Best of The Outer Limits (New Series), Vol. 2

It is the year 2076 and Dr. Theresa Givens (Amanda Plummer) a time-traveler from the 20th Century has been sentenced to death. Her crime - violating severe anti-technology laws passed in the wake of the nuclear holocaust 20 years earlier an event that destroyed most of the world and prompted those who survived to return to the bucolic world that existed before the Industrial Revolution. Theresa has one last chance for a reprieve. Her lawyer Nicole Whitley (Kelly McGillis) has won leave to appeal to the Supreme Court a body headed by Chief Justice Haden Wainwright (Charlton Heston). The balance of the court is divided evenly between conservatives like Oliver Harbison (Hal Holbrook) and Gretchen Parkhurst (Cecily Tyson) who support the ban on technology and liberals like Earl Clayton (Robert Loggia) and Kendall Woods (Swoozie Kurtz) who favor a review. In light of the importance of the case the government has sent Solicitor General Wallace Gannon (Michael Moriarty) a fierce defender of the law to argue its case and the court has suspended the normal rules allowing Theresa to join her lawyer in speaking in her defense. The two sides illustrate their arguments with examples plucked from the six-year history of The Outer Limits showing the power of technology to benefit and destroy mankind and Theresa warns that if this world continues to shun technology it will be destroyed by a biological holocaust twenty years hence. Those proceedings are interrupted by Ezekiel (Wallace Langham) a strange figure who shows up in court a cold fusion bomb strapped to his chest demanding to be heard. Theresa recognizes him as Daniel Faraday one of her collaborators on the temporal transporter and a man whose experience has turned him against technology. But not so much against that he won't use it to achieve his goals. As the fateof the court - and most of the Eastern Seaboard - hangs in the balance the two sides present their final arguments.

It is the year 2076 and Dr. Theresa Givens (Amanda Plummer) a time-traveler from the 20th Century has been sentenced to death. Her crime - violating severe anti-technology laws passed in the wake of the nuclear holocaust 20 years earlier an event that destroyed most of the world and prompted those who survived to return to the bucolic world that existed before the Industrial Revolution. Theresa has one last chance for a reprieve. Her lawyer Nicole Whitley (Kelly McGillis) has won leave to appeal to the Supreme Court a body headed by Chief Justice Haden Wainwright (Charlton Heston). The balance of the court is divided evenly between conservatives like Oliver Harbison (Hal Holbrook) and Gretchen Parkhurst (Cecily Tyson) who support the ban on technology and liberals like Earl Clayton (Robert Loggia) and Kendall Woods (Swoozie Kurtz) who favor a review. In light of the importance of the case the government has sent Solicitor General Wallace Gannon (Michael Moriarty) a fierce defender of the law to argue its case and the court has suspended the normal rules allowing Theresa to join her lawyer in speaking in her defense. The two sides illustrate their arguments with examples plucked from the six-year history of The Outer Limits showing the power of technology to benefit and destroy mankind and Theresa warns that if this world continues to shun technology it will be destroyed by a biological holocaust twenty years hence. Those proceedings are interrupted by Ezekiel (Wallace Langham) a strange figure who shows up in court a cold fusion bomb strapped to his chest demanding to be heard. Theresa recognizes him as Daniel Faraday one of her collaborators on the temporal transporter and a man whose experience has turned him against technology. But not so much against that he won't use it to achieve his goals. As the fate of the court - and most of the Eastern Seaboard - hangs in the balance the two sides present their final arguments.

It is 2055 and the post-apocalyptic world is populated exclusively by women; all the men were killed in the Great War and the Scourge that followed. In to this matriarchy comes Major Jason Mercer (David Keith) who was cryogenically frozen forty years earlier and now awakened in Lithia. Lithia is a small agricultural enclave overseen by a group of women that include the regal elder Hera (Julie Harris) Ariel (Claire Rankin) Miranda (Nadia Capone) and Pele (Kirsten Williamson). Mercer's arrival sparks a debate about the nature of men among some women and revives long-dormant sexual feelings in others. The debate intensifies as Mercer seeing the enclave's poverty and primitive tools begins to repair the community's broken machines and pushes Miranda the group's trade representative to barter with Hyacinth a neighboring community for electricity to run the machines. Over the objections of the elders Mercer gets the machines running by stealing power from Hyacinth's dam. But can Mercer revive the world of men without also bringing back the violence anger and death which led to his gender's extinction?

