History Series / TheOuterLimits

* EvilTeacher: Mr. Zeno in "The Special One" is actually from planet Xenon, and he influences [[ChildPrdigy child prodigies]] to help his homeworld with their AlienInvasion. However...

** NoImmortalInertia: In "The Guests", people who leave the alien-controlled house instantly become their real age--which leads to RapidAging and death for anyone who stays too long.

** NoImmortalInertia: In "The Guests", anyone who leaves the alien-controlled house becomes their real age--which leads to RapidAging and death for anyone who stays too long.

%%* PowerIncontinence: In "The Man With the Power", the titular character
* PsychicStatic: Used by a man to protect his thoughts from the title character in the TOS episode "The Mutant".

%%* TeleportersAndTransporters: "The Galaxy Being", "The Mice", "Fun and Games", "The Special One".
%%* TelevisionPortal: "The Galaxy Being".
* {{Theremin}}: Harry Lubin's scores for the second season of the original series use the instrument extensively.

%%* TimeStandsStill: "Controlled Experiment", "The Premonition".
%%* TimeTravel: "The Man Who Was Never Born", "Soldier", "Demon with a Glass Hand"

-->'''Keith Ellis:''' We're a simple people. Given a chance we'll destroy ourselves. Why do it for us?

* EarnYourHappyEnding: A few episodes, [[TheOuterLimits1995 even in the revival]].
%%* EasilyThwartedAlienInvasion

** "The Brain of Colonel Barham" is a BrainInAJar who goes mad with power and gains the ability to enslave the people around it with {{Hypno Beam}}s.
%%* GovernmentDrugEnforcement: Several episodes.

* HoistByHerOwnPetard:
** The fate of scheming, murderous Judith Bellero in "The Bellero Shield".
** The fate of scheming, murderous Mr. Zeno in "The Special One".

%%* HumansAreCthulhu
%%* HumansThroughAlienEyes: "Controlled Experiment".
%%* HumanitysWake

%%* InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves: Referenced in "Counterweight".

%%* JekyllAndHyde: "Expanding Human".

%%* JustAMachine

%%* EverythingsWorseWithBees: "ZZZZZ".
%%* EvilTeacher: Mr. Zeno in "The Special One".
* FakeDefector: Kenny Benjamin in "The Special One". He was only pretending to cooperate with Mr. Zeno, and he saves the day by turning the alien's own weapon against him.
%%* FantasticAnthropologist

%%* GenghisGambit: The plot of "The Architects of Fear".
%%* GenreAnthology

%%* AGodAmI: "The Sixth Finger", and "The Brain of Colonel Barham".

%%* BigBrotherIsWatching: "O.B.I.T."
* BigNo: One of the aliens in "The Chameleon" does this when [[spoiler:the human spy kills the other alien]].

%%* BottleEpisode: "Controlled Experiment", "The Probe".
%%* BrainInAJar: "The Brain of Colonel Barham".
* BuildingOfAdventure: Most of "Demon with a Glass Hand" was filmed inside [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradbury_Building The Bradbury Building]], a UsefulNotes/LosAngeles landmark dating from 1893. Creator/HarlanEllison tailored his script around the location.
%%* ByTheEyesOfTheBlind: "Behold, Eck!".
%%* CatchPhrase: Quoted above.
%%* CloningBlues: "The Duplicate Man" in TOS.

%%* CourtroomEpisode: "O.B.I.T.", "I, Robot".

%%* DarkIsNotEvil: [[spoiler:The Ebonites in "Nightmare".]]

%%* AnAesop
%%* AfterTheEnd: "The Man Who Was Never Born."

%%* MultinationalTeam: The human soldiers in "Nightmare".

%%* NamingYourColonyWorld: Dundee's Planet from "Wolf 359".
%%* NoImmortalInertia: "The Guests".

%%* TheNounWhoVerbed: "The Man Who Was Never Born".
%%* ObsoleteMentor

* PoorCommunicationKills:
** In his ''Outer Limits Companion'', David J. Schow identifies this as a plot flaw in two TOS episodes, "The Mice" and "Second Chance". He notes that both episodes feature "a lone alien on a mission that is terminated because the aliens do not bother to ask for what they want."

%%* PowerIncontinence: "The Man With the Power."

%%* PsychicSurgery
%%* PuppeteerParasite: "Corpus Earthing", "The Invisibles".

* [[ShowAccuracyToyAccuracy Show Accuracy/Trading Card Accuracy]]: The original TOS ''Outer Limits'' [[http://science-fiction.netfirms.com/ cards]] (one of which is the page pic), released while the series was still in production, are notorious because the writer, who apparently had never watched the show, concocted new stories (and [[SoBadItsGood laughable]] ones, at that) around colorized photos of the AliensAndMonsters. Later series of cards didn't have this problem; one series recycled the original pics with new text including both the TV and trading card plots.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Tends to fall on the cynial side, but there are exceptions.

