Rating: 
Summary: Season One a Well-seasoned One
Review: The original 1960s version of THE OUTER LIMITS is arguably one of the best science-fiction series ever created for television. The writing was fresh, innovative, and literate, and episode plots were often inspired by the real-life scientific and social issues of the day. True, the show's limited budget sometimes resulted in cheesy special effects, but the producers and their crews worked hard to ensure that the stories were of the highest quality. Even though the series lasted only two seasons, the intelligence and overall quality of the program have helped it to remain an influential sci-fi favorite for more than 40 years.This set of DVDs contains the entire first season of THE OUTER LIMITS, which originally aired during the 1963-1964 TV season. Many fans and critics regard this to be the best of the two seasons, but that is highly debated by fans and critics who feel the second season to be superior. Whatever the case may be, there are definitely some standout episodes in Season One. Some of those include: "The Zanti Misfits" is a story that addresses, among other things, the issues of overcrowded prisons and capital punishment. When Earth agrees to incarcerate criminals from the planet Zanti, the Earthlings learn that they aren't quite prepared to deal with the gangsters, racketeers, and murderers from another planet. (This remains to this day one of the most popular episodes among the show's ardent fans.) In "The Man Who Was Never Born," an 20th-century astronaut inadvertently travels through a time-warp to Earth's future, where he learns that the human race is doomed to extinction as the result of a biological experiment designed by a 20th-century scientist. When the astronaut and one of the last members of the human race decide to return to the 20th century and prevent the disaster, they learn that toying with history and destiny comes with a high price. In "The Architects of Fear," a group of the world's great thinkers decide that the only way to unite Earth's warring nations is to give them a common non-terrestrial enemy to battle--so they cook one up in the laboratory. A myriad of actors and actresses who would later go on to become big stars appeared in various first-season episodes. This estimable group includes Cliff Robertson, Robert Culp, Donald Pleasence, David McCallum, Martin Landau, Sally Kellerman, Martin Sheen, Edward Asner, Bruce Dern, Dabney Coleman, Carroll O'Connor, Richard Dawson, Russell Johnson, Marion Ross, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Duvall, Vera Miles, and Barbara Rush. The producer during this first season was Joseph Stefano, probably better known to non-genre fans as the screenwriter who adapted Robert Bloch's novel to the big screen for Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO. There have been alot of complaints circulating regarding the picture quality of this DVD set, and it is true that there seems to have been little, if any, work done in the digital restoration of these wonderful sci-fi teleplays. This is unfortunate, because some of the episodes do show minor amounts of scratches, spots, and other wear artifacts. However, these are DVDs, so the picture quality is still quite acceptable and does not include any of the tape-noise artifacts or signs of tape wear that consumers suffered through with the previously released VHS editions. All in all, Season One of THE OUTER LIMITS makes a fine addition to the DVD collection of any science fiction fan. (NOTE: The four-star rating does take the non-restored picture quality into account, as well as the fact that the DVDs do not offer any special features or extras. Otherwise, this DVD set would earn a five-star rating.)
Rating: 
Summary: We will control the vertical
Review: This set is stated to have 416 minutes running time and 32 episodes. Ya Think! Do the math - 32 one hour episodes (about 45 minutes TV time) = 1440 minutes. Sets this size are generally 12 discs deep (and there are 48 aired episodes of the The Outer Limits, not 32). I guess we'll have to wait to see this set's actual composition. In any case here's a complete list of the original Outer Limits episodes. 1. The Galaxy Being
