The Outer Limits

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Skin Deep:
Season 8, Episode 3.
Starring Adam Goldberg, Antonio Sabato Jr and Christina Cox.
The Adam Goldberg is not the same Adam Goldberg who later created The Goldbergs TV series.
The Adam Goldberg here plays a character who got his hands on a device that he can make him look like anyone he wants and here he pretended to be the Sabato character.
Not surprising how it all came downhill for the Goldberg character as he performed an exercise of hubris which ultimately led to his end.

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The Outer Limits 8.3 is Skin Deep and three episodes later is 8.6 The Beholder.


Looking at these two episode titles makes me think of that familiar saying that beauty is skin deep and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.


Although not all The Outer Limits episodes are stand-alone as there are episodes that are connected with each other, there is no plot connection between Skin Deep & The Beholder as they are unrelated to each other despite both titles coming from the said aforementioned saying.

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The Outer Limits 8.11 Inner Child starred Laura Leighton.

Laura Leighton is a Melrose Place alum and a few years before The Outer Limits episode she made her swansong on Melrose when her character Sydney Andrews died in a hospital when efforts to save her there failed.
In Inner Child her character was also pronounced dead in a hospital only for to come back alive shortly afterwards.

Laura Leighton’s final appearance as Sydney Andrews in the original series of Melrose Place would also turn out not to be her final death as she came back to play her in the short-lived 2009 revival of Melrose Place only for her to be killed off for the definitive time in the first episode.
Absolutely flabbergasted that she was asked to play Sydney again a character that viewers thought was dead only to be killed off in the first episode of the said revival.

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The Outer Limits (1995-2002) 6.13 Decompression featured a time traveller.
The Outer Limits fan Karen Gillan played time traveller Amy Pond in NuWho’s own 6.13 The Wedding of River Song.
The Outer Limits episode is about a fictional US presidential candidate and unlike this episode being part of the sixth season of The Outer Limits (1995-2002), The Wedding of River Song is the finale of NuWho’s own sixth season.
Just as The Wedding of River Song ended NuWho’s sixth season, the season had begun with The Impossible Astronaut which had a portrayal of a real-life US President in Richard M. Nixon.

Decompression had mention of the metaphorical gravy train while The Wedding of River Song had an actual train including the said Amy sitting in her office on it.
In Decompression the presidential candidate was described as man of the people. As Decompression is an episode of The Outer Limits (1995-2002) season 6, Star Trek: The Next Generation’s own season 6 has an episode called Man of the People.
In Decompression the presidential candidate was played by Bruce Boxleitner and prior to this episode he had played John Sheridan in Babylon 5 who ultimately becomes President of the Interstellar Alliance.
In The Outer Limits episode he is running for president on a smaller scale that of the United States.

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The Outer Limits 8.17 Gettysburg in 2000 marked the final of four appearances in the series by future K9 star Robert Moloney.
Gettysburg is a time travel episode in which the principal characters were sent back in time to the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War.
Moloney was not one of these time travellers as he played a soldier during the Civil War.

Notwithstanding the constant presence of the space/time manipulator in K9, K9 did have one bona fide time travel episode The Cambridge Spies but ironically Moloney as Professor Gryffen did not travel to the past in this episode.

The name Gettysburg is forever made famous by the Gettysburg Address delivered by US President Abraham Lincoln in 1863.

The Outer Limits episode does not have a portrayal of Lincoln but a non-speaking re-enactor of him in a scene that took place in 2013 the 150th anniversary of the said address.

In contrast Doctor Who did briefly have a portrayal of Lincoln delivering the famous address in the first episode of The Chase, The Executioners.

The Outer Limits episode also featured Meat Loaf and in 2006 came reports that Meat Loaf is a Doctor Who fan and would like to appear in Doctor Who as a villain.
However these reports turned out to be false as it has been stated that Meat Loaf has never seen Doctor Who.

The 2013 scene in The Outer Limits episode has a nameless black US President played by Blu Mankuma.
This episode was proven correct in this prediction as there was a black US President in the real 2013 in Barack Obama.

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The Outer Limits ended its eighth season with the two-parter Final Appeal and had Kelly McGillis playing a lawyer.
I have seen McGillis as a lawyer elsewhere in the movie The Accused (1988) and subsequent to her The Outer Limits stint played a colonel with legal expertise in two episodes of The L Word in a storyline that ultimately saw her presenting a case for the prosecution in a military tribunal.
McGillis was also a prosecutor in The Accused.
However for her stint in The Outer Limits she was on the other side of a legal proceeding as she was the defence lawyer for her client.

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Donnelly Rhodes has passed away.

Born on December 4 1937, Donnelly Rhodes appeared in In The Outer Limits in Worlds Apart playing Senator and in Dead Man’s Switch playing General James Eiger.
His other work included Mission: Impossible, Wonder Woman, Sliders, The X-Files, The Sentinel, Millennium, Roswell: The Aliens Attack, Snow Dogs, Psych, The L Word, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica, Human Target, TRON: Legacy, Iron Golem, 12 Disasters, Supernatural, The Flash & Legends of Tomorrow.

Donnelly Rhodes died on January 8 2018 just over a month after his 80th birthday.

