One of the most iconic and yet disturbing science fiction shows in TV history was a series known as the Outer Limits. Unlike its predecessors “One Step Beyond” and the “Twilight Zone” who gave audiences something to chew on, but lacked a sheer threatening quality that kept kids and parents up at night, the “Outer Limits” explored uncharted territory for a weekly episode genre. Joseph Stefano, the producer, director, and head writer of the series, was the force of nature who propelled the bizarre genre of the plots that left people stunned once the ending took place. There were few reassuring stories that ended without disturbing outcomes!

From 1963 to 1965 (3 Seasons) the Outer Limits revealed the genius of young directors like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg who took the perspective of the viewing audience to a whole new realm of uncertainty and even suspicion about clandestine experiments underway by our own government! With writers like science fiction great Harlan Ellison, the series was destined for a break away type of story line that left the audience bewildered and unaccustomed to the unnerving outcomes where happy endings didn’t always exist!

The use of such great actors as David Macallum, William Shatner, Martin Landau, and Robert Culp added even more to the unsettling and convincing realism of drama that pervaded a complex science fiction territory not explored before on the TV screen. What the show did on low budgets to make the aliens and monsters seem so realistic was extraordinary, especially for a black and white format! Despite the paper Mache, Vaseline sheen, and latex makeup, the creatures were so unusual and sinister that critics in the audience began writing letters to the studio. Children found the unorthodox extraterrestrials to be so scary that parents became alarmed!

In some areas, the grotesque creatures were censored from the TV screen all together, a technique that was not used since UFOlogist, Donald Keyhoe, was being interviewed by Mike Wallace March 8, 1958 as the former USMC aviator and writer strayed from the US Air Force approved script for the question of UAP reality. Here was a fictional TV show that was deemed so challenging to society’s acceptability that it was being treated like a threat to national security! The network executives, concerned over the reaction of the public continually pressured Joseph Stefano to tone down the unusual plots and upsetting visuals that had left viewing audiences seriously imbalanced when watching the less than reassuring outcomes.

The series might have lasted longer, but for the negative public reactions that concerned sponsors as well as viewers who could not tolerate their little worlds being challenged as well as the lack of story book endings that came at the end of each pioneering episode into the realm of the unknown. Add to this the “Cold War” tensions that existed at the time, and fear within the general public made the weekly explorations of the Outer Limits too much to accept!

Such memorable performances as “Demon With The Glass Hand”, The Zanti Misfits, The Man Who Was never Born, The Sixth Finger, and the “Architects of Fear”, drove some people into literal hysterics while most viewers were impressed by the convoluted subject matter that suggested new horizons for TV stories! The Outer Limits launched the future of television entertainment years into the a new era, shaking up audiences who were unprepared for the odd journey they were about to embark upon! As a child at that time, I was thoroughly moved, and greatly influenced by the forward thinking of Joseph Stephano and his vision of an Avant Gard science fiction series!  

Man is not at the top of the food chain on The Outer Limits!