At the opening of each episode in this anthology series the picture on the TV screen started to do funny things and the dep unemotional “control voice” intoned: “There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. 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. 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.”
The special effects were good, the alien costumes interesting and the plots inventive, often leaving viewers with a sense of unease that was either relieved or exacerbated by the moral/commentary the control voice gave at the end of each episode just before returning control of your television set to you.
Among the actors starring in episodes of
The Outer Limits were Robert Culp,
Martin Sheen, Bruce Dern, Martin Landau, Sally Kellerman, Lloyd Nolan,
Cliff Robertson and
William Shatner. In the episode in which Shatner starred, he played an astronaut on a fly-by mission to the planet Venus. The mission was called Project Vulcan. What would Mr. Spock have said about that coincidence?
Thirty years after
The Outer Limits left the air, a new weekly version was produced for the Showtime cable network. After airing on Showtime the episodes were packaged for syndication to local stations. After six seasons on Sowtime
The Outer Limits moved to the Sci-Fi Channel for its last year.
