The following essay is Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s
entry
in The Terror TV Blogathon,
hosted by The Classic TV Blog Association and currently in
progress from October 29-31. For further
information on the participants and topics discussed, click here.
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!
No less a horror authority than author Stephen King
described
The Outer Limits as “the best program of its type ever to run
on network TV.” (Though to be honest, he also made a similar statement about
Boris Karloff’s
Thriller.)
Which you’ll have to admit: that’s heady praise for a program that couldn’t
quite make it across the finish line in its second season.
(I’m talking about its original 1963-65 run;
the revival that began in 1995 had a bit more success, sticking around on small
screens on Showtime and the Sci-Fi Channel until 2002.)
Outer Limits most assuredly deserves
its cult reputation, however; though there are a few clinkers in its catalog (
“The
Hundred Days of the Dragon,” “Tourist
Attraction”) its best episodes can stand up to anything cranked out by
Thriller
or
The Twilight Zone any day of the week.
In fact, I’ve often discussed
OL episodes with my geek
friends in the past…and if I had a nickel for every time one of them remarked “Was
that on
Outer Limits?
I could
have
sworn that was a
Twilight
Zone!” I would be so wealthy as to be completely inaccessible to you “proles.”
(I’m just kidding you.
I wouldn’t change.
Much.)
It’s easy to confuse the two shows (although
TZ was only an hour-long
presentation in its fourth season): both used its horror/sci-fi elements as
commentary on the human condition, and both frequently employed the “twist
ending” as a plot device.
But there was
something a bit more sinister about
OL episodes as a rule, defined by
its dark, textured cinematography (with echoes of German expressionism and the
film style later defined as noir).
And
then…there was “the bear.”
“The bear” was the nickname bestowed upon the
monsters/creatures featured in
Outer Limits installments, an element
insisted upon by both ABC and producer Joseph Stefano to heighten fear and
suspense.
(When Stefano vacated the
producer’s chair in the show’s second season, “the bear” went with him—though there
were episode exceptions.)
OL
was created by Leslie Stevens, whose previous series
Stoney Burke (an
underrated Western program starring Jack Lord) has been cancelled by ABC after
a solitary season.
Stevens sold the
network on a show he called
Please Stand By, but when ABC insisted
that the title of the series be changed,
The Outer Limits became the
substitute.
September 16, 1963 marked
the debut of
OL with “The Galaxy Being,” a slightly-tweaked version of the
Please
Stand By pilot.
"There is a passion in the human heart which is
called aspiration. It flares with the
noble flame, and by its light Man has traveled from the caves of darkness to
the darkness of outer space. But when
this passion becomes lust, when its flame is fanned by greed and private
hunger, then aspiration becomes ambition—by which sin the angels fell."
Scientist Richard Bellero (Martin Landau), who has longed
for the approval of his father (Neil Hamilton) throughout his entire life, has
been experimenting with a laser device that he hopes will convince the senior
Bellero to hand over control of his company upon his retirement.
Richard, Sr., however, is not impressed; this
infuriates Bellero’s ambitious wife Judith (Sally Kellerman), who takes out her
frustration on a bottle of champagne with her husband’s laser gun.
This action produces a visit from a glowing
extraterrestrial (John Hoyt), who explains that he hails from a world that “hovers
just above the ceiling of your universe” and has ridden Bellero’s laser “bridge”
down to earth.
The alien is equipped with a device capable of generating an
impenetrable shield, protecting him from the human nature hostility of Judith
(fear caused her to point that same laser gun at the being).
While an astonished Richard welcomes the
alien visitor, and converses with him at great length about Earth’s scientific
advances (science!), Judith schemes to obtain the device for her and Richard’s
personal enrichment and acclaim.
She
gets her chance when the alien momentarily lets down his defenses (the shield)
and she puts a bullet in his brainpan.
With the help of her loyal housekeeper, Mrs. Dame (Chita Rivera), she
drags the dead alien down into the cellar for a later dirt nap.
