Episode Spotlight: "The Premonition" (1/09/1965)

“The Premonition”

Season 2, Episode 16 (48 overall)

Originally aired 1/09/1965

Fifty years ago tonight, The Outer Limits was facing cancellation. It's probably appropriate that this, its penultimate offering, would dwell on the nature of time.... since the show's time was just about up.

Ace Air Force pilot Jim Darcy is in the cockpit of an experimental X-15, testing the limits of speed and maneuverability. He reaches Mach Six and breaks not the only the sound barrier but the time barrier, the resultant shock wave of which forces him into a  crash-landing. Once on the ground, he’s shocked to discover that everything appears to be frozen--- not “frozen” in the ice-encrusted kid-friendly Disney sense, but “frozen” as in rock-solid and immovable… people included.

He’s also shocked to discover his wife, Linda, who has wrecked her car near the crash site. She isn’t frozen in time, which leads him to speculate that she was caught in the shock wave and carried along with him to… where, exactly? They return to Jim’s base, where everything and everyone is frozen… including their daughter, Janie, who they find right in the path of a delivery truck, which is rolling straight toward her thanks to an errant driver who forgot to engage the parking brake.

Comparing the X-15’s chronometer against the one in the base’s control room, Jim deduces that the couple were displaced in time and thrust several seconds into the future. Time isn’t actually frozen---- it’s just moving extremely slowly, and will eventually catch up with them. They encounter an iridescent man (the “Limbo Being”) who explains that he, like them, was once displaced in time; however, because he missed the moment of time's re-synchronization, he is eternally trapped in nothingness. The Darcys must be in their respective places--- Jim in the X-15’s cockpit, Linda in her car--- at the precise moment time corrects itself or they’ll face a similar fate.

Finally! That MacGyver prequel everyone's been clamoring for.

This unfortunately means that neither of them will be anywhere near Janie to prevent what will almost certainly be a fatal accident. Jim cuts the seat-belts out of Linda’s car (which, like his downed X-15, isn’t frozen in time) and rigs a makeshift emergency brake of sorts that will hopefully, when time resumes its normal pace, stop the truck and save Janie. They assume their places just as time catches up with them.

Jim ditches the X-15 into the sand, and Linda crashes into the boulder. Both are unhurt but have no memory of their experience. An intangible feeling--- a “premonition”--- sends them rushing back to the base, where they find Janie unharmed.

.

RANDOMONIUM

“The Premonition” began as “Gordian Knot,” a story treatment by Ib Melchior, who wrote “Water Tank Rescue” and “Voice of Infinity” for TV’s Men into Space, plus the screenplays for 1959’s The Angry Red Planet (which he also directed)  and 1964’s Robinson Crusoe on Mars (a film directed by Outer Limits six-timer Byron Haskin). Said treatment was expanded into teleplay form by Samuel Roeca, who would go on to write several episodes of Mission: Impossible and serve as story editor on the third and final season of Land of the Lost (which was an awesome show if you were a kid when it originally aired, which I was… those Sleestaks were fucking cool).

Gerd Oswald, who helmed more Outer Limits episodes than anyone else (a whopping fourteen), is back for one more ride in the director’s saddle. I wish I could say his final offering was on par with his earlier brilliance… but it most certainly isn’t. There’s really not much here: lots of Air Force stock footage, lots of running around, and a lot of freeze frames depicting frozen time… nothing impressive. However, I do like the scene with the Darcys walking through the control room, weaving in and out of frozen folks (which are actually actors standing still; there's a really nice overhead shot of this tableau in act three), so I guess that’s a good staging effort. The crashed X-15 mockup looks good, but that’s more of a set design success than a directorial one. There’s definitely some production value added by shooting on location at a real Air Force base at Paramount Studios, which looks enough like a military base to fool your average TV-watching idiot (like me; thanks as always to David J. Schow for correcting me), and Director of Photography Kenneth Peach captures it all ably with minimal flourish… except for some extreme close-ups of William Bramley’s mouth during the countdown, which is a bit off-putting.

.
It feels like a good five or ten minutes of screen time is used up just showing the Darcys running back and forth repeatedly from the crash site to the base and back again. It doesn’t help that the same few camera angles are used each time (I assume all these sequences were shot together, so Dewey Martin and Mary Murphy--- or maybe their stunt doubles--- must’ve been hot, tired and a bit pissed by the end of the day). Since I have so much time on my hands (ha! Get it?), I threw together a super cut of all the repetitive shots for your amusement (or irritation):

Okay, so it wasn’t quite five or ten minutes. Sure seems like it, though. Y’now, Linda’s car didn’t look totaled by any means. Shouldn't they have at least tried to start it before spending all that time and energy running back and forth? And how far is it from the crash site to the base? I’m assuming it’s at least a couple miles.