The four people gathered in the top-secret research facility seem at first to have nothing in common: Ford Maddox (Harry Hamlin) is a former spy Rachel Sanders (Nicole Deboer) is a nurse Roger Beckersly (Aaron Pearl) is an Army Ranger and Louise McDonnaugh (Bridget O'Sullivan) is a computer programmer. What has brought them together is their telekinetic ability a talent that Mr. Brown (Robert Guillaume) a CIA project head hopes to exploit through the use of Teeks devices that amplify telekinetic power. At first Brown tries these individual's talents out on simple tasks - moving or crushing a granite block with their minds - but soon his true intentions are revealed. Their first real assignment says Brown is to use their powers to kill a Balkan terrorist leader and war criminal. Rachel objects to the assignment on moral grounds but Brown forces her to take part by threatening to send her brother a junky and small-time crook to jail for life. With Rachel on board the assassination is a success as is the elimination of a pesky African revolutionary leader. But the telekinetic powers produce unexpected side-effects and soon the killers find that they have become the prey.

Let the punishment fit the crime: an ambitious inventor Dr. Jack Henson (David Hyde Pierce) creates a virtual prison and wants the government to adopt it nation-wide. Using his invention convicts serve a life sentence in just a few hours. Henson claims the harsh sentences will ensure that criminals never offend again while the short time required cuts prison costs. He seems to be making his point until they connect an innocent man to the apparatus and the demonstration goes sour. To save the young man's life Henson must submit to his own invention -- and to a lesson in the true meaning of justice.

Karl Durand (Howie Mandel) is in his 30's but he has the mind of a child. That is until he receives a unique gift from Dr. Jacob Valerian a dying scientist who has been working on a secret project. As his last living act Valerian uses his new invention to transfer his memories and experiences into Karl's brain. But Karl isn't content with just being a genius. In an effort to win the love of his social worker Rose (Jennifer Rubin) he uses the doctor's invention to capture other minds. Leaving a trail of bodies in his wake and his own brain ever more crowded and confused Karl soon discovers that sometimes the mind can be a minefield.

A mysterious alien gives five high-school students a harrowing life-or-death choice. Cody Phillips (Jesse Cadotte) is the eternal outsider a kid whose smart remarks hide the pain of constant rejection. Jason Stewart (Jesse Moss) is a popular jock sidelined from his dreams by a knee injury. Danielle Hobson (Meghan Ory) has coasted on her good looks so long she's forgotten there's any other way to behave. Ray Kruger (Zachery Ty Bryan) is a brainiac who uses his high IQ to boost his self-esteem. And Brianna Lake (Kandyse McClure) is taunted for her conservative dress and old-fashioned views of the world. In the scramble for high-school survival these five are each floundering in their own way when they are abducted by an alien and given an ultimatum - they have five hours to decide which one of them the alien will kill. If they choose the rest can go free. As the hour of decision ticks nearer the teenagers confront their deepest fears. Will a new understanding of each other earn them a chance at survival in their captor's eyes?

