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.

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.

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

In the future, Earth is attacked by the planet Ebon and now is in war. A group of human soldiers travel to Ebon to fight the Ebonites but their rocket is shot down. They are taken as POW and sent to a work camp. Soon they learn that the Ebonites are capable of controlling the human senses and they will be interrogated by the enemy that wants to know details of the next attack from Earth. The first to go is the mentally unstable private Arthur Dix, who was deprived of speaking by the Ebonites and returns speaking again after the interrogation. One by one, the earthlings are interrogated by the Ebonites also increasing the mistrust on each other. Soon the interrogator discloses secret information and the military suspect there is a traitor in the group. What is the secret of the Ebonites?

"Nightmare" is a tense and thought-provoking episode of "The Outer Limits" and certainly one of the best of the series. The idea of an experiment to analyze people under stress is a great theme explored in few films and in 2001 it was produced the excellent "Das Experiment", a masterpiece of the genre. "Nightmare" is certainly one of the first movies to explore this theme in a sci-fi genre in a period of great tension of the Cold War and it is worthwhile watching. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Pesadelo" ("The Nightmare")

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?"