"The Borderland"

Production Order #2 and Broadcast Order #12 Shooting Days: 22-29 May 1963 First Air Date: December 16, 1963

Production Credits: Writer: Leslie Stevens Director: Leslie Stevens Assistant Director: Robert H. Justman Director of Photography: John Nickolaus, Jr. Composer: Dominic Frontiere (original score) Cast of Characters: Peter Mark Richman as Physicist Ian Frazer Nina Foch as Eva Frazer Gladys Cooper as Psychic Mrs. Palmer Alfred Ryder as Psychic assistant Edgar Price Phillip Abbott as Physicist assistant Lincoln Russel Barry Jones as Financier Dwight Hartley Gene Reynolds as Arrex executive Benson Sawyer Noel de Sousa as Dr. Sung

Opening Narration:

"The mind of man has always longed to know what lies beyond the world we live in. Explorers have ventured into the depths and heights. Of these explorers, some are scientists, some are mystics. Each is driven by a different purpose. The one thing they share in common is a wish to cross the borderlands that lie beyond the Outer Limits..."

Plotline:

By accident, physicist Ian Frazer and his team have discovered a doorway to a parrallel universe. In order to continue their research, they discredit the activities of phony psychic Mrs. Palmer and convince emotionally-weak wealthy industrialist Dwight Hartley to give them financial backing and electrical energy to explore this uncharted (fourth) dimension at the Midlands power plant and find out his deceased son.

Closing Narration:

"There are worlds beyond the worlds within which the explorer must explore. But there is one power which seems to transcend space and time, life and death. It is a deeply human power which holds us safe and together when all otherforces combine to tear us apart. We call it the power of love."

Quote:

"Dr. Sung has a saying: it's better to live two weeks as a tiger than... a whole lifetime as a lamb." —Ian Frazer (Peter Mark Richman)

Comments:

An energetic budget-buster episode with first-class special effects, impressive lab sets (with various footages of the Hoover Dam in Colorado) and smart cinematography (watch the low angle shot of the scientists and the close-ups of Peter Mark Richman) which is the second filmed episode and an intended pilot for a new sci-fi series. The actors are great and dignified in their fanatical scientists parts, especially the leading man Peter Mark Richman who sums up the idealistic and dedicated seeker ("There's always the principle of uncertainty... I'm sorry... Eva, the odds are with us... Anyone who goes out beyond the markers takes a risk..."), and make this episode very exciting to watch—Richman returns as a strong character from the final "Stoney Burke" episode that is also directed by Leslie Stevens: "The Journey". It is a symphony dedicated to technology and research composed and conducted by Ian Frazer as an Opera about ambition and love whose author of the work is the leading player-designer: an ode to invention and courage! As in "The Hundred Days of the Dragon", the hand is the leitmotiv which links the episode and greed is the subplot of the drama throughout the character of corrupted executive director Benson Sawyer who speculates on the breakthrough ("It's understood, of course, that any such discovery is the property of the Arrex firm..."); when the two psychic frauds sneak into the power plant and wonder what the experiment is all about, old Mrs. Palmer answers to his accomplice in a falsely naive and truely ironic way in order to highlight the real intention of the wealthy Arrex men and their scientist-servants: "Problably turning lead into gold." Another segment that introduces the theme of the doppelgänger (see "The Hundred of the Dragon" and "The Duplicate Man") via the exploration of an alternate world and, here, an anti-matter universe: "Yes, it may be a mirror image!", said Ian Frazer. The visual code which translates the look of the counterpart land is the 1920's European avant-garde negative-reversed, which is used all along the season and, especially in all Stevens' ones. This traveling-oriented story is related to four geographic references: first, the episode title ("The Borderland"), the show title ("The Outer Limits"), the power plant ("Midlands") and the composer: Dominic (Frontiere). One scene is a veiled reference to "The Mice" when the staff first submits "the scientist's best friend" [a mouse] to a ionic rain and then x-rays. Don't miss the exquisite delight of the climatic Act IV with its high Romantic leaning and its maelstrom of trance-like visions (with fast-moving clouds as background a la "The Man Who Was Never Born"—notice the magical slow motion shot of actress Nina Foch) and accompanied by Dominic Frontiere's bigger-than-life score. Stevens' extravagant fascination for science and its technical aspects (see the use of a specific jargon) is an allegory to Eastern Indian philosophy ritual and incantation to reach out the rebirth. Here is some real stylish high-tech SCIENCE-fiction and my favourite Leslie Stevens episode among "The Galaxy Being", "Controlled Experiment" and "Production and Decay of Strange Particles". TV analogy: "The Twilight Zone" steps into the reverse realm twice: "Little Girl Lost" (with "The Mutant" Robert Sampson) and "The Parallel" (with Philip Abbott). Notes: Peter Mark Richman also appears in "The Probe", Noel de Sousa in "Tourist Attraction" and Philip Abbott in "ZZZZZZ".