Episode Spotlight: "The Probe" (1/16/1965)

“The Probe”

Season 2, Episode 17 (49 overall)

Originally aired 1/16/1965

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

                               --- T.S. Eliot (The Hollow Men)

Fifty years ago tonight, The Outer Limits unspooled its final “great adventure” for the loyal fans that were still tuning in after the Brady regime had scraped away most of the show’s brilliant first-season luster with a crowbar. It opened on a cargo plane, flying through some scary-looking storm clouds, carrying Amanda Frank to her wedding in Tokyo... but that pesky Ma Nature just ain’t having it. Coberly, the pilot, attempts to avoid certain disaster by flying into the eye of the hurricane... and everyone promptly blacks out. They wake up in the plane’s inflatable life raft in a swirl of fog, but quickly discover that they aren’t floating in the ocean: they’re inside a large structure with plastic flooring.

Strange mists and beams of energy are directed toward the raft, one of which nearly freezes Navigator Dexter to death. Coberly, Amanda and Jefferson Rome (the group’s de facto leader), set out to explore while Dexter stays behind to warm up and radio for help. A bulbous, slithering blob appears out of nowhere and appears to swallow him. Rome launches into some serious scattershot and baseless theorize and determines that they’re trapped inside a gigantic microscope of alien origin, an automated interstellar probe roaming the galaxy for research purposes. They too encounter the bloblike creature, which Rome figures is a mutated microbe that’s somehow immune to the probe’s super-hygienic design. The probe’s internal mechanisms douse the trio with a chemical repellent that protects them from the microbe’s advances, at which point it occurs to them to try to communicate with the alien scientists who are likely monitoring the probe from afar.

Amanda pleads with the unseen aliens to set them free before the probe leaves Earth for its next destination (which the group has determined to be Venus, thanks to a convenient map incorporated into the probe’s machinery). All seems lost when suddenly the group finds themselves outside the probe, adrift in their raft, with help on the way to pick them up. Flying back to civilization, they see the probe rise upward into the sky---- and promptly explode. They surmise that the aliens destroyed it to prevent the microbe from infesting Earth, and deduce that, some day, the aliens will return.

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RANDOMONIUM

“The Probe,” which was both the final Outer Limits episode produced and the final to air, was written by Seeleg Lester from a story idea by Sam Neuman. In the director’s chair was Felix Feist (director of 1953’s Donovan’s Brain, which The Outer Limits kinda blatantly ripped off for “The Brain of Colonel Barham” two weeks ago). Feist directed a few film noirs (1947’s The Devil Thumbs a Ride, 1949’s The Threat, and The Man Who Cheated Himself in 1950) and, after his work here, would direct six episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea before passing away in 1965.

The director of photography duties were split between Kenneth Peach and Fred Koenekamp (I’m not sure why; perhaps Peach was already gone when pickups and/or re-shoots were required). Koenekamp served on a whopping 90 episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (a series which starred TOL alum David McCallum), two episodes of Mission: Impossible (a series which starred TOL alum Martin Landau), and the pilot episode of Tales of the Gold Monkey in 1982 (which didn’t feature any TOL vets, but it’s a show that I enjoyed the hell out of). His theatrical cinematography credits include genre releases like The Swarm (1977), the original Amityville Horror (1979), and (deep breath) The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8^th Dimension (1984).

The show’s cancellation had already been announced when production on this final episode started, so it’s hard to imagine Brady and Company breaking a sweat trying to achieve anything remarkable. And… yeah, it shows. There’s so little here to grab onto in terms of story or character development that the entire affair just feels vacuous and pointless. Every character is flat and indistinct; we aren’t given an ounce of information about any of them. We know that Amanda is about to get married, and that the crew is flying her to Tokyo to meet her fiancé, but that gives us no insight into her connection to them, or who she is, or what she does for a living, or why she’s getting married in Tokyo, or how the crew knows her to begin with, or where they took off from. We do learn about halfway in that she majored in ancient languages in college, but that fact ultimately has no bearing on anything. Now, I’m not the type who necessarily requires three-dimensional lifelike characters to enjoy a good story… if that’s what it is: a good story. This ain’t, primarily due to the lack of focus in the story or, more to the point, the lack of story in general. It’s basically four people inexplicably stuck in a strange location with virtually no help from anyone (unlike the Darcys last week, this group doesn’t even have a Limbo Being to sashay in to drop clues), who eventually figure out their situation and somehow survive/escape it. The episode is somewhat reminiscent of The Twilight Zone’s “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” and not just because the two share similar themes: the giant half-circle set piece donation barrel used in that episode, which reappeared as the space craft’s fuselage in “The Inheritors, Part II,” is on hand here as part of the oversized interior of the probe.

