The BEST episodes of The Outer Limits (1995)
Every episode of The Outer Limits (1995) ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Outer Limits (1995)!
Like the classic 1960s series of the same name, each episode is a celebration of the human imagination in which humanity's exploration of new frontiers in technology, outer space and the human experience reveal our greatest hopes and darkest fears. Stories on The Outer Limits have explored the consequences of such controversial and thought-provoking topics as genetic manipulation, alien visitation and life after death.
#1 - Fathers and Sons
Season 5 - Episode 20 - Aired 8/6/1999
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
#2 - To Tell the Truth
Season 4 - Episode 14 - Aired 4/24/1998
Dr. Larry Chambers (Gregory Harrison) helped build the colony on the Janus Five. He and fellow scientist Amanda Harper (Kimberly Huffman) run computer simulations that show the planet's star will flash over in a matter of days, emitting waves of deadly radiation, so Dr. Chambers urges evacuation. This is not a popular recommendation, especially among the colony's leaders who include council chairman Franklin Murdock (William Atherton), security head Montgomery Bennett (Alan Scarfe) and Amanda's father, Ian Harper (Ken Pogue). They point out that Chambers has been wrong before - the colony had to be moved at great cost after he warned of deadly volcanic activity - and suggest that his judgment has been clouded by the death of his wife Elise. When that doesn't stop Chambers, Murdock and Bennett discredit him by falsely accusing him of being one of the aliens who originally inhabited the planet.
#3 - Simon Says
Season 6 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/10/2000
Gideon Banks lost his wife Liz and son Simon in a horrific car accident some twenty years ago. At the time of the accident he was involved in something called the Neural Archiving Project - NAP for short. The technology was developed to create smart computers - transferring human engrams to computers. The company eventually gave up on the technology, but Gideon didn't. After years of quietly perfecting it, he built a small robot, from parts he stole from Concorde Robotics, where he now works. Zoe, Gideon's niece, discovers Gideon's secret, the robot contains actual neural engrams from the real Simon. She becomes worried not only about Gideon but also about the robot that sounds and acts a lot like her little cousin used to.
#4 - Relativity Theory
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/27/1998
Biologist Teresa Janovitch (MELISSA GILBERT) is a civilian among military men, traveling on the Resource Survey Vehicle Cortez to Tau Ceti Prime in search of minerals for an Earth that has squandered its own. Initial signs indicate that the planet is both uninhabited and rich in mineral resources, which could mean a million dollar payday for both the crew and the company that owns the Cortez. But on the first exploration, the crew is attacked by gigantic and apparently primitive aliens. After the command falls to Janovitch, she is overpowered by her crew: Sgt. Adam Sears (Jeremy Ratchford), a veteran of pacification missions on Earth, who favors annihilation of the new race and an ambiguous Corporal Charles Pendelton (Tim Guinee). Sears leads a patrol that hunts down and kills the aliens, in the process seizing a golden object that appears to be a religious totem. As he celebrates his slaughter, Janovitch examines his victims and makes a shocking discovery.
#5 - Final Exam
Season 4 - Episode 16 - Aired 6/5/1998
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.
#6 - In Our Own Image
Season 4 - Episode 26 - Aired 12/18/1998
The Mac 27 (Nicolas Lea) is the Innobotics Corporation's most advanced android. It is incapable of emotions - in order to avoid the murderous failures associated with earlier models. But, the new prototype begins showing some disturbing glitches, and escapes during a debugging session, killing a scientist, a security guard and taking Celia (Nana Visitor) hostage. They drive to a deserted warehouse where Celia becomes a reluctant nurse, patching up Mac's mangled circuitry. Along with instructions for his repairs, Mac transfers visual data on the history of different android projects directly to Celia's optic nerve. As she becomes more comfortable with her captor, she detects some very human qualities in the motivations behind his flight. As Innobotics' security closes in, Celia tries to convince Mac that the act of rebelling against his creators is emotionally based, and that he does, in fact have feelings.
#7 - Rite of Passage
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/13/1998
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.
