The Outer Limits (TV Series) Specimen: Unknown (1964) User Reviews

A pretty average space opera.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 6/10 · 2 July 2023]

A group of five astronauts face a desperate battle for survival, as their base is overrun by deadly spores, which multiply rapidly, and emit a toxic gas.

I don't mean this in a critical way by any means, but the plot is a bit more Doctor Who than Outer Limits, I can understand why fans don't perhaps look too kindly on this one. The plot itself isn't bad, there are some good ideas, but maybe something gets a little lost in translation, it just doesn't quite work.

On the plus side, some of the special effects look pretty good as well, I really did rate the sets and camera work.

I'll applaud it for trying something a little different, a bit of sci fi space horror, when you compare it to other episodes, it just lacks something.

Stephen McNally is perhaps the standout as Colonel MacWilliams, he'd have been very well known to viewers at this point, he'd have completed The Target series a few years before this went out.

6/10.

Roll Up the Windows on the Car

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 13 January 2015]

Yes it does rip off "The Day of the Triffids." That book and movie are much more sophisticated than this one. Here some really sloppy, careless astronauts allow an alien species onto their ship. They use no protective gear. They leave things unattended. Who are these guys? They are portrayed as scientists. Anyway, now they have an infestation and it must be decided if their craft should be the target of a surface to air missile. The decision is made to land and a patch of deadly plants shoots seeds out an multiplies at a geometric rate. The powers that be bumble around trying to figure out what to do. Two things that are utterly ludicrous are the efforts to open the hatch on the shuttle craft with tire iron from the trunk of the car. The second is taking refuge in the car to protect themselves from the deadly plants but leaving the windows open. Duh! Then there is the deus ex machina. Oh, well, it's not horrible; it's just really stupid.

Space Spores

[AaronCapenBanner · 6/10 · 13 March 2016]

Richard Jaeckel stars as Captain Mike Dowling, who is a part of a handful of astronauts/scientists on an orbiting space station shaped like a wheel. When one of the crew(played by Dabney Coleman) dies mysteriously after exposure to some unknown space spores which have attached themselves to the side of the ship, the decision is made to land back on Earth with the specimens on board, but unfortunately their container breaks, unleashing the spreading spores first on board the ship, then later on the Earth when it crash lands. Just how can this botanical menace be stopped? Russell Johnson and Gail Kobe costar. Mediocre episode has a padded and thin story, though still manages to be reasonably fun viewing.

Specimen: Known To Me

[StuOz · 5 July 2014]

Alien plants cause trouble on earth.

This hour was probably a lot better in 1964, now today I have seen other TV shows like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (Terror) and Star Trek (This Side Of Paradise) pinch the invader plant story and it all seems rather routine now.

But there is no question that the final act of Specimen: Unknown still packs a punch in 2014. In fact the whole hour is still rather cool.

At this stage of the season, The Outer Limits was dishing out great episodes every week! The imagination, scripting, acting, music, location filming is just great.

"Don't let us land. Destruct us!"

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 24 May 2022]

There's an awful lot to nitpick with this episode and a lot of other reviewers here beat me to the punch by listing a whole host of them. Standouts include experimenting with the mushroom-like plants without any type of protective equipment, and once on Earth, Colonel MacWilliams (Stephen McNally) actually grabbing one by the stem when he already knew there was something deadly about them. The best though had to be one of the soldiers grabbing a tire iron to open the hatch on the downed spacecraft! Really??!! With a multi-billion dollar defense budget, couldn't the military come up with something a little more appropriate? Jeez, that was so laughable I'm chuckling even as I write this.

Actually, the concept of the story wasn't all that bad, it's just the execution that was comical. As mentioned by other reviewers, the 1963 movie "The Day of the Triffids" (renamed "Invasion of the Triffids") was a defining forerunner to this episode, but I also found a similarity to 1956's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", and when it comes to the finale, the idea that the plant gushing spores could be defeated by something as ordinary as rain calls to mind the 1953 sci-fi classic "The War of the Worlds". In turn, I wouldn't be surprised if this story was the inspiration for the 1967 "Star Trek" episode titled 'This Side of Paradise'. In that one, Spock was affected by a spore gushing plant that could only be counteracted by the affected victim's strong emotions.

