In Our Own Image

If you follow the series, you understand the last episode is a recap of the season. The past ultimate episodes have been hit or miss. This is a hit. The ending is predictable, how it gets to the ending is the treat. The disappointment: Timothy Webber not enough screen time.

A pretty good plot is thrown into confusion by introducing a series of clips from previous Outer Limits episodes. This is the third or fourth time they've done this and all of them suffer. The premise is good. An android has somehow been given the emotion of fear. He comes to realize that he must escape from the facility where he was created or be destroyed. During his escape he is shot multiple times with a high powered weapon. He kidnaps a young woman in the parking lot and enlists her aid in repairing his circuitry. She uses his brain functions to do repairs she would normally never be able to do. During thee brain connections, she sees clips from previous episodes, all having to do with artificial life. I've seen all of these and they have nothing to do with this guy. It is a lame effort to try to put together a bunch of already filmed stuff to save money. As things go their merry way, everything becomes convoluted and downright ridiculous.

"In Our Own Image" (Season 3 - Episode 12) The "Mac 27" Android escapes from the Innobotics Corporation, kidnaps a woman and then escapes to a remote warehouse. During this time she grows to care for the android and defends him from capture. But there is a twist!

The problem with this episode is that it includes "Android Episodes" from future settings, notably showing:

"The Camp" (Season 3 - Episode 7) A woman challenges her android captors in a prison camp and they are the prisoners are the only survivors of an exterminated humanity and a world of permanently poisoned crops.

"Identity Crisis" (Season 4 - Episode 72) A soldier's consciousness is transferred temporarily into a prototype android body, but a laboratory accident destroys his human body. Then the android body begins to malfunction and will shut down in 12 hours.

"Bits of Love" (Season 3 - Episode 1) The last survivor of a nuclear war relies on computer generated holograms for companionship.

"Valerie 23" (Season 1 - Episode 3) Frank Hellner, a researcher at a robotics company (Innobotics Corporation), is left paraplegic after an automobile accident. His friend and boss Charlie Rogers arranges for Frank to test Innobotics' latest robotic innovation — the "perfect woman". Reluctantly, Frank agrees.

During the clip from "Valerie 23" it is hinted that the emotional emulation programming of "Valerie 23" was the cause for the malfunction of "Mac 27". The more serious problem of this show is that unless this is past an alien-inflicted invasion and the resulting nuclear war, the setting is way too modern day year 2000 to be functional for this episode's basic plot. "Identity Crisis" and "Bits of Love" would be workable for the modern-day setting. The post-human extermination settings of "The Camp" and "Bits of Love" would also work together if not placed prior to this clip show, but are plot lines just wouldn't logically mesh to precede this clip show,

They had Nana Visitor. The excellent Nana Visitor. And they wasted that opportunity. They put her in one setting with one other character as the framework for yet another lame clips episode. I'm old, so for most of my life we didn't have internet or even cable TV; we couldn't just turn on any episode at any time. Unless we taped it, we'd see each episode of a show once, maybe twice if it had a re-run. I understand why old shows did clip episodes. But I still hated them, both at the time and now. But this episode takes that even further. They had Nana Visitor! They could've used her talents for a brilliant episode, similar to the use of David Hyde Pierce in an earlier episode of the series. But instead they wasted her talent on THIS. Such a shame.

This episode is like a chocolate chip cookie. The chocolate chips are scenes between Nana Vistor (Cecilia Fairman, the captive) and Nicholas Lea as MAC 27 the android. The cookie is all the filler clips from other episodes that contain anything even remotely to do with androids.

The interactions between the two keep you on your toes. It quite sophisticated writing, anything but predictable. The dialogue keeps you thinking and guessing. The two actors are compelling. I was completely sucked into the drama, something that does not usually happen with SciFi.

The filler is pretty chintzy. The clip scenes have almost nothing to do with the main plot. They feel almost like commercial interruptions. This would one the best episodes ever if it were remade with the clips rewritten to be more germane, or written out altogether.

It is subtle episode with hints it might head off in all kinds of intriguing directions, but backs off. In a rewrite, some of those might be explored. It might be the seed of an incredible movie.

Most fun with an "alien" intelligence since Starman.