“The Premonition” feels a lot like one of the hour-long fourth season Twilight Zone episodes due to the glaring amount of padding and repetitiveness. It never quite gets boring, but it never really moves at a sufficiently brisk pace, either. Unfortunately, the long silences gave me a chance to start mulling things over and picking things apart. If time is frozen, or at least moving in extreme slow motion, how are the Darcys able to breathe? Wouldn't the air be solid as well? Nothing can be moved in this rigid, motionless environment, so I guess it’s lucky for the Darcys that virtually every door on the base was left wide open so that they can go wherever they please (which seems pretty unlikely for a military installation). And how the hell did that lady ever get the babysitting job? She leaves the kids alone and unsupervised immediately after Linda drops Janie off with her, which directly leads to Janie’s dire predicament. And then... hoo boy... there’s that Limbo Being fucker.

The Limbo Being is, hands down, the single stupidest “creature” in the entire series run. It’s not even monstrous… it’s just a guy painted silver behind a blur filter (at least that’s what it looks like; I have no idea how the so-called “effect” was actually achieved). He has some kind of weird aura around him that separates him from the rest of the limbo environment.... too much, actually. We never see him interact with the Darcys, which makes me wonder what a shot would look like with all three of them in it... is the aura just some kind of cloud that follows him around? He’s wearing a snazzy blazer, so at least he looks presentable. And for some unfathomable reason that has no bearing on anything, he shares Frankenstein’s Monster’s deathly fear of fire.  Why? I couldn’t tell you.

I get that he’s a “prisoner in time,” and that he got that way through similar circumstances (Darcy’s X-15 is presumably the fastest plane ever built, so I’m not sure how this sad sumbitch ever managed to go that fast, but whatever), but that doesn’t explain why he’s at the Air Force base at the exact time that the Darcys have their time-out-of-whack experience. Did his time barrier violation event happen there too? Or or did he walk there from… I dunno, wherever? I guess it’s possible that existing outside of normal time has some spatial advantages (instantaneous teleportation, maybe), but the fact that he can’t get past a fucking flare or pass through solid walls suggests otherwise (however, since every door on the base is open, I guess he could just exit the building another way, right?). And he’s clearly articulate, so why does he make those creepy boogeyman sounds when he first appears? He’s a clumsy, ill-conceived convenience, placed in the Darcys’ path for the sole purpose of telling them (and us) exactly what is happening and how they can escape (which seems counterproductive, since being so open with them dramatically reduces his odds of horning in on their escape to facilitate his own), but his presence only serves to detract from the story. He does, however, give a damn-near poetic (and admittedly well-delivered) summation of his wretched existence:

LIMBO BEING:

If you miss your chance to return, one-millionth

of a second behind time, time will pass you by, and

leave you where I am now, in forever now. Black, motionless

void. No light, no sun, no stars, no time. Eternal nothing.

No hunger, no thirst. Only endless existence.

And the worst of it? You can’t die!

Speaking of The Twilight Zone, they tackled the “frozen time” idea with “A Kind of a Stopwatch (right),” a pretty dismal entry starring the normally-delightful Richard Erdman as an obnoxious dweeb who ends up with a magical stopwatch that… well, you know. Rod Serling and Company also gave us “Elegy” and “Still Valley,” neither of which deal expressly with frozen time, but do feature large groups of frozen people. The 80’s revival series (unofficially known as The New Twilight Zone) mined the idea twice: “A Little Peace and Quiet (below left)” is essentially a pointless remake of the aforementioned “A Kind of a Stopwatch,” while the clever “A Matter of Minutes (below right)” depicts a couple getting stuck in a limbo state between two moments in time and witnessing crews of workers constructing the minute to follow.

.
Check this out: after Jim climbs out of his X-15, he doesn’t notice Linda’s crashed car nearby until he hears her moaning behind the wheel. But here’s the thing: her car is directly in his line of sight two or three times before this moment. The most obvious example can be found at time stamp 11:41, which is supposed to be Jim reacting to the sight of the frozen coyote chasing the jackrabbit, but if you pay attention to the angles and spatial geometry and whatnot, he's actually looking directly at her at this moment, which becomes apparent once you see where exactly her car is. Nitpicking? Yeah, maybe a little. This is what y'all pay me for.

.

