The Borderland

I checked the schedule... unless I saw reruns out of sequence, it looks like THE BORDERLAND may have been my very 1st episode of THE OUTER LIMITS. Back then, I had no idea what was going on, but the image of the electrical power plant, and the guy who vanishes when he steps into the magnetic field (you see his skeleton just before he's gone) stuck with me forever after that. Half a mile from my house was an electric sub-station, and every time we'd drive past it, I'd be reminded of this story.

In his own way, Leslie Stevens' stories on this show are even stranger and perhaps more impenetrable than Joe Stefano's. Stevens' focus on hard science, which often have long, extended sequences of scientists and machinery must have been difficult for "average" audiences to take. Heck, it takes a lot of patience on my part, and I figure I must be this show's target audience!

I'm familiar with a number of the actors in this one. Mark Richman I mostly remember for his 2 McCLOUD movies. He appeared in the pilot-- my pick for the single worst McCLOUD ever made (how did that show ever get get sold?), as the original Peter B. Clifford. (J.D. Cannon replaced him when it went to a series.) A few years later, he guested as the commander of NYC's mounted division, where Clifford told him in a phone call, "Now he's YOUR problem."

Nina Foch mostly stands out in my mind for her part as the secretary in EXECUTIVE SUITE, a very thought-provoking story whose climactic scene actually brought tears to my eyes, as William Holden gave a speech in which he spelled out the importance of being able to take pride in one's work, and said "You can't have men working ONLY for money."

Philip Abbott was the sidekick in THE F.B.I. (which I used to watch regularly but haven't seen since the 60's), but he also turned up in an Ellen Foley episode of NIGHT COURT, the one where Stella Stevens played the high-priced "madame".

And then there's Alfred Ryder, even sleazier than he was in the STAR TREK episode, THE MAN TRAP.

So many obsessed people in this story! The scientist wants to learn the secrets of the universe. The millionaire wants to contact the spirit of his dead son at any cost. His business manager wants power over things and over people, not having any real talent himself. The spiritualist wants the money she was promised (and in trying to get it, she really gets the businessman's number). And her client is so warped with adulation for her he's eager to stoop to murder in her behalf, while trying to rationalize his actions so he can see himself as innocent. Of these, the only one who comes out intact is the scientist, whose motives were completely selfless.

Somehow, I never saw this one again in syndication, and only found out the title when I wound up renting it in sequence with all the others in the 1990's.

Hard to believe a show this intense and scary used to be on at 7:30 PM Monday night. I suspect only the fact that Mondays back then were traditionally "dead" evenings for TV programming led to my tuning it in at all. I didn't watch regularly, and never saw even half the episodes. At least, until years later, in syndication. My own fanaticism for the show has grown steadily over the years. These days, even the episodes I don't care for I find fascinating to watch anyway.

Just like the previous episode, "The Borderland" is about power--not one of the more interesting topics for "The Outer Limits". Too many episodes dealt with this topic and "The Borderland" is among the weakest of them.

The show begins with a fake séance. It seems that a rich man is desperate to make contact with his dead nephew and these tricksters are trying to convince them of their powers. However, the other guests quickly uncover the hoax--and then ask the man to invest in their weird project involving alternate dimensions and how one of them now has TWO right hands after one was reversed by plunging into this dimension! He agrees and using his political connections, he's able to get the team HUGE amounts of power from the local station and they try to unlock the secrets of this dimension--though how it all relates to the dead man's nephew is a bit confusing.

All in all, there isn't a lot to love about this one. It suffers from a goofy plot and lots of unanswered questions. But, most importantly, it also lacks originality--especially after appearing just after another show about power! Not especially good.

I was about eleven years old when The Outer Limits first aired on ABC back in 1963, and to this day it remains my favorite and, for me, the most influential television series I have ever watched. Many of the episodes (e.g., The Galaxy Being, The Sixth Finger, Production and Decay of Strange Particles) scared me almost to death back then and still make my skin crawl (a little) if I happen to catch one on cable today, but the Borderland had a different effect: With its jargon-filled dialog ("polarity ... REVERSED!") about magnetic fields, electric power, antimatter, and the like, its many stock-footage shots of the apparatus of a massive power plant, and its stunning, over-the-top visual effects, it left me awestruck, and succeeded in inspiring a profound curiosity about electricity, magnetism, matter, energy, space, and time. It made me want to be a physicist, and indeed, 15 years later I earned a Ph.D. in that field. Whoever said watching TV dulls the mind?

Man of wealth Dwight Hartley is desperate to contact his dead son, after a failed seance with Mrs Palmer, he's approached by Professor Ian Fraser, who claims to have found a path to the fourth dimension, Hartley sees a potential means for contact.

A thoroughly imaginative, creative episode, I think this is without a doubt one of the more interesting ones from series one. We have the obvious sci fi element, but it's also mixed in with the occult to.

It's a very solid production, very well made, with some age defying special effects, and a quality that still shines through decades later, huge credit to the production team.

The acting is spot on, Mark Richman and Nina Foch are both great, the character of Dwight Hartley was very well played by Barry Jones, you did get the impression of a desperate father, and of course a wonderful turn from the wonderful Gladys Cooper, who played the dodgy medium.

9/10.

Peter Mark Richman stars as Professor Ian Fraser, who, along with his wife Eva(played by Nina Foch) and a fellow colleague(played by Philip Abbot) claim to have discovered a doorway into the fourth dimension that they accidentally discovered via electrical fields. They need the backing of a wealthy man named Dwight Hartley(played by Barry Jones) who has recently lost his beloved son in an accident, and is desperate to make contact with him. They manage to make use of a power station to recreate the experiment, but the sabotage of a vengeful, discredited medium(played by Gladys Cooper) and her associate(played by Alfred Ryder) threaten all their plans... Interesting episode with good writing and ideas, even if it does leave many unanswered questions in its wake.