Deadly invasion of plants!

[andrew-huggett · 6/10 · 15 January 2013]

This episode is a cross between 'The Day of the Triffids' and the Star Trek episode 'This Side of Paradise' with a dash of H.G.Well's 'The War of the Worlds' (in that it is a very simple earthly thing which destroys the invaders at the end). The special effects are basic but adequate (you can see the strings on the petals as they open) and as usual the cinematography of this TV series is superb – every frame beautifully composed and moodily lit in black and white. A sort of film noir photography. One day hopefully this series will be remastered in HD (it was almost certainly shot on 35mm or 16mm film) and released on blu-ray. The incidental music and ominous sound effects are as usual very good. There is a strong feeling of claustrophobia – in the space station, the shuttle and especially the car and ambulance at the end. One of the better stories in my view because it poses the conundrum of whether its better to sacrifice a few or risk allowing the crew to land and potentially spread a deadly invader which could kill millions. There is a scene where one of the astronauts states that the plants are breaking through the metal door in the shuttle but we don't get to see this – I suspect it was not shown due to the limited special effects of the time. It would be interesting to see this remade with today's CGI effects. The plant models (and there are lots of them!) look very similar to the ones used in Star Trek episode already mentioned.

Puffed Wheats And Agar Dishes

[ferbs54 · 6/10 · 11 July 2018]

Before sitting down to watch the first-season "Outer Limits" episode "Specimen: Unknown" the other night, for the first time in many years, it suddenly struck me that I remembered virtually nothing from this particular outing. And that was very strange, as I HAD seen the episode several times before, on television, on VHS and on DVD. And yet, all I could recall was that "this is the one with the spore plants," and just about nothing else; surely, NOT a good sign going in. And now that I have refreshed my memory of this episode, it seems clear to me just why my memory had been so hazy regarding this one: There really is nothing much to remember about it, as very little in the way of story or action is provided to the viewer to begin with! "Specimen: Unknown," which debuted on ABC on 2/24/64, was the 22nd offering from the landmark sci-fi anthology show. For me, it was the second episode of a group that seemed to indicate that the program was entering a midseason slump of sort. Whereas episodes #17 - 20--"Don't Open Till Doomsday," "ZZZZZ," "The Invisibles" and "The Bellero Shield"--proved to be some of the most fondly remembered episodes that the program ever gave us, beginning with episode #21, "The Children of Spider County," the show entered into a run of around five episodes that were of a slightly lesser, decidedly middling quality, only to rebound in a very big way with episode #26, "The Guests." And of that lesser bunch, "Specimen: Unknown" just might be the weakest of the lot. (This, by the way, is all subjective and comparative, of course, and episodes such as # 25, "The Mutant," must remain very fine sci-fi in anybody's book.) Still, I was happy to rediscover that even though this particular hour of "The Outer Limits" surely does suffer in comparison to most of the other 32 (!) first-season offerings, it still does offer some fine points to commend itself to the viewer's attention.

In this episode, we encounter some of the crew of Project Adonis, an orbiting space wheel floating 1,000 miles above the Earth. When some mushroomlike growths are discovered clinging to the outside hatch and brought inside, one of the crewmen, Lt. Howard (Dabney Coleman, unrecognizable here sans moustache), experiments on it, placing it in an agar bath and then an incubation chamber, where it sprouts and becomes a pretty-looking, lilylike plant. But upon removing the alien growth from the chamber, Howard is suddenly sprayed by a cloud of spores and what looks to be a mist of sorts from the plant, killing him fairly instantly. Later, it is seen that an artificial tanning lamp also causes the mushroomlike thingies to sprout. But real trouble only comes later, when a group of the Adonis crewmen, returning to Earth after their tour of duty, are struck down by the plant spores and sickened unto death. Back on Earth, the project commander, Col. MacWilliams (Stephen McNally), faces the very tough decision of whether to allow these men to land on Earth and risk contaminating the planet, OR to instruct them to self-destruct while still in space. Ultimately, the returning Adonis crewmen ARE permitted to touch down at a Florida spaceport, but crash-land in a wooded area nearby. And unfortunately, those alien plants very quickly take over the entire area, spewing spores of death all the while. Can anything eradicate this new and frightful menace?