As much as I like Dewey Martin, his Jim Darcy comes off as a bit of a dick when you examine his interactions with his family. After he rigs the seat-belts in the runaway truck, he takes a quick look at his daughter and says, simply and emotionlessly, “All we have now is hope.” A few minutes later, when Linda gives him a last “I love you” before time catches up with them, he doesn’t bother to return the sentiment. After time re-synchronizes and he climbs out of his wrecked X-15, he makes sure somebody puts the fire out before he even bothers to see if Linda survived her car crash. And, most egregiously, he provides The Outer Limits with its first and only count of spousal battery when he “takes charge” of Linda’s hysteria by straight up smacking her across the face (talk about putting the "palm" in "Palmville"). There are a few women throughout the series' run that had it coming (I'm looking at you, Vera Finley), but I think Linda's reaction is perfectly acceptable (I'm pretty sure all of us--- male or female--- would lose our shit if everything stopped moving). And don't forget that, just moments before, she was in a car accident and hit her head... so she may very well have a minor concussion. Macho prick.

Being Top Gun means you can look directly into the camera without doing a retake.

I love the subtle homo-eroticism on display during Jim’s test flight. The pilot flying behind him jovially remarks that he's “looking real good from back here,” to which Jim replies, “I'm glad you're enjoying the view.” I can just picture these two engaging in some spirited grab-ass in the locker room, and I’m pretty sure this brief exchange inspired 1986's Top Gun, a film positively drenched in sweat, hair gel and ironic machismo.

.

AURAL PLEASURE

“The Premonition,” like all second season efforts, is scored by Harry Lubin, drawing from his vast library of pre-recorded music (much of it came from his previous stint on One Step Beyond). This week’s assortment includes a few of the more familiar pieces we’ve been enjoying all season, among them: "Dark and Scary," "Dreamy Lullaby," "Haunted Mansion," "Hidey Hole," "Footsteps of the Killer 1" and "Destitute."

“Hidey Hole” is a quick little vibe flourish which, while initially effective for reinforcing the strangeness of the frozen people the Darcys encounter, quickly becomes tiresome because it’s used, oh I dunno, about fifty or so times throughout the episode. I considered watching it again for the express purpose of getting an exact count, but I came to my senses just in time (ha! See what I did there?).

.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

I know Dewey Martin (Jim Darcy) from his portrayal of a thirsty--- and murderous--- astronaut in the Twilight Zone episode “I Shot an Arrow into the Air.” Genre fans may remember him as Crew Chief Bob in 1951’s The Thing from Another World, or as Mike Apollo (fitting name, given his other genre work) in "Leona" on Mission: Impossible. He also enjoys a coveted Robert Culp connection thanks to his appearance on I Spy (“One of Our Bombs Is Missing”).

.

Mary Murphy (Linda Darcy) shares in the Robert Culp connection glory, as she too appeared on I Spy (“Any Place I Hang Myself Is Home”). Other notable genre roles include stints on The Fugitive (“Nicest Fella You’d Ever Want to Meet”), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“A Secret Life”) and Circle of Fear (“Creatures of the Canyon”). She also appeared in the 1951 George Pal film When Worlds Collide, the cast of which also included Peter Hansen from last week’s “The Brain of Colonel Barham. TOL Babe? Most definitely. Yum.

.

Other than The Twilight Zone, William Bramley (“Baldy” Baldwin) hits all our usual genre connections. He appeared on Star Trek (“Bread and Circuses”), The Fugitive (“The 2130” and “A Clean and Quiet Town”), The Invaders (“Nightmare”), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“The Test”), and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (“The Tender Poisoner” and “Return of Verge Likens”).

.

Kay Kuter (the unfortunate Limbo Being) has lots of genre television credits outside of The Outer Limits, but they didn’t occur until the late 80’s and beyond. You’ll find him in episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (“The Nth Degree”), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (“The Storyteller”), the 80’s Twilight Zone revival series (“Grace Note”), V: The Series (“The Overlord”), The X-files (“The Calusari”), and the short-lived Brimstone (“Mourning After”). On the big screen, he enjoyed an uncredited bit part as a priest in 1956’s The Mole People and, later, appeared in 1984’s The Last Starfighter and 1989’s Warlock.

.

Li’l Emma Tyson (Janie Darcy) only has one other genre credit of note: she appeared in “The Trap” on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. (however, because the series isn't available in even semi-decent quality, I'm using a Green Acres screen cap below... and before you get bitchy, let me just point out that the star of Green Acres, Eddie Albert, also starred in "Cry of Silence" earlier this season; so it's at least an approximate connection). Dorothy Green, here credited as “Matron” (which we’d call a child care provider today), also appeared on Boris Karloff’s Thriller (“Rose’s Last Summer”) and the pilot movie that launched The Six Million Dollar Man. On the big screen, she can be found in the 1954 Giant-Ants-on-the-Rampage opus Them!, the noir classic The Big Heat (1953) and the decidedly non-classic Help Me… I’m Possessed (1976). Finally, Christopher Riordan (Frozen Soldier) is the only TOL vet in the cast this week (he played “Young Doctor” in season one’s “The Chameleon,” plus he’ll back next week as “Young Scientist”). Three Outer Limits episodes is impressive, but he topped that number on The Fugitive with a total of four: “Man in a Chariot,” “Ballad for a Ghost,” “Brass Ring” and “The Old Man Picked a Lemon.” Two years later, he’d play another Young Scientist on the big screen in 1966’s Fantastic Voyage.









