Nightmare

I have always liked good science fiction. The Outer Limits is one of the best of the science fiction series. These 1960's episodes were shot in B&W which added to their moodiness and effectiveness.

In "Nightmare," a group of soldiers land on planet Ebon to fight. They are captured and become POW's. Their alien interrogator uses all sorts of mind bending, hallucination type of devices to extract information from these POWs.

This is a VERY powerful episode. It depicts the brutality of POW interrogations. I think this episode, along with the movie 36 Hours (1965), should be MANDATORY viewing by anybody undergoing POW resistance training.

The ending of this Outer Limits episode will blow you away.

US soldiers are sent to an alien planet as POWs.

First viewed in the 1980s when I was very young, I was turned off by the "stage show" feel of this hour but always liked Time Tunnel's Whit Bissell appearing as a General...again.

Viewed again this year when I am older...now I love it. I love everything about it! The sets, the aliens costumes, the tone, Martin Sheen, Whit Bissell, the beginning/closing narration and the well matched music score.

The IMDb has revealed that a third season classic Star Trek got some ideas from this hour. I will need to re-watch that Trek!

This episode brought Joseph Stefano, the series creator and writer of this episode, into conflict with Rod Serling. Serling fully supported the military and authority, and many of his "Twilight Zone" episodes revolved around the military. In Serling's script for "The Rack," a man who broke under torture in the Korean Conflict is blamed for being weak and failing America. In Serling's view, the military was always right.

"Nightmare" is a new view of this situation; the quotes of the general in the episode are essentially correct about the number of American prisoners who were broken in the war. Serling couldn't imagine American soldiers permitting torture, especially on other Americans. This despite such things as the Tuskeegee Syphillis Project and the exposure of soldiers to atomic blasts to determine the effects of radiation. One wonders how he'd react to Abu Gareb, water torture, and the show "24" in which torture is approved as standard American heroic action.

For those who think these "old TV shows" were simplistic compared to today's shows with CGI, sexual content and viral-marketing web sites, consider this; have there been any modern shows that dared raise a debate about their premises like the ones raised by Stefano and Serling? Would anyone produce a series arguing against the right-wing paranoia presented in "24?"

One of the most creative plot ever made on The Outer Limits series, which is one my favorite, due this has a science fiction background, on a near future the Earth has an unique army Unified Earth, which was raided by the Ebonites from the distant Planet Ebon, After sent several missions to fight at Ebon, somehow the last spacecraft was attained and all crew are arrested in sort of POW, each one has been forced by Ebonites to confess where they planned to strike on their planet, a strange device discharge a sort of laser, wounded the soldiers on many ways, clearly an anti-war episode, due they quote Korean war, suggesting that the soldiers at POW under the worst psychological distress, they confess even the undisclosable, smart screenplay letting us to think about a true nightmare that war offers, and remarkable and unexpected final!!

Resume:

First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.5

This episode has horror and effectiveness, and yet is so simple. There is hardly any set or decoration. A couple of quite bare rooms and little more than scene cubes on a bare sound stage floor for the prisoner of war camp. The "enemy" was in make-up, yet there were just two of them. Everyone else was in off the shelf uniforms or costumes. There were very few props and almost nothing in special effects.

In this day where CGI can make anything appear, what made the episode so effective? To begin with, a wonderful cast. A young Martin Sheen played a pivotal role. Sad, wise looking John Anderson was under the alien make-up. Their talent helped. But that wasn't all.

The story resonated within us. It showed the true monster and enemy of mankind - man himself. Every inch of it lead to that final, wonderful last decision.

See this for yourself if you ever can.