| "Second Chance" | |||
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| The Outer Limits episode | |||
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 23 |
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| Directed by | Paul Stanley | ||
| Written by | Lin Dane (teleplay & story) Lou Morheim (teleplay) |
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| Cinematography by | Kenneth Peach | ||
| Production code | 27 | ||
| Original air date | March 2, 1964 | ||
| Guest stars | |||
| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of The Outer Limits episodes | |||
"Second Chance" is an episode of the original The Outer Limits television show. It first aired on 2 March 1964, during the first season.
Contents |
Frustrated scientist Dave Crowell (Don Gordon) has found a temporary job - piloting a flying saucer mock-up at a carnival. However, an alien from the planet Empyria (Simon Oakland), modifies the attraction into a real spaceship, and, passing himself off as a weird roving sideshow, invites aboard a group of misfits, each of whom is refusing to confront unpleasant realities in his/her life. The Empyrian offers the group a second chance - an opportunity to colonize a planet that, paradoxically, will threaten both the alien's home world and Earth just 82 years down the line, but, to turn this dream into a reality, each must overcome an entrenched unwillingness to face his or her own true nature to pull together as a group. In the end, the course of the ship is reversed and is sent presumably back to Earth.
This episode has no closing narration.
The original script for this episode was written by Sonya Roberts (previously having written 3 episodes of 77 Sunset Strip) and titled 'Joy Ride', and takes place at 'Jollyland',(changed to 'Joyland') Lou Morheim retained the basic plot in his rewrite, but where Roberts approached the silly plot in an intelligent and at times humorous manner, Morheim geared the story, because ABC wanted monsters and simplistic stories, to be more conventional and threw out most of the emotional depth and humour of the characters. In 'Second Chance', for example, as The Empyrian walks around handing out free tickets, he frightens whoever he encounters by suddenly appearing in front of them, in 'Joy Ride' when Dave and Mara first spot him their reaction is not terror but a growing awe as he saunters up wearing a sandwich board that reads 'GREETINGS EARTHMEN, I AM FROM THE PLANET EMPYRIA IN OUTER SPACE', another example is, in 'Second Chance', the Empyrian forces Arjay Beasley to buckle his safety belt, for the (real) journey into space, by hypnotizing him with his Alien medallion, in 'Joy Ride' he achieves this by getting Arjay to "pretend" everything is for real, pulling out his ray gun and threatening to burn him to a cinder if he doesn't, Arjay playing along with the game complies laughing. Sonya Roberts had her name removed from the script, believing it to be inane, she had her credit changed to Lin Dane. (source - The Outer Limits:The Official Companion (1986), pages 223-225.)