.

HOME VIDEO RELEASES

MGM’s home video releases of Outer Limits episodes initially followed the series’ production order… for the first three episodes. After that, they pulled at random from both seasons (though they did focus on the more familiar, generally superior episodes early on). When they dumped the final dozen episodes onto the market in 1991, the red-headed stepchildren that comprised the latter half of the second season--- a group which includes “The Premonition”--- finally saw the light of day.

The VHS series in its entirety is a beautiful collection, and most of the covers therein quite adeptly capture the spirit of their respective episodes quite well (and are gorgeous to behold). And then there's this boring "effort," which probably took all of five minutes to throw together. Yawn. Jim looks like he's falling asleep there... which, now that I think about it, is probably totally appropriate for the episode. Ahem.Here are the two shots from the episode used:

In Columbia House’s mail-order exclusive Collector’s Edition series, the episode was paired with next week’s “The Probe.”

“The Premonition” was not among the lucky 28 episodes chosen for LaserDisc release; however, it was present and accounted for when the series hit DVD in 2002 (season one) and 2003 (season two). I guess this isn’t really a special honor, since all 49 were right there with it. Anyhoo--- in 2007, MGM released the series again, this time splitting it up into three volumes (two for season one, one for the abbreviated season two). In 2008, they bundled those three volumes together for a so-called “45^th Anniversary Collection.” In a diabolical act of contempt for their customer base--- or extreme laziness--- they used the identical discs from the original ’02 and ’03 releases, which means no matter which ones you buy, you’re gonna get the same shitty DVD-18s (double-sided discs) that nobody uses anymore because they’re delicate and prone to failure. The same DVD-18s were foisted upon the Australian market as well, but at least the folks down under were treated to some neat packaging variations (thanks to David J. Schow for these).

 Across the pond in the UK, MGM released season sets basically identical to the original US sets… except that they used single-sided discs. This injustice continues to boil my blood and steam my clam (don’t ask).

I assume most of you already own the DVDs, but if you don’t… well, I can’t really recommend that you buy them at this point, unless you can get them really cheap (and even then I would avoid used copies like the plague, given the tendency of DVD-18s to fail over time). If you’re a Hulu Plus subscriber (at $7.99 a month, why wouldn’t you be?), you’re already covered: as of two weeks ago, the entire series is available for PC, TV and mobile streaming.

.

MERCHANDISE SPOTLIGHT

Dimensional Designs has created high-quality model kits of nearly every Outer Limits monster and alien imaginable… but there are a few omissions. The Limbo Being is one, but you might get a different impression if you visit their website: they have a listing for a Limbo Being (actually, their name for him is "Limbo Man"; DD/OL/LM-41), sculpted by Sean Samson and Danny Soracco in the usual 1/8-scale size… however, there’s no picture of it, no box art, and no option for ordering. It was clearly planned at some point, but does it exist? I couldn’t tell you. Should it exist? Probably not.

.

THE WRAP-UP

“The Premonition” is ultimately frustrating because there’s a great idea at its center, but it’s muted considerably by a muddy, repetitive narrative and an underwhelming, superfluous supernatural being. It’s certainly not terrible, but it’s nothing close to what it could have--- should have--- been. But The Outer Limits was limping toward its network-imposed finish line at this point, so I suppose it’s a minor miracle that it turned out as good as it did.

Woah, I just thought of something: what if the spacious, ponderous narrative is in fact intentionally slow and repetitive, a Christopher Nolan-esque construct designed to convey the desolate emptiness of timelessness? If so, this just might be smartest, most subversive offering of the Brady regime. Okay, probably not. But what if…?

Episode Spotlight: "The Duplicate Man" (12/19/1964)

“The Duplicate Man”

Season 2, Episode 13 (45 overall)

Originally aired 12/19/1964

Flash forward to the year 2025. The world’s not terribly different, except that man has managed to travel to other planets and bring back specimens… all of which either die on arrival or try to kill everything in sight. This week’s story concerns that second type, and it premiered exactly fifty years ago tonight.