2. The Hundred Days Of The Dragon
3. The Architects Of Fear
4. The Man With The Power
5. The Sixth Finger
6. The Man Who Was Never Born
7. O.B.I.T.
8. The Human Factor
9. The Corpus Earthling
10. Nightmare
11. It Crawled Out Of The Woodwork
12. The Borderland
13. Tourist Attraction
14. The Zanti Misfits
15. The Mice
16. Controlled Experiment
17. Don't Open Till Doomsday
18. ZZZZZZ
19. The Invisibles
20. TheBellero Shield
21. The Children Of Spider County
22. Second Chance
23. Specimen: Unknown
24. Moonstone 25. The Mutant
26. The Guest 27. Fun And Games
28. The Special One
29. A Feasibility Study
30. Production And Decay Of Small Particles
31. The Chameleon
32. Things Unknown
33. The Soldier
34. Cold Hands Warm Heart
35. Behold Eck!
36. Expanding Human
37. Demon With A Glass Hand
38. Cry Of Silence
39. The Invisible Enemy
40. Wolf 359
41. I Robot
42. The Inheritors Pt.1
43. The Inheritors Pt.2
44. Keeper Of The Purple Twilight
45. The Duplicate Man
46. Counterweight
47. The Brain Of Colonel Barham
48. The Premonition
49. Probe
Rating: 
Summary: 'Outer' Pasture
Review: I received this series set from a friend who thought my love of The Twilight Zone would make it a good gift. I had never seen Outer Limits before, but was anxious to experience this show I continually heard referred to as groundbreaking and highly imaginative. I know this is heresy, but I found it neither. Here are my three major reasons why: 1. Each episode starts with a teaser-type prologue that immediately shows some of the most shocking or interesting scenes. This destroys the mystery of the show to follow as we've already seen the hideous monster or know the twist. I just wound up fast-forwarding through them. 2. The episodes are padded. Almost all of them would be much more powerful if they were 30 minutes instead of hour-long episodes. Many feature scenes of the most mundane 'action' repeated over and over again (scientists at control panels, cars driving down roads, etc.). Others feature characters endlessly talking about ramifications when what we really want to see is what's happening to the hapless victim. If these extraneous scenes were cut out, I could see myself enjoying them much more. 3. The show is too moralistic. Too many episodes revolve around man's cruelty and our needing to learn to live in peace with one another. It's a great theme to explore, but when most of the 32-episode season deals with it, it gets tiring and worse, preachy. I realize The Twilight Zone fell into this trap too, but I find it telling that some of TWZ most memorable episodes are ones about supernatural circumstances and our reactions to them. The series is best at creating an uneasy mood - a feeling that anything can happen. The lighting was something I marveled at in almost every episode. My gazing was made all the easier by the crisp and clear transfer which delivers a black and white that rarely devolves into the dreaded gray and washed out look of some older films. My only qualm with the DVD presentation would be the decision to not include any bonus material at all. Series sets demand at least a documentary on the shows creation. Although I wouldn't recommend this series to the uninitiated, it's sure to please long-time fans.
Rating:
Summary: Thanks MGM/United Artists
Review: I got my set yesterday and have watched three episodes, The Sixth Finger, The Man Who Was Never Born and Corpus Earthling. So far I haven't found any problems with the discs (several people have), the picture quality is excellent and the sound is decent. This series rates second on my top five list of sci-fi television series, Star Trek (original), The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, The Invaders and Dark Skies (an incredible series that ran for only one season, on I believe NBC, in the nineties). I was eight years old when The Outer Limits premiered, it scared me to death then and it still does. Watch the camera shots of David McCallum as he changes into a superhuman in The Sixth Finger or the scene in Corpus Earthling when Robert Culp returns to the isolated house to find his wife (Salome Jens) supposedly sleeping. Although some of the special effects were ...primitive by todays Industrial Light and Magic standards, the series is a classic and works without the profanity and gore that is present in the garbage that passes as entertainment in contemporary media. It's amazing what can be done with black and white film and some very talented actors, writers and directors. This set is an incredible bargain ... Now if MGM/United Artists will just release Pee-wee's Playhouse on DVD I'll be really happy.
Rating:
Summary: A treasure of TV nostalgia.
Review: I've only watched four of the episodes in this collection so far, but that's enough to be able to say unequivocally that this set is worth purchasing for anyone who remembers the good old days of science fiction on TV. I was only 10 years old when Outer Limits originally aired, and yet some of the images from those programs have remained with me to this day, well into my dotage. I fervently hope a second DVD set will be released, containing episodes 33-49. That would included Harlan Ellison's "Demon with a Glass Hand," the all-time top-rated episode, as well as "Soldier," also written by Ellison, and "The Inheritors," the only two-parter from the series. Not to mention "Wolf 359," a title that should ring a bell with Star Trek fans.
