The Outer Limits episode 1: The Galaxy Being

Thanks to a good friend of mine, I recently discovered B-Movie Cast, a weekly podcast that discusses B-movies, cult moves and many more nerd stuffs. The podcast itself is really neat. In each episode the host Vince Rotolo together with his co-host Nic "BMovieMan" present a movie, they review it with lots of details and sometimes gossip about the production, all in a relaxed way. Ample space is then left to the contributes from the listeners. Emails are read and voice messages are listened to. The hosts are very competent and for each contribute they have comments or answers to questions.
I’ve always appreciated B-Movies especially those of the Hollywood golden age and later movies of the sixties and seventies. However I can’t say that I there was really a passion for that stuff, the fondness was latent, it needed something to dig it out and expose it to consciousness. I timidly begun to listen to B-Movie cast but the familiar attitude and the soft tone of the speakers plus the richness of the exposition immediately took me. With every episode the guys at B-Movie cast select and present movies and shows which usually date somewhere from the fifties to the seventies. This is a perfect system for a neophyte like me to discover films which are not only fun but are like a window opened on a world of the past with all its different culture conventions, fashion and technology.

In episode nr. BMC90 of February 18th 2010, the show presented the first installment of a series of episodes on the America tv series The Outer Limits which aired from 1963 to 1965. The series is all about the confrontation of men with the mysteries that invade the space of the normality and rip it apart.
The series opening is somehow mythical. The picture of an oscilloscope appears and immediately the cold voice of a narrator states:

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits.

As I’m already a tv series addict, this episode of B-Movie Cast prompted me to acquire the series. By now I only watched the first episode “The Galaxy Being” which is about a SETI style wannabe researcher who make contact with an alien species which is then summoned to our planet by the negligence of a secondary character. I advise you to listen to the episode of B-Movie Cast for more information about the plot.

I was really amazed by the general appeal of this series. Despite the fact it was obvious it was fifty years old, I found the narration and the character definition really modern. I mean, the characters felt real, and the tension of simple human beings forced to confront something so unnatural to them , was nearly palpable. The fact that the being arrived to our world during the night, the constant presence of static noise, the close-ups of the being prowling the city, enforced the sensation of an obscure force distressing the human minds. Despite from the beginning of the episode it’s clear to the viewer that the being isn’t evil, its very presence on the earth generates a sensation of madness that wobbles through the people. Only in the end –which I’ll not discuss it- the humans can glimpse hope of if not comprehension, acceptation of something so alien to them.
The special effects aren't really bad considering the period of time and the fact that it was a television product. The costume of the being is very convincing in showing it a creature of electronic power. I can say the same regarding the effect of the radiation boom.

If you like tv series and if you don’t necessarily despise old shows, I really advice you to watch The Outer Limits because it’s really promising. I plan to watch other episodes very soon and I will report about them in this blog.

Be also sure to check B-Movie Cast at http://bmoviecast.com/