Product Details

• Actors: Vic Perrin, Bob Johnson, Ben Wright, Robert Culp, Robert Duvall
• Format: Black & White, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: September 1, 1998
• Run Time: 51 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301977114
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #499,214 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Second Chance Deserves One, June 12, 2000

By 

Robert M. Khoury (Across the street from Central Park) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Outer Limits: Second Chance [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is not the sexiest episode in the Outer Limits series, nor is it the episode which best represents the series' enduring strengths and virtues. It is, however, a well written, well acted, and completely enjoyable story of a group of people who, for individual reasons, desperately need a second chance at life after bungling their first attempt, but don't quite realize this until they are on their way to another galaxy.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Suprising, April 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Outer Limits: Second Chance [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A group of people get on a space ride and it turns out to be the real thing.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Flying Saucers Stole My High School Football Career!, March 27, 2002

By 

Bruce Rux (Aurora, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Outer Limits: Second Chance [VHS] (VHS Tape)

One of the best premises ever attempted on the show: a carnival flying saucer ride turns out to be the real thing - piloted by a real alien.

Unfortunately, the script is weak, and the characters inconsistent. The alien who converts the ride in order to abduct pre-selected humans is portrayed as benevolent and sympathetic (if ruthless), yet he callously murders a security guard who has the misfortune of stumbling across him at the very start of the story. The dialogue is often trite, and sometimes even unintentionally funny. The situations, once the alien and his abductees are in space, are hackneyed.

The abductees themselves, chosen because they will have the least to leave behind, are an odd lot: a down-on-his-luck shoe salesman with a self-defeatingly unpleasant personality and a long-suffering loyal wife, a vapid teenage socialite, her high school football hero boyfriend and his game-fixing toadie pal, an art student making ends meet as the carny ride conductor, and the acting pilot who happens to be an unknown genius formerly with the Defense Department. Only one or two on the guest list - who end up deciding to make the journey anyway, after the alien reasonably enough decides to return them all and instead ask for volunteers - really make much sense. And the alien's reason for stealing away human beings is not really that plausible.

Still, Second Chance has a lot going for it. It starts well, the implausible murder of the security guard notwithstanding, and manages good suspense for the entire first half. The abduction itself is dramatic. It isn't until the crew are all in space that the story starts really going south.

But even then, there are some wonderful moments, the best of which is when they first awaken from launch blackout to realize that they are "not in Kansas, anymore." The shoe salesman panics and attempts to flee through the airlock, prevented by the quicker-witted "stewardess" of the flight, who forcefully makes him realize, "That's space, out there! It's real!" And he sadly - and believably - pitiably whines, "But why...why is it all real...?"