Trial by Fire

The newly elected President of the United States is suddenly taken the same night of his electoral victory to a bunker where he is informed about an imminent alien invasion and must live with his boss, the head of the Armed Forces, an experienced scientist and the right hand of the outgoing president moments of high tension when having to agree on the steps to follow in the face of this unprecedented event. To begin with, we are facing a superlative episode where adrenaline, tension and anguish have an impeccable record, the entire cast has wonderful performances and the dialogues are intelligent and make clear the different points of view of the protagonists. The ending is moving, distressing and ironic at the same time, a story that takes place in a single setting and maintains interest every second.

Right from the beginning it keeps you on the edge of your seat. You can't turn away My favorite episode of this series.

So a collision with Earth is imminent. The newly elected president and the available people are brought to a bunker, possibly to hang out till the world ends. Whatever is coming this way is an advanced weapon of an alien force. Just as the possible lone survivors are about to breath their last, it is revealed that weapon has struck the moon and while it has inflicted damage, they are safe for the moment. Of course, the general wants to nuke the alien riffraff and the president wavers on what to do. Pretty clichéd stuff. The strange thing is that despite the cessation of hostilities, the President seeks no advice from anyone else, even though the rest of the world is alive on the surface. A message is picked up by NASA and they set out to interpret it. The President sends his own message to the aliens, telling them to stay in orbit until they can establish diplomatic ties. Of course, there is no assuredness that they will understand his message. They break ranks and send one of their ships into the Pacific. What to do! What to do! There is a bunch of contentious talk and advice from the First Lady. Things lapse into the ludicrous. Hopefully, if we ever find ourselves in such a situation, these clowns won't be making the decisions.

The Outer Limits is fun to look back on. You can see so many actors who later went on to bigger roles getting a start. It is a bit like Perry Mason was for an earlier generation of actors.

In this episode you see Ian Tracey looking disturbingly sexy who went on to Da Vinci's Inquest and Jason Gray-Stanford who went on to Monk.

This is one of the more complex Outer Limits episodes. It is not just the usual matter of vainly trying to escape from some science experiment gone awry. A number of people all face the same difficult problem (an alien "invasion"), and react in quite different ways. It is more a character study than an adventure story.

Two things jarred me. The first was the tiny, and apparently random, staff the President took with him to his nuclear bunker. That just does not make sense. He would need a substantial support and advisory contingent, not to mention a cook and cleaning staff. This would all be carefully planned, and would certainly include the president's son.

The second was the several flowery references to God in the supposed messages from the Russian leader. Russian leaders are atheist. It was so jarring it yanked me out of the story trying to figure out what heck. I felt angry that some scriptwriter put in this "ad" for Christianity in a most inappropriate place.