The Outer Limits (1963) 1.25

The Mutant

starring Larry Pennell, Warren Oates, Walter Burke

written by Allen Balter, Robert Mintz

directed by Alan Crosland, Jr.

Dr. Evan Marshall arrives on Annex One, a planet where the sun never sets. The atmosphere is breathable. Marshall joins an expeditionary team that has been there for a couple years and was led by the recently deceased Philip Griffith. Marshall is there to check on them, see how they are doing.

Reese Fowler (Warren Oates), one of the team members, has become a mutant after being exposed to radio isotopic rain. He can read the minds of the others. His eyes are huge. He wants desperately to be cured. It was Fowler was he who killed Griffith and he kills a another team member not long after Marshall arrives on Annex One.

Marshall works with Julie Griffith (Philip's widow) and Dr. Frederick Riner (Walter burke) to try and figure out how to get back to Earth. They inadvertently lure him into a cave where that they later learn that in Fowler's mutated form darkness causes him incredible pain.

Thoughts

This entire episode took place on Annex One.

There is a scene in this episode where one of the team members gets attacked by what looks like a Zanti Misfit. It didn't move but it sure freaked out the team member it attacked.

This episode is fairly straight foward. If I wanted to I'm sure that I could pick at and find tons of problems with it. It is sci-fi fluff. I'm sure that it could have been better but to my mind this episode is good enough for me. That doesn't mean that I would recommend it to anyone other that possibly a hardcore fan of mediocre 1960s science fiction television.

Notes

This is the only episode of this show in which Larry Pennell appeared. 

This is the only episode of this show in which Warren Oates appeared. He appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone (1959), the first of which was 1.19 The Purple Testament. He was in at least a half dozen movies that I have watched, including Ride the High Country (1962) and In the Heat of the Night (1967).

This is the second of two episodes of this show in which Walter Burke appeared. The first was 1.19 The Invisibles. He appeared in one episode of The Twilight Zone (1959), 1.27 The Big Tall Wish. He appeared in one episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955). I've also seen him in All the King's Men (1949).

The other members of the expeditionary team were played by Robert Sampson, Herman Rudin, Richard Derr, and Betsy Jones Moreland.

This is the second of two episodes of this show that Allen Balter and Robert Mintz wrote. The first was 1.02 The Hundred Days of the Dragon. This is the second of two episodes of this show that Alan Crosland, Jr. directed. The first was 1.15 The Mice.