The Outer Limits (1963-1965) - All Episodes Rated & Reviewed

RATING: mediocre CONCEPT: alien contact GENRE: sci-fi, action PLOT TWIST: none ENDING: dumb DOWNER ENDING? 5 dead people, so yes ROMANTIC BS? no PREMISE: solid

Robertson makes the discovery of the century – an alien being – yet he allows himself to be blackmailed by his dumb wife into ABANDONING communication with this thing just so he can waste an hour on a ceremony intended to honour him (whatever for... after all, his non-supportive wife did call him a "nobody" just minutes earlier). This alone hampers the story's credibility and logic considerably.

The wife scolds him for not taking care of the business, clearly implying that he runs the radio station so badly that it borders on ruin - yet Cliff is a respected member of the town who is about to get his own honorary plaque!

In other words, his bitchy wife serves as a total source of misinformation and contradictions. Through her we find out that Cliff allegedly gets "very angry" whenever someone challenges his experimental scientific work. Yet, there is zero evidence of this non-existent aggressive personality trait: Cliff doesn't even get mildly peeved while he is being disturbed and blackmailed - just as he is in the midst of his incredible discovery. Quite to the contrary: far be it for his wife to have to walk on eggshells around him; he appears instead to be a proper pushover, not at all a stubborn fanatical hobby astronomer as she suggests.

Ask ANY astrologist, cosmologist, astrophysicist or hobby UFOlogist whether this scenario seems remotely realistic and they'd laugh it off as ludicrous. Nobody on this entire planet would be coerced into leaving their lab under such circumstances. Of course, this banquet or whatever is just a dumb plot-device utilized by the writer in order to push the plot in the desired direction i.e. to allow the alien to unnecessarily (and illogically) cause havoc. What are the odds that Cliff stumbles upon the discovery of the century at THE EXACT day when there is a luncheon in his honour, which he "must" attend to? Almost as low as Sean Penn winning the Nobel Prize in Physics.

The interaction between Cliff and the alien isn't particularly well thought-out either. The alien tells Cliff that "matter time and space are all the same... infinity is God", which is the sort of vague claptrap that is acceptable in a sci-fi pulp comic-book, but appears somewhat childish on the screen. Nor is their conversation very logical: they communicate in English, through some hokey translation device I presume, yet the alien asks stuff like "what does nose mean?" But this is fairly minor stuff, and anyway fairly common in sci-fi.

Certainly very minor compared to the nonsense that "it is forbidden to communicate with Earth because you (Earthlings) are a danger to other galaxies". The alien is of course referring to nuclear bombs which Cliff had mentioned just prior. Question: if these aliens are electro-magnetically-nitrogenically immortal then what the hell have they got to fear bombs for?! Another question: how could Earth possibly be a danger to "other galaxies", when it's not even a threat to Neptune! (Try detonating a nuclear device there, and it would be like a mere firecracker exploding.) Nor even Mars, in fact. Does this writer even know what a galaxy is? Somehow I doubt it. He must have confused it with "solar system"; many hack sci-fi writers use "galaxy" and "universe" anyway as synonyms. 20th-century Earth being a threat to "other galaxies" is the kind of hooey that should be only in "Plan 9" and other such ultra-cheesy B-movie nonsense. "Plan 9" is LITERALLY about Earth being a threat to the universe due to its weapons of mass destruction.

Yet later on the alien in his clumsy speech to the military says: "You people of Earth, there are powers in the universe beyond anything you know." This kinda contradicts the stuff about humankind posing a threat to the galaxy. If humans are so technologically backward then surely their nuclear weaponry is a minor threat at best. One of several glaring contradictions in this sloppy script.

And, man, is that speech dumb or what: the alien - projecting Gandhi - warns humans to stop using force, yet this alien seems to happily ignore all the carnage which he caused in the small town. So is he a selfish moron incapable of self-criticism or just a manipulative, deceiving spin-doctor? We already knew that he broke the laws of his world by contacting Earth, so who is this renegade to moralize to anybody? His decision to break his world's stringent law caused death and destruction, so he really has no high moral ground to stand on. He is a hypocrite, if anything. Either that, or an idiot.

Even dumber though is the crowd's utterly unrealistic reaction after the alien bids them farewell: both the civilians and the military CASUALLY disperse as if leaving a night-club or a garage sale! in fact, there is more excitement and animated reactions to be found among buyers of one-dollar books than among this bunch that had just witnessed a visitor from outer space! Laughable direction.

When all is said and done, Cliff's stupid wife basically caused the demise of at least 5 people, because she blackmailed her hubby to be at the luncheon at all cost. So the message must be this: keep your wife in submission, don't be a cuck like Cliff otherwise things will go South. The writer Stevens obviously never intended this, but hey, that's what all of this boils down to, whether he wanted it or not. Then again, maybe he did, because he had her shot.

Yes, shot. I mean by the dumb cop, not by Stevens. Shot point blank, execution style, and for no reason whatsoever. The cop even had ample time to figure out that it was a civilian woman appearing at the door, not a monster or Al Capone. That scene is so utterly idiotic, even Ed Wood might have had qualms about it. This too was just a dumb plot-device used only so the alien could proudly display his healing power, proving what a goody-two-shoes he is after all. But where were those healing powers for the people he killed in the car and the radio station? Logic holes abound.

How about showing some of that "superior" brain power though? The alien waltzed through the town, causing devastation and death, which means either he just didn't give a hoot, or he's as thick as Cliff's wife.

Robertson is a very good actor, and the alien special effects are fairly nice, but this script was simply too generic and crap to result in a good episode.

Viewings: late 90s, 2021

RATING: worst (idiotic) CONCEPT: switcheroo GENRE: political spy thriller PLOT TWIST: irrelevant ENDING: weak DOWNER ENDING? no ROMANTIC BS? no PREMISE: generic and idiotic

Belongs to the WORST 5 EPISODES.

A fairly dull, generic switcheroo episode.

Utterly idiotic and far-fetched too. The notion that a Chinese man can be molded into the EXACT replica of a Caucasian American presidential candidate, voice and mannerisms included, is so stupid it simply doesn't hold up, not even to a half-way intelligent 12 year-old. This is the kind of cheap pulp BS you can find in any old American comic-books, recycled in many versions. Translated from drawings onto the small screen its nonsense levels only get even more amplified. What works in a comic-book usually doesn't on film, but they sure do keep trying.

The ease with which the Chinese replace and kill the real political candidate is hilarious. If political sabotage and assassination were this easy, we'd have a different Prime Minister or President each month, in every other country.

"Put an end to your treachery, here and now!"

What treachery?! He was a Chinese spy. He'd be a traitor only if he'd betrayed the Chinese. That's how stupidly this is scripted. The vice-President is basically claiming that the President is a fraud - yet he also labels the impostor a traitor! What a Mickey Mouse script.

Naturally, this astoundingly bad episode gets a 7,3 average from the IMDb crowd...

Viewings: late 90s, 2021

RATING: weak (tedious and absurd) CONCEPT: mutation, scientific experiments, political GENRE: sci-fi drama PLOT TWIST: dumb ENDING: idiotic DOWNER ENDING? yes ROMANTIC BS? yes PREMISE: original but preposterous

The basic premise is intriguing but extremely far-fetched. I am not even referring to the scientific aspects of it, which are fine because this is sci-fi after all, but the incredibly naive Disney-like assumption that one damn alien is going to accomplish what nobody could ever do, and something nobody WON'T ever do: unite all of mankind.

One of those "It's A Small World After All" laughably idealistic set-ups. (In case you don't know, this is the title of a goofy, catchy children's song that was played at Disneyland and/or Disneyworld way back when. I suppose you could call it the proto-anthem for Cultural Marxism, devised to brainwash impressionable dumb kiddies. Dumb 'em down while they're still young, that always works...)

The STOOPID Disney-like assumption that nations fight each other out of boredom or because they have nobody else to fight but each other, is awfully ignorant, child-like even. It's ignorant of the very plain facts that territorial concerns (i.e. limited space on this planet), limited resources, political power, vital energy sources, and other financial concerns will always be constants, i.e. will always be key factors in human existence hence in international relations, which is why there will always be armed conflicts. No damn silly fake alien could ever change these realities.

At best, an outside threat (and I mean a REAL threat including 100s of UFOs hovering above cities) could unify humans for a certain time period, but after a while things would go back to normal (providing we beat the alien invaders), to where they always were and always will be: competition. Whether it be humans, animals or plants, all living creatures are engaged in a perpetual, hellish game of survival which involves competition, among themselves and against other species. Anybody who actually believes that this natural order of things could be changed in some Utopian-like quasi-artificial future must be a gullible, stupid left-winger. And the fact that Marxist Hemingway, of all people, gets quoted here, says it all really about the intelligence and political affiliations of this run-of-the-mill Hollywood writer.

After a promising start, the plot suddenly starts crawling at a snail's pace. I found myself bored with the detailed metamorphosis and the soapy drama that accompanies it. Way too pathetic, sentimental and preachy for me. Once the plot finally resumes, things got so dumb I simply lost interest, once again.

This sort of bizarre, silly story would be ideal for "Astounding Stories" or any other old sci-fi comic-book serial, but it cannot translate to the screen because way too absurd and dumb.

What's that monkey-like gremlin thing they used to turn Culp into an alien? Where did they find it?And why is Culp's wife somehow connected ESP-wise to him? How is it that she can simply waltz into these "secret" labs whenever she feels like it? How the hell did Culp manage to drag his clumsy alien self from the crash site all the way to the lab - and while mortally wounded?! Why would the crash-site be so closely located to the labs? The story is full of nonsense, which I guess is why it got a high rating by TOListas.

This "genius" team of noble but laughably deluded scientists concocted this incredibly complex, risky, far-fetched plan, only to be screwed over by a couple of random hunters! This should have been a comedy. Just delete the pathetic, moral speeches and you're halfway there.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: best CONCEPT: scientific experiments GENRE: sci-fi drama, horror PLOT TWIST: none ENDING: very good DOWNER ENDING? yes ROMANTIC BS? only very brief relationshit stuff, but it serves the story PREMISE: very good

Belongs to the BEST 5 EPISODES.

