Final Exam (The Outer Limits)

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“Final Exam”

The Outer Limits episode

Episode no.

Season 4
Episode 16

Written by

Carleton Eastlake

Directed by

Mario Azzopardi

Guest stars

Michael St. John Smith, Brett Cullen, Peter Stebbings, Stellina Rusich, Kevin Tighe, Kyra Azzopardi , Sharon Alexander

Production no.

Original airdate

June 5, 1998

Episode chronology
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"Mary 25"	"Lithia"

List of The Outer Limits episodes

"Final Exam" is the sixteenth episode of the fourth season of The Outer Limits television show. It was first broadcast on June 5, 1998.

[edit] Opening narration

"They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. But what of the man who possesses too much knowledge?"

[edit] Plot

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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. They assassinate Todtman and defuse the bomb, but he warns that just like the creation of the atom bomb, someone else will find a way to create another cold fusion bomb. At the end it shows a disgruntled student in a different college taking a test, one of the questions is "why cold fusion is impossible". He crumples the paper and leaves to carry on Todtman's work.