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I just discovered that all 49 episodes of the science fiction television show from the early/mid 60's, The Outer Limits can be viewed on Hulu.com. This is outstanding.

I grew up watching re-runs of The Twilight Zone, and when available, The Outer Limits. The latter was not nearly the popular success of the former, but TOL enjoyed a loyal, albeit much smaller, fanbase. I admit that when I was a lad, TOL was perhaps a bit too sophisticated and stylized than TZ. My young mind could more easily grasp the more conventional style of TZ and the half-hour vs. full hour episode times.

In retrospect, I remember the creepy feeling TOL always gave me as a child. The writing may not have been as consistently solid as TZ, or as clever, but what it lacked in that it made up for in it's unconventional production and highly stylized filmmaking. The show had aspects of German Expressionism at times and was downright creepy. Less emphasis on the clever plot devices and storylines present on TZ and more emphasis on feel and suspense.

It is clear that TOL was a product of two things: the public's fascination with sci-fi and cold war paranoia at that time, and the success of TZ. So, despite it's differences from TZ, there were enough similarities to where people have occasionally confused the two shows, thinking a TOL episode was a TZ episode or vice versa.

I am looking forward to watching on Hulu and was very glad to learn they are available there.

Good point. The Outer Limits was no Twilight Zone.

The Twilight Zone occasionally had some light-hearted and humorous abject lessons to their stories, or at least an ending that provoked some serious thought.

The Outer Limits, though, went straight into the unknown head first, and managed to draw you in as well as managing to create the dimmest possible picture when it came to whether or not our heroes would survive the test that the great unknown threw at them.

Andbecause of this dual approach many moments were genuinely shocking while being thought provoking as well. But the ultimate goal of TOL was not to fear the unknown, but to embrace it, and perhaps come out with a better understanding of the things we most feared.


Another good point, mate.  OL episodes like The Hundred Days Of The Dragon were indeed Cold War themed.   Be that as it was, science fiction was the bigger and more apparent motive for the show, and it worked out just fine.

Other shows like Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea touched on Cold War issues as well, but when it came to science fiction, it was more escapism than thought provoking and somewhat controversial stuff like the OL had to offer.

Its now on Netflix too!

One of my fave episodes of the original OL
was the very first episode, The Galaxy Being.

In it, Cliff Robertson plays a radio operator at a local station who, thru his own experiments with the station's equipment manages to accidentally contact an alien being from another galaxy.

Another was The Bellero Shield starring Martin Landau and Neil Hamilton (Commissioner Gordon from the 60's Batman TV series.) It was a very depressing episode, and a great lesson in greed and betrayal.

I can't say enough about the show, so I'll stop here and remind you that "there is nothing wrong with your television set."   :wink:

I love The Twilight Zone but The Outer Limits is almost always refreshingly free of the cutesy humor or preachiness that creeps into TZ. Many of the episodes are extremely grim-spirited with absolutely nothing good to say about anybody.