All I can say is, they better not ever give me this power. I wouldn't have any qualms about using it the way Pleasance unintentionally does. Quite to the contrary, I'd be wielding that power left right and center. (Especially left.) The execution of the college dean was perfectly justifiable, and I can't say I feel too sorry for the workers from the opening scene either.

Judging from the IMDb rating, yet another episode that went SWOOSH above people's heads. No monsters, no cheesy dialogue and no run-of-the-mill conveyor-belt story of the kind that pleases the proletariat. (I can actually call them this, because most movie fans are communists.) This is one of several science-based episodes, the kind that attempt to be more serious and realistic i.e. less silly, and I've noticed that all of them are rated lower than most episodes. This is a very clear indication, perhaps even proof, that most TOL fans are of average intelligence, unable to comprehend and (fully) enjoy the scripts that offer more than just cheap thrills and lame cliches.

A very good cast, convincing performances, proper dialogue (as opposed to cheesy and clumsy as is the case in the worst episodes), and a tense and interesting story that unfolds at the appropriate pace. Sure, one could foretell that it would all end poorly for the main character, but that's just a very minor flaw.

What we don't get at the end is information whether the power-hungry and very likely sociopathic astronaut survived, and whether the project would still go ahead. In other words, does the killing of the head of the project prevent it from ever continuing. Naturally, just from what happened in the surgery room should have had everyone involved with the project very concerned about continuing it.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: bad CONCEPT: scientific experiments GENRE: sci-fi drama PLOT TWIST: decent ENDING: OK DOWNER ENDING? it is unclear whether nerd-boy survives ROMANTIC BS? a bit PREMISE: silly, generic

If you agree with me that McCallum is an amazingly bland, dull, nepotistic wuss, wait till you find out how he changes in this episode...

He steps out of the "accelerated evolution" machine, covering his face, which makes sense because McCallum SHOULD be ashamed of his appearance, but in terms of the story it is illogical because he has no mirror in the machine. Hence how can he know that his forehead had increased, making him look like yet another B-movietard - complete with a dumb evil smirk which McCallum (or the director) must have considered wickedly effective. But he's just a sneering nerd, hence forget about the sense of menace the director was going for... The episode definitely suffers for casting this dullard, though the writing isn't much better.

Once McCallum becomes the stereotypically big-headed genius, the plot moves in very predictable, generic ways. Hence boredom sets in quickly.

And nonsense too. Such as the miner with the vaguely Irish accent playing a harmonica in a pub (because the Irish are always cheerful, even after they'd just had a hard shift at the mine), yet again with an unwashed face. So miners never wash up after mining? And what a dumb series of conversations in that pub... Third-rate dialogue.

The only good things about this episode are the good performance of the guy playing the scientist, the OK ending, and the solid looks of the lead actress, who unfortunately plays a one-dimensional character. The story is horribly cliched, quasi-philosophical (pulp level mostly), and the make-up laughable. McCallum ends up looking like a bloated Petr Korda, while blathering like a New Age hippy. The guy in the monkey suit could at least hide, I suppose... Nobody can prove he was in this episode.

Very typically, this very mediocre episode got one of the highest ratings... because human evolution has stopped hence audiences are mostly mindless zombies? So ironic, considering the central theme is evolution.

Plenty of padding too. This should have been no longer than 30 minutes.

Amusing end-scene narration, paraphrasing: "Can't we hope to develop a method to turn the entire human race intelligent? Beyond the desire for power, revenge, beyond hatred... Is that not after all the ultimate goal of evolution?"

Since when does evolution have a "goal"?! The only goal of evolution, if there were one to choose, would be to get us smart enough so that nobody votes for Democrats and socialists anymore. That's all the evolution we basically need. Can we have a machine for that? Instead, McCallum first turns arrogant, then eventually decides he'd prefer to be just a spirit not reliant on a physical body. The usual sci-fi hogwash...

First viewing: 2021

RATING: very good CONCEPT: time-travel, future Earth GENRE: sci-fi drama PLOT TWIST: good ENDING: good DOWNER ENDING? no for mankind, yes for the characters ROMANTIC BS? yes PREMISE: very good

One of the episodes that steers clear from generic, nonsensical, kiddie sci-fi that was so prevalent during this era, but instead offers a more layered story with a "what if" type of premise. Traveling back to the past to fix something - or to save the world in this case - isn't terribly original, wasn't probably even in 1963, but the way the story is constructed and presented was unusual for its time, and is helped by the good acting and mostly convincing dialogue.

Sure, Landau's ability to hypnotize others into perceiving him as he chooses is a clunky plot-device that allows him to travel back into Earth's past without becoming a side-show freak, and there is no rational explanation offered for this supernatural ability - except the flimsy implication that this is a beneficial side-effect of being a 22nd-century leprous mutant.

Also, the astronaut's ability to go back to the past with his ship is fairly dubious, considering that he didn't even know how he got to the future. Nor is it quite clear why he dies whereas Landau doesn't.

Nor does it make sense for Shirley Knight to follow Landau into the forest right after his armed intrusion at her own wedding. Even less logical is the fact that the groom didn't follow her to make sure she is alright - because she'd just gone to find the man who attempted to murder someone.

It takes far too long for the posse to find the couple, which means they weren't in a particular rush, by which time they are too late. Landau and Knight fly off into the future, because somehow she'd managed to fall in love with him in such a short period of time. (Admittedly, we aren't told how long Landau had stayed in the past.)

Another problem with this forest segment is that he is very vague about his mission, yet Shirley doesn't ever pose the obvious question that anyone would have done: "What the hell are you talking about?!" He was being very evasive and cryptic about his intentions, which would have caused any person to ask him to explain exactly what he is trying to accomplish.

Now, while on paper all these flaws may sound drastic, they aren't. The story is believable because the characters and their interactions largely make sense. If they didn't, then these other flaws would have been far more obtrusive.

A more minor point, because it isn't directly related to the main plot, is the unanswered question of what had happened to the flora and fauna of the future: did it too get devastated by the deadly microbe? The desolate landscape on Landau's future Earth resembles an alien planet hence we have to assume that the microbe brought devastation to all forms of life, not just humans - in which case Cabbot, Jr should not only be prevented from being born but his parents should be drawn and quartered. If I were Landau in this exact same situation I would have killed both without a second's hesitation. I'd have completed the mission in a jiffy! (In fact, killing one of them would have been enough, so I would have chosen to shoot the soldier, obviously. So I can bed Shirley? Why not. Nothing wrong with combining work with pleasure. And a little opportunism can't hurt.)

Of course, we couldn't expect Landau to be a cold-blooded killer the way I would have been in his predicament, otherwise what kind of a hero would he be?

The notion that a "man who was never born" saved the future of mankind (and possibly that of flora and fauna, which is far more important) is intriguing. Earth's ultimate hero - a person nobody would ever know even existed. Unless, of course, Shirley made it to the future safely, on that rocket ship. We don't find out whether she made it back safely or not. We know she can't fly a rocket (which Landau had managed, for some reason), but if the rocket was fully programmed to go on auto-pilot that would have meant that she safely reached the year 2148, in which case what would she have encountered there? And would Landau have received the recognition he deserved?

This story could easily have a sequel, but it would stray a lot from the original story.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: good CONCEPT: alien invasion GENRE: sci-fi, court-room drama PLOT TWIST: unconvincing, far-fetched ENDING: mediocre DOWNER ENDING? yes and no: the alien ploy is foiled but they avoid punishment ROMANTIC BS? no PREMISE: somewhat original but far-fetched

The man conducting surveillance on the spying machine, OBIT, gets killed by a man - whom OBIT identified as a monster - and just a minute later they show us Peter Sellers. I instantly knew he must be the killer because he has GUILT written all over his goofy face, and besides, old TV series like these tend to show us the murderer and with pomp, immediately after the murder is committed.

Not that guessing the killer correctly was of any significance, because just a minute later the script anyway reveals him as the murderer. He then approaches David Bowie, or at least his sister.

It's amazing how this low-budget TV show managed to unite two such huge names, Sellers and Bowie, in several scenes. Needless to say, this actress looks abysmal. No woman should be burdened and punished with a Bowie face.

It is unfortunate that we are immediately told what the machine does and especially who the killer is, which may be the ideal set-up for slow-witted, lazy TOListas but for me this is way too much information, way too soon. They could have waited a bit before telling us what OBIT does, and certainly the killer's identity could have been handled with more uncertainty.

In other words, the only thing left for us is to wait patiently, like idiots, until the killer is identified, which is generally pointless and boring (though this episode is an exception), and the only question to be answered is whether the killer was always a monster or became one. Turns out he is an alien.

Besides, I can't stand court-room dramas: they are one of America's worst exports and one of its most annoying obsessions, in a country that has more lawyers than Africa has dung-beetles.

Nevertheless, the good acting and the relatively realistic dialog make the investigation far more interesting than it has any right to be. Also, it's not a real court. I.e. none of that daft "objection overruled" horsecrap.

The ending is however somewhat disappointing. Firstly, the actor who plays the senator barely reacts to seeing the alien on OBIT's screen, which I blame the director for. Generally, the reactions of everyone in the room when alien Peter Sellers does his speech are way too reserved, as if seeing aliens is standard fare for these science/military people.

Secondly, and this is the real problem, the aliens' motive for spreading OBIT machines throughout America is far-fetched, on the verge of being silly: the aim was to spread paranoia and distrust throughout society... hence make the eventual invasion easier when everyone is "demoralized"! Now that's what I call a VERY eccentric and roundabout invasion plan. These aliens clearly must have enormous patience, to opt for such a subtle, awfully slow way of "undermining" human civilization – as opposed to just using good old force. Considering the enormous power they wield, logically they should be capable of a proper, old-fashioned invasion of Earth, easily. My only guess can be that these aliens live thousands of years, which could explain how they can afford to carry out such incredibly slow invasions of alien worlds.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: average CONCEPT: scientific experiments, insanity GENRE: sci-fi thriller PLOT TWIST: none ENDING: solid DOWNER ENDING? no ROMANTIC BS? yes, but it doesn't annoy PREMISE: initially interesting, then suddenly dumb

Good dialogue, a decent premise, convincing characterization, and a competent cast start off things very nicely. However, around midway most of that goes out the window because the episode turns into a stupid switcheroo thriller. In other words, the audience knows everything, we are ahead of the story, so all we have left is to patiently wait for things to play out in the usual predictable switcheroo-thriller way.