#8 - Monster
Season 4 - Episode 18 - Aired 7/10/1998
The four people gathered in the top-secret research facility seem at first to have nothing in common: Ford Maddox (Harry Hamlin) is a former spy, Rachel Sanders (Nicole Deboer) is a nurse, Roger Beckersly (Aaron Pearl) is an Army Ranger and Louise McDonnaugh (Bridget O'Sullivan) is a computer programmer. What has brought them together is their telekinetic ability, a talent that Mr. Brown (Robert Guillaume), a CIA project head, hopes to exploit through the use of Teeks, devices that amplify telekinetic power. At first, Brown tries these individual's talents out on simple tasks - moving or crushing a granite block with their minds - but soon his true intentions are revealed. Their first real assignment, says Brown, is to use their powers to kill a Balkan terrorist leader and war criminal. Rachel objects to the assignment on moral grounds, but Brown forces her to take part by threatening to send her brother to jail for life.
#9 - Nightmare
Season 4 - Episode 20 - Aired 8/14/1998
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?
#10 - The Human Operators
Season 5 - Episode 7 - Aired 3/12/1999
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
#11 - Dead Man's Switch
Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 4/4/1997
Ben Conklin has been a loner ever since his parents died when he was twelve years old. This is one reason why General James Eiger selected him to spend a year buried in a bunker 11,000 feet below the Artic tundra, manning the controls of a doomsday device set up by world leaders after the Hubble space telescope spotted 11 spaceships heading towards Earth. The device is designed as a last-line deterrent against alien invasion and Conklin's job, shared with four other loners in four other bunkers, is to hit a dead man's switch on the bunkers control panel that prevents the doomsday device from going off and destroying aliens and mankind alike. At first, the job is easy, but as the aliens draw closer to Earth, and as Conklin grows closer to his subterranean colleagues, he begins to doubt the reliability of the doomsday machine. News from General Eiger becomes scarce, then Conklin's fellow guardians begin to fall victim to assorted mishaps. Conklin realizes that he carries the weight of
#12 - The Sandkings
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 3/26/1995
Scientist Simon Kress finds himself the master of a colony of Sandkings -- creatures from Mars that look like insects, but have the intelligence of much higher beings.
#13 - The Camp
Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/21/1997
For Twelve generations, mankind has lived in concentration-type camps, imprisoned by the human collaborators of the alien New Masters. But when one woman dares to challenge the authority of her Commander, the desire to be free is pitted against this seemingly, unvanquishable foe. Or are they as powerful as they seem?
#14 - Hearts and Minds
Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 2/6/1998
The mission for Captain Taverner and his squad of North American Federation (NAF) soldiers is simple: search and destroy invading aliens on a distant planet to prevent them from stealing a mineral which is a vital source of energy for earth, and a vital source of profit for the NAF. To guard against infection from the hideous bug-aliens, the soldiers are forced to inject special genetic drugs; however, the mission becomes complicated when Lieutenant Rosen is wounded in a firefight with the aliens. Rosen begins to hallucinate, experiencing disturbing images of the aliens, and when she discovers that her druginjector has malfunctioned, she begins to suspect that the drugs do more than protect the soldiers from infection. Ultimately, Rosen must take command and risk the lives of her soldiers on the hunch that their mission may have more to do with human politics than alien enemies.
#15 - Feasibility Study
Season 3 - Episode 17 - Aired 7/11/1997
The residents of a suburban neighborhood have their lives turned upside down when a four block section of their subdivision is ripped from the earth by a mysterious force and transported to a distant planet. Thrown together in crisis, Joshua Hayward, his daughter Sarah and their neighbors try to understand what has happened to them -- why their neighborhood now ends abruptly in an invisible force-field. Sarah gains some insight when she comes across Adrielo, a horribly disfigured alien who tells her that they have been brought here by another group of aliens. Guiding Sarah through a gap in the force-field, Adrielo begs for her help in curing the disease that is turning him and his people to stone. Meanwhile, Joshua makes an even more startling discovery when he is pulled through the force-field and comes face to face with his captors, the Triunes. These big-brained, feeble-bodied creatures subject Joshua to strange and painful tests and explain without apology, that he and his neighbor
#16 - The Choice
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 4/28/1995
A young girl with strange, supernatural powers is shunned by her friends, but welcomed by a nanny with similar gifts, while her parents must decide what's ultimately best for their child.
#17 - Quality of Mercy
Season 1 - Episode 13 - Aired 6/16/1995
Major John Skokes is taken prisoner by the enemy during a savage galactic war and a seemingly undefeatable alien race. The tension increases when his cellmate, a cadet named Pri, is being transformed into one of them. Skokes must find an escape to save his cellmate and to avoid a disturbing revelation of the course of this war.
