Rating: 
Summary: Poor Quality, Stories Sadly Dated
Review: Like other reviewers here, I have had trouble viewing two of the episodes because of technical problems due to bad quality disks. Also, I am sorry to say that the scary, excitingly creative episodes I remember seeing when I was a small child now seem outdated, with many of the scripts and/or acting coming off as clumsy and corny. One episode stands out though: "Forms of Things Unknown," despite its pat ending, seems like an avant-garde Italian film with a lyrical, poetic kind of creepiness. Rent before you buy would be my advice.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Long Overdue DVD Release
Review: MGM has finally released what is perhaps the greatest television show ever made on DVD. This volume contains the entire first season of the Outer Limits. 32 episodes that all look brilliant and sharp!! My god, this is a collectors dream! Of course everyone will have their faves mine are Architects Of Fear, Zanti Misfits and ZZZZZ. This is a set not to be missed and MGM is to be commended for finally bringing this out. I can hardly wait for Vol. 2 season 2. Thank you MGM!
Rating: 
Summary: This Original 60's DVD collection is only for die hard fans!
Review: When the original 1960's tv series "The Outer Limits" premiered (9/63). We were in the middle of cold war, presidential assasination, space exploration & Vietnam. Bottomline we were very paranoid and open to any ideas that could possibly answer our questions.This innovated tv series provided many immediate feedings of the endless possibilties in the direction the United States and the world was going. "The Outer Limits" is a flashback into the worlds mind of 1963 - 65. This double layer / double sided 4 DVD set provides us 32 - 50 minute episodes in chronological order of their original tv broadcast. No extras or commentary are provided. Again, this is alot of 1960's scifi drama. Only the true hardcore series fan could endure this amount of "The Outer Limits" . There are some outstanding episodes such as; "The Hundred Days of the Dragon" - A foreign agent whose features are transformed by a serum to allow him to become anyone including the President of the United States. "The Architects of Fear" - A U.S. scientist medically is altered to become an Alien to force the world to unite to defend itself against invading aliens. "Nightmare" - Aliens assist our government in conditioning our military against POW torturing. "The Zanti Misfits" - Alien prisoners are sent to earth as an invading force because they cannot kill their own, but we can! "Second Chance" - 7 passengers on an amusement park flying saucer ride take a real journey into space to help avert a galactic catastrophe! This a definite rental for a taste of this scifi experience. 27 plus hours is alot of time to spend trying to discover which episode to enjoy. The set does come with a nice booklet providing nice information about each episode. This saves time and lets you focus on your specific interests. Outstanding Full Screen digitally remastered picture & sound. I recommend this for a rental first, before buying because there are alot of episodes which can be overlooked and forgotten. If you are a diehard fan this is for you. Enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: HIGH CONCEPT SHOWS, LOW EXECUTION DVDS
Review: Some wonderful sci-fi TV episodes get a good ol' hi-tech thrashing by MGM here. They had all the time in the world to create a top of the line product, but seem to have put little thought and effort into this collection. Tis' a pity. However, there is still plenty of enjoyment to be had here, and considering the modest price tag, I heartily reccomend it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent series, recording not so great
Review: Often, when I was a child, I watched The Outer Limits when I was supposed to be asleep, taking care that my dad did not see me peering at it from the top of the stairs while he watched it on the Zenith vacuum tube black-and-white TV set. When that control voice told me to sit quietly, I did - I was too afraid not to. Though the monsters caused me to have a few nightmares, I was fascinated by the electronic equipment shown in the episodes of the series, and I was fascinated by television itself, which seemed miraculous to me - pictures and sound out of thin air, you know. Now, I have designed and built custom electronic hardware and systems most of my life, and I am an amateur recording engineer, inspired by all the marvelous things I saw (or thought I was seeing) all those years ago while watching The Outer Limits. If you love classic science fiction with a point, The Outer Limits original series should definitely be in your collection.
Prior to its release, I sent at least five earnest requests to MGM trying to convince them to publish the series on DVD. When I heard they were going to do so, I immediately pre-ordered it. Unfortunately, I think the folks at MGM may not understand the audience for this DVD product. I wanted the series on DVD so it would be as close to a perfect recording as possible. The disk set I purchased is not. I have seen severe problems in one episode rendering the recording useless (No, it is not scratched - Duh). Two different DVD players, one of which is new and quite expensive, were unable to play this episode properly. Another episode has continuous audio problems that sound like severe digital saturation, or clipping. My MGM VHS tape of this episode does not have this problem. I am hoping that MGM will re-think their approach to this product, so here goes. Dear MGM - I will be happy to pay four times the asking price to get all of the episodes of the series recorded carefully and properly with a significantly lower digital compression ratio. Please re-release the entire series in a special 2-episodes-per-disk edition for serious collectors. (Contact me - I'll help you do the collector's edition mastering and/or QC free of charge.) This series deserves to survive to be enjoyed by future generations.
Rating:
Summary: Good for the Eyes / Bad for the Ears
Review: This is great stuff, especially if you came of age during its first run. Terrific sci-fi-noir camera work (Conrad Hall) and often silly but lovable plotlines. The image quality is good, often VERY good. Alas, some of the episodes seem to suffer from very heavy handed audio compression or noise reduction. I'd rather hear some hiss than the muffled distortion of some of this audio. My laserdiscs sound better.
