Yes. And because Asimov didn't write a specific story called "I, Robot" ... then which story did you have in mind, Warped? 
Discovering The Outer Limits (original)....
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If I recall correctly Asimov' s I, Robot is a collection of stories which I read many years ago. But I was sure one of those stories in the collection was called "I, Robot." Perhaps I was mistaken.Yes. And because Asimov didn't write a specific story called "I, Robot" ... then which story did you have in mind, Warped?
Oh, I see. I was afraid you were referring to the movie, and I gave you more credit than that. Naah, the stories were "Robbie", "Runaround", "Reason", "Catch that Rabbit", "Liar", "Little Lost Robot", "Escape!", "Evidence", and "The Evitable Conflict".
Hmm, never noticed before, but there's some serious alliteration going on with those titles.
Hmm, never noticed before, but there's some serious alliteration going on with those titles.
Oh, and in 1980 I ran across an Adam Link novel (which was NOT called "I, Robot", BTW). I'd never heard of Otto Binder or any of the original stories, but I've read up on them since then. This novel didn't seem to be a collection of the old stories as much as a revision of them into a single narrative. The "I, Robot" trial, for example, was a single chapter that occurred early in the book and led into subsequent events.
As a twelve-year-old, I thought it was fantastic. If I read it again now... well, maybe not so much.
As a twelve-year-old, I thought it was fantastic. If I read it again now... well, maybe not so much.
A bit of trivia on that subject: Eando Binder is actually a nome de plume for Earl and Otto Binder (E and O, get it? 
), a brotherly writing team.
), a brotherly writing team.I can go you one better. I'm not sure this is confirmed, but supposedly the nom de plume was an accident. They had written the story as E. & O. Binder, but when they were paid for their first story, the person cutting the check misunderstood and made it out to "Eando Binder." Apparently they thought it was easier to adopt that as their collective name than argue.
Anyway, it's a funny story even if it isn't true. Can anyone verify?
I usually just refer to Otto because he did most of the work.
Anyway, it's a funny story even if it isn't true. Can anyone verify?
I usually just refer to Otto because he did most of the work.
"The Inheritors." Four soldiers shot return miraculously recover with unexpected abilities. They then set out to enact an unknown project mostly unaware of being in coordination with each other. This was an odd story yet also an interesting one. It kind of felt like Law & Order but as science fiction. The ending was good yet totally surprising given the general mindset of the series. It was also hard not to notice that while there is a definate SF element to the story visually those elements were very low key.
I gotta say that I've only got six episodes left to watch and I don't think the series has really tanked yet.
I gotta say that I've only got six episodes left to watch and I don't think the series has really tanked yet.
Okay, after watching "Keeper Of The Purple Twilight" (curious title) I wouldn't say things actually tank, but this really didn't interest me much. An alien tricks a human scientist into building a powerfully destructive weapon. It has some moments, but overall I don't think it really worked well. I will say I rather liked the look of the alien soldiers...in a conceptual way.
Yes I have. look further upthread. Very good episode.I take it you haven't seen Demon with a Glass Hand yet...
That's a great story that I never heard before. I'll have to see if I can verify it.
Ah, I really liked "The Duplicate Man" when I was a kid. It was just the sort of world I liked to read about: Futuristic, with space travel and alien creatures-- it felt like something out of an old Analog or Galaxy.
I found this thread, and have been skimming through it, and I myself have never really seen TOL, but after reading your reviews, decided to give it a try, and I found this episode on YouTube.
I have to admit, I was very impressed. As bad as the 1960's understanding of Venus was, they at least got the fact that it is very hot right. And I found the Venutian monster to be very scary, even though it was an old 1960's muppet... something about it just came through as scary, even in this day of hyper-realistic CGI.
The production quality was good, and Shatner was great... kinda strange to hear Shatner say "Vulcan" and not have Spock anywhere around.
Totally love that episode! The men question the actions they are unable to control, question themselves, etc, and when they find out the truth, acquiesce with relief and even joy.
And Robert Duvall.
