User Reviews

Most episodes of Science Fiction Theatre espouse the virtues of science. The general tone of the series is in the premise that, despite its foilbes, science is ultimately beneficial to Mankind. But "Beyond Return" veers into the the realm of sci-fi films of two decades earlier by suggesting that there are some forces of nature with which man was not meant to tamper. In this story two doctors attempt to cure a young woman who is dying of tuberculosis by injecting her with an experimental hormonal extract. The treatment works incredibly well, restoring her to full health within a week. But soon the doctors realize that they, like Frankenstein, have unwittingly created a monster; a chameleonic sociopath who uses her ability to take whatever she wants and destroy those who get in her way without remorse. In the end, the doctors take action against their creation in a resolution that is as ethically and morally questionable as any of the woman's crimes against humanity.

After being miraculously cured by a serum extracted from the highly adaptable fruit fly, Kyra Zelas a TB patient acquires the ability to rapidly adapt to changes in her environment, including altering her appearance to avoid recognition, increasing her strength in a struggle, add becoming increasingly beautiful when she wants to manipulate men. The episode opens with Truman Bradley using a chameleon to demonstrate adaption and closes with him describing how modern science can help people 'adapt' (unfortunately, he uses frontal lobotomies as a cure for criminality as an example). The story is based on Stanley Weinbaum's 1935 short story 'The Adaptive Ultimate' (written two years after Thomas Hunt Morgan was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work on genetics using the fruit fly as a model organism) but the science in the episode makes little sense (e.g. The red to white eye-colour change in response to X-rays was transgenerational (due to induced mutations), not an 'adaptive change in an individual) and, unlike the original story, Kyra seems to be able to deliberately induce changes in her appearance (like hair colour) rather than passively adapt. Weinbaum's story was also the basis for a 'Tales of Tomorrow' episode in 1952 and was expanded into a lack-lustre film, 'She Devil', in 1957. OK episode of the vintage sci-fi anthology.

This may be one of the worst of all episodes. A young woman is dying of tuberculosis. She has no chance. Enter a doctor who has developed a serum drawn from fruit flies. It has worked on guinea pigs and other critters, but has never been tested on humans. The young woman, who has no will to say no, is talked into being injected with this stuff. Well, it works, but in the process, it changes her personality and her being. She becomes mean and selfish and, get this, blonde. If that's not enough, her manipulative side gets her to be a cover girl fashion model. She's even going to marry the publisher of the magazine, who is already married. The men must act to change her back to her old personality. What the do is so remarkably dangerous, it would have gotten them thrown out of the medical profession. Even in a primitive show like this one, there has to be some semblance of reality when it comes to medical ethics.