Life controls art?
'Outer Limits' storyline precedes headlines
The upcoming fifth season premiere seg of "The Outer Limits" concerns an aging astronaut, played by Oscar winner Cliff Robertson, who gets a second chance to go into space, some 38 years after a bizarre incident derailed his first planned space flight in the early '60s.
Sound kinda familiar? Well, the folks at Trilogy Entertainment, which produces the acclaimed sci-fi anthology drama for MGM, insist the story concept for the "Joyride" seg was on the page last year -- long before real-life Mercury Seven astronaut-cum-former senator John Glenn booked his headline-making trip with NASA.
"Though we strive to make our show as topical as possible, we were surprised to find how strong the parallels are to today's headlines," said exec producer Richard Barton Lewis. The fifth season of "Outer Limits" bows early next year on Showtime and will hit the firstrun syndie cycle in September.
For Robertson, starring as astronaut Theodore Harris in the "Joyride" seg is truly a life-imitates-art scenario. Robertson starred in the very first "Outer Limits" seg, which bowed on ABC on Sept. 16, 1963. And not so coincidentally, Sept. 16, 1963, is the date given in the "Joyride" seg for Harris' first aborted space flight.
To encourage debate among TV conspiracy theorists, MGM has conveniently posted the script for "Joyride" on the "Outer Limits" Web site at www.theouterlimits.com. And if heavy traffic makes it tough to access the site, just be patient and recite the "Outer Limits" dictum: "For the next hour sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear."