Having relieved the dead E.T. of his device, Judith
demonstrates to Richard, Sr. its amazing properties (the senior Bellero is a
bit of a peacenik, and is averse to using such a knick-knack for purposes of
war) with the help of Mrs. Dame.
The
problem is—she can’t deactivate it.
Judith’s salvation arrives when Mrs. Dame discovers (after introducing
Richard, Sr. to the business end of a blunt object) that the alien hasn’t yet
rung down the choir invisible; with his dying breath, he rescues Judith with
his alien blood (the prime ingredient in activating the shield).
But there’s a price to pay: Judith is
convinced that she’s still trapped in the shield, a prisoner of her madness.
Normally, I’d state that any resemblance between “The
Bellero Shield” and the Shakespearean work known in the the-ah-tah as “the
Scottish play” is purely coincidental…but that would be a fat stinky fib.
There’s no mistaking the parallel between “Shield”
and
Macbeth, particularly in the Lady
Macbeth-like Judith Bellero, who’s every bit as ruthless as her literary
counterpart.
To make certain we don’t
miss the connection, both women go “a little funny in the head” at the end of
their dramas, and both are plagued by a “damn’d spot” of blood on their hand (a
physical manifestation of their guilt).
(Even
the narration—by “Control Voice” Vic Perrin—paraphrases lines from Shakespeare’s
play.)
Sally Kellerman’s performance as
Judith will blow the first-time viewer away, and I’d argue that it’s one of the
best things she’s ever done.
Martin Landau’s Richard, though a pliable sort, isn’t quite
as bloodthirsty as Macbeth (so the comparison kind of falters in that respect),
but he nevertheless gives a solid performance as the scientist suffering from
some “daddy” issues.
The rest of the
cast—Hamilton (a couple of years away from his signature role in
Batman),
Hoyt, and particularly Rivera (her character goes without shoes for unexplained
reasons, and so we detect her hovering presence with eerie close-ups of her
bare feet)—acquit themselves admirably as well.
Written by
OL producer Stefano, “The Bellero Shield” owes its moody,
claustrophobic atmosphere to the first-rate direction of John Brahm (
The Lodger,
Hangover Square) and
most effective cinematography by three-time Academy Award-winner Conrad
Hall.
(Okay, I will admit that the first
time I saw “Shield”—during my Marshall University days, watching WVAH-TV—I asked
out loud of Hall’s low-key lighting: “This guy’s a wealthy scientist and he can’t
even keep the lights in his house on?”)
In
The Outer Limits’ second season, ABC
decided to put what one author called its “child prodigy” up against Jackie
Gleason on CBS (talk about a suicide mission); it’s believed that this is why
Joseph Stefano hung up his producer shingle and the chores were handed off to Ben
Brady.
OL came to an end on
January 16, 1965…but its forty-nine episodes collected a generous pension in
The Old Syndication Home, and they’ve been released to home video on a number of
occasions (I started to sweat when I couldn’t get my disc to play; fortunately
I had made a back-up copy the last time this happened) in addition to being
available online at
Hulu.
I now return control of this blog to you.
Until the next blogathon, when the control
voice will take you to…
The Outer
Limits.
“The bear” was the nickname bestowed upon the
monsters/creatures featured in Outer Limits installments, an element
insisted upon by both ABC and producer Joseph Stefano to heighten fear and
suspense. (When Stefano vacated the
producer’s chair in the show’s second season, “the bear” went with him—though there
were episode exceptions.) OL
was created by Leslie Stevens, whose previous series Stoney Burke (an
underrated Western program starring Jack Lord) has been cancelled by ABC after
a solitary season. Stevens sold the
network on a show he called Please Stand By, but when ABC insisted
that the title of the series be changed, The Outer Limits became the
substitute. September 16, 1963 marked
the debut of OL with “The Galaxy Being,” a slightly-tweaked version of the Please
Stand By pilot.