As revealed in David Schow's indispensable reference guide, "The Outer Limits: The Official Companion," it was discovered only after this episode finished shooting that the running time was a scant 45 minutes, thus necessitating padding and numerous insert shots to fill it out to a proper length. And the episode does indeed feel padded, with an extra-long (and surprisingly dull) precredits sequence, endless shots of those darn plants, and an extended interlude during which a crewman takes a space walk to effect repairs. The episode is sloooow moving, to put it mildly, and the so-called "bear" of the hour, those plants, is hardly an intimidating one. The resolution of the crisis at the episode's finale is something of a deus ex machina that comes out of, uh, thin air; credible though it might be, anyone who has seen "The War of the Worlds" might have an inkling as to the nature of the denouement here. The spores that these alien growths emit look just like cereal, and thus I was not at all surprised when Schow revealed that they were indeed Puffed Wheats. Actually, the spores here are pretty darn reminiscent of the ones that would be featured in the Season 1 episode of "Star Trek" entitled "This Side of Paradise." But those plants, to be found on the planet Omicron Ceti III, only caused lethargy and contentment, whereas these attacked the body's hemoglobin and caused death. Visually, however, the spores are pretty much identical. In all honesty, what this episode of "The Outer Limits" brought most forcefully to this viewer's mind was an Italian sci-fi film of the sort helmed by director Antonio Margheriti in the mid-'60s; films such as "Battle of the Worlds" (1961) and "War of the Planets" (1966). In other words, a Grade B sci-fi film, here featuring a lackluster script from Stephen Lord, but fortunately given that wonderful first-season "OL" feel.

And as I mentioned up top, there ARE some saving graces to be had here. As a first-season outing, "Specimen: Unknown" fortunately highlights the talents of director Gerd Oswald (who had previously brought in such fan favorites as "O.B.I.T.," "Corpus Earthling," "It Crawled From the Woodwork," "Don't Open Till Doomsday" and "The Invisibles", and who would go on to direct no fewer than eight more, including the truly remarkable episode "The Forms of Things Unknown"); some more impressive lensing by DOP Conrad Hall, working here in one of his seven "OL" episodes with Oswald (Hall's woodland work here is especially fine); and of course, those telltale musical cues from the late great Dominic Frontiere. The episode also benefits from a group of wonderful acting pros: McNally, an actor who had already appeared in any number of quality '40s and '50s films, including the ubertough film noir "Criss Cross" and the legendary Western "Winchester '73"; Richard Jaeckel, who, four years later, would again face off against an alien menace in an orbiting space station, in the Italian classic "The Green Slime"; Russell Johnson, everybody's favorite egghead castaway; and Arthur Batanides, a familiar TV face of the '60s who will always be the doomed Lt. D'Amato--from the "Star Trek" episode "That Which Survives"--to me. Not to mention Gail Kobe, an actress with whom I was not familiar, playing the worried wife of the Jaeckel character, and who makes the most of her underwritten part. (But then again, ALL the parts here are fairly underwritten.) The episode does boast a few well-done scenes, including the outer space "burial" of Lt. Howard; the shadow of one of those darn flowers that suddenly appears on the helmeted, desiccated face of one of the spacemen once back on Earth; the revelation of a gaggle of the plants growing beneath the hood of the colonel's car; and that final deus ex machina scene, a lovely scene, really, capped by some of the sweetest parting words by the Control Voice. And the episode's central crisis--whether it is wiser to allow the Adonis ship to land or to have it blown up summarily--is fairly well carried off, and the painful decision that MacWilliams is forced to make is an affecting one. Unfortunately, all these combined elements cannot save the episode from the curse of mediocrity, and "Specimen: Unknown," despite being the highest-rated episode that the series would enjoy (!), must yet go down as one of the weakest from an otherwise legendary season....

