The Outer Limits: The Architects of Fear

A pivotal and tense episode with that typical German Expressionist tapestry, thanks to Conrad Hall's harsh lighting style, that emphazises the insanity of the drama (the suicide mission to save Mankind) imagined by Meyer Dolinsky ("O.B.I.T." and "ZZZZZZ") and the intensity of the dialogues. This is the first simulacrum plot (Cf. "Nightmare") and another episode which makes reference to the overtone of Robert Wise's "The Day The Earth Stood Still" due to its atomic disarmament statement. The message (notice the Twilight Zonish "a lesson at last to be learned" of the end narration) of this parable is pessimistic because the peacemakers provoke more mysery than they can expect which confirms the old saying: The road to hell is paved with good intentions, or simply, good intentions are no solutions and don't breed the cure-all. The only thing wrong about this episode is the monster itself which is un-necessary to emphazise the suspense already built by the tense cinematography; a Val Lewton treatment should have worked very well: shadowgraphs, if you like, to suggest the horror of the Thetan. And oddly enough, Byron Haskin re-interpretes the alien hand twist from his own film "The War of the Worlds". This is Robert Culp's first and most memorable performance as the laconic and sarcastic dedicated 'savior of Mankind' from that season. This is the first episode where a character undergoes a severe mental breakdown (also see "The Chameleon" as a companion piece to this one), enter a (gas) booth (Cf. "The Sixth Finger" and "The Chameleon"), and as in "The Mutant", it also lies down under lamplights for medical reasons. Leonard Stone plays the fantastic role of the fanatical nervous Dr. Philip Gainer. The first-rate scenes which epitomize the episode very well remain: the opening "end of the world" film made with stock footages and shots, the secret meeting with its terrific atmosphere due to Jack Poplin's minimalistic art direction (notice the fancy atomic logo; the set decoration of the black walls, the table and chairs are recycled in "The Children of the Spider County"), Allen Leighton's schizophrenic statement: "I see you all. You have fat faces, you know that? Baby eyes over baby pouts. Come on. Skitter along here on your little rat's feet... Herr Uber-Doktor Gainer, allow me to present zees Mad Doktors, here, constant as you are of the space time continuum. (...) I am a Caliban... with a PhD. (...) Stay Back. Stay back. Do you think your pudgy little hands can hold Prometheus? Odysseus? Tycho Star?" and the post-operation of Allen Leighton who speaks via a voice-box: "Odd sensation... to speak with nothing moving." This score is recycled all along the season, for instance the well-known love theme: "Yvette and Allen" in "Corpus Earthling" or "The Bellero Shield". There is a hunting scene as in "The Hundred Days of the Dragon"; as in the 1958 "I Married a Monster from Outer Space", a dog and a bunch of hunters shoot down the alien. The various stages of human degeneration and its psychological side effects foresee the behavior of the character Seth Brundle from David Cronenberg's 1986 "The Fly". Notes: The Thetan is played by stuntman Janos Prohaska who re-appears in "The Sixth Finger" and "The Probe". Robert Culp returns in "Corpus Earthling" and "Demon With a Glass Hand", Geraldine Brooks in "Cold Hands, Warm Heart", Douglas Henderson in: "The Chameleon" and "Behold Eck!".