It's boring and annoying to know so much of the plot in advance. I never understood the point of that. These kinds of thrillers (and just thrillers in general) are for people who don't like being challenged by a story in any way that might require analysis and intelligence. The thriller genre is anyway one for the less intelligent or lazier viewers.

Usually TOL has the opposite problem: a unique premise but ruined with lousy or mediocre execution. It's a pity such a good cast, including the very charismatic and pretty Sally Kellerman, is wasted on such an unimaginative mid-twist, on a hackneyed plot. The first 15 minutes or so are very good but after that it's mostly for the dumpster.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: average CONCEPT: body snatchers GENRE: sci-fi thriller, horror PLOT TWIST: none ENDING: mediocre DOWNER ENDING? yes and no ROMANTIC BS? yes PREMISE: mostly generic

A body snatchers story, except that this one involves ROCKS. A fairly cheesy premise, but kind of fun, or could have been. Unfortunately, it's too predictable.

Culp tells his colleagues that the voices he heard were weird, and yet they weren't weird at all.

Each human taken over by the rocks changes appearance very noticeably, which leads me to the obvious conclusion that these goofy aliens pose no real threat to mankind i.e. every zombie would so obviously be identifiable as possessed that their cover would be blown by their appearance alone. This is the story's biggest logic flaw, and a crucial one.

Nor does it make sense that Culp's infected colleague found him and his wife so quickly and easily. How did he know where they were hiding? No explanation. Stupidly enough, we anyway know she'll be possessed because that's what the show's idiotic spoiler tells us right off the bat. Of course, I always skip the spoilers but may go back to the intro later just to check which scene they'd picked.

The episode suffers from padding, i.e. all that romantic nonsense around the middle. I am referring to the dreary and useless 6-minute section once the couple reaches their hideout.

Well-directed and moody, solid dialogue for this type of story, but the plot is mediocre.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING:: weak CONCEPT: POWs on alien planet GENRE: space sci-fi, war drama PLOT TWIST: interesting but also very dumb ENDING: crap DOWNER ENDING? sort of ROMANTIC BS? no PREMISE: fairly original POLITICS: brief mention of Jews in Nazi Germany, also Chinese communists in the Korean war

This overly theatrical mono-setting story is based - at least initially - on the absurd premise that Earth would keep sending its troops to a completely unknown enemy planet where each previous ship had disappeared without a trace. This seems a very daft strategy. Couldn't they just send robotic exploratory missions?

This absurdity is later resolved when it turns out that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax, a test. Of course, none of the soldiers ever asks WHY each new crew is being given secret info about the NEXT mission, or WHY robotic missions aren't sent instead. That would be too logical for this goofy premise.

A very dumb, far-fetched plot-twist. Apparently, the Ebonites' attack on Earth was an ACCIDENT. How did this happen? Why? How much damage? It's rather far-fetched to have an advanced alien species attack another planet by accident. "Oops, sorry, didn't mean to. Sometimes we get a little confused. The planets are all so similar: all of them are round!" The writer predictably avoided explaining this, because he had no clue how he could pull it off.

In return for their mistake, the aliens decide to help out Earth's military by conducting a series of experiments on the behaviour of prisoners of war. It is a plot-twist as dumb as it is completely silly. An example of overly eccentric writing. Just how many more crews were they going to check for loyalty? Millions? This futuristic US military sure is paranoid about their own soldiers, doubting their loyalty to the extent that they'd go through such an elaborate scheme. Don't they have anything better to do with their time?

Martin Sheen plays Private Dicks (spelled Dixx) and I can't help but wonder whether this was a private joke or something, or unintentional. He hams it up badly, but so do some of the other actors too. The combination of awkward, preachy dialogue and occasional overacting ruin the episode's potential before the great reveal even occurs. The interactions between the humans are so unrealistic that they seem more alien than the aliens themselves. No, this was NOT intentional irony.

The POWs instead of trying to attack the alien - and they get plenty of opportunity to do so - draw straws who will kill their Chinese colleague! They want to execute him for treason despite there being no evidence that he did it. In fact, he is the only one who underwent torture, so if anything he should be the least suspicious.

The military decides to TORTURE their own soldiers just for a few daft tests?! They couldn't test the soldiers WITHOUT inflicting physical pain and mental suffering on them? Really? With the upper echelon this sadistic and this eager to hurt their own army, these soldiers don't really need any enemies!

Muddled writing, bad acting, dumb dialogue, a stupid premise, and unconvincing characters sink this. Only at the end, when the aliens are just about to reveal the scam, do the POWs attempt to subdue one. What follows is a comedy of errors as in a dumb cartoon.

The fact that the soldiers almost killed an alien, and the fact that several people lost their lives in this shoddily conceived and almost pointless "controlled experiment" just proves how inept both the aliens and the human military are. Hence the story is utter garbage.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: mediocre CONCEPT: scientific experiments, mad scientist GENRE: sci-fi thriller, horror, crime PLOT TWIST: none ENDING: average DOWNER ENDING? not really ROMANTIC BS? yes PREMISE: solid

Yet another hopeless 50s/60s writer who makes the mistake of allowing the audience to always be a step ahead of the protagonists. Instead of keeping things mysterious, we are immediately informed that NORCO are murderers which makes things far more predictable henceforth, and of course less interesting. The only thing left for us is to wait for the protagonists and the cops to put 2 and 2 together which predictably takes too long, not least of all because the scientists's brother is such a moron. It is blatantly obvious after the guard's warning and NORCO lying to the brother that NORCO must be behind the surgery, yet this cretin can't seem to figure out anything. Waiting for knuckleheads to put 2 and 2 together is indeed a very stupid approach to storytelling.

Then there's more senseless padding during the cop's mostly boring investigation. We already know who the guilty party is, so half the episode is us impatiently waiting for the cop to finally discover what we already know so that the plot can finally move on beyond being a mere murder investigation mystery - which SHOULD NOT be the point of a series such as TOL.

About this NORCO boss... What the hell was his plan? To keep killing people and/or turning them into his undead slaves until inevitably the jig was up?! Such a dumb strategy, very obviously doomed to fail eventually. The fact that NORCO's boss speaks like Bela Lugosi (the actor playing him is American) only makes things cheesier. He literally does an imitation of Lugosi in the grand finale. This actor was already unconvincing in another TOL episode; he's just bad.

The experiment itself makes no sense either. NORCO discovered some kind of energy monster which they keep locked up in a room and occasionally release so it can... kill people so the mad scientist can implant pacemakers on them, so he can control them... which will achieve... what exactly? The explanation given is totally vague and unsatisfactory. There is a very unclear connection between the monster and why the scientist keeps all his staff as pacemaker slaves. Simply put, it's utter BS: it's there just as an excuse to turn this episode into yet another needless, generic mad scientist story. Somehow in these dumb pulp plots every scientist that makes a huge discovery instantly becomes evil and insane, and this is somehow supposed to serve as a valid excuse for his irrational behaviour, which conveniently allows the writer to put together a daft story.

The female secretary is nothing but a totally irrelevant prop, serving no purpose but to help stretch the story out through a totally useless romantic sub-plot, involving the brother who isn't even a factor in the last 10 minutes. I guess there must have been a concerted effort to get women to watch TOL which I am certain didn't work, because sci-fi has always been a male domain. (Awful Star Trek spin-offs are an exception because they have so many soaper elements.) This must be the reason why the producers so stupidly threw in the occasional "love theme" and romance in many episodes, which only served to dilute the show. Attempts to please too many different demographics usually results in failure: stick to your target audience, because there isn't even a theoretical possibility that for example mindless, low-tier housewives are going to become sci-fans just because you add some bloody romance in a monster story.

We never find out WHY the first guard was killed by having the monster go out into the park. We are later told that it's difficult to bring the monster back once he is outside hence it made zero sense to kill the guard at the gate rather than just destroy his pace-maker, or force him into the room where the monster can kill him with ease, without the hassle of having to bring him back to the room. Damn, these B-movie screenwriters are lazy nitwits... Do they ever even re-read what they'd written? No re-writes?

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: very good CONCEPT: scientific experiments, other dimensions GENRE: sci-fi drama PLOT TWIST: none ENDING: good DOWNER ENDING? no ROMANTIC BS? not really PREMISE: very interesting

It's very typical that the IMDb rating is so low for this episode. Plebeians need their cheesy monsters, hence struggle with any story that is half-way intelligent or attempting originality, or handles the science aspects of the story with any level of effort.

The first half-hour is very good, in terms of plot, acting and dialogue, it largely avoids the pitfalls of B-moviedom hence has no major flaws. Unfortunately, the writer couldn't resist using an idiotic, ultra-generic plot-device such as sabotage, and man is it a dumb example of sabotage or what: the silly, unrealistic character that's Mrs. Harper's sidekick (what exactly is his purpose? since when do psychics need assistants?) throws a random tool box (that just happens to be conveniently lying around) onto some electric circuits that just happen to be located beneath them, cutting off power from several generators, interfering with the experiment.

Questions: how the hell did the two charlatan goofballs get inside the plant?! Is there really no security in such places?! During very expensive, elaborate, major experiments especially?! How the hell did this stoopid lackey even know how to ruin the experiment with what can be perfectly described as practically zero effort! "Oh, I guess I'll just drop this box on these here thingumabobs and that will screw up the generatorabob. Hey, there's a toolbox here! That'll do." Just like that. WTF.

An even more crucial question: WHY did the writer feel this stupidity was necessary in the "dramatic" sense? The experiment was HIGHLY dangerous as it was, i.e. there was absolutely no need at all to add "tension" to the plot. No need at all to make the experiment's outcome even more uncertain. But there you go, Hollywood writers are suckers for laying on BS upon unnecessary BS because they are so insecure about their not being enough CONFLICT in the story. Some writers are so obsessed with there not being enough "conflict" that they go to great lengths to create too much "conflict" hence burden the stories with excessive nonsense.

