Copyright Screen Rant
Three years before Star Trek’s original series transformed television, a groundbreaking sci-fi show called The Outer Limits debuted on ABC. Sadly, this show isn’t widely known today outside of avid science fiction fans. Yet, it was just as important to screen sci-fi as Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, or The Twilight Zone before it. Over the past half-century, plenty of new TV shows have tried to be new Star Trek. What most people don’t realize is that Star Trek itself was, in some respects, the new Outer Limits of television in the 1960s. This anthology series had opened up a window into another world for the Starship Enterprise to fly through. We should count it among the best sci-fi shows of all time, alongside Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Without The Outer Limits, neither of these series would exist, along with many others in the pantheon of TV sci-fi greats. The Outer Limits Was The 1st Great Sci-Fi Show On Television Back in September 1963, screen science fiction was primarily the preserve of B-movies, dystopian nightmares, and cartoonish TV series involving action-hero astronauts and mad scientists. The only exception was The Twilight Zone on CBS, but this show wasn’t primarily concerned with science fiction, despite many of its episodes featuring elements of sci-fi. Then, The Outer Limits appeared like a bolt from the blue. It was the first genuine sci-fi show of any real quality on television, and it paved the way for many more. From its disturbingly meta intro sequence to its preoccupation with extraterrestrial life and realistic technological advances, this series laid the blueprint for what constitutes small-screen sci-fi. Stephen King suggests that The Outer Limits tops The Twilight Zone as a work of horror, too. However, there’s no mistaking which genre it fits into on a fundamental level. If there were any doubts, Star Trek soon dispelled them, given the enormous debt it owes to The Outer Limits. Star Trek Was Massively Influenced By The Outer Limits When it comes to influential sci-fi shows, few are as significant as The Outer Limits. It’s arguably the biggest catalyst for the production of Star Trek, the series that went on to inspire almost everything extraterrestrial that came after it in the field of TV science fiction. In addition to themes and storylines, Star Trek reappropriated crew members, costumes, and even props from The Outer Limits, even though the two shows belonged to different networks. Most importantly, The Outer Limits gifted Star Trek three actors who’d go on to be legends of the sci-fi genre. The show placed William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and James Doohan in the shop window, and, sure enough, they were soon ushered aboard the Starship Enterprise. Today, it's impossible to imagine Star Trek: The Original Series without these actors. The Outer Limits Deserves More Recognition Today The Outer Limits is the perfect example of a classic sci-fi show that’s just as good as its modern counterparts. The show’s special effects are just as jawdropping as they were at the time it first aired, and its storylines are still some of the most creative in the history of TV sci-fi. But unlike The Twilight Zone and Star Trek, it gets almost no recognition today, and is virtually unknown to the public. It’s high time The Outer Limits was given the full recognition it deserves as a masterpiece of early screen science fiction.
