The Man Who Was Never Born

This episode works pretty well, but one can dismantle in a few seconds with a bit of thought. When that Connecticut Yankee of Mark Twain's went back, Twain ignored the implications of the whole scientific world. Here we must recognize those things. An astronaut finds himself 200 years in the future, encountering an Earth that will likely die soon. Some well-meaning biologist has done something that has caused this horror. Because the astronaut has gone through a time warp, he makes the trip back, accompanied by a hideous future denizen, a man of great moral character and sadness over the results of humanities stupidity. As they find their way back to the present, the astronaut disappears because of time factors. The creature, however, manages to land the ship and sets about trying to kill the person responsible for the great calamity. At the very least, to stop his wife from producing an offspring. He barges in using a convenient form of hypnosis, shielding his ugliness, and tries to destroy the relationship and stop the wedding. The story ends about the only way it could because of the messing with causality. It's a really depressing conclusion. I'm still waiting to see if someone can really produce something satisfying when it comes to time travel.

Capt. Reardon is flying through space, in the most peculiar way, when he accidentally passes through a time warp(it happens more often than you might think). On the other side, he finds that, 200 years from now, humans look hideous(though they can hypnotize people to not realize this), so he travels back with one of them, Andros, supposing that, and I'm essentially quoting here, "if it will take us one way in time, it may take us the other way, too". With knowledge of what caused the malady, they are determined to fix our future, and maybe inspire a Hollywood director to make his breakthrough feature. This takes off immediately, engaging us in the story and the conflict and keeping to a quite fast pace, with constant developments and numerous scenes of tension and suspense. With only a few characters, all of them get enough screen time and interactions with each other that we know what they're like, and can focus on the central concept(would you kill Hitler before he had done anything?) and relationship(I won't tell you which). This is rather well-produced, in all respects. It's filmed quite competently, except for the one part where the cameraman seems to have a seizure. And the make-up FX, convincingly(seriously, you believe that that's his skin) transforming handsome(well, he was back then) Martin Landau into Quasimodo - without us losing track of it still being him(as mentioned, he can make people think he looks normal) when we see him as the people of today are made to see him. His acting and charm keeps *us* from freaking out at the sight of him, and in general, the performances are good. I recommend this to any fan of time-travel sci-fi. 8/10

One more outstanding example of the equivalence that may exist between OUTER LIMITS and TWILIGHT ZONE series topics and atmosphere. Intelligent story that also may be the DNA of TERMINATOR and BACK TO THE FUTURE movies, where some folks try to change the fate of history. When the Marty Landau's character does his best to change the future of the world, by preventing a wedding, mother and father of a possible evil scientist, I thought of Michael J Fox's character trying to make his parents meet; if not he will never exist....The same process but in reverse; no one seems to have noticed it.

An astronaut unwittingly travels to a future Earth, where he encounters a future Earth dweller, a mutation, The astronaut pleads for The Dweller, Andro the return to Earth's present day, and correct the path.

Wow, this was an incredible episode, incredibly imaginative and thought provoking, The man who was never born delivers on every level, it hits hard, delivering a warning to the future, and poses one huge question, could you take someone's life away, knowing they were going to cause untold misery in the future ahead?

Great mix of sci fi and drama, the characters are so well drawn, so well rounded, that the story somehow has a real meaning.

Martin Landau delivers an outstanding performance, Shirley Knight and Conrad Hall are tremendous in support, credit to the makeup team Herr also, they did an impressive job on Landau.

It is very, very well produced, I loved the contrasting filming styles, especially the soft focused shots.

9/10.

"The Man Who Was Never Born" is a sensitive fantasy about a man named Andro who is caught in a limbo of time and space. In this episode, he traverses through several worlds, searching for a sense of connection, solidity, and resolution, which is frustratingly elusive.

I will not provide more plot details, aside from the fact that the ending is absolutely stunning and unforgettable. Overall, this is one of the greatest Outer Limits episodes. Martin Landau delivers an outstanding performance in the title role with great support by Shirley Knight. Conrad Hall's soft-focus black/white photography and Leonard Horn's incisive direction complement Anthony Lawrence's spare, compact screenplay to create a powerful viewing experience.

It is difficult to imagine that you will not be moved after watching this. 10/10.