Expanding Human

A scientist named Doctor Roy Clement discovers a way to chemically enhance the functioning of the brain, the problem is that it removes the sense of morality and humanity.

Expanding Human is a well plotted and well realised episode. For me it seemed like a reworking of Jekyll and Hyde, an almost identical plot, with Clement unaware of his actions, and undergoing something of a physical change.

I wouldn't necessarily say it's a ground breaking episode, nor or it hugely imaginative, but it's still a very good watch.

It's perhaps the strongest episode of the second series so far, I particularly liked the horror vibe of it, and Clement's physical transformation is very well done.

Skip Homeier stood out for me as the central villain of the piece.

8/10.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde at a 1960s university.

It is nice to see "Scotty" just before doing Star Trek, a couple of episodes back we had William Shatner, so this season is started to feel like a weekly pilot to Star Trek (1966). And it has been reported that Gene Roddenbery was actually "around the set" when The Outer Limits was being made...so maybe Gene was getting ideas here.

But this is not Star Trek, it is The Outer Limits, with a touch of Jekyll and Hide, set in a university. Sound a bit different? It is.

The hour holds me from beginning to end, but the episode can only be called okay.

A man becomes superhuman through the use of drugs. He murders a security guard and a man who held the pursestrings on his research project. The research is into mind and body expansion. The stuff of Timothy Leary. A police detective played by James Doohan (later of Star Trek as the inimitable Montgomery Scott) comes to investigate. The college campus is fraught with craziness, students who have become absorbed into these going on. The problem with this episode is it goes on forever and nothing much happens. This is one of the most forgettable episodes of the series. It is indeed appropriate to the time but is there anything prophetic about it? I don't know.

This is an interesting episode and I really have to "tip my hat" to writer Francis Cockrell, and directer Gerd Oswald for broaching this subject this way.

When "The Outer Limits" ran its two seasons, actual drug experimentation was at its apex. Timothy Leary had conducted his experiments with LSD just two years prior, and had mad his "turn on, tune in, drop out" statement, encouraging society to question authority and attempt to expand their world view.

Cockrell took this to the next level, by having scientists experimenting with these drugs, develop a new one that enhanced intelligence, overall physical strength, as well as expanding human consciousness.

Though other reviewers have stated that Cockrell and Oswald managed to make an entertaining anti-drug message, I don't see it that way. Most good science fiction prepares us for the pinnacles and pitfalls of what is yet to be. This episode followed the longstanding trope and did so in a thought provoking fashion.

I did think that, overall, "Expanding Human" treated the matter with a great deal of respect and seriousness. Just because the final scene seems to deliver an "anti-drug" message, in reality, I feel it delivers a "new frontiers have their risks."

Overall a very good episode.

Similar concept as season one episode titled The Sixth Finger. Someone trying to speed up evolution and discovering the consequences. Interesting to take that same general concept and take a different approach to it. This episode is a more modern approach while the earlier episode feels like the approach in an earlier time in history.