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David Ogden Stiers has passed away.
Born on October 31 1942, Stiers had at one time entered the world of The Outer Limits in The Shroud playing Reverend Dr. Thomas Tilford.

He was also in the world of Star Trek when he appeared in The Next Generation episode Half a Life playing Timicin and in the world of The Outer Limits in The Shroud playing Reverend Dr. Thomas Tilford.

For the rest of the world Stiers was well known as Major Charles Winchester in M*A*S*H.
Other work included THX 1138, Creator, Perry Mason, Doc Hollywood, Beauty and the Beast, Shadows and Fog, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Jungle 2 Jungle, Krippendorf’s Tribe, Pocahontas 2: Journey to a New World, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Spirited Away, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Justice League, Lilo & Stitch, Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, Lilo & Stitch: Stitch Has a Glitch, Hoodwinked!, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs Evil & Leverage.
He died on March 3 2018 at the age of 75.

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Margot Kidder has passed away.
Born on October 17 1948, Margot Kidder was well known for playing Lois Lane in the four Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve.
She later returned to the Superman universe in two episodes of Smallville about Clark Kent before he became Superman which she played the different character of Bridgette Crosby.
She also appeared in The Outer Limits episode Revival playing Serena.
Her other work included La Femme Nikita, Earth: Final Conflict, The L Word, Brothers & Sisters & Halloween II.
She died on May 13 2018 at the age of 69.

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The Outer Limits 1960s title sequence with its narration turned up on a television watched by Bob/Mr Incredible and Jack-Jack in The Incredibles 2.

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Harlan Ellison has passed away.

Born on May 27 1934, Harlan Ellison was a science fiction author and wrote The Outer Limits episodes Soldier & Demon with a Glass (both 1964).
The 1999 episode The Human Operators was based on a short story that he had written.
Clips of The Human Operators would later be used in the series finale Human Trials.
His first Outer Limits episode Soldier later entered controversy with The Terminator (1984) with him stating that he believed this movie was based on Soldier without his permission.
This matter was ultimately settled which included Ellison getting the credit of “acknowledgment to the works of” and he said that he loved the movie.

Ellison was a Doctor Who fan.
In fact Ellison wrote the foreword for the Americanised Doctor Who Target novelisations first published in 1979.
This is what he wrote in his foreword:
“I stood my ground, there on the lecture platform at the World Science Fiction Convention, and I repeated the heretical words that had sent them into animal hysterics: "Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurist drivel; Star Trek can turn your brains into puree of bat guano; and the greatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll take you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up!"

Despite his description of Star Trek, Ellison did earlier write the original series episode The City on the Edge of Forever which guest starred Joan Collins.

Ellison later became involved with Babylon 5 serving as conceptual consultant and provided the story for the episodes A View from the Gallery & Objects in Motion.
Ellison also acted in Babylon 5 in Ceremonies of Light and Dark voicing Sparky the Computer, The Face of the Enemy playing a PsI Cop and Day of the Dead voicing Zooty.
Other acting work included The Godson & The Simpsons

Other TV series he had written for included Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Logan's Run & The Twilight Zone.
He died on June 28 2018 just a little over a month after his 84th birthday.

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James Frawley has passed away.

Born on September 29 1936, Frawley as an actor appeared in The Outer Limits story The Inheritors playing Pvt. Robert Renaldo.

His other acting work included Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Fugitive, Columbo, The Muppet Movie & American Gothic.

Frawley was also a director and he directed the movie Fraternity Vacation (1985) which infamously included my favourite scene with my wives Barbara Crampton and Kathleen Kinmont.

His other directions included The Big Bus, The Muppet Movie, The Saint In Manhattan, Columbo
Melrose Place, Earth 2, American Gothic, Spy Game, The Three Stooges, Smallville, Ghost Whisperer, Private Practice & Grey’s Anatomy.

He died on January 22 2019 at the age of 82.

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Hal Holbrook has passed away.
Born on February 17 1925, Holbrook had appeared in The Outer Limits in Final Appeal playing Justice Harbison.
His other work included All The President's Men, Capricorn One, Fletch Lives, Hercules, Waking The Dead, Becker, The West Wing, Into the Wild, The Event, Lincoln, Planes, Fire & Rescue, Bones & Grey's Anatomy.
He died on January 23 2021, 25 days before his 96th birthday.

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Frances Sternhagen has passed away.
Born January 13 1930, Sternhagen appeared in The Outer Limits episode The Choice playing Jean Anderson.
Other work includes Outland, Communion, Misery, Doc Hollywood, Becker, The Mist & Parenthood.
She died on November 27 2023 at the age of 93.

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M. Emmet Walsh has passed away.

Born on March 22 1935, Walsh had appeared in The Outer Limits episode The Refuge playing Sanford Valle.

He was also in The X-Files episode The Unnatural playing Arthur Dales.


Other work included Escape from Planet of the Apes, What's Up Doc, Airport '77, Raise the Titanic, Ordinary People, Blade Runner, Missing In Action, Fletch, The Twilight Zone, The Hitchhiker, Wildcats, Amazing Stories, Harry and the Hendersons, The Flash, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, Romeo + Juliet, Wild Wild West, The Iron Giant, Snow Dogs, Army Wives, The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power & Knives Out.


He died on March 19 2024 just three days before his 89th birthday.