Vanishing Act (The Outer Limits)

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“Vanishing Act”
The Outer Limits episode
Episode no. Season 2
Episode 21
Written by Chris Dickie
Directed by Jonathan Glassner
Guest stars Brennan Kotowich
Jon Cryer
Richard Ian Cox
Jessica Lundy
Dean McDermott
Eric Schneider
R. Nelson Brown
Lenno Britos
Production no. 43
Original airdate 21 July 1996
Episode chronology
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"Out of Body" "The Sentence"
List of The Outer Limits episodes

"Vanishing Act" is an episode of The Outer Limits television series. It first aired on 21 July 1996, during the second season.

Contents

[edit] Introduction

Trevor McPhee makes a quick trip to the shops, but after a strange experience he returns home to find that ten years have passed.

[edit] Opening narration

"Our lives follow a long and winding path through time. But what happens if we're forced off the course of our own destiny?"

[edit] Plot

An alien race that has no concept of time uses wormholes to find planets with living creatures and enters them. Then when the host is asleep, they use a wormhole to abduct it and transport it to their home world, where they can learn everything the host has experienced. However, since the aliens have no concept of the passage of time, they aren't realizing that each time they return their host — Trevor — home, they are returning him 10 years later each time, putting him further out of touch with everything he loves. At the end they remove the connection and send him back to the night he first left; he has his life back, and nobody knows what happened, except Trevor, who retains the memory of his experience.

[edit] Closing narration

"Life is, at best, an uncertain path. Perhaps, we should be grateful with what we have, for even these riches may disappear along the way."

[edit] Cast

Brennan Kotowich as young Mark McPhee
Jon Cryer as Trevor McPhee
Richard Ian Cox as Mark McPhee
Jessica Lundy as Theresa McPhee
Dean McDermott as Ray Carter
Eric Schneider as Dr. Golden
R. Nelson Brown as Bartender
Lenno Britos as Man in Bathroom

[edit] External links