History Recap / TheOuterLimits1995S4E17Lithia

* HumanPopsicle: Mercer is a soldier who volunteered for the experimental cryogenic stasis, where he was then kept for the next forty years. He wakes up to find himself the last man on Earth. [[spoiler: It turns out that other men were put in cryostasis too, and eleven others also released.]]

In a building near where they are, however, one man is left alive in cryogenic hibernation. the machinery of the hibernation capsule he's held in begins thawing him out, and the man staggers into their midst, astonishing all of them.

Many of the women in their enclave of Lithia, as they call it, are displeased by his presence however. To them, all men are destructive, and their acts were the source of the devastation they occurred. According to their beliefs, the Goddess destroyed all the men as punishment.

Mercer is dismayed to see that the women must grind their corn by hand on a wheel. He is told that once they had a waterwheel, but the enclave neighboring them named Hyacinth dammed up the river to expand their farmland, which they had less of. Mercer opposes them having to simply accept this, proposing that they trade with them.

In an a building near where they are, however, one man is left alive in cryogenic hibernation. the machinery of the hibernation capsule he's held in begins thawing him out, and the man staggers into their midst, astonishing all of them.

Many of the women in their enclave of Lythia, as they call it, are displeased by his presence however. To them, all men are destructive, and their acts were the source of the devastation they occurred. According to their beliefs, the Goddess destroyed all the men as punishment.

* WomenAreWiser: In the episode, women are depicted as being inherently superior to men in terms of morality. Men are said to worship death while women are said to worship life.

* WomenAreWiser:

* WholePlotReference: The episode is one to the 1984 Polish science fiction film ''Film/SexMission'' as it involves a soldier, Major Jason Mercer, waking from cryonic suspension decades later than planned to find that the world is populated entirely by women as all men have died.

* ThemeNaming: There are two examples of theme naming in the episode. Hera and Phoebe are named after female characters from Greek Myth/ClassicalMythology, while Lithia's neighboring enclave Hyacinth is named after a male Greek hero, in spite of the fact that this female-only world abhors men. Major Jason Mercer is presumably named after Jason, the leader of the Argonauts. The second is a more minor example which relates to ''Theatre/TheTempest'': two of the other women are named Ariel (a male character in the play) and Miranda.

* PostApocalypticDog: A black Labrador is seen in the titular enclave.

* PornWithPlot: A soldier is awakened from cryogenic stasis to find that he is the only man in a world ruled by women. He has sex with two of them.

* ThePlague: In the aftermath of the Great War which killed seven billion people (99% of the world's population), a plague known as the Scourge killed all the remaining males. Preserved genetic material, enough to last them generations, is used to propagate humanity, but the Scourge remained in the atmosphere and all of the male children died within weeks of birth.

* ThePlague: In the aftermath of the Great War which killed seven billion people (99% of the world's population), a plague known as the Scourge killed all the remaining males. Preserved genetic material, enough to last generations, is used to propagate humanity, but the Scourge remained in the atmosphere and all of the male children died within weeks of birth.

* OneGenderRace: In the episode, the world is now an all-female post-apocalyptic society in which almost all males were wiped off the planet due to war and a virus. They decide to not reintroduce the remaining men into the population because every time they took one out of stasis, it caused conflict in the society because the men pushed limits that the elders were not comfortable with, like building generators or stealing from other towns. Sucks to be male.

* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Played to its horrific extreme in the episode. It opens with a male soldier, seemingly the LoneSurvivor of the male gender, entering an all-female village, without warning or fanfare, and collapsing from exposure to the elements. Note that just moments before his arrival, the village elder was sharing stories with a room full of small children that could ''easily'' fit with the most radical of Taliban doctrine if the genders were reversed. After the entire episode shows just how badly things could go in that kind of environment, [[spoiler: the ending goes and shows that there are other men, all in cryostasis, and the narrator basically proclaims that humanity doesn't really need the male gender, aside from being a GlorifiedSpermDonor. Of course, if the other men mentioned were re-introduced into society like he was, it's a small wonder the attempts were horrific failures.]]

* LuddWasRight: The enclave of Lithia relies on a manually powered waterwheel to provide the energy that it uses to process the grain which it needs to survive. Lithia's leader Hera resists Major Mercer's suggestion that they trade with the neighboring enclave Hyacinth for electricity to power the waterwheel as she fears that it will represent the return of the destructive technology which led to the Great War. The enclaves' ruling council are seemingly former or at least wavering Luddites themselves as they only temporarily and reluctantly granted Hyacinth sanction to use electricity in the first place.

In a future world, no men are left alive. Most of the world's population died years ago in a war, from what was clearly nuclear war and its effects afterward. The men left alive were killed by a plague called "the Scourge". The young girls born since that time are told the story by an old woman who lived during the time.

Many of the women in their conclave of Lythia, as they call it, are displeased by his presence however. To them, all men are destructive, and their acts were the source of the devastation they occurred. According to their beliefs, the Goddess destroyed all the men as punishment.

Mercer is dismayed to see that the women must grind their corn by hand on a wheel. He is told that once they had a waterwheel, but the conclave neighboring them named Hyacinth dammed up the river to expand their farmland, which they had less of. Mercer opposes them having to simply accept this, proposing that they trade with them.

Miranda, one of the women that was more open to Mercer, becomes interested by him, and the two have sex. Pela, who is her lover, reacts with rage in private at discovering, fingering her knife and seemingly desiring to kill Mercer for doing this. Hera relates to the girls that she once was engaged to a man, keeping a locket he gave her.

