"The Man Who Was Never Born" - Outer Limits S01E06 Retro-Review

They don't make 'em like that anymore, do they?

Okay, I'm sure they do somewhere. On Showtime or Cinemax or Hulu or somewhere. Although I'm pretty sure I would have heard of it if they had. But who knows?

The reason "The Man Who Was Never Born" is unique is partially because it doesn't make much sense. The protagonist, Andro (Martin Landau) speaks in a lyrical style which nobody in real life ever speaks like. The episode is shot by director Leonard Horn in a misty Vaseline-on-the-camera out-of-focus style meant to show that the whole thing is a dream.

Also, as I noted in one of my earlier reviews, many Outer Limits episodes in the first season were downers, and "The Man" is probably the best representation of that. None of the protagonists survive: Reardon (Karl Held) and Andro both disappear into temporal oblivion after their second trips through time. Noelle (Shirley Knight) is either stranded in a future that never existed, or a spaceship floating in space with no way to land it, or both. The purported villain of the piece, Bertram Cabot (John Considine) gets off relatively unscathed. The future that Andro saved is never seen, and we never even see the man who destroyed it: Bertram's son.

But who is this Andro, and Bertram, and Noelle? Glad you asked. We start with astronaut Joseph Reardon returning to Earth via spaceship. He passes through a "time convulsion" and finds himself in the year 2148. Reardon touches down on a barren landscape and a helpful mutant named Andro (Landau) walks up, introduces himself, and explains why the Earth is a hellhole. Bertram Cabot Jr. did some work with an alien microbe and it ended up wiping out most of humanity and genetically mutating the rest. Why that created a barren landscape is never clarified. Humanity could have used preventative medicine to end the plague, but as Andro explains, they were too busy dropping atomic bombs on each other to worry about that.

Andro has been living in a library with a vast collection of books by great pre-1963 authors. Because like Trek, the episode writers (in this case, Anthony Lawrence), couldn't or wouldn't come up with any fictional authors after the time that their episodes were made. Reardon gets the idea of going back through the time convulsion and showing Andro to the authorities in his time to convince them of the doomed future.

Andro agrees but en route, Reardon disappears for some reason. Apparently because travel through time is a one-way trip, but it will matter later. His ship lands on Earth with Andro, and conveniently he's within stalker-distance of Noelle, the mother of Bertram Jr. Andro can create a hypnotic illusion of looking like a normal human, as much as Martin Landau is normal looking. He moves into the boarding house where Noelle is staying, and soon discovers that he's arrived thirty years too early. Noelle is going to marry Bertram Cabot Sr., and they will then produce Bertram Jr. who will destroy the world.

Complicating all this, is the fact that Andro falls in love with Noelle. And Noelle falls in love with Andro, sort of. Andro can't convince Bertram of his story because he's too used to speaking in a high-falutin' 18th century book English that he learned from the works of authors like Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald. And even if he was convincing, it's not clear what he would convince Bertram to do or not do. Not get married? Get married but not have a kid? Have a kid and raise him not to be a world-destroying scientist?

Andro goes to the wedding ceremony at the boarding house's parlor, which saves on set money. He pulls a gun and prepares to shoot the couple, but the landlady sees him and the wedding guests jump Andro. Andro loses mental control of his illusion and is revealed for the mutant he is, and runs out. Noelle goes after him and says she loves him, and says he has a beautiful soul. They then run through a hazy forest in a artsy-fartsy sequence directed by Leonard Horn and director-of-photographied by Conrad Hall. it's a very well-shot well-choreographed sequence, since Bertram and two of his army buddies from the wedding are in hot pursuit. They find Noelle's discarded wedding veil and take a couple of potshots because what the heck, if they hit the bride-to-be then it's no big loss.

Andro gets Noelle into the spaceship and lifts off. They go back through the time convulsion but Andro realizes they're going to a world where he was never born and therefore can't exist. He disappears in a different sequence than Reardon disappeared in earlier. Noelle is left floating in the spacecraft in space, which she may or may not be able to land (Andro was able to earlier), and the camera draws back... and back... and back until she's just a crying speck in an endless black void.

As I said earlier, the whole thing is basically a dream. Andro doesn't talk normally, supposedly because of his limited upbringing surrounded by books. But he's the Beast to Noelle's Beauty. They're never going to have a happy ending, marry, have kids, and settle down. It ain't possible even if those of us watching who know sci-fi time travel tropes realize that Andro is eliminating himself from the timeline. Unlike Beauty and the Beast, there's no happy ending here for the couple.

Landau gives a career-making performance as both the mutated Andro and "Professor Andro". It's an excellent makeup job on the mutant effect. And Landau pulls off the lost haunted look when he's in human form. The rest of the cast is forgettable: Shirley Knight plays more of a symbol of untouchable love. John Considine's Bertram is a gung-ho soldier. Karl Held's Reardon is a pretty typical astronaut-type for TV of the era, and is whisked off-stage as soon as he serves his narrative purpose.

Surprisingly, "The Man" does have a few bits of humor. Watching the mutated Andro ramble up the stairs behind a hypnotically-illusioned landlady is funny. Watching her blithely accept some illusionary dollar bills from Andro to pay the rent is also entertaining.

"The Man" has been described by many critics as one of the top ten episodes of TV ever. I'd have to agree, although I'd be hard-put to sit down and make a list of the other nine. And even if I could, I have to save something for a future column. It has cinematography, acting, humor, drama, pathos, and is basically The Terminator 21 years earlier. Andro is the Terminator, come back through time to kill the mother of the man who will destroy the Earth, although he'll kill humanity rather than save it. But he's also Reese, falling in love with the mother. He doesn't end up impregnating Noelle, since its 60s TV and that wouldn't work with the tragic story that unfolds. Still, the parallels are surprising.

The only downside is a high level of coincidence. Rearon just happens to land on the ruined Earth near the one person who knows all about Bertram Jr. and how he destroyed the world and who his mother is. And then when they go back through time, the spaceship just happens to land near the river where Bertram Jr.'s mother is hanging out. But you get the impression they do this to get the story going, set everything up, and get to the fantasy elements in the back half. So it isn't that offensive.

Overall, "The Man" is a classic of sci-fi TV. It's lyrical and poetic, but touches on a lot of the time travel tropes that weren't tropes back in '63. Even The Outer Limits would do some of the tropes later on in the run, with episodes like "Demon With a Glass Hand". But in '63 it was fairly innovative and then they mix it up a bit by tossing in the hazy camerawork and the fantasy-like air of unreality and the tragic ending. Catch it if you can.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?