Still, the finish is interesting, and the episode survives this idiotic monkey wrench of a dumb sabotage attempt without too much damage.

Nevertheless, we never really find out WHY the millionaire financing the experiment was TRANSPARENT in one scene, in the 30th minute to be exact, while standing next to the scientist, and why nobody noticed this, not even the scientist he was talking to. Perhaps this was an error brought about by a script change and the subsequent lack of funds or willingness to re-shoot the scene. Certainly there was zero logical reason for him to be transparent i.e. affected in any way by the experiment at this early stage.

The narrator mentions "the power of love" in the outro. Rather cheesy and needless. This story wasn't about love, at least not primarily. But that was typical of TOL, these silly attempts to bring the show closer to housewives.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: worst CONCEPT: fish-frog lagoon creature BS GENRE: fantasy, horror PLOT TWIST: no idea, I skimmed through this crap ENDING: boring, as everything else ROMANTIC BS? yes PREMISE: ultra-generic

Belongs to the WORST 5 EPISODES.

Quite possibly the worst episode. Incredibly tedious garbage, a cheap "Revenge of the Creature" knock-off, or whatever the first fish-frog B-movie is called. We've even got a Latin dictator in the story, though I couldn't tell you why. Nor can I offer a feasible explanation why the movie's marine biologist shows zero excitement after his team fish out the stupid frog. Admittedly, this may be a sign of intelligence, that he refused to believe that this shitty prop was an actual fish-frog. It must be tough to act and react to such lousy costumes. But, of course, this was the director's fault mostly.

Naturally, there's an absolutely mindless, boring, needless, corny love-triangle, because, hey, let's get some of that lovey-dovey female demographics to help out with the ratings.

It's amazing that the show's fans actually gave this crap a rating higher than 4. In fact, much higher. Even good horror films often don't get 6,2 yet they dish out such a good rating to this junk - and just because it's part of their favourite TV show. Damn these fanatical nostalgiacs...

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: fun in a so-bad-it's-good kinda way CONCEPT: alien contact GENRE: sci-fi, crime, horror PLOT TWIST: not bad, but flawed ENDING: very over-the-top silly DOWNER ENDING? no ROMANTIC BS? just a tiny bit PREMISE: interesting, original

An interesting beginning. However, Stefano was impatient to ruin it as quickly as he could by using a plot-device stupid beyond words: crook Bruce Dern runs over a military guard, just so he can... hide in a military zone where he is liable to come across even more military personnel??? Was he planning on taking on the entire US army eventually? Besides, of all that vast desert surrounding him, he HAD to enter a MILITARY ZONE?! WTF. This is some really dumb-ass writing. Stefano even tries to excuse this plot-device in a scene in which Dern explains to his woman that they simply couldn't turn back. So there are only two directions in this three-dimensional world?! Backwards and forwards! No left, no right, just back and ahead.

Not to mention that the US military would be such cheapskates as to guard THE FIRST LANDING OF AN ALIEN SHIP with just one guard per post. Stefano, shame on you...

What follows is a dialog between the couple in the car, which only underlines the fact that they are cretins. So at least that makes sense. Nevertheless, what they did in killing that guard would have required imbeciles so daft that they could barely form sentences. The fact they can even talk is hence too far-fetched.

It gets dumber. After some stupid vague argument, the woman leaves the car - in the middle of nowhere. Where is she planning on going? To talk to lizards? To play chess with rattlesnakes? To run a marathon back to the nearest city?

This couple is just a dumb plot-device to force the aliens to break off communication with the military. The hilarious irony is that it never even occurs to the allegedly "superior" Zantis that Earthlings themselves may have their own misfits that cause trouble, hence that the military telling them about Dern and his chicka being unforeseen factors is very true. The Zantis are coming to Earth to get rid of their misfits/criminals yet it never occurs to them that other civilizations may have the same problem? Stefano is a hack writer.

Though judging by the high IMDb rating, the average Earthling doesn't seem to be too bothered by BS, most likely because they're too daft to notice it.

After we find out that the Zantis are just glorified spiders, the military scenes become laughable, because of the utter seriousness with which the US army, i.e. the actors playing them, treat the alien "threat". I mean... they're just spiders. They bite. That's all they do.

When the army chief is asked by the Washington suit to volunteer to go meet the spiders, the explanation he gives is incredibly lame. It's essentially this, paraphrasing: "because I want to be present at an important historic event". What a dumb rationale! (31st minute.) The army chief then says: "I suppose you would have wanted to be present at Hiroshima too, huh?" And the suit replies: "Yes, if I could have helped."

Helped whom?! The Japanese? Was he suggesting he'd be a traitor and prevent the bombing, or was he actually implying he'd help the US military drop the bomb more efficiently? It was pretty efficient! The pilot certainly didn't need his help.

So dumb.

There are cretinous scenes with the woman greatly struggling in outrunning the slowest spider species in the universe! The fun never stops in this hooey. All she does is trip and scream, while the spider moves toward her at a devastating speed of about 5 cm/minute.

The suit then "saves" the woman by smashing the spider like the pesky defenseless, easily killable critter he really is, and this silly moment is followed by the woman giving him some bizarrely introspective, hear-my-life-story type of speech that is completely out-of-place for this occasion. She seems to have mistaken the suit for her shrink. Not only is she as dumb as a doorknob but fairly insane too.

"Flame-throwers ought to do it, hand-grenades, anything!" Or just good old insecticide.

Watching the military shoot at these spiders at close range and even throw hand-grenades at them reminded me of the Monty Python sketch in which Aussie hunters use tanks to kill mosquitoes. Except that the grand finale here is even funnier. It's never clear exactly HOW the spiders pose a huge threat, except that their bites are poisonous. But it's nothing a good old army boot (or insecticide) can't handle hence the laughable, overkill shoot-out at the end is beyond cheesy.

Sorry, did I say spiders? I meant ants.

The army chief gets the punchline:

"Well, I guess we've let loose the dogs of war... I wonder how they'll destroy us."

They'll destroy you only if you lie down and wait for them to kill you, damn bloody moron!

Sorry, got carried away... So much edwoodian nonsense to deal with it in this idiotic but amusing episode.

Turns out that the Zantis had planned to have their misfits killed all along. "We cannot bring ourselves to kill our own." So you send them to other planets for others to do your dirty work? This is a whole new kind of pacifism I'd never heard of before. Besides, this strategy only worked because Bruce Dern and his dumb ho showed up. Yeah, "superior alien race", my ass...

The episode kinda works as cheesy fun, but as serious sci-fi? Not even close. Yet, read the comments section...

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: average CONCEPT: alien contact, scientific experiment GENRE: sci-fi, crime, drama, horror PLOT TWIST: none ENDING: silly DOWNER ENDING? no ROMANTIC BS? no PREMISE: interesting

A very interesting premise, but unfortunately some nonsense got in the way.

The biggest piece of nonsense is doubtlessly the fact that the violent pudding alien is allowed to roam freely. That makes absolutely zero sense. Right after being beamed over to Earth it started smashing up the lab and acting like a feral lunatic, and yet they let it simply waltz around as it pleases?! Just how daft are these alleged scientists. As dumb as the writers hope the audiences are, apparently.

Also dumb is the cheesy plot-device of Chino getting caught at the exact location where the alien's victim was lying. In fact, he actually trips on the corpse, which belongs in slapstick comedy not sci-fi drama. We already knew that Chino as a convicted murderer was going to be the fall guy, but to make it this obvious is just ludicrous, totally overboard simplification.

A less obvious flaw but nonetheless illogical is WHY the institute's windows are sealed by a force field. After all, it's not a prison.

Chino's early whining over how he's not being treated with dignity is pretty stupid too; he was undergoing a standard medical exam so what was he bitching about: he volunteered, didn't he?

Some time later the monster attacks the nurse, and she very stupidly fails to report this crucial event immediately. No rush to warn everyone that the killer is that huge blob of formless jelly, ey? Really silly. Almost as dumb as the scientists trusting these completely unknown aliens. Almost SJW levels of naivety.

The episode's abysmal failure lies in how EASILY the monster gets everything accomplished, each sabotage and deception going more smoothly than the previous - and all this despite acting without outside help and with no superpowers that might make him a formidable adversary. All thanks to the blithering incompetence and rampant stupidity of the scientists and the cops.

And why the hell did the monster beam over the cop to his planet? It made no sense.

A good premise with solid characters ruined by a dumb plot and clumsy script.

Already the 3rd episode that ends with the narrator blathering about love. What the hell has love got to do with anything here?

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: average CONCEPT: alien experiment GENRE: sci-fi, satire PLOT TWIST: iffy ENDING: OK DOWNER ENDING? no ROMANTIC BS? yes, but not too much PREMISE: original but underdeveloped

A rare comedic episode. Those were more common in "The Twilight Zone".

The premise is interesting, but there is one crucial flaw that keeps rotting away at the entire story: the total futility of the Martian's experiment. What's the bloody point of replaying and analyzing a random murder scene over and over? The visiting Martian comes off as a clueless clown rather than a scientist from an advanced species. Mulling over dollar bills and lipstick may be good for some pleasant social satire, but in terms of the Martian's mission of actually finding out whether man's murderous nature is contagious, it's an utterly useless experiment.

Additionally, the Phobos Martian seems to have come to Earth completely unprepared and utterly uninformed about the culture he's visiting. It seems to me that the Deimos Martian who'd been on Earth a long while is far more competent to provide answers than the clown Martian - who is the one in charge. Would an "advanced alien species" be so stupid as to not put the far more experienced Deimos alien in charge?

That the Phobos alien is a moron is doubtlessly proven and confirmed by his bewilderment that he doesn't understand English when it is played in reverse. He actually needed his assistant to explain this to him.

We also have to patiently wait until the Phobian moron finally concludes what we've known since the beginning - that the murder happened out of jealousy.