Little ship of horrors

[nickenchuggets · 9/10 · 27 March 2024]

In science fiction media, the thing that causes trouble for or terrorizes the protagonists is typically an alien or being from some distant world. While this installment of The Outer Limits might partially fit that description, I would still say this show is one of the only things to ever make something like this appear threatening. The story begins in the cold reaches of space. An orbital space station's laboratory is being worked in by an astronaut named Lieutenant Howard. He's studying some kind of fungus that randomly appeared inside the station one day. He puts it in an incubator to see what happens, and eventually it grows into a spindly white flower with a long stem. When Howard tries to investigate it further, the flower squirts a vapor into his face which quickly forms into poison gas while making a screeching noise. Howard tries to get rid of the flower and the other pods from which they grow, but he suffocates. The crew of the Adonis (the space station) try to look into what happened to Howard, but a change of shift botches their plan. By the time everyone realizes the plants are what killed him, the flowers are already onboard an earthbound shuttle and sealed in a compartment behind the crew. Colonel MacWilliams (Stephen MacNally), officer in charge of a base where the shuttle is supposed to land, faces a serious problem when he hears from Captain Doweling (Richard Jaeckal). The captain says how everyone inside the shuttle is succumbing fast to the vapors the plants give off, despite them being sealed aft of the crew compartment. Doweling's wife Janet (Gail Kobe) tries to convince him to hang in there, but MacWilliams realizes the fate of the whole human race is potentially at stake. Doweling is convinced if the plants make it to Earth, they will spread out of control to every continent and kill everyone, so he wants MacWilliams to blow up the shuttle before it lands. The colonel knows fully well everyone on it will die, but he either does this or risks losing the entire planet. Eventually, the plan to blow up the ship is cancelled and MacWilliams gives them orders to land at a base in Florida. By the time the shuttle crashes and Adonis personnel (along with MacWilliams and Janet) are on the scene, thousands of the flowers are swarming the crash site. The colonel pries open the ship's hatch and manages to get all the crew members (except one who has died) to safety in an ambulance. However, when he and Janet attempt to leave the area in a car, the engine won't start. MacWilliams opens the hood to find the engine engulfed in plants. He and Janet try to leave on foot, but there's so many flowers at this point that they seal off literally every means of escape. Right when all hope seems lost, a rainstorm descends from the heavens: bad news for MacWilliams who theorized the flowers will gain strength from it. Instead, the opposite happens and they start to wither and die. MacWilliams and Janet (and by extension, earth) are saved. Upon going through the reviews for this episode, I can't put into words my disappointment at finding out no one else rated it a 9. How can you hate it? The ending is probably mostly uninspired since it seems to come directly from War of the Worlds, but that's the only real complaint I have. After exhausting every possibility for trying to get rid of these plants, they are destroyed by something as harmless as rain, just like how the Martians are killed by germs people are immune to. Other than this, I think it's pretty damn good. Originally pitched for an episode idea by scriptwriter Stephen Lord to Joseph Stefano, Lord's original idea was to have the plants appear on earth after a flying saucer sprays a beach with spores that turn into the killer plants. This idea went nowhere as Lord felt having the plants appear on earth right from the beginning would not allow the show to hold up for an hour, so most of the final episode takes place in space. By some odd coincidence, a movie had come out around this time called Day of the Triffids, which is based on a book in which alien plants are destroyed by saltwater. Even though I really like this episode, most people (even those involved in making it) seem to hate it. It is actually short by Outer Limits standards, and Stefano had to fill the time somehow by showing shots of the space station spinning in the early sections as often as possible. Did I also mention the "spores" the plants shoot are actually pieces of wheat cereal? Specimen Unknown is just absolute insanity. As someone who watches a lot of other shows from the 60s, I also appreciate how the prop of the crashed shuttle occupied a backlot at MGM that was also being used to shoot episodes for Combat, Vic Morrow's classic Second World War series. Stefano actually had to request more plants to be put around the lot to obscure props being used for that show. In perhaps the most shocking twist of all, Twilight Zone of all shows actually bought the shuttle prop from Outer Limits to be used in the episode Probe 7, Over and Out. To my knowledge, this is the only time that show borrowed something from Outer Limits. Overall, even though this episode seems to be considered a joke by most people (like Behold Eck), it is one of my favorite entries of The Outer Limits due to the antagonists being alien plants.

