet in miniature (yes, really) and then proceeds to be haunted by one of it's inhabitants. Its a cautionary tale of the dangers of scientific hubris, of the perils of man trying to play God, shot through with a sense of creeping dread and spine chilling horror. The alien in this is great, easily up there with some of the more iconic season one creations. The creature is a cross between a grey alien with its domed head and bulbous black eyes and a classic "bedsheet ghost". It's effectively creepy, especially when its stalking the lead character whilst he sleeps at night.

The best thing about this episode, apart from it's creature and atmosphere, is the fact that it more closely resembles what The Outer Limits was like in its first season. It retains all the qualities that made the first series great and for that it claims the number one spot in this list. Hopefully this bodes well for the second half of this series, which I will be covering as soon as I've actually watched it.