So we’re facing a dearth of believable characters and a lack of story. What’s left? Might there be some other aspect of the production that can provide a least a modicum of relief for the viewer, rendering the experience at least semi-bearable? I’m happy to report that there is: the visuals. The sets and effects are the best thing about the episode, a surprising achievement given the lack of money and time invested. The probe set ---- essentially three connected rooms--- is spacious and enormous, lending an impressive sense of scale (and an automatic boost to the production value). There’s a curious lack of close-ups throughout most of the episode; everything is shot medium or long, which contributes to the illusion that our heroes are in a large environment (this may or may not have been intentional; it’s entirely possible that there wasn’t enough time to get sufficient coverage). There’s a nice surreal quality to the imagery, starting with the (quite effective) reveal that the lift raft is sitting on a hard floor instead of floating in the ocean. It’s just plain eerie to watch the various gasses and mists moving toward the characters slowly and purposefully, as if alive and sentient (remember Finley’s energy cloud in “The Man with the Power” and the Energy Being in “It Crawled out of the Woodwork”?). The glass tubes that envelope the characters to “inoculate” them against the Microbial Menace™ are glorious from a pulp sci-fi standpoint, and hearken back to season one’s “A Feasibility Study.”

Question: is Jeff the captain of the cargo plane’s crew? He assumes the leadership role, despite the fact he's only the radio operator. Coberly is the pilot, but he clearly defers to Jeff in all respects. And Amanda is a passenger, yet she pours coffee for the crew and hands out life vests as if she’s a stewardess. I dunno, maybe she's working off the price of the flight...? The guys refer to her as "babe" and "honey," so she may be doing more than just flight-attendanting.

Mikie, the series’ final alien antagonist, is embarrassingly ridiculous. It’s not as bad as last week’s Limbo Being, but it’s not far off. It’s hysterically awful, but it does work as comedy relief in an otherwise dour and humorless story (I chuckle every time I see it, so it definitely succeeds on that level). It’s an oversized microbe, an organism too simple for facial features, but I swear to god it’s got a goddamned face. There’s one shot where it turns toward the camera and damn it all, it’s got eyes, or little holes that look like eyes. I hate to say it, but the damned thing is kinda cute. It takes on an almost canine demeanor, toothlessly menacing our heroes like a skittish and tentative dog lacking any formal guard training. When the globular critter divides and multiplies, its diminutive offspring (let’s call it Mini-Mikie™) possesses a wiggling phalange of sorts that could easily be interpreted as a wagging tail. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that, when it shimmies its way up onto the life raft, it engages in some decidedly doglike behavior… yeah, that’s right, it totally humps that thing.

Woof, baby, woof.

So the mysterious alien race is presumably benevolent, since they safely return our heroes and then destroy their probe to prevent Mikie the Malevolent Microbe™ from infecting Earth… why, then, do they destruct the probe in our atmosphere, where its remnants will fall into our ocean and very possibly lead to the very catastrophe they’re striving to avert? They may not be as intelligent (or as benevolent) as they appear.

I received a rather humorous e-mail from my friend David J. Schow,* author of The Outer Limits Companion (or, if you’re me, The Holy Bible), the other day. He happens to own all 49 Outer Limits episodes on 16mm film, many (if not all) containing the commercials shown during the original broadcasts (!). In honor of “The Probe” turning 50, he dug his print out and---- well, I’ll just hand him the mic and let him tell the tale himself:

I swear I was gonna do you a solid.  Watch "The Probe."  Send images and a list of the commercials that were broadcast thereof, the consumer items The Outer Limits was "brought to you by" on this particular swan-song week.

Threaded it up.  That print probably hasn't projected for 15 years at least.

And the drive wheel inside the projector goes sproooooinggg!

And I dismantle the thing but cannot ascertain the nature of the malfunction (other than by saying, "Projector broke.")