Strange And Deadly

[StrictlyConfidential · 6/10 · 3 July 2021]

"Specimen: Unknown" was first aired on television February 24, 1964.

Anyway - As the story goes - The crew aboard a space station investigates the death of a young lieutenant and uncovers a strange and deadly new life form.

Excellent ep-- due to beautiful Gail Kobe

[belanger75 · 10/10 · 13 December 2019]

This ep is very well done throughout but it gets a little superior as it goes along solely due and because of beautiful Miss. Kobe as the wife of an astronaut. The plot starts off in space and we first think it will all take place in orbit. But it will become about Earth and Kobe's great character. Excellent.

I did not see Day if the Triffids or any other supposed source material for this ep I know nothing of any 45 minute problem for this episode either. But it is greatly done and actually realistic. I remember about 5 years ago in real life there was a disease in Africa and they were examining people and the medical examiners were NOT taking all precautions possible to keep themselves from infection so what happens in this ep is realistic in the lack of safety by the military personnel. Besides eventually we see beauty Kobe behind a closed window.

Its old, its trash its wonderfully bad

[nigel_cummings · 10/10 · 1 July 2023]

Somewhat more plausible than the dreadful tardigrade spore drive thingummy, depicted recent incarnations of Star Trek. At least all these actors (all sadly deceased) play out an awful script and lamentable special effects for all its worth. Jeez, these guys were sci-fi pioneers in their day - how time moves on! Just remember that TV screens were small glowing orbs in the corner if the living room when this type of horror was shot for tv broadcasting. Watchers then were probably scared to death watching it :) Watch it for what it is, a Dan Dare esque Hokum where the villains are marauding daffodils that spit - its crazy, its brilliant, enjoy it, crap special effects and lousy dialogue galore - 1 hour of pure delight!

Not one of the series' finer moments....

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 27 June 2012]

As the other reviewer pointed out, this story idea was 'borrowed' from "Day of the Triffids"--so, at the outset, the episode has a huge strike against it. Incidentally, a few years later, "Star Trek" ripped off the idea as well with their episode "This Side of Paradise"! I am pretty sure some other folks have copied the idea as well!

While I could explain the plot in detail, to be brief I'll just say that astronauts accidentally bring back to Earth evil plants. These giant evil plants shoot evil spores at folks--and soon it looks as if they'll take over the planet! It's not a particularly deep or interesting idea but the folks starring in this one give it their best and the episode doesn't suck, so I'm scoring it a 5. You could do a lot better...or worse.

Terrible scientific background. Nice space effects.

[jim_of_oz · 4/10 · 7 October 2020]

Actually the effects are pretty good for their age. Especially the space craft and station. There rest of it is pretty poor. How stupid can "scientists" be dealing with and alien life form that seems to kill in minutes. Pack them up in a coffee can and return them to earth.

Plot is a ripoff of Day of the Triffids

[dcorr123 · 4/10 · 6 October 2011]

This episode is essentially a simplified version of Day of the Triffids. In this one, the Triffids are brought to Earth by returning astronauts. In the 1962 movie, they arrived on a meteor shower which also blinded most of humanity. In the original 1951 novel, their origin is unknown but speculated to have been part of a Soviet experiment. That's 1951 thinking! Like the triffids, these flowers spray poison and kill animals, including humans. Also like the triffids they are spreading all over the world, seemingly unstoppable. That comes to an end with a rain storm. Apparently, like the Wicked Witch of the West, water destroys them. In the 1962 movie, it turned out to be salt water that was their doom.

Bargain-basement scientists are so easy to kill. Even plants can outsmart them.

