episode #06 - The Man Who Was Never Born

This one is a favorite among many O L fans, myself included. It combines pure sf concepts like time travel, time paradoxes and a future post-holocaust Earth with a kind of fable-like, bittersweet and lyrical presentation of the human condition. Maybe this episode is like the Outer Limits version of Star Trek's The City on the Edge of Forever - the one to beat, as it were.

In one of the twists, the astronaut with whom the story begins is not the main character of the story. The story introduces us to the desolate future Earth of year 2148 in the first act and then switches to an almost idyllic, very quiet present-day Earth - an Earth long gone within the context of this tale. The main character of Andro (Landau) can blend into this (to him) alien environment using a form of hypnotism, but it can be problematic; his mission is dire - literally life or death for an entire planet and its population - and it all may be decided/settled in some non-descript hamlet (sixties rural area or suburbia).
The way in which the story is presented - some of the plot developments - also can't be taken literally: Andro ends up in the one spot on the entire present-day Earth where his target resides; what are the odds? This is all, as mentioned, like a fable, a parable - a fairy tale in the vein of mind-bending science fiction tales. He's the disguised frog as dark prince, seducing a fairy tale princess (an impossibly young Shirley Knight). A beguiling episode of impending cosmic tragedy. BoG's Score: 9 out of 10