Dr. Neal Eberhardt (Ralph Macchio) a former boy genius gone bitterly to seed studies brain-damaged and comatose patients hoping to learn how the brain reroutes itself. Despite having a revolutionary new machine to work with - the Neural Intercortex Stimulation Array or NISA - Dr. Eberhardt is getting nowhere. To make matters worse his valued assistant Vince Carter has just quit. But suddenly Neal has a breakthrough. The brain waves of two comatose patients Adam (Aaron Smolinski) and Lisa (Emmanuelle Vaugier) fall into sync while they're hooked up to the NISA and one of them whispers the other's name. Neal knows he's onto something and tells his boss Marty Kilgore (Michael Sarrazin). What Neal doesn't know is that Adam and Lisa have landed in an idyllic parallel consciousness and are falling in love. As Adam and Lisa get to know each other Neal continues his research joined now by his ex-girlfriend and colleague Janice Claymore (Susannah Hoffman). Desperate to try the technique on other comatose subjects Neal loses patience and makes the journey himself. After giving himself a calculated overdose of Phenobarbital he hooks himself up to NISA and launches himself into Adam and Lisa's world. He catches a glimpse but he's pulled back at the last minute leaving him more determined than ever to find a way to rescue his patients from the other side. But do they really want to be rescued? Or is it really Neal that wants to cross over to the other side?

A mysterious alien descends upon the town of Heart's Desire and offers to share his extraordinary powers with four outlaws - Jake Miller (Casper Van Dien) his brother Ben (Gary Basaraba) and their partners in crime Frank (Esai Morales) and J.D. Kelton (Jed Rees). Taking on the human form of his first victim a mild-mannered preacher (David Longworth) the alien follows the quartet to the Miller's hometown and gives both sets of brothers strange new powers that make them virtually invincible. As the Keltons kick off a crime spree by destroying all opposition with blasts of pure energy Jake struggles with his divided loyalties between love for his family and his childhood sweetheart Miriam (Ocean Hellman) - - and the terrible question: who is this mysterious stranger and why has he given the outlaws such deadly powers?

He doesn't know what it is but Captain William Clark (Mario Van Peebles) can see that something terrible and strange is happening on the space station Meridian. Within a matter of minutes three of the space stations crew - Commander Richard Gordon Dr. Thomas Somerset and Commander Lara Nabakov - have been lured to their deaths by impossible visions of loved ones or enemies - - visions created by someone or something capable of reaching into the minds of human beings and recreating their darkest nightmares and fondest desires. Fearing for his safety and that of the one surviving crew member Dr. Helene Dufour (Guylaine St. Onge) Clark uses the escape pod and abandons ship. When he winds up on earth however nobody will believe his story. Instead Clark is accused of committing the murders while suffering from space psychosis and must turn to his ex-wife Robyn Dysart (Jennifer Beals) to defend him. She manages to raise a reasonable doubt by suggesting that Soroxin a chemical used in Somerset and Dufour's research may have caused the space psychosis but Captain Clark insists on telling the truth even at his own peril. Is Clark a madman his mind twisted by too much time in orbit or has the Captain seen the face of evil floating in the zero-gravity of deep space?

Dr. Sam Stein (Mark Hamill) has always lived for his work. His dedication has paid off with the development of the Computer Aided Visual Environment system or CAVE which allows doctors to jack-in directly to the brain of patients. When an accident puts his colleague Rachael Carter (Deborah Farentino) in a coma Stein decides to use CAVE for his own purposes reaching into Rachael's brain to tell her what he couldn't while she was conscious: that he loves her. Stein discovers however that love takes strange turns when it enters CAVE's virtual world and that the complexities of the human heart are not easily translated into bits and bytes.

When a transport ship crashed and wiped out the colony on Venus Capt. Miles Davidow (C. Thomas HowellL) was the sole survivor. But after he's rescued by a team that includes his fiancee Kate Girard (Amanda Tapping) and Scott Perkins (Jeffrey Jones) it soon becomes clear that Davidow did not escape unscathed. Removed from the high radiation atmosphere of Venus his body is reacting to the Earth's air like that of a chemotherapy patient. When doctors give him the radiation his body seems to crave strange things start to happen. Davidow's body begins to spawn duplicate parts - a hand a torso and more from wounds that miraculously heal. In spite of this Miles and Kate get married while he's still in isolation but his time on Venus and the strange creatures he encountered there have had a profound change on Miles. As the mysterious changes continue it becomes clear that although Davidow did what it took to survive the price of survival may be exile from everything he knows and loves.