Demon with a Glass Hand

"Demon with a Glass Hand" is a widely referenced episode of The Outer Limits television series, the second to be based on a script by Harlan Ellison, which Ellison wrote specifically with actor Robert Culp in mind for the lead role. It originally aired on 17 October 1964, and was the fifth episode of the second season.^[1]

1 Introduction
2 Opening narration
3 Synopsis
4 Closing narration
5 Cast
6 Awards
7 Production
8 Plagiarism
9 Adaptation and non-sequel
10 Trivia
11 Footnotes
12 External links

[edit] Introduction

An amnesiac man with a glass hand attempts to discover who he is, and why he is being pursued.

[edit] Opening narration

"Through all the legends of ancient peoples — Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerican, Semitic — runs the saga of the Eternal Man, the one who never dies, called by various names in various times, but historically known as Gilgamesh, the one who has never tasted death... the hero who strides through the centuries..."

(Announcer Vic Perrin mistakenly says "Sumerican" instead of "Sumerian".)

[edit] Synopsis

Trent is a man with no memory of his life before the past ten days. His left hand has been replaced by an advanced computer shaped like his missing hand and protected by some transparent material. Three fingers are missing; the computer tells him they must be reattached before it can tell Trent what is going on. Trent is being hunted by a handful of humanoid aliens called the Kyben; they have the missing appendages. The action takes place in a large rundown office building. In his deadly game of hide-and-seek, he enlists the help of Consuela Biros (Arlene Martel), a beautiful, frightened woman who works there.

For reasons unknown to him, Trent was sent into the past via a "time mirror", located in the building. A captured Kyben tells Trent that he and they are from 1000 years in the future. In that future, Earth has been conquered by the Kyben, but all the surviving humans except Trent have mysteriously vanished. The aliens are being decimated by a "radioactive" plague that is killing all intelligent life on the planet, apparently unleashed by the humans in a last-ditch effort to repel the invasion. In a desperate attempt to find a cure for the plague and to extract whatever knowledge is stored in the hand-computer, the Kyben have followed him back in time with the missing fingers.

Eventually, Trent defeats all of his Kyben pursuers (by ripping off the medallion-shaped devices they wear to anchor them in the past), destroys the mirror, and recovers the three fingers. With the computer now whole, he learns the terrible truth: he is not a man, he is a robot. The human survivors have been digitally encoded onto a gold-copper alloy wire stored in his abdomen. Immune to disease, he must protect his precious cargo for 200 years after the Kyben invasion, by which time the plague will have dissipated. Then he will revive the human race.

Tragically, Trent had thought he was a man; he and Consuela had begun to have feelings for each other. With the secret revealed, she leaves him, pity mixed with horror in her eyes. Trent is left to face 1200 years of lonely vigil.

[edit] Closing narration

"Like the Eternal Man of Babylonian legend, like Gilgamesh, one thousand plus two hundred years stretches before Trent. Without love. Without friendship. Alone: neither man nor machine, waiting. Waiting for the day he will be called to free the humans who gave him mobility. Movement -- but not life."

[edit] Cast

Robert Culp as Trent
Arlene Martel as Consuelo Biros
Abraham Sofaer as Arch
Bill Hart as Durn
Rex Holman as Battle
Robert Fortier as Budge
Wally Rose as Kyben #1
Fred Krone as Kyben #2

[edit] Awards

The teleplay by Harlan Ellison won several major awards:

1965 Writers Guild of America Awards - Outstanding Script for a Television Anthology
1972 Georges Melies Fantasy Film Award - Outstanding Cinematic Achievement in Science Fiction Television

[edit] Production

Most of this episode is shot is the Bradbury Building, the same location used for the final scenes of Blade Runner and a closing scene in the 1950 film noir classic D.O.A.

Ellison's friendship with Robert Culp dates from the production of this episode. He found Culp to be very intelligent, quite a contrast from most actors, who he described as "dips--strictly compos non mentis."

[edit] Plagiarism

It is sometimes erroneously thought that author Harlan Ellison took James Cameron to court for plagiarism with regard to the film The Terminator over this episode. According to E! Online, Terminator production company Hemdale and distributor Orion Pictures "gave veteran fantasy writer Harlan Ellison an 'acknowledgement to the works of' credit on The Terminator and a cash settlement lest he sue for plagiarism of two episodes he wrote for The Outer Limits in the 1960s and a Hugo Award winning sci-fi story (1977)". The additional Outer Limits episode is "Soldier", which opens with a futuristic soldier on a battle-blasted landscape being hurtled backward in time by an overpowering laser-type light.^[2]

[edit] Adaptation and non-sequel

A graphic novel adaptation, illustrated by Marshall Rogers, was published by DC Comics January 1986. It was the fifth title of the DC Science Fiction Graphic Novel series.

During the run of Babylon 5, series creator J. Michael Straczynski often said that Ellison would write a sequel to this story (possibly called Demon in the Dust or Demon on the Run) as an episode. Ellison was a creative consultant on the series, but has since said that he never had any such intentions and it was just his friend Straczynski's wishful thinking.

In addition to Demon With A Glass Hand, Ellison has written other stories set against the backdrop of the "Earth-Kyba War" He adapted five of these — "Run For the Stars", "Life Hutch", "The Untouchable Adolescents", "Trojan Hearse", and "Sleeping Dogs" — into the graphic novel Night and the Enemy (1987), illustrated by Ken Steacy.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

British industrial electronic band Cabaret Voltaire made a habit of using audio samples from this episode, using parts on four tracks across three albums between 1980 and 1992, as well as the 1983 single "Yashar."

[edit] Footnotes

^ The Outer Limits: The Official Companion, by David J. Schow and Jeffrey Frentzen, 1986, Ace Science Fiction
^ James Cameron Profile. www.eonline.com. Retrieved on 2007-08-09.