Minutes before I had unreeled a commercial mailed to me by a friend -- supposedly an Outer Limits spot but it turned out to be a trailer for a Sherlock Holmes movie.  All was well.

Yes, "The Probe" was so awful that my projector refused to show it.

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DEJA VIEW

Mikie the Microbial Horndog™ would resurface, in modified form with a splashy paint job, as the tunneling Horta creature in Star Trek’s “The Devil in the Dark” in 1968.  But this isn’t just a case of a reused costume or prop: Janos Prohaska, the man inside the microbe, climbed back in to play the Horta, giving us one last Outer Limits-Star Trek connection before we amble off into the sunset.

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AURAL PLEASURE

“The Probe” affords us one final dip into the deep pool that is Harry Lubin’s library of stock music. Selections swimming their way to the top this week include "Hostile Space," which appears multiple times throughout the episode, along with "Imminent Ambush" and "Dark and Scary." There are others, to be sure, but... yeah, I'm done trying to identify these goddamned cues.

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DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Mark Richman (Jefferson Rome) has a long list of sci-fi/fantasy/horror TV credits, and is a Daystar Productions vet to boot: he starred in season one’s “The Borderland” after a guest appearance on Stoney Burke (“The Journey,” that series’ final episode) the year before. You’ll find him on The Twilight Zone (“The Fear”), The Fugitive (“Ballad for a Ghost” and “The Last Oasis”), The Invaders (“The Leeches” and “Inquisition”), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“Man with a Problem” and “The Cure”), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (“The Seven Wonders of the World, Parts I and II”), and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (“the Monster’s Web” and “Secret of the Deep”). In my lifetime (1969 onward), he appeared on Mission: Impossible (“Gitano,” “My Friend, My Enemy” and “Underground”), Galactica 1980 (“The Night the Cylons Landed, Parts I and II”), The Incredible Hulk (“Triangle”), and Star Trek: The Next Generation (“The Neutral Zone”). You may also recognize him from the comedy masterpiece Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989).

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Peggy Ann Garner (Amanda Frank) ain’t no slouch in the genre connections department. She popped up on Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“Victim Four”), Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond (“Tonight at 12:17”) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (“The Project Strigas Affair," which also guest-starred TOL alum William Shatner). She can also be found in the Fox film noirs Daisy Kenyon (1947) and Black Widow (1954) and, even further back, played Young Jane alongside a young Elizabeth Taylor in the opening scenes of 1943’s Jane Eyre (also from Fox).

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William Boyett (Co-Pilot Beeman, that poor sumbitch) holds the sole Robert Culp connection this week (he appeared in “The Tiger” on I Spy). Boyett’s other genre credits of note include appearances on The Invaders (“Summit Meeting, Part I”), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“Silent Witness”), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (“The Dividing Wall” and “Beast in View”), Mission: Impossible (“Leona,” which also guest-starred Dewey Martin from last week’s “The Premonition”), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (“The Secret Sceptre Afffair” and “The Man from THRUSH Affair”), The Incredible Hulk (“Veteran”), Circle of Fear (“The Ghost of Potter’s Field”), Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories (“Alamo Jobe”), and Star Trek: The Next Generation (“The Big Goodbye” and “Time’s Arrow, Part II”). On the big screen, he played an unnamed crewman in 1956’s Forbidden Planet.

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Wriggling around on the floor under a thick layer of silver latex as Mikie the Microbe is Janos Prohaska, who also inhabited the elaborate Thetan costume in “The Architects of Fear” and played Darwin the chimpanzee in “The Sixth Finger.” As previously mentioned, Prohaska would don the Mikie costume again in Star Trek’s “The Devil in the Dark,” which was one of a total four Treks he’d appear in (he also brought to life the Mugato in “A Private Little War,” Yarnek the Living Boulder in “The Savage Curtain,” and both the Anthropoid Ape and the Humanoid Bird--- which was the Empyrian costume from TOL’s “Second Chance”--- for “The Cage”). He also played Heloise, a female chimp, in 1971’s Escape from the Planet of the Apes.

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Ron Hayes (Pilot “Cobe” Coberly) has a pretty paltry selection of genre credits outside of The Outer Limits: a single stint on The Invaders (“Valley of the Shadow": below left) and two on The Bionic Woman (“The Jailing of Jaime” and “Sister Jaime”). William Stevens (Navigator Dexter), meanwhile, doesn’t have any genre credits outside of The Outer Limits, but he does hold the unique honor of appearing in both the very first--- and very last--- episodes (he played a police officer in “The Galaxy Being”; below right).