The alien creature in question is a Megasoid, an imposing critter whose primary instinct is to kill. They are therefore outlawed on Earth, which doesn’t stop Henderson James from smuggling one in for research purposes. He arrives home one day to discover that it’s escaped from its cage and is on the loose. As if that’s not bad enough, it’s in its reproductive cycle, which means James’ problem is about to multiply several times over. James knows that the only place it can hide is in the local alien zoo. He also knows that he’s an abject coward, so he enlists the aid of disgraced scientist Basil Jerichau to create a temporary and disposable clone of himself (also illegal) to clean up his mess.

James II awakens in the lobby of the zoo armed with a pistol. His memory is limited to his basic identity and the job at hand. He finds the Megasoid hiding in plain sight and promptly puts a bullet in it; however, the wounded creature knocks him out and escapes. The longer James II exists, the more of the real James’ memories surface in his mind, which leads him to Emmet, the interstellar captain who helped him acquire the Megasoid (and whose face was mangled in the process). He asks Emmet to help him kill the creature. Emmet realizes pretty quickly that this is not the Henderson James he knows and attempts to call the police. James II coldcocks him and heads to the James mansion, which he now recalls is his home.

He arrives just as the real James is leaving to hopefully enlist Emmet’s aid. He talks with Laura, James’ wife, who is immediately taken with him, since he’s essentially a younger version of James who prioritized her over his work. James returns with Emmet, who has agreed to kill both the Megasoid and James II. While James and his clone hash things out inside, the Megasoid stalks and ultimately kills Emmet.

James sees the error of his ways and is determined to win back his wife’s affections. He and James II set out to kill the Megasoid together, a task at which they succeed… but one of them is killed in the process. Laura, meanwhile, receives a phone call from Jerichau, who informs her that he genetically programmed the clone to die at midnight. The surviving James shows up and, after a brief moment of suspense, reveals that he is the real thing.

.

RANDOMONIUM

               

“The Duplicate Man” is based on Clifford D. Simak’s 1951 short story “Goodnight, Mr. James,” first published in Galaxy Magazine and subsequently included in three Simak anthologies: 1962’s All the Traps of Earth, 1964’s The Night of the Puudly (which changed the story’s title to match the book’s), and 1996’s Over the River &Through the Woods: The Best Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak, which restored the story’s original title (got all that? There’s gonna be a test at the end). Simak’s narrative focuses exclusively on James II; it opens with his blank-slate awakening and traces his dawning awareness of who he is. He finds a pistol on his person and realizes that his mission is to kill an escaped Puudly, who must be stopped before it reproduces. He searches a nearby alien zoo (where he occupies a position of authority, he remembers), and encounters the creature, promptly shooting it down. “You fool, you half-thing, you duplicate…” it croaks as it dies. He journeys to the James mansion, coming to grips with the reality of his existence on the way, and sneaks inside undetected. He inadvertently switches places with the real James, who ends up terminated by mistake, after which he learns that he was engineered to expire after twenty-four hours.

In adapting Simak’s story, Robert C. Dennis expands the story to follow both James and James II, adds several characters, and changes the ending considerably. This is probably his best teleplay for the series (we’ve already seen his work in “Cry of Silence” and “’I, Robot’”; we’ll look at “The Brain of Colonel Barham” in two weeks), thanks in no small measure to the great source material. I assume it was his choice to change the creature’s name from “Puudly” to “Megasoid,” but I’ve gotta say I disagree with it (“Puudly” seems much more appropriate to the final realized creature somehow). And there are a couple of superfluous scenes, which I’ll discuss in a bit… but overall, I have no major objections. The teleplay’s greatest success comes with its exploration of identity and the juxtaposition between the older, cynical James and his “younger,” more vibrant clone (the two never cross paths in the Simak original). The addition of a Mrs. James creates a sense of competition between the two beyond the inherent “there can be only one” problem (never thought you’d see a Highlander reference in these pages, didja?). Given the episode's morose tone, the happy ending is a bit incongruous; if the season one crew had produced this, I imagine they would have gone with the darker, downbeat ending of Simak's original story.

Director of Photography Kenneth Peach adds a nice glossy sheen over much of the episode, adding a subtle ethereal quality to the proceedings (I’m assuming it’s the same filter used in previous episodes to make lights (and here, James’ cuff links!) sparkle like twinkling stars. The photography itself isn’t terribly stylish otherwise; Peach wisely lets the retro-futuristic production design speak for itself. The exception comes in the final moments leading up to the James Twins’ final confrontation with the Megasoid: it’s all close ups of prowling feet and deep shadows in a marvelously tense scene that looks like it was pulled straight out of a 40’s noir film. Just gorgeous.

