Nightmare

Set In the future, Earth is at war with the planet Ebony, A small unit of soldiers travel to Ebon to fight, but their rocket is shot down, and taken to a POW camp.

The Ebonites are very well designed, they've got plenty of powers and abilities, they made for an interesting foe.

I think this rates as one of the best episodes I've seen so far, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and arguably this is the most ambitious one so far.

Several impressive elements here, I loved the visuals, the sets, the ebonites, but best of all was the atmosphere of stress and paranoia, credit to the writer, this was a quality story.

Prisoner of War camps were very much still fresh in the minds of many people, several wars still in the recent past, this would have resonated with many viewers, it's a powerful story.

9/10.

During an interplanetary war, a UE (Unified Earth) crew of human men is taken as prisoners of war on the enemy planet Ebon. Elected leader Ed Nelson (as Luke Stone) demands to be the first interrogated, but the aliens choose mentally unstable Martin Sheen (as Arthur Dix) instead. Ironically, Mr. Sheen has just been relieved of his ability to speak. One by one, the Ebonites use sensory powers on their prisoners. They want to know some details about an impending attack from Earth. As the aliens acquire information, the men begin to suspect a traitor among themselves. Beautifully written by "Outer Limits" producer Joseph Stefano, "Nightmare" is an excellent and thought-provoking episode of the acclaimed series.

******** Nightmare (12/2/63) John Erman ~ Ed Nelson, James Shigeta, Martin Sheen, Bill Gunn

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

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.

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.