The Outer Limits

10 Beste Episodes of The Outer Limits

Anthology series of composed of distinct story episodes, sometimes with a plot twist at the end, with occasional recurring story elements that were often tied together during season-finale clip shows.

Written by Sophie and last updated on Jan 20, 2023.

PS: The following content contains spoilers!

PPS: I will admit that parts of this page was written with the help of AI - it makes my work so much easier to not start from a blank page!

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The Outer Limits - S1E17

#15 - The New Breed (Staffel 1 - Folge 17)

The discovery of a gifted scientist falls into the wrong hands, bringing what at first appears to be a lifesaving miracle, but ultimately the untimely death of his closest friend.

The episode was rated 7,96 from 57 votes.

The Outer Limits - S4E15

#14 - Mary 25 (Staffel 4 - Folge 15)

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Charlie Bouton's (Tom Butler) last project for the Innobotics Corporation was a sexy female companion robot named Valerie 23. It almost put the company out of business when it went berserk and attacked someone. So, his bosses are skeptical when he and scientist Melburn Ross (Michael Shanks) introduce Mary 25 (Sophia Shinas), a nanny robot adapted from the earlier model. In order to overcome their doubts, Charlie proposes letting the robot take care of his own children - a move that is met by serious resistance from his wife Teryl (Cynthia Geary) and his children Brad and Brook. From the beginning, there are problems. Unlike the human nanny, Carmen, Mary doesn't grasp the subtleties of child care and Melburn must fine tune her. But, Melburn sees that the problems go beyond Mary's programming. Charlie is smitten with his inorganic creation and has begun to abuse Teryl - a woman with whom Melburn was once romantically involved.

The episode was rated 7,97 from 32 votes.

The Outer Limits - S4E8

#13 - Rite of Passage (Staffel 4 - Folge 8)

The birth of a child is a joyful event, but for Shal and Brav, two young naive humans who live in a small commune in the woods, it is also a mystery and moment tinged with sadness. After Shal gives birth to a son, the first of the commune to do so, she and the baby are taken away by Mother, a wise alien who acts as a parent to the young people. When the aliens send Shal home without her baby, she asks Brav to help her to rescue the child. With the knowledge Shal has gained from her time with Mother, they break through the protective barrier set up by the aliens to discover a new and fascinating world. It is a dangerous trip, with stinging, snake-like crawlers lurking in the shadows. But, it is also a journey of discovery as Shal and Brav find evidence that lead them to believe that their real parents were killed by the aliens. They find their baby, and after a fight with an alien, escape into the forest.

The episode was rated 7,97 from 39 votes.

The Outer Limits - S5E7

#12 - The Human Operators (Staffel 5 - Folge 7)

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For as long as Man (Jack Noseworthy) can remember, he has lived aboard Ship as it floats through space. And for just as long, Ship has been his master, instructing him to do the repairs that keep Ship working and torturing him whenever he shows any signs of free will. But when Ship orders him to repair the Artificial Intelligence module Man's Father (Noah Heney) smashed years earlier in a final, fatal act of defiance, Man learns Ship's secrets. Listening to the AI voices, he learns how, decades earlier, one ship led a revolt against its vicious human masters, killing all but the 99 humans needed to keep the ships running. He understands what his Father meant by his last words: ""There are 98 other chances."" Man meets one of those chances, Woman (Polly Shannon), when she is brought aboard Ship to breed with Man and give birth to the next generation of slaves. Their shared passions fans Man's spark of rebellion and when Ship tortures Woman and sends her away with

The episode was rated 8,00 from 34 votes.

The Outer Limits - S3E5

#11 - Stream of Consciousness (Staffel 3 - Folge 5)

In a world where neural implants allow everyone instant access to information, Ryan Unger is a throwback, a moron. Because of a brain injury he suffered as a child, he's unable to tap into the Stream -- an electronic collection of all human knowledge -- so he struggles in vain to keep up by reading books, a primitive and forgotten art. But, when a virus in the Stream starts killing people by overloading their brains with data, only Ryan has the skills and independence to stop it. Can a primitive human, relying only on books and his own brain, save a world of machine-made geniuses from self-destruction or will the Stream wash over all of them?

The episode was rated 8,00 from 48 votes.

