Afterlife

This is very similar to an episode from the original series. It tells the story of a man being executed by lethal injection for the murders of several people. After being pronounced dead by the attending physician, he is awakened. He is given a choice. Take the final lethal dose, or be part of an experiment by the military. Since he realizes that the former would be suicide, he accepts the terms, although he is damned either way. It becomes obvious early on that he never committed the murders for which he was convicted and he clings to his faith. He is injected with a series of substances by a pretty young army doctor with whom he feels an affinity. The process is agonizing. The military authorities are totally insensitive to his plight, seeing him as just another lab rat. He is defiant all the way as his body is transformed into an alien form (the DNA was collected from a previous extra-terrestrial encounter). The story is gripping, as a relationship develops between the man and the doctor. It portrays the government as a fearful, kill first and ask questions later entity. This may be the best episode of the series; it not, it certainly stands out.

What I now consider to be one of the best episodes of this under-rated series, "Afterlife" is in it's essence, "The Trial and Death of Socrates". The phrase Sergeant Styles keeps repeating as a kind of mantra while desperately clinging to the slowly fading physical elements of his humanity is the Socratic/Platonic ideal (later adopted by The Stoics) that you can harm the body but you can never harm the soul, although here it is used within a christian context.

"You can change my body, but you will never change my soul" -Sergeant Styles

"You can chain my leg, but not even Zeus can overcome my will" -Epictetus

Brilliantly adapted into a Sci-Fi setting, Sergeant Styles, being the perfect guinea pig due to his moral convictions, is set up by the military, accused of murder and after a trial, sentenced to death. When given the options to choose between the real "lethal injection", which of course would have been suicide and not morally acceptable as a christian, and to become subject to a top secret experimentation, he chooses the later, as was expected. Similarly, Socrates' only options were the type of punishment but he chose suicide instead of exile.

Interestingly, and without giving the end away completely, I would say that Styles transcended both his body and his soul and met a similar fate, if only symbolically, to that of Socrates.

Also, as a bit of pop sci-fi trivia, I thought the story was 1/3 The Fly, 1/3 First Blood and 1/3 Predator.

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!