Okay, with "The Duplicate Man" I was actually bored out of my mind. A smuggled forbidden creature escapes and its keeper creates a duplicate of himself to kill the thing. ??? A story by author Clifford Simak and this did absolutely nothing for me. What a yawner. It was amusing to see the show's depiction of the year 2011 and where absolutely nothing resembled our present day. Of course that's really no surprise.
"Counterweight." What was supposed to be the point of this? A group of volunteers embark upon a lengthy simulated space flight to test for human adaptability to extended space travel. Sure personalities clashed and some sort of alien presence is involved, but I couldn't make any sense of this. At the core could be an interesting idea, but it goes nowhere and becomes boring.
"The Brain Of Colonel Barham." In a sense this is representative of some of the cheesy movies of the '50s. It also made me think of TOS' episode "Spock's Brain" because of a conceptual similarity. In "Spock's Brain" a living mind was needed to manage a society's mechanics and technology---actually a worthy science fiction story idea. In this OL episode a living mind is needed to guide or pilot a planned mission to Mars, but problems arise because they use the brain of an egocentric.
I love the rationale that at the time few people believed a computer could be sophisticated enough to carry out autonomous functions and yet many space probes now do it routinely and are getting better all the time. It's also amusing that in an era that had only the most rudimentary of computers anyone could even consider the success of keeping a human brain alive and be able to interact with it through some mechanical interface. Mind you this idea has been used before and since probably most well known in Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang. And slow progress is indeed being made in regards to interfacing with the brain. Today such a story would not involve using the actual brain, but rather copying and patterning the the consciousness and downloading that into an artificial mind. Or you'd just use a very advanced A.I. which in the '50s and '60s would be termed a supercomputer.
I'll credit the episode with trying to deal with the idea in a straightforward manner, for the most part. And the acting is generally fine. But the story veers into B-flick territory when the now disembodied brain develops strong telekinetic like powers. The human brain actually generates very little electricity and it would take a helluva boost to amplify its output. Of course this is sci-fi and it can gloss over the details of how things could really work. And, of course, the egocentric personality becomes megalomaniacal. I do love the simple and elegant solution of just firing a bullet into the thing to put it out of everyone else's misery.
Part of me wanted to like this episode because in the beginning it seems to start out well enough, but then it falls into predictability and lost my interest.
"Premonition." An X-15 test pilot and his wife are cast into the future by a weird time warp and faced with trying to find a way back or be trapped forever. I don't think I've ever seen a time travel story done quite like this. But for all its novelty it left me unengaged.
"Probe." Not a horrible swan song for a last episode. An aircraft crew are forced to ditch their plane in the ocean and are picked up by an alien space probe. An interesting twist on the alien abduction theme: being taken by accident. This actually felt kind of like a Star Trek story at times as the trapped crew try to figure out where they are and how they got there. It kept me curious to see how it played out.
And that makes the whole series. Overall I'd have to say this was a good series with only a very few disappointments and most of those in the last half dozen episodes. The rest ranged in quality from competent to excellent in my opinion.
I will also say that I got the sense the creative minds behind this were performing some sleight of hand. The series sported some B-level material in terms of visuals and depicting aliens and space tech that could give one the impression of shlock if you were just quickly channel surfing past it. But if you paid attention to the execution of the stories and the ideas you could see that the subject matter was treated seriously by the writers, casts and production crew. And you can easily see how this approach to storytelling could be seen as a basic template similar to what Gene Roddenberry seemed to have in mind for his space adventure series. A key distinction though is that Roddenberry wanted to get past any schlock aspects and aim a little higher.
Good stuff.
But now that I'm done with The Outer Limits I plan on revisiting the original The Twilight Zone of which I have few memories.
"Counterweight." What was supposed to be the point of this? A group of volunteers embark upon a lengthy simulated space flight to test for human adaptability to extended space travel. Sure personalities clashed and some sort of alien presence is involved, but I couldn't make any sense of this. At the core could be an interesting idea, but it goes nowhere and becomes boring.