In the driver’s seat is Gerd Oswald, TOL’s greatest director, acquitting himself nicely after October’s embarrassing “Expanding Human.” Under his expert tutelage, the production weaves clever and subtle futuristic touches throughout. The cars look more or less like 60’s-era vehicles until you glimpse their stylized radiator grills and hear the vaguely electric sound of their engines (the idea of the hybrid engine may very well have started right here). The light-activated drinking fountains have come true, in an approximate way, in the motion-activated paper towel dispensers in the public restrooms of today. And of course we get the quaint videophones, which never really took off in the real world on a telephony level; however, the webcam craze of the 90’s integrated the idea of face-to-face chatting into home computing, and today, we’re FaceTiming and Skyping across the miles using our tiny smartphones (not even Star Trek’s communicators offered video!). And the pistols are augmented with… well, something extra, though they seem to fire regular bullets like their non-futuristic counterparts.

.

The production value gets a boost thanks to the use of the famous Chemosphere House in the Hollywood Hills for the exteriors of Captain Emmet’s residence (the ultra-modern look of which strikes a nice contrast with the stately (read old-fashioned) décor of the James mansion). I first saw the house in Brian De Palma’s 1984 film Body Double when I was about fifteen or so, but I took no notice of it, as my attention was fixated exclusively on the breasts and sex. And breasts.

Speaking of which: am I the only one who gets a fairly strong Maddie Hayes vibe from Constance Towers? Not so much personality-wise, just… I dunno, something about the way she’s all put together (she looks a bit too glamorous for hanging around the house, just as Cybill Shepherd looked a bit too glamorous for the office). I definitely see a resemblance, but your Hot or Not mileage may vary. And I dunno, maybe I’m subconsciously looking for reasons--- thin as they may be--- to reference Moonlighting again in these pages.

I'm a bit hung up on the Megasoid's escape. James keeps it in a barred cell in a locked cellar. Murdock, the gardener, opened the door because he heard strange sounds coming from within, landing him an ass-chewing from James. But what does opening the outer door have to do with the creature ripping the cage apart? Had it been gnawing on the bars just waiting for someone to unlock the outer door? We're told that the creature is telepathic, so couldn't it have simply hypnotized Murdock into freeing it?

We learn that cloning has been outlawed, except for special cases in which--- well, it’s never really clarified, but I’m assuming military and/or law enforcement purposes (it’s strange that there’s a Federal Duplication Bureau at all; stranger still is the fact that it’s apparently accessible by the public… they’ve got a receptionist and everything!). I’m of course reminded of 1982’s Blade Runner (based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), in which artificial humanoids, Replicants, are created to do man’s heavy lifting; the menial physical tasks he no longer wants to endure. Here, James creates his clone to avoid the inherent danger in capturing the escaped Megasoid. Replicants are engineered with a pre-determined lifespan, just like James’s clone. And just like James’s clone, they desire to continue living.

Exposition alert! James goes to the Federal Duplication Bureau to ask the receptionist some extremely elementary questions about the cloning process, which a scientist like himself undoubtedly already knows the answers to. This occurs of course to give viewers a shorthand lesson in the dangers of (and penalties for) Xeroxing oneself, but it feels incredibly unnecessary, particularly since the information could’ve been easily inserted into his conversation with Jerichau in the previous scene. And speaking of Jerichau, if he was discharged from the Bureau eight months prior, how is he able to gain access to the cloning equipment on James’s behalf? Did he keep his key to the back door? Or is it just really easy to break into places (or out, in the Megasoid’s case) in the future?

The Telltale Tail.

The Megasoid appears to recycle* the Empyrian mask from season one’s “Second Chance” with a beak added… um, for what, exactly? I couldn’t say. It’s clearly not an avian creature. Throw in what appears to be an oversized dog costume, complete with fat Muppety tail, and you have yourself a Megasoid. It looks like Snuffleupagus got Big Bird pregnant (or vice versa, I dunno) and this was the result. Oh, and its chompers look like those cheap plastic Dracula teeth found in every single goddamned store in America every October (the ones with the sharp edges that hurt like hell). It’s every bit as stupid-looking as it sounds, and it’s a testament to the writing and production that the episode manages to succeed in spite of it. It’s like The Twilight Zone’s “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” all over again, with its laughable furry Gremlin adding unintended comedy to an otherwise tense and well-executed story.

Then again, TZ’s Gremlin didn’t talk…. but the Megasoid does, for one scene with James II, using a warbling cartoonish voice that renders it even more ridiculous, painfully ruining any menace achieved by its hulking size and constant growling (so yeah, it might actually be worse than the Gremlin). Dammit, why does it have to talk at all? In the Simak story, the Puudly is telepathic, so… well, I guess we still would’ve needed a voiceover, so never mind. The voice is the problem, not the fact that it verbalizes, but since the creature’s telepathy is all but eliminated in the TV adaptation, its dialogue could’ve easily been assigned elsewhere.

