The Outer Limits
The anthology series first aired in September 1963 and ran for 2 seasons, with a great emphasis on science fiction. The episodes are stand alone, with a plot twist at the end.
The series were rebooted in 1995.
I only watched the episodes which supposedly inspired The Terminator.
Season 2
Episode 1 - Soldier
Year of release : 1964
Run time : 51min
Genre : Sci Fi
The episode is adapted from Harlan Ellison's short story "Soldier from tomorrow".
1800 years into the future, two soldiers fight on the battlefield. They are hit by an energy weapon of some sorts, and are teleported into the past, one of them landing on the streets of a 1964 city, the other being trapped into the past and present.
The one teleported in 1964 is taken by the police, and put in a padded cell. A linguist is called, as they try to find out what language is he speaking in.
The linguist finds out it's English, but sped up with the slang of the soldier's time. Although the soldier is aggressive because he is not used to people, loud noises bother him,he's never seen a woman, or known a human touch, the linguist decides to take him to his home, where his wife and kids are, in order to make him feel comfortable, and tell him more about his time.
His enemy is released from the time limbo, and comes for him.
I personally watched the episode because its said The Terminator is a "ripoff" of it, but other than the time travel, and the war in the future, there's not much they have in common. Even if James Cameron was inspired by that, it hardly makes it a ripoff!
I didn't like it, it actually bored me. The linguist is very bad at his job, and despite him saying he knows karate, he does not!
I found it odd an old man, like how the linguist looked like, would have the stupidity of bringing an unstable k1lling machine to his home, to k1ll his family.
In the episode the soldier thinks the cat can talk to him, as they carry messages in his time. He tells the linguist he was bread in a nursery (it might be like in The Matrix), that the state was his mother and father, and he only knows war, living to k1ll "the enemy". We don't know what this war is about,what "the enemy" is about , only that in his time there are the very poor, and the super rich.
The acting was bad. So were the fighting scenes.
I didn't like the soundtrack.
The visual effects weren't that good either.
You can watch the full episode here, for free : https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6okzr8
Rating : Could have been a contender !
----
Episode 5 - Demon with a glass hand
Year of release : 1964
Run time : 53min
Genre : Sci Fi
The episode was written by Harlan Ellison,and again, is said to have inspired The Terminator .
Trent thinks he was born 10 days before the action of the movie takes place.He doesn't remember anything about his life, who he is or where he comes from. His plastic hand which is missing 3 fingers is telling him what to do. It tells him he is followed by humanoid aliens, which he has to k1ll in order to stay alive, and get the 3 fingers to complete the hand, to be able to tell him what's going on.
The aliens are wearing a medallion which when ripped,sends them back to their time or k1lls them. They keep coming into this time -1964- from a 1000 years into the future, the moment he k1lls one of them, through the "time mirror".
When running away from them, he finds a woman who tells him she fell in love with him after a few hours!
The more fingers he gets back from the aliens, the more he finds out about himself, and about humanity, who disappeared.
The aliens are on his tracks as they are trying to make sure they ended humanity and its chance to ever survive, as they want to colonize earth.
The episode personally bored me. It doesn't make sense why is he talking to his hand! And why the hand tells him "the truth". Why only when the hand is whole it can tell him what's going on!
Also, I think Gilgamesh wasn't immortal, he lived for 126 years.Maybe.
I didn't like the acting, but it looked better than in the previous episode. When Trent runs he looks like he's dancing. The fights are funny, the fights in old movies look ridiculous.
The woman falls in love with him within a few hours, and when she finds out he's a robot, she just leaves him there! That's how great her love was, it ended immediately when she found out he wasn't human! I did like the fact she wasn't a scared damsel in distress, and she k1lled 2 aliens.
I didn't like the soundtrack, it was a lot of eerie piano notes, which was pretty innovative for that era.
The building where they filmed looked beautiful, but it was filmed as if to look it was dark,giving it an eerie vibe.
The episode won a few important awards, and it was sampled in quite a few (4) of the metal band Cabaret Voltaire's songs.
You can watch the full episode here, for free : https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6qkl5p
Rating : Could have been a contender!