"The Brain Of Colonel Barham." In a sense this is representative of some of the cheesy movies of the '50s. It also made me think of TOS' episode "Spock's Brain" because of a conceptual similarity. In "Spock's Brain" a living mind was needed to manage a society's mechanics and technology---actually a worthy science fiction story idea. In this OL episode a living mind is needed to guide or pilot a planned mission to Mars, but problems arise because they use the brain of an egocentric.
I love the rationale that at the time few people believed a computer could be sophisticated enough to carry out autonomous functions and yet many space probes now do it routinely and are getting better all the time. It's also amusing that in an era that had only the most rudimentary of computers anyone could even consider the success of keeping a human brain alive and be able to interact with it through some mechanical interface. Mind you this idea has been used before and since probably most well known in Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang. And slow progress is indeed being made in regards to interfacing with the brain. Today such a story would not involve using the actual brain, but rather copying and patterning the the consciousness and downloading that into an artificial mind. Or you'd just use a very advanced A.I. which in the '50s and '60s would be termed a supercomputer.
I'll credit the episode with trying to deal with the idea in a straightforward manner, for the most part. And the acting is generally fine. But the story veers into B-flick territory when the now disembodied brain develops strong telekinetic like powers. The human brain actually generates very little electricity and it would take a helluva boost to amplify its output. Of course this is sci-fi and it can gloss over the details of how things could really work. And, of course, the egocentric personality becomes megalomaniacal. I do love the simple and elegant solution of just firing a bullet into the thing to put it out of everyone else's misery.
Part of me wanted to like this episode because in the beginning it seems to start out well enough, but then it falls into predictability and lost my interest.
"Premonition." An X-15 test pilot and his wife are cast into the future by a weird time warp and faced with trying to find a way back or be trapped forever. I don't think I've ever seen a time travel story done quite like this. But for all its novelty it left me unengaged.
"Probe." Not a horrible swan song for a last episode. An aircraft crew are forced to ditch their plane in the ocean and are picked up by an alien space probe. An interesting twist on the alien abduction theme: being taken by accident. This actually felt kind of like a Star Trek story at times as the trapped crew try to figure out where they are and how they got there. It kept me curious to see how it played out.
And that makes the whole series. Overall I'd have to say this was a good series with only a very few disappointments and most of those in the last half dozen episodes. The rest ranged in quality from competent to excellent in my opinion.
I will also say that I got the sense the creative minds behind this were performing some sleight of hand. The series sported some B-level material in terms of visuals and depicting aliens and space tech that could give one the impression of shlock if you were just quickly channel surfing past it. But if you paid attention to the execution of the stories and the ideas you could see that the subject matter was treated seriously by the writers, casts and production crew. And you can easily see how this approach to storytelling could be seen as a basic template similar to what Gene Roddenberry seemed to have in mind for his space adventure series. A key distinction though is that Roddenberry wanted to get past any schlock aspects and aim a little higher.
Good stuff.
But now that I'm done with The Outer Limits I plan on revisiting the original The Twilight Zone of which I have few memories.
Count me as one who liked "The Duplicate Man" - I think it's an interesting story despite some terrible flaws. The alien monster is ridiculous and the retro-future hopelessly dated, but I liked the interaction between the clone and the estranged wife, when the clone's "vestigial" personality starts the resemble the scientist's old self.
"The Premonition" was a nice, tight little mystery, even if the main character was pretty unlikeable.
"The Premonition" was a nice, tight little mystery, even if the main character was pretty unlikeable.
"The Duplicate Man" is one of my favorites, for the reasons I listed above. "The Premonition" is also a fave; it fascinated me as a young boy.
"The Brain Of Colonel Barham" is also a favorite, mainly because it's pure fun. I actually wrote a poem about it a few years go, called "The Disembodied Brain" (page 26, if you're interested).
I'm glad you liked the series, Warped9. It's nice to see the show gain new fans at this late date.
"The Brain Of Colonel Barham" is also a favorite, mainly because it's pure fun. I actually wrote a poem about it a few years go, called "The Disembodied Brain" (page 26, if you're interested).
I'm glad you liked the series, Warped9. It's nice to see the show gain new fans at this late date.
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