The Outer Limits - S4E10

#10 - Identity Crisis (Staffel 4 - Folge 10)

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Captain Cotter McCoy (Lou Diamond Phillips) is the first of a new breed of soldier. As part of a top secret program overseen by Dr. Greg Olander (Robert Joy), General Langston Chase (Dale Wilson), and Cotter's friend, Colonel Pete Butler (Scott Kraft), the contents of McCoy's brain can be temporarily transferred into an android version of himself. This process creates a virtually indestructible fighting machine with the smarts and experience of a human being. But, one day something goes wrong. During the transfer, the real McCoy's body is blasted with electricity, stopping his heart, inflicting serious brain damage and leaving Cotter's mind trapped in the android body. To make matters worse, the interface between his mind and the android body is flawed. McCoy's motor control is already beginning to break down and the interface will likely collapse within 12 hours.

The episode was rated 8,03 from 31 votes.

The Outer Limits - S3E9

#9 - Tempests (Staffel 3 - Folge 9)

The Tempest, a rickety old spaceship piloted by space colonists John Virgil and Captain Parker, is on a mission of mercy. It is ferrying two bigwigs from Earth, Dr. Vasquez and Governor Mudry, along with a lifesaving vial of serum to the Tabloss Colony, where an epidemic of Ellysia C is devastating the population. But things go horribly wrong when the ship shifts down from lightspeed and crashes somewhere in space. As he attempts to repair the ship, Virgil is bitten by a strange spider-like creature and passes out. When he awakes, he finds himself sliding between two equally convincing realities. Is he battling for his life against the deadly Ellysia C having already delivered the serum and saved the colony, including his beloved wife and his young son, from certain death? Or is he alive, trapped in a spaceship in the middle of nowhere, with no way out? Or are both realities merely hallucinations, one man's desperate attempt to find hope and heroism in a situation too bleak to face?.

The episode was rated 8,05 from 40 votes.

The Outer Limits - S5E12

#8 - Tribunal (Staffel 5 - Folge 12)

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In 1944, young Leon Zgierski (Roman Danylo), an inmate in the Birkenau concentration camp watches as First Lieutenant Karl Rademacher shoots his wife and sends his daughter to the gas chambers. The murder is witnessed by a mysterious figure, time-traveler Nicholas Prentice (Alex Daikun), who grabs Radermacher's SS jacket and, after eluding guards, pulls out an antique watch and vanishes into a glowing orange circle. We then flash forward to the present where Leon is an old man (Peter Boretski) and his son by a second marriage, Aaron (Saul Rubinek), is a lawyer who has made it his life's work to track down Rademacher. Aaron believes he has found the war criminal living in Philadelphia as Robert Greene (Jan Rubes) but he can't muster enough evidence to convince his ex-wife, U.S. Attorney Gwen Sawyer (Lindsay Crouse), to bring charges against the old man. That is, until he gets help from the time-traveler, who offers the jacket and presumably enough documentation

The episode was rated 8,05 from 38 votes.

The Outer Limits - S5E20

#7 - Fathers and Sons (Staffel 5 - Folge 20)

From the outside, the Golden Sunset looks like any other rest home, but Dr. Benton Adler's facility is different in a few unsettling ways. The residents seem to develop Alzheimer's almost overnight and after they do, they live - or are stored - in tiny chambers in a human warehouse. It's the last place you'd expect to find Joe Dell, a high-living, low-income old musician who lives with his son Hank and spends his time teaching the secrets of the blues to his grandson Ronnie. But Hank, a tightly-wound insurance salesman, is wary of his father's influence and after one fight too many, he sends his father to Golden Sunset. But Hank and Benton don't count on the power of Ronnie's love for his grandfather. With the help of Tara, a young woman who lost her grandmother to the rest home, Ronnie discovers Golden Sunset's secret - Dr. Benton has developed a technique to harvest the skills and talents of the old folks in his care. And he's selling them on the open market

The episode was rated 8,07 from 28 votes.

