Soldier (The Outer Limits)

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“Soldier”
The Outer Limits episode
Episode no. Season 2
Episode 1
Written by Harlan Ellison
Directed by Gerd Oswald
Guest stars Lloyd Nolan
Michael Ansara
Tim O'Connor
Photographed by Kenneth Peach
Production no. 34
Original airdate September 19, 1964
Episode chronology
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"The Forms of Things Unknown" "Cold Hands, Warm Heart"
List of The Outer Limits episodes

"Soldier" is an episode of the original The Outer Limits television show. It opened the second season of shows on 19 September 1964.

For the second season, Ben Brady took over as producer from Joseph Stefano. This is the first of two episodes written by Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction author Harlan Ellison, and is adapted from his 1957 short story "Soldier From Tomorrow."

Contents

[edit] Opening narration

Night comes too soon on the battlefield. For some men it comes permanently; their eyes never open to the light of day. But for this man, fighting this war, there is never total darkness. The spidery beams of light in the sky are the descendants of the modern laser beam — heat rays that sear through tungsten steel and flesh as though they were cheesecloth. And this soldier must go against those weapons. His name is Qarlo, and he is a footsoldier, the ultimate infantryman. Trained from birth by the State, he has never known love, or closeness, or warmth. He is geared for only one purpose: to kill the Enemy. And the Enemy waits for him…

[edit] Exceptional additional narration

Time is fluid. The waters of forever close — and passage may not be completed. The present and the future are for a moment united. And the Enemy, half-today, half-tomorrow, is locked between…

[edit] Plot

In a devastated future, two footsoldiers fight each other in a twilight landscape. Suddenly, beams of light send them back in time to the present: 1964. One of them, Qarlo, appears in broad daylight, in the street of a big city, and frightens the passersby. He's arrested by the police and locked up in an official asylum where a philologist watches, studies, establishes a communication and seemingly tames him. Later on, Qarlo is released and taken to the scientist's family home. Meanwhile, the other soldier is stuck in a rift between past and present. Qarlo escapes from the home and is caught while robbing a rifle store. Back home, alerted by the pet (Macbeth, the cat), he faces again his mortal enemy who has finally freed himself from the rift. Because Qarlo has been moved by the family's kind treatment of him, he sacrifices himself in order to avoid them being hurt; the two warriors are disintegrated by a laser beam machine gun.

[edit] Closing narration

From the darkest of all pits, the soul of Man, come the darkest questions: Did the soldier finally come to care for those he protected? Or was it just his instinct to kill? Questions from the dark pit. But no answers. For answers lie in the future. Is it a future in which men are machines, born to kill, or is there time for us? Time. All the time in the world… but is that enough?


[edit] Copyright issues

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)".[1] The additional Outer Limits episode is "Demon With A Glass Hand."

Aside from the influence on The Terminator, there is also quite a parallel to the Marvel Comics character Cable: both are soldiers who are displaced in time with little working memory of their origins and previous life, who must prevent a tragedy of epic proportions from befalling mankind.

[edit] Cast

  • Lloyd Nolan – as Kagan
  • Michael Ansara – as Qarlo Clobregnny
  • Tim O'Connor – as Paul Tanner
  • Catherine McLeod – as Abby Kagan
  • Jill Hill – as Toni Kagan
  • Alan Jaffe – as The Enemy
  • Ralph Hart – as Loren Kagan
  • Marlowe Jensen – as Sgt. Berry
  • Ted Stanhope – as Doctor
  • Jamie Forster – as News Vendor
  • Mavis Neal Palmer – as Woman

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ James Cameron Profile. www.eonline.com. Retrieved on 2007-08-09.

[edit] External links