Afterlife

Unfortunately I have to fill this out a bit to put it up to 10 lines. So before I start; can I just say that Clancy Brown is probably the most underrated actor working in films at the moment. He has that wonderful ability to shift from gentleness to menace without effort - as he does so well here. Right I can start the comment now.... If we ever encounter intelligent life outside our planet, who will be the real 'Monsters'? The aliens or us? Stories asking this question are few and far between. They have to creep out under the radar in series such as this. I've just watched the flawed and bloated 'Spiderman 3'. It is supposed to have cost over $200 million dollars. I wonder how much this cost to make? I wish that, just for once, Hollywood would produce something as intelligent, tight and, dare we say, subversive as this excellent episode. Fat chance.

The Outer Limits was a series that was well under-appreciated. It was more story and character driven than star-based on celebrities like the X-Files where you had Mulder and Scully. In this episode, Clancy Brown plays Sergeant Linden Stiles who chooses a life-altering experiment over an execution for a crime of murder that he did not do. Unfortunately, the experiment is about the fusion of human DNA with alien species. Clancy Brown is brilliant as is Barbara Garrick, the doctor with a conscience. There is kind of an attraction between the sergeant and the doctor. Unfortunately, Stiles becomes more alien than human and we wonder who becomes the experiment after awhile in the end. I won't spoil the ending for those would like to see it. It's worth it.

A man sentenced to die by lethal injection for a crime he claims he did not commit is used as a guinea pig for a gruesome experiment that involves injecting him with DNA obtained from the corpse of an alien whose ship crashed on Earth, and studying the effects that this produces in a human body. This is another superlative story in this series with a perfect development and an absolutely unpredictable and sobering ending. The cast has wonderful performances and the direction of Mario Azzopardi is brilliant as in all the episodes of this series that he had to direct. A jewel.

'AfterLife' is very gripping and exciting. It really shows how low and desperate our government could be when it comes to war. It expounds the message of how people really do fear what they don't understand. I won't give any spoilers, but when an experiment goes slightly awry, who are the real villains?

Clancy Brown is a complete stand-out and a very gifted actor, he was the best pick for the character of Linden Stiles. You can really sympathize and feel the pain of this soldier, accused of a heinous crime he didn't commit and forced to submit to an experiment 'for the good his country.' The rest of the cast give very powerful performances as well. A must see!

I liked this episode, I really like the message, but I won't rehash the storyline. The story is well written and well acted by the main character, Clancy Brown as Sergeant Linden Styles. I knocked a couple stars off because I found Barbara Garrick's acting, as Dr. Kersaw, to be stilted, especially in the last scene. However, I have seen her in other shows where she was fine, not sure what happened here.

Make sure you see the final scene, where the message is clear. I would have liked it to be more strongly delivered with some kind of consequence, but maybe that is best left to our imagination.