[fedor8 · 21 April 2021]

One of the lamest episodes starts with a space station biologist analyzing alien spores, without any protection: no head gear, no gloves, no special suit - he may as well been dressed for a picnic. The dolt seemed to have as much knowledge about bacteria and contamination as 15th-century peasants. He goes so far as to even seem DISINTERESTED when one of the plants throws a bunch of seeds at him. He doesn't even get mildly alarmed upon discovering how rapidly they grow. I mean, this guy is a bonafide moron. Kinda like the writer.

Of course he snuffs it soon thereafter, and then his colleagues dump his body through a window, as if the vacuum of space were some kind of a joke. These nitwits proceed to handle the plants with the same recklessness as the dead scientist, not suspecting anything. I guess they must be losing a biologist every week, because this event seems not too surprising or alarming for their pea-brains.

In other words, your typical pulp sc-fi crew of blithering idiots who probably all flunked High School, yet somehow got top jobs at NASA. Hollywood's NASA, of course, is entirely different from the real NASA. I would go as far as to claim that the two have zero in common.

There isn't even a proper intro, nothing showing us how and where these astrotwits even found the mysterious plants. The audience is way ahead of the characters at all times, which always spells doom in fiction, especially in a story as plot-devoid as this one. It takes these astrocretins ages to figure out that the contamination stems from the spores. Utterly awful B-movie writing, totally unworthy of TOL. Unworthy of film, of TV, unworthy of the paper it's printed on. I wouldn't tolerate this story even in a 50s comic-book.

50 minutes of an ultra-thin plot that gets stretched through shameless repetition. The Earth base bozos keep discussing the same crap over and over: should they allow the astrodummies to land or not. Must be tough making life-and-death decisions when you only have three brain-cells to rub together.

Once they land on Earth, what precautions does the rescue team take? Any gas-masks? Protective suits? Nah. This is some prehistoric NASA or something. Hollywood NASA, in short. HNASA.

The fact that this hopelessly idiotic and dull episode got a 7,0 rating really makes me suspect that most TOL fans are no brighter than any of these HNASAclowns.

Check out my TOL list, with reviews of all the episodes.

Specimen: Unknown

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 10 September 2023]

The Outer Limits is doing The Day of The Triffids with a touch of The War of the Worlds with the ending.

Lt Howard, a member of the Adonis research space station, finds a strange mushroom shaped organism. They look rather like space barnacles.

When exposed to the light and air inside the space station, it grows rapidly and flowers. When the plant is studied, the flower emits a noxious gas that eventually kills Lt Howard.

The other astronauts return to Earth, bringing the new plant species with them, not knowing that it caused Howard's death.

After the astronaut arrive on Earth half dead as the plants have multiplied. They quickly spread on the planet with the army not knowing how to stop them.

The story is familiar but the execution is weak. Given the plan spews deadly spores, lets of a noxious gas, no one wears protective suits.

At least the story has danger. The commanding officer and an astronaut's wife having to evade the plants by foot.

Dumb, dumb, dumb

[ijdavidson · 10 April 2022]

"Specimen: Unknown" (S1 E22 of the original Outer Limits) was the highest-rated episode of the original series, and I admit it has some good parts. But it's also one of the DUMBEST episodes in a series that excelled at ominous dopiness. The scientists of Project Adonis, a research station in orbit 1,000 miles above the Earth, find some fungoid-looking things - "space barnacles", they call them - adhering to the station's hull and bring them in for further examination. They speculate that they are some kind of alien spores that have been just "floating around in space for millions of years." This is ALIEN LIFE we're talking about, and they treat them as casually as if they were Earth mushrooms. They don't keep them in sealed containers; they don't use isolation and containment glove boxes to handle the specimens; they casually handle them with their bare hands, and keep them in what look like modified coffee cans; they don't pack them securely when it's time to return to Earth. Even after one of the scientists is killed by one of the plants - which of course is unwitnessed by the rest of the crew - they don't do anything to change their handling of the mushroom-shaped organisms. All these safety measures things had been thought of, designed and invented when the show was filmed. But of course, if the plants hadn't "gotten loose," there would be no (dumb) story, would there?