Which begs the question: how could the Martians not know about murder and the various motives for it? Even if there were no murders on Mars, they'd still have to have figured it out by now, having observed the Earthlings for many years. Surely, it can't be that difficult. I mean, we'd managed to figure out the amoeba...

This notion that other alien civilizations might be totally above hate, violence and killing is anyway a fairly moronic, naive idea which only sub-species such a Trekkies adhere to. Since the same laws of physics govern the entire universe, it is hence logical that all creatures would be involved in some kind of competition over resources, shelter, territory, and sexual partners. Maybe not all of those, but they must be involved in competition on some level. Or, if they "evolved" out of the need to be brutal, then surely they should have records of their violent past - hence they should understand violence, i.e. know that it is an integral part of existence in a violent, non-forgiving cosmos. The notion that an advanced civilization must always be Gandhiesque, pacifist, very NOBLE - by default - is frankly always amusing to me. I subscribe much more to the "Alien" camp whereby any advanced civilization is far more likely to be brutal, or at least indifferent to our suffering.

Not that the Phobos Martian is shocked by the murder, mind you. He is indifferent to it, but he clearly regards it as bizarrely primitive behaviour. If Martians really did exist, the odds are extremely high that they'd be just as vicious as humans and animals. And given how hostile their planet is, they'd probably be even worse.

The idea of using an alien as a neutral outsider whose observations are riddled with satirical commentary on the absurdity of human behaviour is nothing new, of course. In fact, I am almost certain this premise had been already covered in pulp sci-fi or comic-books of the 30s, 40s and 50s, as indeed the vast majority of sci-fi-based ideas used in TV and cinema are stolen from these sources. ("The Matrix"? A smorgasbord of stolen ideas from comic-books and novels, nothing original there, unlike what the movie's deluded fans believe.)

The problem is that this premise offers so many more possibilities than this repetitious episode provides. Instead of moving around the plot a bit, we are stuck with one setting for nearly the entire episode, namely the hotel's lobby.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: solid CONCEPT: alien invasion GENRE: sci-fi, mystery, horror, drama PLOT TWIST: confusing and illogical ENDING: interesting but absurd DOWNER ENDING? no ROMANTIC BS? yes PREMISE: original and intriguing

Possibly the most confusing episode; eccentric and somewhat reminiscent of a David Lynch movie. If Lynch had made a TV episode in the 60s, and had a low budget, this is how it may have turned out. His movies are similarly bizarre and nearly always nonsensical.

Certainly this plot is just as full of logic holes as Lynch's random, unfocused scripts (which deluded hipsters interpret as genius).

The story starts in a very intriguing way (yup, like Lynch), but then comes to a halt almost, padding itself out all the way until the half-way mark. The tedium caused by this 20-minute section crushes the tension substantially. The insane old ex-bride gets way too much screen time, while she jabbers mostly boring nonsense and gives us very little info, too few hints to help us solve this amazingly muddled, undisciplined script. Yes, she's insane, we get it! Get on with it! Stefano hammers home her insanity as if this needed hammering i.e. so much convincing. The actress playing her is utterly dull and uncharismatic, plus she hams it up in a way that is overly theatrical and generic. Essentially she does a cheesy, annoying imitation of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" and/or "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte". The young couple is similarly bland and uninteresting. Between the three of them, there isn't much to sustain interest.

Eventually, after a long while, the plot finally resumes, culminating in a finale that raises more questions than it offers answers – but not in a good way.

Who the hell sent the box to the wedding? For what purpose? The narrator blabs about "evil" as if that can explain away why an old geezer brought that box over to the wedding house. How is the groom's father connected to the aliens? Clearly, he is connected, but how?

But much worse are the questions about the imprisoned groom. Why didn't he simply LIE to the alien that he would help it destroy the universe? Certainly Balfour succeeded in this instantly: he and his daughter got out of the box easily and quickly i.e. were released by the blob due to his deception/promise that he would help it, and he almost got away. He would have survived had he not stupidly hesitated. But hey, he had to be killed so we could have a happy ending, because he is the token evil capitalist.

Not only did this simple lie work, because the blob apparently doesn't know about deception(!!!), but it decided to annihilate itself too hence solved the problem. So why didn't it annihilate itself much sooner? What changed the creature's mind that the wait was no longer worth it? The blob exists outside of time and space so why not wait a trillion years more if necessary? It turns out that the imprisoned groom is a complete and utter imbecile for spending decades trapped inside the box without ever trying to deceive the rather gullible blob. He spent all those years with it yet still didn't realize how easily dupable it is? It never occurred to him throughout the decades to try to get out by lying?... Not so much an idealistic hero and saviour of mankind as he is just a plain class-A buffoon.

How did the aging old bat KNOW about the alien, the box i.e. the whole end-of-the-universe story? The only way she could have known is if she had been trapped herself, yet this isn't possible because how would she have escaped? The blob only explains the situation to people who get trapped in the box.

What about that wheelchair-bound old woman? Does she regularly send over couples to the deranged old bat? If so, does she know about the alien? If not, WHY does she send them over there? Why is her husband reluctant to have the couple sent there?

WHY is the future i.e. present accompanied by constant wind, giving the FALSE impression that that some kind of (limited) Armageddon had already occurred?

Last but not least, WHY would the blob be so utterly daft as to promise "freedom" to every prisoner – when the end-result is death if they help it destroy the universe? If you refuse to help the alien you remain imprisoned, but if you help it then the universe is gone anyway and you along with it... so why would ANYONE choose to help the blob? The blob would have to understand this - unless it is a total moron, which it seems to be. If destruction of the universe hadn't been the issue but something far less important, then maybe there would have been a real choice for each prisoner.

The episode could have worked, even with all these glaring holes in the script, but only if it had been done as a very stylish feature film and directed and presented in a somewhat abstract way, sort of like "Eraserhead" (Lynch's only brilliant absurd movie). As it is, it mostly fails as a story, because far too confusing and nonsensical. However, it doesn't fail as a genuinely weird episode with some very original ideas.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: worst (utterly idiotic) CONCEPT: scientific experiments, alien contact GENRE: sci-fi thriller PLOT TWIST: dumb ENDING: cretinous DOWNER ENDING? yes, no and maybe ROMANTIC BS? not really PREMISE: dumb

Very competent direction and a top cast (aside for the actor playing Mr Righteous), but a total and utter mess in every other way.

Yet again we have the superior alien that can't stop boasting about its moral superiority, which it of course does by putting down humans. No sooner has it appeared, does it already start giving righteous speeches, admonishing humans ever-so-subtly about being violent savages. The alien is made up of light (or whatever) hence has the privilege of not having to fight for survival – which allows it to take the high moral ground vis-a-vis humans. Doesn't it realize how pompous this attitude makes it sound?

"I already see another of your weapons... distrust."

How is distrust a weapon though? Not the only silly line though...

The alien isn't the only one giving political speeches. The wealthy Mr Bellero gives an impassioned Serling-like soliloquy about how much he hates war, and then pathetically tells Kellerman that people like her are even worse than war. She doesn't seem too phased by this lame insult though, because she clearly enjoys that open war had finally broken out between her and the benign, Gandhian capitalist. (Just imagine if all of post-war America's capitalists were this pacifistic... We'd all be speaking Russian!)

So even though Mr Righteous Bellero is supposed to be the good guy and Kellerman the heavy, to me the family war isn't such a black-and-white issue. I detest pacifists even more than they (allegedly) detest war, and Mr Bellero did after all try to interfere in his son's marriage by trying to separate him from his evil wife. She may be evil, but it's his (dumb) choice of wife.

A really dumb scene – very obviously a cheese plot-device from the moment it occurs – is when Sally's barefoot(!) maid hands her a gun. What for?! This isn't the Wild West, nor is she planning to kill anyone – and even if she did she'd rather use the laser which disintegrates its target into atoms. Yet, the alien had proved itself immune to lasers, and Kellerman anyway didn't initially forge plans to kill it. This plot-device was thrown in literally just so Kellerman could become a killer. Sally even smiles as she receives the gun. Her character is a bit too over-the-top. But hey: dumb thriller.

She goes inside, planning to kill the alien! She'd already failed to kill it with a laser, so why would she assume that lead would work? I can't imagine any halfway acceptable quasi-scientific explanation to rationalize a creature made out of light being hurt by a damn little lady pistol, not even in a dumb sci-fi pulp thriller. Hence Kellerman isn't just evil and greedy, but an idiot. Dumb villains are no good though, narratively speaking... unless you're doing a comedy. Villains are supposed to be cunning, in order to be effective. Kellerman isn't a calculating mastermind at all; she and her evil sidekick just keep winging it, guessing and improvising, without the use of any common sense. That this allegedly "superior" alien allows itself to be duped and then even destroyed by such nincompoops speaks of its inferiority, if anything.

Kellerman's stupidity is underlined also in her refusal to let Mr Bellero inside the house. There was a clear opportunity to get Bellero's money by showing the alien to him – as Landau later very logically suggests. Wasn't this bloody obvious? Not to the women. So in fact Kellerman and her evil maid do everything stupidly, their strategy being that of 11 year-olds.

"How long is a minute?" The alien stupidly asks. Well, Mr Noble Flash-of-Light Alien, since you are able to speak English you should know what a minute is. Right?

After Landau fails in getting Mr Virtuous Capitalist to come back, we do have to wonder how this phone conversation played out... because it is never shown.

"But there's an alien in my lab! Won't you at least come to see it?!" "No no and no! I hate that wife of yours!" "But... This is the scientific breakthrough of the century!" "I don't care. I hate her!"

Something like the above? Yes, his refusal to come over is idiotic – unless Landau omitted to tell him WHY he needed him to come back. But in that case Landau is the idiot. (We later find out that Landau didn't tell him about the alien over the phone i.e. Landau is an imbecile too – which is hilariously ironic because Landau later says that he is glad he told him nothing because he'd be considered "an imbecile" if he did!) I.e. idiocy runs a bit too rampant among all these characters, who are supposed to be devious villains (the two women) a brilliant scientist, and a successful capitalist. Yet none of them act very intelligently. Most of them act like children.