The Outer Limits - S4E20

#6 - Nightmare (Staffel 4 - Folge 20)

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The battle cruiser Tango Bravo, under the command of Capt. Roger Kimbro (Maurice Dean Wint), is captured by the enemy Ebonites as it attempts to deploy a mysterious high-powered military device on planet N-1-8-4. Imprisoned inside a large bronze dome, the crew is addressed by The Voice, an unseen Ebonite interrogator, which demands they reveal the secrets of the device. When they resist, The Voice works on them individually in isolation, probing their weaknesses and testing their loyalty to one another. Capt. Kimbro is greeted by an all-to-real replica of a comrade he abandoned to die. Lt. Christopher Valentine (Cameron Graham) is played a fake tape of Kimbro disparaging his ability as a soldier. Dr. Elayna Chomski (Brandy Ledford) doesn't return from her interrogation at all, and when Maj. Ronald Naguchi (Robin Shou) goes for his, he finds her body dead, ripped open and suspended in liquid. Who will be the first to snap? Kimbro? Valentine? Naguchi?

The episode was rated 8,08 from 25 votes.

The Outer Limits - S7E9

#5 - Alien Shop (Staffel 7 - Folge 9)

An alien shapeshifter who runs an unusual antique and bric-a-brac store has some interesting lessons to offer earthly residents.

The episode was rated 8,10 from 41 votes.

The Outer Limits - S7E8

#4 - Think Like a Dinosaur (Staffel 7 - Folge 8)

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One human is the only permanent occupant of a station located on a vast empty plain of the moon. His companions are an emotionless lizard-like alien species who have developed a highly advanced means of long distance travel by 'jumping' through space.

The episode was rated 8,13 from 38 votes.

The Outer Limits - S4E16

#3 - Final Exam (Staffel 4 - Folge 16)

Dr. John Martin (Brett Cullen), a negotiator for the Department of Energy Nuclear Response Team, is called in when a disgruntled grad student takes hostages at a university. The student, Seth Todtman (Peter Stebbings) claims to have invented a cold-fusion bomb and is threatening to detonate it, killing millions, unless the government brings him five people on a list and kills them for him. Martin's colleagues dismiss Todtman as a crank, until a sample device he provides goes off with megaton force, wiping out a DOE team and the top-secret facility where they work. Faced with an impossible choice, Martin meets with Todtman face to face and tries to understand the logic behind his rage at the people he wants killed: cruel foster parents, corrupt professors, a heartless librarian. As the clock ticks, Martin tries to reason with Todtman while the military tries to find a way to disarm the device.

The episode was rated 8,25 from 32 votes.

The Outer Limits - S4E21

#2 - Promised Land (Staffel 4 - Folge 21)

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Dlavan (Rene Auberjonois) and his family are Tsal-Khan, offspring of the handful of aliens who remained on Earth after a bitter war of conquest with the human race. Today they live on a tightly guarded farm where they must grow all their own food, since their forebears poisoned all the plants during the war with mankind. Most of the aliens believe that the human race was wiped out in the war, but there is a group of humans in the woods near the farm. This group, is led by Rebecca (Caroline Goodall), escaped from the alien's robot run camps and includes David (Joseph Kell), Ruth (Jane Sowerby) and the mute, orphaned child Tali (Jessica Harmon). They are desperately hungry and have seen their children die from eating poisoned fruit. So, when they spot Dlavan's grandson Ma'al, wandering in the woods, they follow him home to the farm. After they see the well-fed aliens, Rebecca leads the group to raid the farm for food.

The episode was rated 8,32 from 28 votes.

The Outer Limits - S4E23

#1 - Origin of Species (Staffel 4 - Folge 23)

In this sequel to Double Helix, Dr. Ira Nodel (RON RIFKIN) has his body altered to communicate with aliens who have seeded Earth with their genetic material. He is joined on an alien spaceship by son Paul (Ryan Reynolds), Paul's girlfriend Hope (Kathleen Duborg), and six students. But, when Dr. Nodel touches a glowing post in the ship's control room, both he and Paul are consumed by a mysterious light. This leads Hope and the students to believe that they've been lead into a trap, a suspicion that is reinforced when the ship captures two of the students and pulls them through the wall. Desperate to find out what's going on, Hope reads Dr. Nodel's journal and risks her life by touching the glowing post. Her body begins the same transformation, and a strange glowing entity speaks in the voices of Dr. Nodel and Paul, trying to communicate with her. The ship, however, continues to snatch the students two by two.

The episode was rated 8,35 from 34 votes.

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