I like the idea of a zoo full of stuffed aliens (I like the idea of zoo full of live aliens even more; I just re-read Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 recently), and I find the critters on display delightful… in fact, I greatly prefer them (the Imwarf and the Puudly) to the Megasoid.  However, this was a golden (and sadly missed) opportunity to include some choice cameos by earlier series monsters, a finale encore of sorts as the show was winding down. Imagine an exhibit featuring the Chromoite, the Thetan, the Box Demon and the Ichthyosaurus Mercurius!

During the zoo tour, a female student turns around and glares at somebody behind her for no apparent reason. I'm not sure why, but it cracks me up every time (it's oddly comforting that teenage girls are still bitchy in the future). And what's up with tour guide's lunchbox? Do lunchboxes have built-in microwave ovens in 2025? Or is he borrowing the zoo's Roomba?

.

DEJA VIEW

The Empyrian/Megasoid mask would be used a couple of years later in “The Cage,” the original Star Trek pilot (blink and you’ll miss it)*. And I can’t confirm this, but some online sources claim that the cowl covering Captain Emmet’s facial disfigurement is used in the Trek episode “The Conscience of the King.” It looks kinda similar, but I dunno. Grain of salt, your mileage may vary, yadda yadda yadda.

.

AURAL PLEASURE

Like all second season episodes, the underscore for “The Duplicate Man” comes from Harry Lubin’s vast library of stock cues, many of which were first heard on One Step Beyond. This week's assemblage includes several brooding, ethereal bits including:

Spooks Appear (1 and 2)

Other World 1

Alien Alarm

Danger Steps

Violent Death

.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

We’ve been spoiled of late by copious genre cast connections; more specifically, connections that I can easily obtain screen captures for (we see a lot of crossover with I Spy, The Invaders, Star Trek, The Fugitive and The Twilight Zone, all of which I either own or can get off Netflix). This week’s cast required me to check out several DVDs from the freakin’ library of all places (sheesh, the things I do for you people!).

Ron Randell, here doing double duty as Henderson James and James II, doesn’t have much in the way of genre connections. He did appear on Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond (“Contact”), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (“Thou Still Unravished Bride”) and the two-part “The Contender” on Mission: Impossible, a series which starred TOL veteran Martin Landau. Randell also appeared in a pair of seriously offbeat theatrical endeavors: he co-starred in 1956’s The She-Creature (a film bad enough to be featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000) and headlined 1961's Most Dangerous Man Alive, in which he played an irradiated man on the warpath (it's unavailable on home video, but I found it here).

Constance Towers (Laura James) hasn’t done much genre work either. Her first acting credit came in “Seeing-Eye Surgeon” on Tales of Tomorrow in 1952; after her appearance here, it would be 29 years (!) before she’d take another sci-fi gig (“The Forsaken” on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in 1993). More recently, she appeared in “Audrey Parker’s Come and Gone” on The 4400 in 2007. On the big screen, she had a minor role in 1997’s The Relic.

Sean McClory (Captain Karl Emmet) should be a bit more recognizable to genre fans. His credits include stints on Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“Appointment at Eleven” and “Place of Shadows”), Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond (“The Inheritance”), Boris Karloff’s Thriller (“The Hollow Watcher” and “The Specialists”), and “The Long Patrol” on the original Battlestar Galactica.

Basil Jerichau is played by Steven Geray, who I know from several classic film noirs, including The Dark Past (1948), In a Lonely Place (1950), The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), and A Bullet for Joey (1955). He also played Dr. Rudolph Frankenstein in 1966’s Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter, which I’ve never seen… but I can only assume it’s as terrible as it sounds (it's surprising that it didn't get the MST3K treatment!). On the small screen, he appeared on Adventures of Superman (“The Deadly Rock”) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (“The Deadly Goddess Affair”).

Murdock the gardener is played by Konstantin Shayne, the only visible TOL alum in the cast this week (he played the Astrophysics Professor who testified in season one’s “O.B.I.T.” and gave us all a lump in our collective throat). Shayne also has film noir cred, turning in appearances in The Stranger (1946), Cry of the City (1948) and I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951). He appeared twice on Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“Safe Conduct” and “Flight to the East," both pictured below), which led to a role in Hitch’s big-screen masterpiece (and my all-time favorite film) Vertigo (also pictured below).