Half the episode is humans begging the alien: ¨ "Don't go, please! Wait a little longer (until we can use you to get famous and/or rich)!" The alien itself is surprisingly street-smart for a noble, pacifist traveler, because he immediately figures out Kellerman to be nasty. Despite this apparent lack of naivety, he volunteers information to her about the "Bellero shield" which he didn't even divulge to Landau! This is not only far-fetched but contradictory: if he is so deeply suspicions of Sally, why tell her about the value and power of his tiny little ping-pong-ball defense mechanism? Well, so she can kill him, obviously. This writer simply didn't care that he was making the story predictable and cliche.

Predictably, the alien gets shot by Kellerman. (This "plot-twist" is even revealed in the spoiler, which is a dumb move by the producers. Fortunately, I always skip the intro.) And yes, not only does that tiny single lead bullet hurt him – he immediately drops like a sack of potatoes to the ground! What a goofy scene.

"It has a bullet in the base of its skull!" the maid later says. Which skull would that be? The skull inside the head of a creature composed only of light? What would it need a skull for?! It doesn't even stem from our universe – yet it has a skull. Nice going, Stefano...

Then the two women drag the body into the cellar, at which point the script had shot itself in the foot as well as shot a goofy alien. The story dissolves into a by-the-numbers dumb thriller, and I can't stand thrillers... They are empty-headed, dumb "entertainment" for lazy minds. Besides, nearly every thriller is idiotic, as is this one.

They actually plan to bury the alien's body in the garden! What about the Belleros gaining fame for having an alien encounter? That hadn't occurred to the dumb slags?

Very stupidly, Mr Righteous Capitalist for some reason changes his mind, decides to return to the house - again! Then Landau tells him to go back because he found out that the alien is gone. So Mr Righteous heads to his car... again. This time Kellerman GOADS him into changing his mind (for the 11th time already) into going back to the lab, promising him some huge scientific breakthrough. Mr Righteous very comically rushes into the house...

Evidently, the story plays out like a comedy of errors, with Mr Righteous going in and out of the house a million times, much like something from a Blake Edwards comedy or even a Bugs Bunny cartoon. And all of the above happens in the first 30 minutes! Needless to say, still plenty of nonsense is to follow...

Next up is a dumb scene when everyone is FINALLY back in the lab. Alas, the alien is dead. So Kellerman, in her infinite stupidity, proudly offers the ping-pong ball as a great new invention for mankind. Very predictably, it doesn't work the way she intended it - because why would it? The alien had already started saying that it was unusable without him (which Kellerman would have heard had she thought it wise to LISTEN to the alien) before he was interrupted earlier on. (What a cheesy, convenient plot-device: interrupt the alien while he is trying to make the great reveal.) Kellerman's laywoman's assumption that the ping-pong ball would work in anyone's hands or could be easily replicated by scientists is just too dumb. Laywoman or not, common sense should have warned her that her possession of the ping-pong machine is far from a guarantee of success.

But so convinced is she in her success that she actually asks Mr Righteous to shoot at her! HOW could she be so certain it would work in her hands?! She doesn't even test it beforehand, to make sure she doesn't get accidentally killed, which is such horribly dumb writing...

Naturally, another question begs itself all throughout the episode: isn't Landau's laser gun a great enough invention to impress investors? It just casually lies around the lab, like some useless toy. The fact that Kellerman is surprised by its power is clear proof that this story doesn't take place in a distant future when such weapons are common. Hence yet another logic hole, in this Swiss-cheese of a script. Sure, Mr Righteous Pacifist said he didn't want to finance any new weapons, but Landau could easily get funding and fame elsewhere, with that laser gun.

Eventually, Kellerman gets trapped in the shield, which is the only clever, unpredictable twist in the entire story. When a desperate Landau eggs her on to try the ping-pong ball again, to free herself, she says this:

"Movements and words achieve nothing. They only deplete the oxygen (within the tightly-sealed shield) and the soul." She actually says this. A speech! A short one, admittedly, but a dumb little speech nonetheless.

Very predictably, Mr Righteous is killed in the basement by the maid, who is literally like a ninja, right after he gives yet another stupid speech – which also serves to force the maid to kill him. She tells him "no cops!", and he responds by agreeing – BUT then he goes on to talk about accolades and awards, which contradicts his agreement of not alerting the authorities. So OBVIOUSLY he is just begging to be killed. I am amazed just how much nonsense is crammed into these 47 minutes. That's a hallmark of thrillers though: the drivel is like an avalanche, it never stops.

Then it turns out the alien isn't dead, after all. He helps to free Kellerman... dunno why though: because he is emotionally attached to its murderers? Ah, right, yes... the benign Gandhian pacifist alien that loves its killers, because it is so noble to love everyone equally regardless of whether they are kind or psychopathic... This type of pulp sci-fi pacifism is extremely dumb, there are no words to describe just how absurd and laughable it is.

Then, even the evil maid gives a touching speech!

But it gets even dumber: Kellerman loses her mind, just because she'd been trapped for a few hours. The writer had no clue how to punish her, so he just figured "yeah, she'll go insane, that'll do". Just like that. Yet what about the maid's punishment? Well... she finds REDEMPTION after her touching little speech. A remorseless psychopath killer suddenly finds goodness in herself: can you spell D-U-M-B?

Yup, a moronic thriller through and through. I'm not the least bit surprised this is one of the highest-rated episodes. TOListas, not the brightest cookies in the multiverse...

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: mediocre CONCEPT: alien contact GENRE: sci-fi, crime, drama PLOT TWIST: none ENDING: weak DOWNER ENDING? no ROMANTIC BS? a bit PREMISE: OK

Somewhere in the ballpark of "Village of the Damned" sans the invasion plans and with no children but adults instead. The fact that the aliens have no plans to invade or to populate Earth is the only original aspect to the story. The rest is fairly generic. The cockamamie explanation the monster gives for the aliens inseminating the five women is fairly silly hence unconvincing: some mumbo-jumbo about these aliens from Eros (you read that correctly) losing their goodness and soul (or something or other) hence being unable to produce any more male children - which is why they tested their sperm in a different climate. Vague nonsense of an explanation, implying that morality influences the sperm count. If only that were so!

What a dumb name for a planet. Eros is also the name used for Ed Wood's infamously cretinous aliens in "Plan 9".

Some daft lines too, such as: "Killers? We are not killers, we don't have the power to kill, only the power to destroy. We don't kill, we uncreate".

Or: "Our sense of hearing allows us to hear a homing device. We can hear the sigh of a star."

Or: "What chance would anyone have with a soul in YOUR world?!"

Too many silly idealistic speeches too, such as this one at the end - which actually brings the other four men out of hypnosis. So why were they hypnotized and the 5th one wasn't? And why do they never say a word?

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: worst CONCEPT: alien contamination, space exploration GENRE: space sci-fi PLOT TWIST: dumb, cliche ENDING: garbage DOWNER ENDING? mostly no ROMANTIC BS? a bit PREMISE: cheap, generic

Belongs to the WORST 5 EPISODES.

Bargain-basement scientists are so easy to kill. Even plants can outsmart them.

One of the lamest episodes starts with a space station biologist analyzing alien spores, without any protection: no head gear, no gloves, no special suit - he may as well been dressed for a picnic. The dolt seemed to have as much knowledge about bacteria and contamination as 15th-century peasants. He goes so far as to even seem DISINTERESTED when one of the plants throws a bunch of seeds at him. He doesn't even get mildly alarmed upon discovering how rapidly they grow. I mean, this guy is a bonafide moron. Kinda like the writer.

Of course he snuffs it soon thereafter, and then his colleagues dump his body through a window, as if the vacuum of space were some kind of a joke. These nitwits proceed to handle the plants with the same recklessness as the dead scientist, not suspecting anything. I guess they must be losing a biologist every week, because this event seems not too surprising or alarming for their pea-brains.

In other words, your typical pulp sc-fi crew of blithering idiots who probably all flunked High School, yet somehow got top jobs at NASA. Hollywood's NASA, of course, is entirely different from the real NASA. I would go as far as to claim that the two have zero in common.

There isn't even a proper intro, nothing showing us how and where these astrotwits even found the mysterious plants. The audience is way ahead of the characters at all times, which always spells doom in fiction, especially in a story as plot-devoid as this one. It takes these astrocretins ages to figure out that the contamination stems from the spores. Utterly awful B-movie writing, totally unworthy of TOL. Unworthy of film, of TV, unworthy of the paper it's printed on. I wouldn't tolerate this story even in a 50s comic-book.

50 minutes of an ultra-thin plot that gets stretched through shameless repetition. The Earth base bozos keep discussing the same crap over and over: should they allow the astrodummies to land or not. Must be tough making life-and-death decisions when you only have three brain-cells to rub together.

Once they land on Earth, what precautions does the rescue team take? Any gas-masks? Protective suits? Nah. This is some prehistoric NASA or something. Hollywood NASA, in short. HNASA.

The fact that this hopelessly idiotic and dull episode got a 7,0 rating really makes me suspect that most TOL fans are no brighter than all these HNASAtards.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: weak (utterly stupid) CONCEPT: alien abduction GENRE: space sci-fi, drama PLOT TWIST: none ENDING: goofy ROMANTIC BS? yes PREMISE: very good

A very fun alien abduction premise unfortunately marred by too many speeches, the usual cheesy "profound" dialogue of the Rod Serling "Twilight Zone" type. Too many of these old TV writers weren't nearly as interested in sci-fi as they were in "inner conflict" drama BS i.e. all that pathetic "the human condition" malarkey. This makes the characters interact unrealistically with each other i.e. almost every conversation has to get needlessly "deep", in a really corny way.

Things get very silly when the jock attempts to start a rebellion against the group's alien kidnapper, which he does by spouting a bunch of random hooey, a senseless, random speech which he concludes by mentioning hypocrisy. Except that we the audience have no clue what he's blabbering about. The alien's actions have literally nothing to do with bloody hypocrisy.

After the jock gets a taste of the alien's power, his teammate sets off on some weird tangent about how corrupt the jock is, about him taking bribes to lose football matches. But who gives a crap?! You're abducted into OUTER SPACE yet you wanna mull over comparatively irrelevant, mundane piffle such as bribes... It's around this time that the episode turns into cheesy theater.