#18 - The Origin of Species
Season 4 - Episode 23 - Aired 11/27/1998
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.
#19 - Sarcophagus
Season 4 - Episode 19 - Aired 8/7/1998
The archeological team has just about given up on finding anything significant in this remote corner of Alaska when Natalie Grainger (Lisa Zane) stumbles upon what appears to be a burial mound. Inside, the team discovers a number of human skeletons, including one dressed in a strange metallic tunic and preserved in an amber cocoon. When Natalie's husband, Curtis (David Cubitt), touches the cocoon, something amazing happens. He begins to see through the eyes of the creature whose bones were contained in amber, an alien with fearsome claws and teeth. This psychic connection also provides a jolt of energy that liquefies the cocoon and initiates the reconstitution of flesh on the alien's bones. As the creature begins to come back to life, some of the team, including Emmet Harley (Robert Picardo) want to call in a big corporate lab in order to cash in on their discovery.
#20 - Caught in the Act
Season 1 - Episode 16 - Aired 7/9/1995
A chaste co-ed is enveloped by a strange power that gives her an insatiable sexual appetite, which is perpetuated by encounters with consenting men who, after making physical contact, morph into her body and disappear.
#21 - Manifest Destiny
Season 6 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/11/2000
The UFS Mercury is in route to the planet Trion to do scientific tests in preparation to establish a colony when they get a distress call from a battleship, the UFS Rhesos. It was only weeks ago the the Rhesos dropped bombs on Trion, killing the local flora and fauna, making it ready for colonization. When the crew of the Mercury boards the Rhesos, they quickly realize that things are not as they should be.
#22 - Judgment Day
Season 6 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/21/2000
Capitol punishment makes it to primetime. Judgment Day has quickly become the hottest show on the Justice Channel and on television - period. Produced by Jack Parson and hosted by Stan Draper and Heather Cattrell, the show has turned the Justice system on its ear by becoming judge, jury and executioner, allowing a murder victim's family to carry out the death sentence on live television. Today, Allison Channing will hunt down Declan McMahon, the petty criminal who killed her sister Kaitlin. Declan gets a 20 minute head start, but he's got a microchip in his brain that's tuned to the taser that Allison carries. He's also had a camera implanted in his eye, allowing the home audience to see his point of view as they phone in tips and send digicam images to the studio in exchange for cash rewards. There's only one problem: Declan insists he was framed, that the security camera footage that would have cleared him has been altered by someone. With Allison on his trail and the ratings going through the roof, Declan turns to his brother Dooley to help him provehis innocence to Allison, his would-be executioner and to the watching world.
#23 - In Another Life
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/16/1998
Mason Stark hates his life. A year ago, he lost his wife Kristin to a mugger's bullet and he still blames himself for not doing more to protect her. And today, he was fired from his job. With a gun in his hand and a severance package on his desk, Mason finds himself torn between suicide and psychosis - between killing himself and killing his co-workers. But before he can do either he's pulled into another dimension, into a world where there are hundreds of Mason Starks, each with a different life and a different character. The version of himself that brought Mason here is a powerful, manipulative man - we know him as Stark - who, in this dimension, runs the same company that fired Mason. Stark explains that he built a machine, the Quantum Mirror, to explore all those different versions of himself, only to have his experiment go horribly wrong because he pulled a murderous version of himself, a man we know as Mace, into his reality.
#24 - Black Box
Season 4 - Episode 25 - Aired 12/11/1998
A missing package contains powerful secrets, and everyone wants a piece of the action.
#25 - Phobos Rising
Season 4 - Episode 24 - Aired 12/4/1998
For 30 years there has been a fragile truce between the Free Alliance and the Coalition of Middle-Eastern and Pacific States, both on Earth and on Mars. Both groups mine triradium, a super-powerful radioactive mineral that can be used for both power and illegally for weapons. When a giant explosion appears to consume the Earth and sends a giant shock-wave towards Mars, the soldiers at the Free Alliance base on the Red Planet wonder if the truce has come to an end. Cut off from Earth for 12 hours as Mars rotates, Colonel Samantha Elliot (Barbara Eve Harris) believes someone from the Coalition has been smuggling triradium. With communications temporarily out of order and a Coalition drone approaching the Alliance base, Elliot prepares to launch a preemptive strike. Major James Bowen (Adam Baldwin), who has grown fond of Major Dara Talif (Joan Chen), the Coalition liaison officer at the base, disagrees with Elliot.