The Sixth Finger

What happens when you take an ordinary laboring man and accelerate his mental and physical evolution? A very familiar question posed over the years in sci fi literature, and one addressed here in one of the best shows in the series. A very good cast, a believable premise and execution.

Professor Mathers experiments on Miner Gwyllim Griffiths, the experiment concerned speeds up the evolution process.

I can only imagine this episode gave kids and adults alike the most incredible nightmares imaginable, credit to them for creating a truly unnerving watch.

A truly imaginative storyline, with a commanding lead performance from the excellent David McCallum, plus some rather effective special effects, all of these elements make for one of the show's most creative and effective episodes.

Some of the family members sound as though they've come from the width and breadth of The British isles, with a multitude of regional dialects, and some Irish thrown in for good measures.

8/10.

David McCallum is shown playing classical piano in one scene. Rather than using a piano double, it actually is his own playing. McCallum was trained from a very early age in both oboe and piano, and is capable of playing to professional standard. His father was leader of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

I saw this episode when I was 9 years old and was glued to my TV. David McCalum's makeup was designed by John Chambers who later did the ears for Mr. Spock. This series had the best special effects people in the business, designing the most grotesque looking monsters you will ever see. Unlike the Twilight Zone which played their monsters for laughs, the teaser of The Outer Limits each week gave you a taste of what to expect in the next hour and you did not have to wait until the very end to see them. 1st Season Director of Photography, Conrad Hall and his camera man William Fraker shot episodes with fish eyed lenses and weird camera angles coupled with high contrast lighting producing black and white quality equivalent to feature films. Monsters like the Chromoite from THE MICE looked like a quivering Jelly Fish with claws for hands and a slit for a mouth where it ate its own goo from the lake and male and female Aliens from FUN & GAMES who used boomerangs as weapons to kill their opponents is an example of the monsters on The Outer Limits. Twilight Zone had nothing like this.

David McCallum stars as Gwyillim Griffiths, a poor but bright young man in a rural Welsh mining village who is hired to be a lab assistant to a kindly research scientist named Professor Mathers(played by Edward Mulhare). He volunteers to subject himself to a breakthrough invention that somehow can accelerate the state of human evolution thousands of years, but this gives Gwyillim increased intelligence, and physically transforms him as well, which frightens the local villagers, though his girlfriend Kathy Evans(played by Jill Haworth) remains the one person he can still connect with before it is too late... Provocative episode with fine script and makeup effects that distinguish it, along with lines like "Your ignorance makes me ill and angry."