I applaud the notion of eliminating the useless labels on each disk and packing 32 episodes onto 4 disks. I wish more collections would adopt this strategy.
In short, buy this set if you want to take a very pleasant trip back through time. Great TV!
Rating:
Summary: "Heroes Die Alone"
Review: This 32 - episode, 4 - disc set collects the entire first season of the seminal Leslie Stevens - Joseph Stephano science fiction series of the early Sixties. Unlike the often lyrical, soft - focus mysticism of its competitor, the Twilight Zone, the equally moralistic Outer Limits ostensibly bolstered the pivotal role rationality and the scientific method play in man's attempt to grasp, understand, and control the universe. On closer examination, however, the real theme of the series -- man's paralyzing anxiety when faced with the failure of reason and the disturbing limitations of science -- becomes painfully evident. Despite its constant stream of thoughtful committees, square - jawed scientists, orderly laboratories, and progressive hardware, the shadowy, cynical world of the Outer Limits is one even more aggressively haunted by the pettiness of human nature and the presence of the daimonic than that of Rod Serling's more popular series. Viewers should keep in mind that writer, producer, and overall key player Joseph Stephano wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' (1960), one of the pivotal American films of the 20th Century. A field day for students of popular culture, the included episodes offer a time capsule bloated with influential ideas and creative talent that have subsequently enjoyed a significant impact in a wide variety of mediums. The never - bettered first episode, "The Galaxy Being," would have delighted the Surrealists; "The Architects of Fear" utilizes an idea that Alan Moore would adopt 25 years later for 'The Watchmen' (1986); and "The Man with the Power" may have inspired Stan Lee's and Jack Kirby's creation of Magneto, a comic book villain still gaining popularity 30 years after his debut. "100 Days of the Dragon" combines 'The Manchurian Candidate' (1962) with 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' (1956), while the series' grimmest hour, "Corpus Earthling," looked visually back on 'The Invisible Invaders' (1959) and 'Carnival of Souls' (1962) and forward to 'Night Of The Living Dead' (1968). "Don't Open Until Doomsday" combines a hatbox - sized spaceship and a cyclopean alien invader with Billy Wilder's 'Sunset Boulevard' (1951). The fanciful special effects in "Moonstone" and "The Bellero Shield" occasionally recall George Melies' groundbreaking "A Trip To The Moon' (1902). The giant ants of 'Them!' (1954) are reduced to 12 inches, given peevish clown's faces, and set upon murderous sociopath Bruce Dern in the existential camp classic "The Zanti Misfits." "ZZZZZ" reverses the human - into - insect formula of 'The Fly' (1958) and 'The Wasp Woman' (1959), and unlike feline Irena Dubrovna in 'The Cat People' (1942), the episode's queen bee - turned - woman gleefully indulges her murderous sexuality. "The Guests" blends 'the old dark house' genre with an erudite, attic - dwelling space monster that resembles a cross between an enormous clutching grouper and reproductive organs of the female sperm whale. After a forcible first encounter in the dark, the defiant young hero is asked, "Did you submit to it?" Both "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork" and "Production And Decay of Strange Particles" further develop the nuclear horror of 'Kiss Me Deadly' (1955), while "O.B.I.T." brilliantly predicts today's world of mass surveillance and evaporating privacy. The courageous fairytale bride of "The Man Who Had Never Been Born" recalls dauntless heroine Janet of the British folk ballad 'Tam Lin,' and "The Borderland" is hard evidence that some of the most dramatic and fully realized segments of the program were monster - free. "The Children of Spider County" centers around an extended homosexual metaphor: five young men of mysterious paternity, "exceptional looks and intellect," and "magnificent special natures" are reminded that "different is not necessarily abnormal," even if the "witch boys" spend their nights "walking in moon - lit meadows" by themselves. Sidelong, up and down glances at the handsome protagonist by ostensibly suspicious policemen punctuate the proceedings. Additionally, power - mad housewife Sally Kellerman and sinister housekeeper