Customer Reviews

Outer Limits: Second Chance [VHS]

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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.

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

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...?"

"Second Chance" is a great idea flamboyantly rendered, however silly the result. Painfully bad dialogue only adds to the fun. In fact, the stilted lines kind of befit the amusement-park milieu-artificial thrills, artificial dialogue. In keeping with the theme of facades, writer Louis Morheim's characters all wear emotional masks, while the Joyland flying saucer serves as a front for a REAL flying saucer. Only the Empyrian (the beakless, avian alien) shows his real face, except that everyone thinks it's part of a costume. It isn't, as Mimsy Farmer discovers, to the crew's collective horror, in the episode's best scene. This drama gives us a lot to think about. How many of us, for example, live in houses that are really flying saucers that can take off at any moment? Or cars?

Anyway, Paul Stanley's direction is excellent; Kenneth Peach's lighting is alternately flat and arty; and the acting is pretty good considering the lines the players are stuck with. Great sound effects and superior Dominic Frontiere music. Stick this one in the VCR, close the airlock, and (pun alert) enjoy the ride!