The chicken-faced alien, whose birdy appearance isn't a far cry from the ultra-goofy evil aliens from the MST3K-riffed Japanese stinker "Prince of Space", isn't much better though: "Don't be afraid. You have nothing to lose except your lives." He says this without a smidgen of sarcasm or humour. Very comforting!

The teammate gets so panic-stricken and riled up about discussing bribes and football that he - get this - manages to somehow STUMBLE onto the airlock button, presses it ultra-clumsily, then falls into the vacuum of space... I'm not joking. One of the most unconvincing scenes in the entire series. Then the "stewardess" annoyingly and predictably screams, for about the 11th time.

Now, WHY the hell would the alien be so stoopid to go to all of this trouble to abduct a group of humans - but then lose one because they forgot to seal the airlock?

Well, the wait is over, as the overgrown chicken finally proceeds to explain the motive behind the abduction. And it's as dumb as can be: "Near our planet Imperia there is an asteroid that presents a danger to us. It has an atmosphere similar to that of Earth. If properly colonized its course can be redirected and controlled."

How the hell is colonizing an asteroid with 7 humans supposed to change its course?! Haven't they tried destroying it? This is of course what happens when a writer unfamiliar with even Basic Astronomy scribbles down a sci-fi script, presumably on a piece of toilet paper...

More proof of the writer's unfamiliarity with space follows... This is what Chicken Man says: "To us Imperians the dark aridness of the universe was once an endless, laneless thoroughfare, unrestricted and harmless." This is one of several such examples of nonsense from the alien, who seems to know less about the universe than that 8 year-old from the opening scene.

Or how about... "The asteroid will hit our planet in 82 years, not a second sooner or later." Which would be a reasonable sentence if only he stated the length of time in seconds instead of years... Such goofy pulp.

It gets dumber. It turns out that the ship's employee, its fake captain, is in fact some genius scientist... working in an amusement park for a pittance?! Way too far-fetched and ridiculous. After the alien exposes the man's identity, the scientist gives a hilarious "profound" speech which makes no sense at all, in which he attempts to explain the reasons for opting to become a bum rather than a wealthy, respected scientist.

The old man protests that he isn't interested in the problems of Imperia. But the alien has an answer for that too. A stupid answer, but an answer nonetheless. He basically tells the Earthling that if Imperia gets hit by the asteroid, this collision will set off a chain reaction which will eventually threaten the Earth! I kid you not, that's what he claims. The Ed Wood School of Astrophysics.

Did I mention that the writer is clueless about astronomy? I need to re-iterate that. The writer is BLOODY CLUELESS ABOUT ANYTHING REMOTELY CONNECTED WITH PHYSICS AND THE UNIVERSE. There. That should do it.

The stupid chicken-faced alien then proceeds to berate the humans for DARING to refuse the offer to save Imperion. He actually takes the high moral ground, criticizing and mocking them for wanting to return to Earth! He - the kidnapper - is morally outraged at their refusal to cooperate! It's too funny... Later on, disgusted by the brief violent rebellion, Chicken Man the Righteous Kidnapper gives a brief, accusatory speech in which he moans about why the abducted humans aren't grateful for the "SECOND CHANCE" they'd been so "generously" given - through abduction. It's facepalm after facepalm... I mean, if he wanted volunteers he should have searched for them among death row inmates, not regular folk who'd obviously much more prefer to stay on Earth than muck about on some far-flung shitty asteroid saving a planet of overgrown daft chickens.

"I believe that if this collision were to happen in a year, half the population of Earth would volunteer to go and prevent it." This bizarre claim comes from the scientist's love-interest, the Scream Queen. So it's not as if only the alien and the jock talk a lot of hooey. The nonsense gets spread around; everyone gets to say something very stupid, at least once.

Later there's the obligatory meteor shower scene. Well, at least obligatory in dumb grade-Z sci-fi stories whose writers know zero about space.

The old geezer tries to kill the scientist, and what makes this scene genuinely funny is that the two blonde Scream Queens get involved in a scuffle too.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: average CONCEPT: alien contact, space exploration GENRE: sci-fi drama PLOT TWIST: solid though not unpredictable ENDING: OK DOWNER ENDING? yes for the aliens ROMANTIC BS? yes PREMISE: solid

Word must have got out by 1964 that movement on the Moon would be in slow motion so the astrodummies move slowly in the opening scene. Unfortunately, their movement wasn't made to look naturally slow with the appropriate use of camera trickery. Instead, the actors were told to mime slow motion which just looks silly. I would even prefer an unrealistic taking off of helmets "because the atmosphere is breathable" rather than this sort of nonsense. Especially since everything else is mostly unrealistic and kitschy anyway.

BUT, this is TOL, after all, and slow motion gave the producers yet another opportunity at padding, which occurred too often in the show.

Just kidding.

No sooner did the astrodummies discover the strange, perfectly smooth, light sphere (hence I have no idea why it's a "moonSTONE") did one of them suggest that "the Russians maybe got here first". Now, a line like this may have been somewhat forgivable in the mid-50s, but by 1964 anyone even vaguely acquainted with international politics must have known about the Space Race, which was basically a competition who'd get to the Moon first. Whoever got there first would TOOT THEIR HORNS very loudly for all to know, which is why this paranoid horsecrap makes so little sense. A little later ANOTHER astromoron suggests the sphere may belong to the Russians.

After the first round of testing is done – we get the first kiss! Yes, two astrolovers in warm embrace, providing the obligatory romantic BS for female audiences... These two astronitwits blather on and on about their useless relationshit while the sphere spies on them, completely unnoticed by the two astroloving astrocretins so horny that they'd make an easy zapping target even for perpetually bad-aiming "Star Wars" stormtroopers. What makes this idiotic scene extra annoying and far-fetched is that these two astrof**ktards are middle-aged astroassholes, not some kids. The male astrodummie even proposes to the female! They really have no interest in all this "boring" scientific stuff, they just went to the Moon for the paycheck, it seems. Science shmience, let's shtoop instead.

Try to imagine a middle-aged couple, working on the Moon, on the historic first manned planetary base, yet so desperately horny that they can't even bother to guard a potentially huge scientific find, the sphere, because they'd rather be shtooping. No need to imagine it: this stupid episode has it.

At this point I was muttering, "please, Russian-alien sphere, kill them both... kill, kill, kill!... kill them so it hurts, kill them viciously and soon, please... kill, kill, kill!" No sooner was I done chanting these words of hope and despair, when another astrodummie character joined the two astrolovebirds... drunk. Yup, the first astrodummies on the first ever human Moon base are horny, alcoholic dipshits, waving around their flat little alcohol bottles when they aren't too busy flirting with the only woman in the base.

The astrodrunk hates his boss (the astrowoman's love-interest) so he goes on a tirade about his screw-ups in the Korean War. Right after this "big reveal" (which unfortunately proves to be pivotal to the plot) he somehow – for no reason at all - STUMBLES onto a machine's circuitry and gets electrocuted, in one of the dumbest and most unconvincing scenes in the entire series. No joke, this scene is as bad as any unintentional slapstick from "Bride of the Monster". There are more convincing falls in "The Room".

Then the sphere finally does something, starts speaking, though the shitty actor who plays the boss/love-interest barely even reacts.

Astroloverboy: "We can arrange to have you taken down to Earth." Astrolovergirl: "But can we trust them?" Astroloverboy: "Well, there's no reason not to, is there."

Yup, that's an ACTUAL conversation, word for word exact.

This astrodipshit had spoken only 5 minutes to the sphere's five petunias, yet he already trusts them completely! And this guy survived Korea?! Yeah, sure...

The petunias start off an interesting plot, but what strikes me as very unrealistic is that they only have 24 hours to live without their energy source. Yet, they'd been discovered just that day, totally by chance by the three astrodummies. What a convenient coincidence. For all we know, the sphere may have been sitting buried in the sand for decades – yet now that they'd been picked, all-of-a-sudden they are 24 hours away from losing all energy? Gimme a break.

After the sphere gives the scientists the know-how to beam matter from A to B, which would revolutionary life on Earth, what does the astroboss do? He tries to talk to his astrohoney, to discuss some of that awesome relationshit BS! After all, female fans of TOL, all 11 of them, hadn't had any romantic piffle for an entire 10 minutes! We are treated to a melodramatic conversation about what happened in Korea – while the discovery of the century is sitting on their table! Too stupid for words... I hate mainstream writers who try dabble with sci-fi. I hate the producers who hire them, even more.

The Korean War incident is directly related to everything here, but it's nevertheless too cliche.

This episode isn't all bad. The plot is OK, once we ignore the romantic BS. The closest TOL ever got to "Star Trek".

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: weak CONCEPT: space exploration, space colony GENRE: sci-fi PLOT TWIST: none ENDING: dumb DOWNER ENDING? mostly no ROMANTIC BS? yes PREMISE: dodgy

So to mutate means to gain instant god-like powers, huh?

Interesting.

In that case, why aren't there any such mutations on Earth? Humans, plants and animals undergo mutations continually, have been doing so for billions of years, yet not one single solitary specimen has ever acquired even one god-like power for even a second, yet this one mutant gets several – just because he is on a distant planet.

I call this phenomenon "the exotic factor privilege" or "the distant galaxy bonus", a staple of cheesy sci-fi. In other words, the rest of the universe is susceptible to all sorts of forms of magic, whereas here on little ol' Earth magic is impossible, or much more rare. Grass is greener and all that... in sci-fi terms.

I know that this is just cheesy sci-fi pulp, but they're laying it a bit too thick. Oates the mutant not only reads minds, he kills by touch alone – and not just kills but entirely dematerializes a body. For all practical purposes he is a god, not "just" a powerful alien mutant thing. I half-expected him to start flying, to stop time, and to create black holes on a whim.

In the realm of fantasy fiction, there is a real problem with giving the antagonist(s) too much power, because they logically shouldn't be defeatable. Especially this one: he can easily detect any conspiracy aimed at harming him, hence he can instantly punish the "guilty". This means he is undefeatable, hence we have no story, hence there is no real point to all of this.