Chita Rivera appear to enjoy a lesbian relationship in "The Bellero Shield." Government complexes that hum ominously in the night, lax security, sterile desert landscapes, guilt - haunted personalities, prisoner - exchange programs, nighttime electrical storms, and shrewish wives are some of the series' reoccurring motifs. Psychological jargon abounds: a psychiatrist named 'Sigmund' features in "The Man with the Power," which was clearly influenced by 1956's 'Forbidden Planet,' while a doctor in "Corpus Earthly" asks a question that adequately speaks for the series as a whole: "Do you know anything about paranoia?" "ZZZZZ," still bizarre and unsettling by today's standards, buzzes with overheated Freudian Family Romance. Interestingly, almost every episode offers a second, nonscientific plot element that occasionally acts as an alternative explanation for events: "The Architects of Fear" combines radical plastic surgery with sympathetic intuition, for example, and the Mexican peasants of "Corpus Earthly" suggest that demonic possession, not alien invasion, may be responsible for the chaos that occurs. "The Galaxy Being" mixes a heady discussion of pantheism with teleportation, and "The Borderland" juxtaposes physics with Victorian spiritualism. Not all of the episodes are equal in quality: Overacting ruins "Nightmare," and "The Children of Spider County," "Second Chance," "The Mutant," and "Fun And Games" lack enough polish and plot development for fifty - minute segments. Among the distinguished cast are Nick Adams, Luana Anders, Robert Culp, Robert Duvall, Nina Foch, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Miriam Hopkins, Shirley Knight, Martin Landau, George Macready, David McCallum, Ralph Meeker, Vera Miles, Leonard Nimoy, Carrol O'Connor, Donald Pleasence, Cliff Robertson, Martin Sheen, and Kent Smith.
Rating:
Summary: THE DVD IS VERY GOOD, BUT...
Review: For those who love THE OUTER LIMITS like I do, it's amazing to have the first season's episodes all in a handy 4-disc package with season two's in another. The episodes look and sound great. My only disappointment in the DVD set is that there isn't anything else on the discs except the episodes! It would have been much better if they included some sort of commentary or outtakes or photos/home movies from the cast/crew. I would have loved to see the actors applying their monster makeup and perhaps even muffing a few lines. These things must exist! But apart from that, the DVD set is as good as it gets!
Rating: 
Summary: Great series, horrible packaging. Be aware.
Review: While The Outer Limits is an all time classic that I was very eager to get, the thrill has been tempered somewhat by the utterly shoddy packaging that MGM has given the series. MGM has decided to do the first 32 episodes on 4 disks, making each disk double-sided. While not a problem in itself, the label for each disk is reduced to the small 6-point type around the inside hub, and you will spend much time squinting to see what disk it is, much less what side. Add to this the fact that none of the episode lists (either on the package or insert booklet) tells you which side of a disk a particular episode is on, and you're bound to have needless frustration trying to find a particular episode without a major search. MGM has produced a substandard product with this presentation. (And why on Earth, in the SECOND set, did they split the series only two-parter up to TWO sides of a disk?) Picture quality and sound are good, thankfully, though the opening menu is extremely irritating. I try to keep the sound off during it.
Rating:
Summary: Is the DVD set missing an episode?
Review: There are supposed to be 32 episodes, 4 dvds, 8 per disc. I just read a review saying disc 3 has only 7 episodes. I read some of these posts and haven't heard anyone say there is a missing episode. Please let me know....... (I'll just say 5 star because they make you put something in. I don't want to screw up the rating, so I'll side with a positive review)
Rating:
Summary: The Outer Limits-The Orginal Series
Review: The Outer Limits-The Original Series is better then the new outer limits series.I own the first season of the original series on dvd and I plan to get the second season on dvd when it is released.The Outer Limits-The Orginal series is one of the best shows from the 1960s.I watched every episode every week and I still enjoy them.
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