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HOME VIDEO RELEASES

“The Probe” was released on VHS in 1991, one of the remaining dozen episodes that hadn’t been released up to that point. But retail wasn’t the only game in town: Columbia House offered the series in a mail-order “Collector’s Edition” subscription series, which offered two episodes per tape (“The Probe” was paired with its predecessor, last week’s “The Premonition”).

MGM released the episodes on VHS in groups of three, ignoring both the original broadcast schedule and production order (they focused on the more iconic episodes early on, which I guess makes sense from a fiscal standpoint). This approached carried over into the LaserDisc releases, which collected eight random episodes in each volume (volumes three and four contain six episodes each, however). How random, you ask? “The Probe,” certainly not one of the show’s better efforts, was included in the second set, ahead of classics like “The Sixth Finger” (volume three) and “O.B.I.T.” (volume four). I know, it boggles the mind.

The arrival of the DVD format, which quickly made both VHS and LaserDisc obsolete, fixed this randomness with full season sets in 2002 (season one) and 2003 (season two). Suddenly it was possible to own the entire series and only sacrifice three inches on one’s video shelf (as opposed to the four feet a complete set of the VHS tapes required; half that if you went the Columbia House route). How could you not love MGM? Here’s how: they subsequently released the exact same discs two more times in different packaging (in 2007 and 2008) without once remastering the episodes or producing a single supplement (documentary, commentary track, etc.); worse, they still haven’t brought the series into the high definition realm.

But this is the Digital Age now, so who wants to hassle with physical media at all? Throw your VHS tapes and DVDs into a landfill, kids, because you can stream the entire series from the Holy and Benevolent Cloud that hovers invisibly overhead, keeping our entertainment heritage safe forever (or until the internet collapses). All 49 episodes are available on Hulu Plus, which costs $7.99 per month (despite this paragraph’s heavy sarcasm, it's actually a really great deal).

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MERCHANDISE SPOTLIGHT

Dimensional Designs has released resin model kits for most of the monsters and aliens that inhabit The Outer Limits, and their website does list a Mikie Microbe Monster (gawd, the three M’s!) kit, sculpted by Danny Soracco in the 1/8 scale (DD/OL/MM-37); however, there’s no price listed and no option for ordering. So maybe it was planned but scrapped….? I dunno.

The closest you can get to owning your own Mikie would be to pick up Diamond Select’s action figure diorama commemorating Star Trek’s “Devil in the Dark,” which includes a Mr. Spock action figure and the Horta. Pick up a can of silver spray paint and you’re all set. Or you can endeavor to make your own… like I did. That’s right, bugs and ghouls, it’s time for one last Project Limited, Ltd.!

So I could’ve taken a couple of different paths with this one. My first impulse was to twist a bunch of silver balloons together, since Mikie is somewhat puffy looking. But I felt compelled to sculpt, to squish my fingers in something cold and sticky and, y'now, create. But I was also mindful that every one of these projects invariably ends up in the garbage, so I wanted something that would, y’now, reduce my carbon footprint or whatever. Teresa was watching one of the endless cooking competitions on the Food Network in the background as I mused, which inspired me to make an edible Mikie, which would minimize waste (other than the time I’d be wasting, but I clearly have a lot of that on my hands). It was decided. I dug a pound of ground beef out of the freezer and went to work.

Turns out Mikie’s quite tasty with a slatherin’ of barbecue sauce.

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THE WRAP-UP

Here we are: the end of the line. Final episodes are rarely satisfying (exceptions include Breaking Bad’s “Felina” and Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “All Good Things…,” both of which are excellent; don’t even get me started on that bullshit Lost finale). The Outer Limits certainly deserved a great sendoff, but it just wasn’t meant to be (some will argue that the show actually died with the departure of Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano at the end of the season one, a point of view that I can't argue with, even though I don't really share it). “The Probe” does have its moments (well, maybe one or two)… and lots of cool visuals… and that damned Mikie is almost charming, but… there’s just nothing here to latch onto or care about. Fifty-one years and six months ago, The Outer Limits took control of television sets across America and, fifty years ago tonight, relinquished it one last time with nothing more than a feeble blip.

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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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

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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).

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.