The Inheritors Part I

I just finished watching pt.2 of the episode. I've seen this episode at least once before. But this was the first time in a long time. And I've gained a new appreciation for it.

I just finished reading an online review. The person who wrote it praised this episode. But he also took the time to point out the sorts of flaws that are inherent in most (if not all) older sci-fi TV shows and movies. With new technology things are obviously more realistic and spectacular. But in order to appreciate some of these older programs you need to ignore those sorts dated issues.

The power of this particular episode is in the message. And in the excellent way that the viewer is kept in suspense. It's well acted, too. With Robert Duvall. And with some other very familiar faces that are playing completely out of the characters they're better known for portraying. IMO, though, the actor Steve Ihnot is the most impressive. Not wanting to give anything away I'll just say that he plays his role perfectly.

I think this is a beautiful 2 pt. episode. And I believe at it's conclusion it will leave many people with a wonderful feeling. Something that I feel is terribly lacking in much of what I see on TV these days.

Are the most amazing episodes of any television show in the entire history of television.

Written by Perry Mason writers Sam Newman and Seeleg Lester with Ed Adamson, they seem to have surpassed just about all of the science fiction and speculative fiction of that decade.

This story is like a well woven tapestry, each piece causes instant intrigue, genuine curiosity, and wonder.

The underlying mechanisms of the plot, a meteor in an enemy territory (I'm pretty sure with the Korean War in remembrance) that has unusual properties, brings an alien agenda to earth 🌎 in the minds of four soldiers, each recovering from an identical wound.

It was interesting how in the 60's we had stories where the characters openly discuss aliens and spaceships, not just within the confines of The Outer Limits, but other shows as well.

And these two episodes are the very Zenith of this type of storytelling.

We don't know why these men are affected, we don't even know what with until halfway through the 1st episode.

Robert Duvall is a government agent who is trying to make sense of all of it- and at the beginning, he is even remarkable with his characters ability to pull answers out from under rocks. But then his character shifts, back into Intelligence Operative Mode, where he stops investigating why and focuses upon using force. Whereas the target of his pursuit, Steve Inhat ("Lord Garth" from "Whom Gods Destroy" on Star Trek), is operating totally above board, with kindness.

The other affected men start questioning themselves, but that is all they can do: even when one of them in a spot of soul-searching asks himself or God: "is what we are doing, in fact evil?" - and there is no answer for that in this first part, not definitively. We also reflect on this same question, but the answer is not given, not until the 2nd part.

I remember seeing this when I was a child, the story is more relevant to the modern world.

Four men, four bullets to the head, four normal soldiers now have IQ's of over 200. It is discovered that their brainwaves are doubled which means they actually have a second brain, but even more interesting is that the patterns of this second brain are identical in all of the men. Robert Duvall becomes aware that there is something afoot and begins to investigate things. The clue is a honeycomb pattern to the metal in the bullets. There appears to have been a substance within the cells that has infiltrated the brains of the soldiers, giving them super powers. What they do with it is a mystery because there is nothing dangerous about what they do. One of them even uses the stock market to get a substantial, though in some ways, modest profit. They begin to travel the world doing all kinds of seemingly unrelated things, including coming up with alloys and producing large quantities of inert gases. Duvall calls out the dogs, even though there is nothing illegal which begs the question of government interference in the lives of what should be considered war heroes. This is a worthy setup to the second half.

Robert Duvall stars as a government agent named Adam Ballard who has been assigned to a most peculiar case: Four men(played by Steve Inhat, Dee Pollack, James Frawley, and Ivan Dixon), all soldiers, have been shot in the head during an ongoing Asian war, but have survived. The bullets used in all four cases were manufactured from meteorite fragments that have somehow healed their bodies, and given them a secondary brain wave pattern that has given them increased intelligence and an inexplicable drive to complete a project that Adam believes is for sinister alien purposes, but the fact remains that no one has been hurt, or any laws broken, so why the pursuit? Excellent episode with fine acting, intelligent script and smooth direction. First of two parts.

At the beginning of this episode of "The Outer Limits", a Lt. Phillip Minns (Steve Ihnat) is shot in the head in the Far East before getting sent to a hospital where a U.S. government investigator (Robert Duvall) is told by doctors that there are two brain waves in him-one of which is alien. This investigator then tells some associates in Washington D.C. about three more soldiers with similar shots in the head and brain waves. I'll stop there and just say how intriguing the whole thing was and how I'm now anxious to watch Part 2 of "The Inheritors" ep of "The Outer Limits". So it is that I'm now going to watch it before I send my next review on this site...