Nevertheless, even before the episode reached its half-way mark I knew he would be defeated, and because of what I previously explained I knew he'd have to be defeated in a dumb and unconvincing way. Because that's what happens when you set up a story this way: you have to break your own logic in order to move the plot in the usual, cliche way.

Which is what happens. The laughably far-fetched ploy is to hypnotize hunkman so he can forget whatever he found about the dangerous, telepathic mutant. However, the obvious logic hole is that Oates could find out about the hypnosis itself by reading the midget's mind. Yup, one of the scientists is a quasi-dwarf. No idea why the casting director considered this a wise choice. "Reese": the choice of word to de-hypnotize hunkman is idiotic. Choosing the antagonist's name as the "codeword" is just plain asinine. Out of a million words/names to pick from? These people aren't scientists, they are morons.

For some reason, the writer of this hooey thought it clever to suddenly have Oates dedicated to saying AND hearing his own name (which he achieves with a dodgy plot-device), which in turn leads to a laughable scene in which Oates/Reese actually SUSPECTS dwarfman of hiding something just because he isn't addressing him with Reese! This is the kind of plot-device or shtick one uses in comedy, normally.

In the end, they beat Oates by sheer dumb luck – through Oates's bafflingly illogical decision to venture inside the dark cave, instead of just waiting for the couple to come out, which eventually they would have to have done. Unless there was a Swedish buffet waiting for them in there with supplies for the next 30 years. This is unconvincing and poor writing because it means that the supposed hero saviour actually contributed nothing to freeing/saving the colonists; Oates basically undid everything himself, which begs the question why he didn't self-destruct earlier. Hunkman ended up being a mere observer rather than an active participant and liberator, hence his arrival merely precipitated a series of fortunate circumstances (aside from the murders) that lead to Oates's demise. Hunkman's hypnosis plan failed, and he had no plan B, so I guess plan C – the writer's plan – had to be put into effect. Plan C is to let the heavy ruin himself.

I found it absolutely ridiculous that the newcomer:

a) arrived alone to inspect a fishy situation, b) didn't know about the protective glasses, and c) just happens to be the ex of the (very small) colony's only female. (An actress that looks crap btw, which doesn't help either.) Naturally, the writer just HAD to find a romantic angle to bore sci-fi fans with, once again. Because what is a murder investigation slash space exploration story without the subject of penis and vagina? A pile of nothing - obviously. At least according to lousy Hollywood writers.

Yes, in a way I am glad that TOL was canceled after just two seasons. Perhaps a just punishment for catering too much to housewives - plus leaving the writing to people not sufficiently committed to sci-fi. The several conversations between hunk and his female are both stupid and dreary.

And what a smart investigative hunk, huh? "Suicide is always accidental", he says idiotically. Some shrink he is... Yeah, people simply trip over the sides of buildings, accidentally fire bullets into their own heads and purely by chance obtain cyanide and stuff it into their drinks. The leading cause of death among victims of "accidental suicide" is slitting yer wrist – but only because knives accidentally fall on wrists. Happens all the time.

Several of the premises are very dodgy. A distant planet with perpetual daylight that requires glasses at all times is actually deemed suitable for colonization? Yeah, millions of volunteers must have been breaking down the doors of NASA to populate this dump.

The basic premise of Oates keeping the newcomer alive is shaky too. Instead of worrying so much whether anyone will betray Oates by telling everything to hunkman, why not just kill him instead? Or, since the writer claims Oates needs human company and slaves, why not simply destroy or sabotage the rocket?

There is also a strange illogic in Oates preventing the crew from escaping the planet when he became a mutant. Instead of stopping them, why didn't he simply join them? He was after all seeking for a cure, and on Earth finding this cure would have been far more likely. Considering his god-like powers he could have easily bossed around everyone at this future (incompetent) NASA.

A messy script clumsily directed makes for a crappy episode. Even the narrator seems confused as he blabbers some meaningless piffle about man needing to solve insanity first before starting to colonize other planets. Good luck with that! This is the kind of almost random non-sequitur mumbo-jumbo that many intro and especially outro narrations in TOL consist of.

First viewing: 2021

RATING: very good CONCEPT: mystery house GENRE: fantasy, mystery, romance, horror PLOT TWIST: not really a twist ENDING: good DOWNER ENDING? kind of ROMANTIC BS? yes PREMISE: unique

One of the strangest episodes, somewhat Kafkaesque. The first 15 minutes are the most effective. The rest is interesting too, but the disappointing thing is the fairly predictable theme of love i.e. we know almost instantly that the creature's "missing ingredient" is love, which is so bloody cheesy.

This leads me to the other flaw: the very forced, unrealistic romance between Drifter and the (average-looking yet supposedly beautiful) girl. Finding himself trapped in a bizarre house created and run by an evil alien creature should have had him in full panic mode (which he was in, to a limited extent) and yet our hero finds the time to instantly fall in love, which is far too corny and undeserving for such a unique premise, not to mention absurd.

I would have preferred for the story to unfold in a more unpredictable, unusual way, just as it had started. Alas, these were the mid-60s, and it was television - and housewives needed their schmaltz. The only problem being that they didn't want their schmaltz dipped in science-fiction which is one of the main reasons TOL was canceled after only two seasons: catering to female demographics within a male genre is way too optimistic and usually undoable.

The direction is very good. One of the most unique episodes.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: solid CONCEPT: alien abduction GENRE: sci-fi drama, action, horror PLOT TWIST: not really ENDING: average DOWNER ENDING? no, but the alien goes unpunished ROMANTIC BS? surprisingly little, negligible PREMISE: interesting

A very Bond-like, villainous alien laughs a lot while pitting a randomly chosen Earth couple against a lizard couple. The winning couple earns the right to stay alive - with the small bonus of saving their planet from annihilation.

Sounds familiar? This must be where "Star Trek" writers got their idea for the legendary "Arena" episode. In fact, not only did ST steal the concept of a superior alien civilization pitting one representative against another in which the winner gets to save their respective ships, but even Kirk's opponent in that episode happens to be a lizard-man just like these here. AND the alien in this episode called it an "arena". Blatant, shameless theft. Show-biz people are nearly all liars, thieves, and egomaniacs.

Nevertheless, "Star Trek" did a better job than TOL with this premise. Perhaps colour and a bigger budget helped.

As so often with TOL (and other such sci-fi/horror TV series), the first 15 minutes are quite good but then the story starts getting drawn out, and the dialog gets more and more silly. Once the plot moves into the forest, the plot disintegrates: bad direction, unconvincing action scenes and situations, and just general tomfoolery.

For some reason one of the lizards kills its partner - in order to have a food supply advantage i.e. to starve out their opponents. This seems a far-fetched strategy because not only were the lizards very eager to start the duel i.e. to get violent (as opposed to play a game of patience), but then there was also no reason for the remaining lizard to attempt to kill the woman - as that would automatically cancel out the food advantage if he had succeeded.

Speaking of which, the lizard only managed to lightly wound the woman with its boomerang, and yet a little later the woman actually killed the lizard with that same weapon. The chances that this city secretary - whose greatest previous adventures had been to go shopping - is able to deliver a lethal blow with a weapon she'd never used, and in the first try, is too minuscule to take even vaguely seriously. The lizard is clumsier with his own weapon than the human female? That's rich. Nice try, script...

What an illogical alien race that doesn't force others to fight in the arena (they get the option to reject the "offer") - yet are brutal enough to destroy an entire planet of the losing team. Wouldn't it make a LOT more sense to enslave the losing planet and play MORE of these brutal games there? Instead, stupidly, they destroy entire worlds with which they could have fun for centuries.

However, this is basically pulp sci-fi as most TOL episodes are, hence nit-picking is optional.

Viewings: 2011, 2021

RATING: average CONCEPT: alien invasion conspiracy GENRE: sci-fi, mystery PLOT TWIST: clever ENDING: dumb DOWNER ENDING? no, but the alien gets away with it ROMANTIC BS? no PREMISE: solid

An interesting story of an alien impostor grooming a gifted boy to help his planet Zennon take over Earth.

Some nonsense though. The ease with which the alien weasels his way into the kid's home is absurd. A total stranger shows up uninvited into the home of this family - and within minutes the kid's parents actually allow him to spend time alone in the child's room with their kid! If all parents were this trusting i.e. this dumb, pedophiles and serial-killers would have a field day with children, and in fact Earth's population would only be a fraction of what it is now.

Finding the elevator empty may have been one of the many clues that should have forced them to question the stranger's motives. But what really takes the stupidity cake is the father's mild reaction to witnessing the alien dematerialize. Instead of going into full panic mode, or shock even, he simply goes to his son's room to question him about it, in a tone as if the kid had merely stolen food from the fridge or something. The guy doesn't even alert the authorities! Only later does he finally check with the government to confirm his suspicions that nobody was ever sent to tutor the kid. And only THEN does he finally show some panic, some fear.

Predictably, the government suit doesn't believe him, which makes one wonder WHY doesn't he simply go to the police for help instead. He later decides that calling the police would be futile - yet that a "showdown" (as he calls it) with Zeeno would be wise. No Parents of the Year awards for this couple...

That's the trouble with these sci-fi stories, that they force the main characters to make irrational and stupid decisions, just to keep the plot moving in the desired direction i.e. to avoid resolving the conflict prematurely i.e. before the 48 minutes are up. Why would he want a showdown with an alien with superpowers?! Was he going to admonish him? Scare him? Appeal to his "good side"? Absurd.

The twist was good, but the kid sparing the alien's life is yet another example of utterly mindless pacifist Hollywood bull. Zeeno was about to force his father into suicide, AND worked on a conspiracy to invade Earth which would have killed billions - yet you're feeling MERCIFUL toward him???

Besides, what better message to send to the invaders not to mess with Earthlings than a human child killing one of their amphibian morons! We are given to understand that the Earthlings would now have a weapon to repel the alien attack, yet there is no guarantee that anyone would believe the kid, hence the wisest solution by far would be to kill the bastard. To play it safe.

Btw, the intro serves as a spoiler, yet doesn't show up in the episode.

Viewings: 2011, 2021