From this and his prior visit too, Hyacinth's leader had grown suspicious, so her hunters were ordered to patrol the area. Thus, when Mercer goes back to fix it with Miranda, they are approached by a female archer who orders him to get down with a nocked bow. Miranda, to defend him, shoots the woman with his pistol.

* LadyLand: The episode takes place in the year 2055, where the world is now populated only by women. Almost all of the men were [[{{Gendercide}} killed years earlier]] in a war, and the plot starts with a male soldier who's suddenly awakened from [[HumanPopsicle cryogenic suspension]]. He adjusts to the society, but is [[FishOutOfTemporalWater unsettled]] by the fact that power must be churned manually through a mill when there's a power plant a relatively short distance away. His attempts to "solve" this problem escalate until someone gets killed, at which point he's frozen again after we get the CruelTwistEnding--[[spoiler:he's not the only man in storage-the leaders of this society found several and tried reintroducing them to the population, with disastrous results every time.]]

* INeverToldYouMyName: This is part of the DownerEnding." [[spoiler: Set in the post-apocalyptic commune of the title - entirely populated by females due to a plague having killed all but a few cryogenically frozen men - a defrosted male is put back into freeze after his aggressive tendencies cause tragedy, and the leader of the commune (who says "Goodbye, Jason" as he's frozen, even though he never... you know) is his lost love.]]

* {{Gendercide}}: This took place in the past of the episode, where the few surviving men were {{human popsicle}}s. The thawed soldier protagonist proceeded to raise merry hell in the all-female society that sprang up, but it was also prevented from being a heavy-handed misandrist TakeThat by the fact that, as ham-fisted and ill-advised as the man's attempts to change it were, the new society was utopian only in appearance (i.e. what with the leadership's rampant favoritism in resource allotment and Big Brother-esque control on the information flow). It ended with him being "put down" (refrozen) and the leadership declaring that trying to make men return was ill-advised, and that all efforts to do so would be ceased [[spoiler:which is implied was the real reason they thawed him (and the others before him)-they wanted the least suitable test candidates in the most potentially disruptive situation possible to give themselves plausible deniability why they stopped as well as "proof" that men were the cause of all of society's previous ills, most probably to maintain their power]]. [[CruelTwistEnding Just to twist the knife further]], [[spoiler:the old woman who put him down was his ''fiancee'', several decades older, and thoroughly convinced of man's evils by a mix of propaganda, his own actions and probably a lifetime of accumulated resentment over numerous issues]].

* AndManGrewProud: A variation occurs in the episode, as it takes place less than forty years AfterTheEnd and the accompanying myths have been deliberately created. The teacher Ariel, whose grandmother Hera remembers life before the Great War when men ruled the world, tells the children of the enclave that, in the aftermath of the war, the Goddess unleashed a plague known as the Scourge which killed all surviving males as punishment for their evil.

* AintTooProudToBeg: The episode ends with Major Mercer begging ''very loudly'' not to be shoved into a cryo-tube. [[spoiler: He gets louder when he finds out the one sentencing him to this knows his name because she's his fiancee, whom he thought was long dead.]]

!!Tropes

In a future world, a war has caused the death of all men. Most of the world's population died then, from what was clearly nuclear war and its effects afterward. The men left alive were killed by a plague called "the Scourge". The Young girls born since that time are told the story by an old woman living during that time.

In an underground chamber near where they are, however, one man is left alive in cryogenic hibernation. the machinery of the hibernation capsule he's held in begins thawing him out, and the man staggers into their midst, astonishing all of them.

He reacts in shock to learn what has happened. Not only have all men died, but also all male babies born in the years since. The lack of men has been circumvented through using frozen sperm that was preserved from the earlier time. After being told this, however the man (who introduces himself as Major Mercer, wearing military fatigues) accepts things.

Mercer is dismayed to see that the women must grind their corn by hand on a wheel. He is told that once they had a waterwheel, but the conclave neighboring them named Hyacinth dammed up the river to expand their farmland, which they had less of. Mercer opposes them having to simply accept this, proposing that they trade electricity with them for supplies.

Miranda, one of the women that was more open to Mercer, becomes interested by him, and the two have sex. Pela, who is her lover, reacts with rage in private at discovering, fingering her knife and seemingly desiring to kill Mercer for doing this. Hera relates to the girls that she once was involved with a man, keeping a locket he gave her.

When this happens though, Hyacinth's leader tries to get the better of him, causing both Miranda and Ariel's deaths. After their funerals, a remorseful Mercer announces he will leave Lithia.

-->'''The Control Voice:'''The differences between men and women have been debated among philosophers since recorded history began. If indeed males are, by their nature the aggressor, it is this quality that may one day be their undoing.

Many of the women in their conclave, as they call it, are displeased by his presence however. To them, all men are destructive, and their acts were the source of the devastation they occurred. According to their beliefs, the Goddess destroyed all the men as punishment.

Mercer is dismayed to see that the women must grind their corn by hand on a wheel. He is told that once they had a waterwheel, but the conclave neighboring dammed the river to expand their farmland, which they had less of. Mercer opposes them having to simply accept this, proposing that they trade electricity with them for supplies.

However, the Council which governs the conclaves has restricted technology while they study its impact, presumably wary given the past destruction it caused. Mercer is unwilling to accept this, and says the conclave should take care of its own first, which Hera rebukes as the kind of philosophy which caused the war.