"Cold Hands, Warm Heart" - The Outer Limits S02E02 Retro Review

From the sublime to the ridiculous. That's what I get for watching the original The Outer Limits episodes in chronological order. Then again, my normal strategy of cherry-picking the best episodes doesn't work for season 2 because there aren't that many "best episodes" and I've already seen them: "Soldier" (just reviewed), "Demon with a Glass Hand", and "The Inheritors". "Wolf 359" is supposed to be good, but it hardly seems like watching it out of order for just one episode. I've already seen "Demon and "The Invisible Enemy", so four more episodes and I'll get it to it anyway.

A big part of the problem is William Shatner, aka "The Shat". I'm not sure what shows off Shatner to his best advantage. I'm not sure he has anything to be shown off to his best advantage. Shatner was okay in his two Twilight Zone appearances, but there he plays characters who are either nuts or recovering from being nuts. Shat's earnestness and wry humor stood him in good stead on Star Trek, but Nimoy, De Kelley, and Doohan managed to upstage him pretty regularly. He was good in Haven, but there he played an extradimensional being who was basically William Shatner. Shat is good as a hammy actor (typecasting!) in one Columbo episode.

But let's figure that if there's a "best" type of role for Shat somewhere, General Jeff Barton in "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" ain't it. Shat plays a gung-ho earnest modern-day astronaut who returns from a one-man spaceship trip to Venus. The trip to Venus is a test run for the colonization of Mars, aka Project Vulcan. Which is a cute if unintentional future reference to Star Trek, but has no significance beyond that. Jeff orbits Venus and does some atmospheric readings. What the atmosphere on Venus has to do with colonizing Mars is one of the things that isn't made clear.

There's a radio blackout, and as we'll later find out in a dream sequence, Jeff sees a willowy plant-like creature "swim" up to the porthole and peer in at Jeff. Somehow it mutates him so that when he comes back to Earth, he craves heat. Lots of heat. He drinks steaming hot coffee, turns up the temperature in a steam bath, and inadvertently sets his blanket on fire when hunching too close to the fireplace. His wife Ann (Geraldine Brooks) is upset about this, when she's not making speeches to the planets saying that Jeff loves her more than them.

Jeff can't go to the "space doctors" because he has to meet with an appropriations committee to get money for Project Vulcan. So he hides his condition and goes to his personal friend and physician, Dr. Mike (HITG Malachi Throne). Mike warns that Jeff's bloodstream is turning into something he's never seen, and recommends he visit his "space doctors". But Jeff is the only one with the charisma and charm--he is played by William Shatner--to convince the appropriations committee to part with some of that sweet sweet moolah. So he hides his condition from everyone and gets worse. It's during this time that he has the aforementioned dream sequence, and puts on sweaters and bomber jackets like he's a cross between Mr. Rogers and Larry Trainor on Doom Patrol.

Jeff finally tries to break into the base and destroy his files. Why he's doing that is never revealed. Jeff is easily captured and the "space doctor" finds out about his condition, along with Claiborne. Said condition involves Jeff's growing scales on his arms and webs between his fingers. For some reason, they call in Mike and Ann, and Mike figures that if they dump Jeff in an environmental test chamber and give him the heat he needs, it will reverse his condition. Which... seems like the opposite of how it would work--the hotter he has gotten, the more Jeff has mutated--but I've mentioned before that science on The Outer Limits is wonky.

While they make Jeff worse--umm, I mean "better"--Ann talks to him to keep his mind focused. This involves her reciting the Shat-like speeches that Shat gave earlier about how he loves her more than the planets, and how as a boy he used to try and jump out of a barn wearing wings to see if he could fly. I'd say that it's as bad as it sounds, but nothing could be that bad. But Brooks gives it the old college try.

In the end, the extreme heat reverses Jeff's condition. Jeff gives his speech to the committee, gets the money for Project Vulcan, and discovers at the end that he can perspire: something he hasn't been able to do since he returned from Venus. Perspiring means that he's cured, or so we're to believe. Maybe it means that there's a Twilight Zone-style twist coming and now Jeff craves cold? Nah: happy happy happy. Jeff and Ann kiss, and Mankind will go on to pillage the solar system. Yay, NASA!

Shat is dreadfully earnest as General Jeff. Lloyd Gough portrays General Claiborne, who is rather wishy-washy about the whole thing. I didn't like Gough on The Green Hornet, and his role here does him no favors. He's all buddy-buddy with Jeff initially, but when Jeff gets ill, Claiborne is ready to sell Jeff down the river rather than risk his Project Vulcan funding. But in the end, Claiborne needs Jeff to sell the program with his Captain Kirk-like confidence and charm.

Geraldine Brooks is easy on the eyes in an early 60s kind of way, prancing around in her combination dress, maternity swimsuit, and nightgown. Later she has to dress more conservatively and recite Shat's lines back to him while looking either concerned or constipated. Brooks was a lot better in the previous season as the wife of another guy transforming into an alien in "The Architects of Fear". Malachi Throne is... Malachi Throne. A nice steady performer who conveys just the right amount of doctoral authority. The rest of the cast is pretty forgettable, and writer Dan Ullman doesn't bother to give them names: they just have titles, like "Botanical" and "Construction" and "Electronics".

The highlight of the episode is the Muppet-like plant creature but it doesn't make any sense. It infects Jeff with whatever condition he's going through by staring at him through a porthole. It "swims" through Venus' atmosphere (they put the puppet in water to give it a dreamy motion effect), but somehow reaches up to where Jeff's spaceship is in near orbit. There's an unintentionally humorous scene where Jeff asks Botanical (James Sikking) if Venus has plants that high. Oh, about 20,000' according to later dialogue. Botanical is understandably flabbergasted that Venus might have 20,000' tall trees. Not to mention the creature clearly has legs and isn't connected to anything.

They also never explain what the plant creature is up to, or what it's trying to do. Is it trying to communicate with Jeff by making him one of "them"? But Jeff isn't turning into a plant, he's growing scales and webbed fingers. Is it trying to scare him off? Is it lonely because it doesn't have a mate and has fallen for Shat's charm and good looks? Is it even real, or just something Jeff hallucinates?

Finally, the episode ends on a surprisingly upbeat ending for Outer Limits. I've commented before on the tendency of Outer Limits to end on gloom-and-doom notes. Here, Jeff is restored to normal, he keeps his wife, and he gets the money he and Project Vulcan need to proceed in the opposite direction from Venus and colonize Mars. I don't expect Jeff to turn into a plant and end up tragically killed when the local teenager comes over and mows the lawn, but sheesh, the episode ends on such an upbeat note that it's practically a parody of a 50s space movie.

And Shat is at the center of it. In fairness, there's not much he can do with the role. Jeff kisses Ann (badly), does a stunt fall (badly), sets himself on fire (badly), and moans in pain (badly). But It's In The Script (IITS), and Shat goes for it, overacting and all. The one talented thing he does is speak in the famous Shat "pause randomly for dramatic effect" cadence that Shat picked up in drama school and has never forgotten. He also gives at least one speech that sounds suspiciously like the intro to Star Trek a few years later. Jeff kisses Ann and then says that he's off to explore brave new worlds.

Overall, "Cold Hands" is a non-keeper of an episode. There are apparently other bad original Outer Limits episode and I'll get to them eventually. However, "Cold Hands" has a reputation as one of the worst. And it's a well-deserved reputation. Check it out on the DVD set, Dailymotion, or if it airs on a local retro channel.

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