A Feasibility Study

An extraterrestrial civilization performs an experiment with amazing characteristics. They abduct an entire neighborhood from Earth and transport it to their planet, they need to know if humans have antibodies to a virus that affects them. The inhabitants of the neighborhood begin to notice strange phenomena, lack of energy and disconnection of services among other things, but the worst will happen when they cross the limits of their streets and find horrified that they are on a dark and nebulous planet. A story of great creativity that over time has become an emblematic episode of this series and that was one of the few chosen to make a remake in the series of the 90s.

This is one of those episodes that was repeated in the second incarnation of "The Outer Limits." An alien race (of course) takes a six block chunk of turf, including all the structures and inhabitants, an teleports them to Luminos, a dying planet. This is a feasibility study which is designed to test whether the earth people will accept slavery. Once absorbed into the society, they will be put in labor camps to spend the rest of their lives waiting on these insipid creatures who look like marshmallow men. The problem is if the humans are touched by the aliens, they begin to be infected with a horrible disease. We are give a look at the ugly life that is posed. If the study is "successful," the rest of Earth will follow suit; if not, they will move on. It is up to the people living on this slab of land to decide what to do. This is both a depressing and uplifiting episode.

Two couples go about their daily business as usual, until they realise that something is very wrong, they soon learn that they are taking part in an experiment by the beings of the planet Luminous, a race that are looking for a labour force.

I would imagine this episode is both well remembered and well liked by fans of the show. The opening sequences were terrific, and really do manage to grip the viewer, I can imagine they gave several people a sleepless night or two.

In so many ways this episode was way ahead of its time, that has been the real beauty of The Outer Limits.

Lots of interesting ideas and themes here, there's a real streak of cleverness in the writing, from the idea of the disease, to the very idea of what a 1960's housewife's life should look like, this does actually challenge the norm.

Very well acted, the standouts were Sam Wanamaker and David Opatoshu.

9/10.

If you watched Outer Limits back in the day, you probably were watching Twilight Zone as well. Outer Limits was the scifi show with rubber monsters, Twilight Zone was the home of the speculative, the bizarre and the conduit for the social beliefs of Rod Serling. It was this last that separated the two shows. Outer Limits rarely produced the kind of thoughtful episodes that touched the feelings of the viewer.

This episode is one TZ would be proud of. It starts out as many OL shows do, with aliens taking Earth people way for nefarious purposes. But as it develops, and at it's memorable conclusion, there is a moral intellectual message that is the equal of the best of TZ or anything else that was broadcast at the time. The writing, the cast, the premise are all superior to most of the other shows. This is a very worthwhile viewing experience.

This is one of the better episodes of "The Outer Limits" and it seems to have it all--excellent writing, lots of originality and some exceptional guest actors. In particular, Sam Wanamaker, David Opatashu and Joyce Van Patten help to make this one better since they all are very good actors.

The show begins with an alien species kidnapping a group of humans by literally chopping part of a town out of the Earth and bringing it to their planet. At first, the humans don't realize what has happened but they soon come to realize many BAD things--that they are not on Earth, the aliens are infected with a horrible virus and this is all part of a study to see if ALL the people of Earth can be enslaved to serve these brilliant but evil aliens. How the humans handle all this makes this one great--and very, very poignant. The ending, in particular, is one that might just make you shed a tear or two! Really. This is just exceptional throughout and I won't say more, as I don't want to spoil it.