The Man Who Was Never Born

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Outer Limits episode
“The Man Who Was Never Born”

Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 6
Guest star(s)	Martin Landau Shirley Knight
Writer(s)	Anthony Lawrence
Director	Leonard Horn
Cinematographer	Conrad Hall
Production no.	12
Original airdate	October 28, 1963
Episode chronology
← Previous	Next →
“The Sixth Finger”	“O.B.I.T.”

"The Man Who Was Never Born" is an episode of the original The Outer Limits television show. It first aired on 28 October 1963, during the first season.

1 Introduction
2 Opening narration
3 Plot synopsis
4 Closing narration
5 Cast
6 External links and references

[edit] Introduction

An astronaut returning to Earth finds himself flung 200 years into the future, where he finds the mutated remnants of humanity living on a ruined Earth.

[edit] Opening narration

"Here, in the bright, clustered loneliness of the billion, billion stars, loneliness can be an exciting, voluntary thing, unlike the loneliness Man suffers on Earth. Here, deep in the starry nowhere, a man can be as one with space and time; preoccupied, yet not indifferent; anxious and yet at peace. His name is Joseph Reardon. He is, in this present year, thirty years old. This is the first time he has made this journey alone..."

[edit] Plot synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The astronaut, Joseph Reardon, lands on Earth only to find it a desolate and barren place. He meets Andro, a grotesque-looking creature who reveals that the year is now 2148 and the astronaut is almost 200 years into the future. Andro is one of the few survivors of a biological disaster brought on by a scientist called Bertram Cabot Jr.

Andro explains the situation and Reardon decides to see if he can return to his own time... and take Andro with him to show the future, and perhaps avoid it. While returning through the time rift, Reardon mysteriously dies, leaving Andro to find a way to prevent his disastrous future from occurring. Andro uses his ability to immediately hypnotise anyone into seeing him as a normal human, and begins searching for some way to stop Cabot's work -- even if it means, as a last resort, killing him.

It becomes clear that he has arrived too early. Bertram Cabot Jr. hasn't been born yet, and in fact his parents Noelle and Bertram Cabot Sr. are just about to be married. Andro, in his "human" guise, attempts to convince Cabott that he should not marry Noelle — with no success.

Andro begins to fall in love with Noelle. While attempting to stop the wedding, Andro's disguise is discovered and he is forced to flee. Noelle follows him and he explains his mission. Noelle eventually agrees to return to the future with Andro, avoiding any possibility that she and Cabot will have a child. Unfortunately Andro disappears just as the ship arrives in "his" time — as he no longer exists there.

[edit] Closing narration

"It is said that if you move a single pebble on the beach, you set up a different pattern, and everything in the world is changed. It can also be said that love can change the future, if it is deep enough, true enough, and selfless enough. It can prevent a war, prohibit a plague, keep the whole world... whole."