.
The zoo tour guide is played by Alan Gifford, whose résumé features two very interesting genre connections. He appeared briefly in 1974’s Phase IV, an intelligent-ants-on-the-rampage opus directed by legendary graphic designer Sal Bass (designer of countless memorable film credit sequences, including the aforementioned Vertigo). Gifford’s other claim to sci-fi fame? He played Dr. Frank Poole’s father in a little indie film by Stanley Kubrick called 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968. This association alone gives him immeasurable sci-fi cred in my book (he utters the line “See you next Wednesday,” which would inspire John Landis to feature the phrase in every single goddamned thing he’d ever direct, including 1983’s Twilight Zone: The Movie and the music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” in 1985).

.

Mike Lane (above left), who inhabited the Ikar suit two weeks ago in “Keeper of the Purple Twilight,” returns to inhabit the Megasoid costume. Miss Thorson, the receptionist at the Federal Duplication Bureau, is played by Ivy Bethune (above center), whose other genre roles include appearances on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (she played a nurse in the audaciously weird “Consider Her Ways”), the short-lived 1985 series Otherworld (“I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar”), and Star Trek: The Next Generation (“When the Bough Breaks”). The police officer who drops James off at Emmet's swanky bachelor pad is played by Jeffrey Stone (above right), whose only other genre credit is Universal's The Thing that Couldn't Die in 1958 (another film, um, honored by MST3K). Finally, Jonathan Hole is credited as playing an unnamed pedestrian, but I can't find him anywhere in the episode. A deleted scene, perhaps? In any case, he's visible in episodes of The Twilight Zone (“The Mighty Casey,” playing the team doctor; pictured below with Abraham Sofaer, who played Arch in “Demon with a Glass Hand”), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (“Power of Attorney”), Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond (“The Day the World Wept: The Lincoln Story”), and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (“The Sort of Do-It-Yourself Dreadful Affair”).

Clockwise from top left: an Ikarified Mike Lane, Ivy Bethune, Jonathan Hole, and Jeffrey Stone.

.

HOME VIDEO RELEASES

“The Duplicate Man” hit VHS in 1991, one of the last episodes to be released on home video. It has what is probably the weirdest cover in the entire collection (it’s not necessarily the worst, but it really sticks out with all that blank space). It was paired with “’I, Robot’” for its inclusion in Columbia House’s mail-order exclusive collection.

“The Duplicate Man” was among the lucky 28 episodes to get the deluxe LaserDisc treatment; you’ll find in the third volume,which was released in 1994 (30 years after it first aired, which means this LD is 20 years old).

The series’ second season has seen three distinct DVD releases and, no matter which one you get, you’ll find “The Duplicate Man" at the start of the final disc. The downside here is that all three employ the failure-prone DVD-18 format (dual-layered and double-sided). The LaserDisc may just last longer (hell, the VHS tapes may outlive ‘em all).

Or you can ignore physical media altogether and surf your way over to Hulu, where all 49 episodes can be streamed for free in standard definition. You can’t get the series in anything better than standard definition resolution anyway, since MGM continues to refuse to release the show on Blu-Ray… so yeah, you might as well save yourself some money and go the Hulu route.

.

TRADING CARD CORNER

There are no legitimate trading cards commemorating “The Duplicate Man”; however, the Megasoid showed up in one of four digital parody cards by David and Mark Holcomb (of Behind Transmission Control fame).

.

MERCHANDISE SPOTLIGHT

As is the case with most Outer Limits episodes, the only commemorative and/or collectible artifacts come in the form of model kits from Dimensional Designs, and “The Duplicate Man” is no different. You can obtain your very own 1/6-scale Megasoid (DD/OL/ME-12), sculpted by Takeshi Yoneda. Given its larger size, expect to pay more ($69.00 plus shipping). I’m gonna go on record right now and state that I really don’t like this one at all. I mean, of course I hate the Megasoid, but the rearing-up-on-its-haunches pose doesn't help its admittedly hopeless case. I would’ve preferred the critter in its crouched hiding-in-plain-sight-in-the-zoo pose (as in the Holcomb card above), but that’s just me. Here’s a shot of a completed specimen… I couldn’t tell you who’s responsible for it.

.

THE WRAP-UP

Replace that ridiculous Megasoid with… well, just about anything else, and “The Duplicate Man” would rate quite high in the season two rankings (not quite “Demon with a Glass Hand” levels, but close). It pains me to no end that such a lovely, atmospheric study of the fracturing of a man’s identity is so severely undermined by such a lame monster design. I still like the episode a lot though... and for my money, it's the last great Outer Limits episode.

* Correction! According to Schow, the Megasoid mask (at least the face area) was cast from the same mold as the Empyrian mask, but is not the same mask. It was the Empyrian mask that showed up later on Star Trek. The management and staff here at MLITGOTOL once again tips its collective hat in thanks.