| "The Man Who Was Never Born" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| The Outer Limits episode | |||
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 6 |
||
| Directed by | Leonard Horn | ||
| Written by | Anthony Lawrence | ||
| Cinematography by | Conrad Hall | ||
| Production code | 12 | ||
| Original air date | October 28, 1963 | ||
| Guest stars | |||
| Episode chronology | |||
|
|||
| List of The Outer Limits episodes | |||
"The Man Who Was Never Born" (original title: "Cry of the Unborn") is an episode of the original The Outer Limits television show. It first aired on 28 October 1963, during the first season.
Contents |
An astronaut returning to Earth finds himself flung into the distant future, where he finds the mutated remnants of humanity living on a ruined Earth.
| “ | Here, in the bright, clustered loneliness of the billion, billion stars, loneliness can be an exciting, voluntary thing, unlike the loneliness Man suffers on Earth. Here, deep in the starry nowhere, a man can be as one with space and time; preoccupied, yet not indifferent; anxious and yet at peace. His name is Joseph Reardon. He is, in this present year, thirty years old. This is the first time he has made this journey alone… | ” |
The astronaut, Joseph Reardon, lands on Earth only to find it a desolate and barren place. He meets Andro, a creature (once human) who is stricken with a disfiguring disease. Andro reveals that the year is now 2148 A.D. and the astronaut has been sent to the future. Andro is one of the few survivors of a biological disaster brought on by a scientist called Bertram Cabot, Jr.
Andro explains the situation and Reardon decides to see if he can return to his own time ... and take Andro with him to show the future, and perhaps avoid it. While returning through the time rift, Reardon is killed, leaving Andro to find a way to prevent his disastrous future from occurring. Andro can project himself as a normal human; and uses this ability to begin searching for some way to stop Cabot's work — even if it means, as a last resort, assassinating him.
It becomes clear that he has arrived too early. Bertram Cabot, Jr. has not been born yet, and in fact his parents Noelle and Bertram Cabot, Sr. are just about to be married. Andro, in his "human" guise, attempts to convince Cabot that he should not marry Noelle — with no success.
Andro begins to fall in love with Noelle. While attempting to kill Cabot with a revolver, he hesitates, is assaulted, and Andro's true appearance is discovered, forcing him to flee. Noelle follows him, and he explains his mission. Meanwhile Noelle confesses that she has fallen in love with Andro. She convinces him to take her with him to the future, thereby avoiding any possibility that she and Cabot will have a child. Unfortunately Andro disappears just as the ship arrives in "his" time — as he is The Man Who Was Never Born.
| “ | It is said that if you move a single pebble on the beach, you set up a different pattern, and everything in the world is changed. It can also be said that love can change the future, if it is deep enough, true enough, and selfless enough. It can prevent a war, prohibit a plague, keep the whole world… whole. | ” |
The final scene, filmed on M.G.M.s Backlot but cut due to timing reasons, was to follow on from the shot of Noelle alone in Andro's spaceship, She awakes, as if from a dream, on a grassy bank and calls out for Andro who is nowhere in site, then a kindly middle aged man riding an air-car appears:
MAN: Could I help you?
NOELLE: (after a pause) What is this place?
MAN: It is London (smiles) That is if you follow this road, you will come to the Old Town.
NOELLE: And the time?
MAN: The time?
NOELLE: The year?
MAN:(a smile then) Twenty-one-forty-eight. Are you lost?
NOELLE:(pauses) No, just alone.
The Old Man was played by Jack Raine.[1]
The plot for this episode is markedly similar to the movie Twelve Monkeys, that was based on the 1962 French short film La jetée by Chris Marker. The protagonist of both stories travels back in time in an attempt to prevent a biological holocaust that has destroyed mankind in his time. See also, the 1990s Outer Limits episode, "Patient Zero".