I'm ready for season 2.
Rating:
Summary: The Outer Limits DVD First Year
Review: This is a must for the serious Outer Limits fan. Shown in crystal clear b&w, looking better than on the day they were first broadcast! With 32 shows on 4 double sided DVDs plan to set aside a long weekend, or watch them one a night. It is a treat to watch them in their original order and without commercials. Comes with a nice little guidebook with a description of each show and cast. I cannot wait unit the second season comes out, the only draw back to that is that the second season was only 16 shows.
Rating:
Summary: Read The Outer Limits Companion for added insight
Review: ABC execs, who had probably bitten on the TOL concept because of The Twilight Zone's popularity, very shortly "understood" that The Outer Limits' gimmick and ticket to popularity was a new scary monster every week. The series' masterminds, Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stafano, were basically under orders, if they wanted their ambitious little anthology series underwritten by the network, to accomodate a parade of latex appliance monstrosities to please the network. Thus, thoughtful speculative drama was retrofitted with ghastly monsters. Sometimes it seems unforced, sometimes the tail wags the dog; there are episodes one can't imagine existing outside the pretext to show a cool monster creation. By sheer numbers, this is how a lot of casual fans have remembered the series, as a place of '50s low budget style monsters. This is understandable, because many of them were children when it was first on, and they would not have been attuned to anything beyond the monsters. But one of the problems with embracing it as merely a monster show is that, factoring in the standards of today's SFX, the series would soon be forgotten if that is all it had going for it. Lucky for us, David Schow's book The Outer Limits Companion makes a convincing case for the adult depth and breadth of the show. The show will live on, appreciated in a new way by the ones who saw it the first time without being able to penetrate the surface, and by a new audience which will understand, thanks in no small part to Schow's fine book, the full dimension of the series. There are some of my favorite "serious" episodes here: The Bellero Shield (a fantastic episode-- with a moment of real horror, btw-- inspired by Macbeth); The Man Who Was Never Born (a high concept SciFi drama which could, along with Soldier, have provided the core inspiration for the original Terminator film); Don't Open Till Doomsday (that takes an odd-looking alien, and proceeds to tell a haunting gothic tale of repressed ids that could have come from Wm. Faulkner's pen); The Architects of Fear (a broad, altruistic plan to promote peace between the all peoples of earth inadvertently crushes one specific couple's lives and love in this, one of the series' high tragedies). I, for one, am completely delighted this series is surfacing again in DVD. Let's hope it is received by new viewers as something other than that which it really never was, as conceived by Stefano and Stevens: a low-budget SFX monster show. Far from being just a show for children, TOL stands as one of the most thoughtful shows of the weighted-toward-drama early '60s, a time not long before TV retooled into an exclusive venue for sitcoms.
Rating:
Summary: great content but poor quality control
Review: The content on the DVDs is great but the manufacturing leaves much to be desired - be sure to play through the entire set before your 30 days to return/replace are up. I needed two different players to play through two of the discs and a third would not play through on any of 4 different players.
Rating:
Summary: A fantastic piece of TV history!
Review: I just received my DVD set of the original series. I must say that I am very impressed with the quality. I have watched 2 out of the 4 discs, and I have had absolutely no problems with picture or sound. The audio is crystal clear and the picture is excellent. The booklet that accompanies the discs is a good guide in summarizing each episode. The packaging is great. I do get a bit nervous when I open the case, though, due to the double sided nature of the discs. You have to be very careful when handling the discs, but I have not had any problems at all with them getting scratched or the like. Just take good care of it and you won't have any problems. The stories are really a treasure of a unique time in American history. A time of mankind expanding his boundaries into space and a burst of technology. These stories always examine the human desires and fears associated with exploration and technology. Each story attempts to make a serious statement about some aspect of the human spirit and mind. The 1960's special effects can be a bit hokey, but it does not detract from the story at all. In fact, the cinematography is quite impressive for many shows. I have found the series to be a bit uneven in writing quality, but I have found even the less compelling stories to be worthy of watching. This original series is still better than many shows on TV today. The new series doesn't have the heart of the original. The original series is unique. I am looking forward to Volume 2, which I expect to be the entire second season. The second season has a different flavor than the first, but I still find the shows entertaining and compelling. In fact, some of the best shows of the series are in the second season (The Man with the Glass Hand). Too bad the TV execs killed the show by moving its time slot. TV execs have never changed. As far as the lack of documentaries or interviews or rare clips, that really wasn't important to me. This first volume is jam packed as it is. It's going take me a whole month of viewing just to get through it! Well worth the price! But I do hope that the expected second volume will have some extras about the series. Even so, I am looking forward to buying it. In short, this is a great buy for sci-fi fans. The original series was surely amoung the best sci-fi shows of all time. Even the opening to the show (There is nothing wrong with your television set....) is classic. It's the idea that's compelling, not the special effects. So many sci-fi shows today fail to understand that. You don't need the special effects to be compelling, but you do need the ideas - the original series took chances and brought compelling ideas to your living room each week. What a treasure!
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