O.B.I.T.

This episode takes place mostly in a hearing room at a secret government installation where the OBIT machine was created. It seems that an investigator has been sent there but he keeps getting stonewalled when he tries to talk to the man in charge. Eventually, he is able to see this 'sick man'--but learns he isn't sick at all but afraid. You see, OBIT is an amazing spy machine that can be used to track anyone anywhere--and he's afraid of the repercussions. Plus, the machine is addictive and has ruined his life. What exactly is OBIT? How did they create it? And, most importantly, who is behind all this? OBIT is not a great episode until late in the show. Because of this, I have to strongly admonish you to stick with this one--there is an amazingly good payoff at the end. But, until then, expect a rather claustrophobic episode that is mostly played out in one dull room. A sleeper!

While operating the Outer Band Individuated Teletracer, or O.B.I.T.machine, in a military base, Captain Harris is strangled. U.S. Senator Peter Breck arrives at the base to investigate his murder and learns that there are several bases with the O.B.I.T.machine, which is capable to monitor in a video display the privacy of any person anywhere. Along his investigation, Senator Breck asks for information about the OBIT, such as who is the manufacturer, price, who bought, but no user has any information about the mysterious machine.

"O.B.I.T." is a boring episode based on a machine inspired on the dystopian novel by George Orwell Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), published in 1949. The idea of an omnipresent government surveillance of people is scary; but this episode shows aliens monitoring the Earthling population without any control of government, which is scarier. But the narrative of a court room drama is tiresome and waste an interesting storyline. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O.B.I.T."

Peter Breck stars as a U.S. Senator who has been sent to a top secret military base to investigate the murder of a Captain Harris, who was strangled at his station on the O.B.I.T. machine, which stands for outer band individuated teletracer, a new invention that can monitor anyones feelings and thoughts anywhere to be viewed on an eye-shaped television, which has had the effect of destroying morale in various ways, as privacy is becoming a thing of the past, which may not be an accident, as there are many such obit machines in existence... Prescient episode with intelligent writing and a chilling premise. Perhaps a bit too talky and stagy, but otherwise first-rate.

Last night I refamiliarized myself with another "OL" episode that I had not seen in a good number of years: "O.B.I.T." In this one, as you may recall, a government research installation is being investigated by a Congressman (Peter Breck, who starred that same year in Sam Fuller's cult movie "Shock Corridor") after the murder of one of its workers. It turns out that morale in the facility is at an all-time low, following the introduction of the O.B.I.T. (Outer Band Individuated Teletracer) device of the title, which allows for intrusive surveillance of everyone in the compound. Ultimately, the facility's director (character actor Harry Townes), who had been declared insane after claiming that he saw a "monster" in the device's screen, is brought in to testify, leading to the revelation that his replacement, Lomax (Jeff Corey), is nothing less than an alien, from a race that has planted O.B.I.T. devices all over the world to sap Earthlings' morale and make them ripe for an eventual conquest. It is a talky and stagy episode, wall-bound but never dull, with reams of fascinating dialogue and a script that has much to say about governmental snooping...a subject that is, of course, as timely as ever. Director Gerd Oswald utilizes extreme close-up shots (especially of Corey) to engender an off-kilter atmosphere; the look of the episode, in a word, is striking. Probably not anyone's idea of a Top 10 "OL" episode, but still, an intelligent and well-crafted affair, much better than I had remembered, with fine performances across the board and a message that still resonates.

When a government administrator is mysteriously murdered at a research facility a U. S. senator played by Richard Breck discovers an unusual security device that is used to monitor its employees called The Outer Band Individuated Teletracer (O. B. I. T.) a device so invasive that it follows everyone's actions and is also labeled addictive by its users. A trial is held where a missing administrator is found, and soon the sinister and unearthly purposes of the device become apparent. This is a really good story that like another fellow reviewer stated probably isn't far from happening, there not run by aliens, but there also not any less invasive. The only reason this isn't rated higher is its very dialogue driven through its entire runtime and at times is rather slow, the final is great though.