The Outer Limits (1963) 1.15

The Mice

starring Henry Silva, Diana Sands, Michael Higgins

written by Bill S. Ballinger, Joseph Stefano, Lou Morheim

directed by Alan Crosland Jr.

Chino Rivera (Henry Silva), convicted murderer, sentenced to life in prison, volunteers for a scientific experiment, run by Dr. Kellander (Michael Higgins), in the hopes that he will get an opportunity to escape. The plan is to teleport Chino to the planet Chromo after the Chromoids have teleported one of their own to Earth. They are testing the process on a human prisoner because to date the teleportation process has only been proven to work with mice.

The Chromoid comes through. Chaos ensues. Chino uses that moment to try to escape but injures himself when he tries leaping out a window that is blocked by an impenetrable forcefield. The Chromoid is allowed to wander free. It doesn't go far from the test site but not long after that it kills Doctor Richardson, one of the researchers. Chino gets blamed for the death of Richardson. Only Doctor Julia Harrison (Diana Sands) believes that he is telling the truth when he claims that he had nothing to do with the death of Richardson.

Kellander and his colleagues try to send Chino through to Chroma but the device doesn't work. The Chronoid goes on a rampage. It assaults two guards and sends one of them to Chromo using the teleportation device. Chino's name is cleared of having anything to do with the death of Richardson. The Chromoids reveal that their true intentions and ask that the one who was sent to Earth be returned.

Thoughts

I'm not sure how to describe the Chromoid but clearly it was a man in a suit. The suit only went to about waist level which kind of killed the effect it was supposed to have.

I'm not really sure why they called the episodes The Mice. There are mice in this episode but I fail to see the connection and don't feel like trying to come up with a reason why.

What happened to the guard who was sent to Chroma? There was no mention of recovering him.

This is another of those episodes that doesn't really work for me. There is just way too much mixed up in this story. I didn't even try to describe it blow by blow. It doesn't make sense to me. The writing feels incomplete.

Notes

This is the second of two episodes of this show in which Henry Silva appeared. The first was 1.13 Tourist Attraction. This is the only episode of this show in which Diana Sands appeared. She has not been in anything else that I have seen and in which she had as prominent a role as she did in this episode. This is the only episode of this show in which Michael Higgins appeared. He's had small parts in a few movies that I have seen but nothing that I have seen in recent years. Dabney Coleman has a small part in this episode as one of the scientists. This is the first of three episodes of this show in which he appeared. The third episode was 2.08 Wolf 259.

This is the only episode of this show that Bill S. Ballinger had a hand in writing. He wrote seven episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) and two episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker. This is the fourth of 12 episodes of this show that Joseph Stefano had a hand in writing. The previous one he contributed to was 1.14 The Zanti Misfits. This is the first of five episodes of this show that Lou Morheim had a hand in writing.

This is the first of two episodes of this chow that Alan Crosland Jr. directed. He also directed episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), The Twilight Zone (1959), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Wonder Woman (including 1.09 Judgement from Outer Space - Part 1 and 1.10 Judgement from Outer Space - Part 2).