ZZZZZ

Along with "The Zanti Misfits," this is the episode that I most recall from my childhood. An entomologist is perfecting communication with bees. He has a machine that actually translate their sounds into English. He is a bit of a distant character, as are some of these scientific types, but lives with his loving wife in a kind of idyllic setting. As the story opens, we see a bee in a garden, morphing into a beautiful young woman. The professor has been seeking a lab assistant and she is suddenly there, with a real knowledge of these creatures. She is also sultry and defiant, seeing the wife as an adversary. We come to realize that she is the queen from the colony, designated to mate with the professor, give the bees longevity, and take over the world. There are so many holes in the story, but the sexual byplay taking place with the professor is really quite erotic. This is a really embracing episode at times and we watch the professor to see if he is going to allow his maleness get in the way of his good judgment.

One of my favorite OL episodes. I remember watching this when it originally aired and it certainly helped expand my eight year old imagination. Especially when I was around my grandfather's beehives.

Having recently watched it again for the first time in 45 years it was just as good as I remembered it but for slightly different reasons.

I can now better appreciate the beauty of Regina. And I am also very impressed with the ability of the bee colony to not only engineer a queen who could transform into human form (and what a form) but also a human form complete with a designer dress and underwear. However I still don't know where the bees had hidden their laboratory.

Dr. Philip Abbott is an entomologist and is working on a machine that will enable him to communicate with bees. But the bees are evolving as well and their queen has morphed into human form.

Joanna Frank's mission is to somehow seduce Abbott into mating with her and creating a new hybrid intelligent species that can take over.

The bee scientists must have done some considerable research into what attracts the male of the human species. Joanna Frank is the total package including some eye popping breasts. Still Abbott stays loyal to his wife Marsha Hunt.

Another Outer Limits story that will stay with you for decades after you saw it.

An entomologist conducting research on bee behavior is visited by an exotic and intriguing woman who offers herself as his assistant. In reality, she is a queen bee that has taken on the human aspect for the sole purpose of copulating with the scientist and turning him into a human drone. The worst thing about this episode is unfortunately the FX, absolutely poor and simple. The best are the performances mainly by Joanna Frank who has a hypnotic, intriguing and mysterious appearance, her mere presence is disturbing, and the script is very solid.

Sometimes you want to shout at actors: stop pretending, be yourself! Not this time.

The somewhat far-fetched tale of an entomologist translating bee-talk is dominated by the dazzling, tongue in cheek - or should I say wing in mouth - performance of Joanna Frank. It's said she was left to her own devices to interpret the role, she does so with sensuality, effortless intrigue - and the occasional waspish aside to Marsha Hunt, the Professors' wife, sadly apparently childless, having lost her female offspring, who would now have been Regina's age. Phil Abbott plays it straight as the Prof, fending off the Queen Bee's advances, rather better and more decisively than many other men would, or could.

It's a Darwin-esk episode about mating and survival, but the dialogue also includes metaphorical allusions to other issues - such as the role of emotion and feelings, in science.

Ultimately, the slightly suspect special effects made no difference to the excellent calibre of this intense, meaningful drama, within which, a strange scientific phenomenon arose, whereby Ms Frank was able to sizzle as well as buzz.