Fun and Games

Nick plays an ex-boxer teamed up with Nancy Malone to do battle on a distant planet with two aliens. Good scarring make up on close ups of Adams who plays a Terry Malloy type from "On the Waterfront." Adams did his obligatory usual "freak out" scene, and there were few better in Hollywood at the time that could lose it as good as "Johnny Yuma" could. Adams was an authentically tough and athletic man whose passions included playing semi-professional baseball and he was also an avid practitioner of the martial arts. This fine actor left us far too soon and catch this if you are a fan of his as it is a great period curio of a time long gone.

A guy and girl fight for life, when playing a game on another planet.

1966 Star Trek stole a lot from this hour, in fact after spending time on these IMDb reviews of The Outer Limits it would seem Trek took one hell of a lot from The Outer Limits.

I wonder how many of those "Trekkers" know that Trek was often going Where The Outer Limits Had Gone Before???

Fun And Games is a good looking hour but I would say Trek did it best. It would seem nearly all Outer Limits aliens have the same voice??? Thankfully he sounds cool to me but it would have helped if Lost In Space's Ron Gans helped with the voice-over work sometimes.

Other reviewers accuse Star Trek of ripping off this episode for the first season episode "Arena." In fact, as pointed out in the Connections session, the plot of this episode is taken from the 1944 Fredric Brown story "Arena" which Star Trek adapted more faithfully but with a different conclusion to the battle. One big difference is that "Star Trek" properly credited Fredric Brown. The Outer Limits did not.

Once again, an indifferent entity takes it upon themselves to make a life and death decision that doesn't affect them at all. Nick Adams and his companion are given the task of fighting for their lives against an alien. The winner saves his planet. The loser, well.... Anyway, it is the modern man versus an ugly, rubbery reptilian (much like a gorn). He is armed with a boomerang with saw blades. They have only their wits for their defenses. There is a great deal of talk about the worthiness of the human race and what have they done for me, etc., etc., etc. The forces seem to have a lot of power and their boredom seems to be the reason for everything. The whole thing begs the question of whether the people of earth have any free will if there is a superior culture that can utterly manipulate their very existence. It's a good idea but pretty much stretches even a far-fetched plot.

An Alien thrill seeker pitches two aliens against two humans, Mike and Laurs in a battle of life and death, the prize, to save their planet from annihilation.

Not a favourite episode of mine, but I get why people may like it. The idea of a powerful alien puppet master is a good one, I loved the scenario and the alien world. It has some tension, some good build up, but a pretty ambiguous, slightly weak ending.

What I struggled with a little bit, the rubber masks, it's not something I've been too aware of in the past, but the alien aggressors just look too DIY on a small budget. I won't criticise the production team for ambition though.

I have to give huge credit to both Nick Adams and Nancy Malone, the pair really do elevate the episode with some top notch acting, I can't in all good conscience say I think it's one of the best scripts of all, I think it has some quite sizeable flaws, but these two really do pull it off.

Maybe this one's a bit of a grower, but after my first viewing I'd class it as an above average episode.

6/10.