%%* StarCrossedLovers:
%%** Andro and Noelle in "The Man Who Was Never Born".
%%** Eric and Larissa in "Stasis".

%%* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler: "Demon with a Glass Hand"]]

* WakingUpAtTheMorgue: Happens to a college professor who's been experimenting with a mind-enhancing drug in the TOS episode "Expanding Human".

%%* WarriorPoet: Major Jong in "Nightmare".

* WhatYouAreInTheDark: Quite a few moments. The closing narration for "The Voyage Home" even outright states "The true measure of a hero is when a man lays down his life with the knowledge that those he saves... will never know."

%%* XRaySparks: "The Borderland".
%%* YearInsideHourOutside: A plot element in "Don't Open Till Doomsday" and "The Guests". from TOS and "The Sentence" from the {{revival}}.

* CliffordSimak: His short story "Goodnight, Mr. James" was adapted for the original series as "The Duplicate Man".

* AnAesop
* AfterTheEnd: "The Man Who Was Never Born."

* BigBrotherIsWatching: "O.B.I.T."

* BottleEpisode: "Controlled Experiment", "The Probe".
* BrainInAJar: "The Brain of Colonel Barham".

* ByTheEyesOfTheBlind: "Behold, Eck!".
* CatchPhrase: Quoted above.

* CloningBlues: "The Duplicate Man" in TOS.
* CompellingVoice: "The Special One", "The Inheritors".

* CourtroomEpisode: "O.B.I.T.", "I, Robot".

* DarkIsNotEvil: [[spoiler:The Ebonites in "Nightmare".]]

* EasilyThwartedAlienInvasion

* EverythingsWorseWithBees: "ZZZZZ".
* EvilTeacher: Mr. Zeno in "The Special One".

* FantasticAnthropologist

* GenghisGambit: The plot of "The Architects of Fear".
* GenreAnthology

* AGodAmI: "The Sixth Finger", pictured above, and "The Brain of Colonel Barham".
* GovernmentDrugEnforcement: Several episodes.

* HeroicSacrifice: Several episodes.
* HoistByHerOwnPetard: The fate of scheming, murderous Judith Bellero in "The Bellero Shield".
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The fate of scheming, murderous Mr. Zeno in "The Special One".

* HumansAreCthulhu
* HumansThroughAlienEyes: "Controlled Experiment".
* HumanitysWake

* InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves: Referenced in "Counterweight".

* JekyllAndHyde: "Expanding Human".

* JustAMachine

* MultinationalTeam: The human soldiers in "Nightmare".

* NamingYourColonyWorld: Dundee's Planet from "Wolf 359".
* NoImmortalInertia: "The Guests".

* TheNounWhoVerbed: "The Man Who Was Never Born".
* ObsoleteMentor

* PowerIncontinence: "The Man With the Power."

* PsychicSurgery
* PuppeteerParasite: "Corpus Earthing", "The Invisibles".

* ScreamingWoman: Quite a few examples.

* StarCrossedLovers:
** Andro and Noelle in "The Man Who Was Never Born".
** Eric and Larissa in "Stasis".

* TeleportersAndTransporters: "The Galaxy Being", "The Mice", "Fun and Games", "The Special One".
* TelevisionPortal: "The Galaxy Being".

* TimeStandsStill: "Controlled Experiment", "The Premonition".
* TimeTravel: "The Man Who Was Never Born", "Soldier", "Demon with a Glass Hand"
* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler: "Demon with a Glass Hand"]]

* WarriorPoet: Major Jong in "Nightmare".

* XRaySparks: "The Borderland".
* YearInsideHourOutside: A plot element in "Don't Open Till Doomsday" and "The Guests". from TOS and "The Sentence" from the {{revival}}.

* RobotGirl: One episode of the {{Revival}} involved a RobotGirl as one of the main characters, and it ended on an absolute TearJerker.

[[caption-width-right:350:A collage of "bears" from various episodes.]]

[[width-caption-right:350:A collage of "bears" from various episodes.]]

[[quoteright:358:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/OUTER_LIMITS_11.jpg]]

* BackToFront: "Zig Zag."

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The setting of "Nightmare" [TOS version], "Specimen: Unknown", "Moonstone", "The Duplicate Man"

* YearInsideHourOutside: A plot element in "Don't Open Till Doomsday" and "The Guests" from TOS and "The Sentence" from the {{revival}}.
* YellowPeril: The Red Chinese are the villains in the TOS episode "The Hundred Days of the Dragon".
** Averted and [[{{LampshadeHanging}} lampshaded]] in the {{Revival}}. In the ClipShow episode "The Human Factor" about a future ColdWar between America and China, the latter complain that they are [[{{DesignatedVillain}} regarded as the bad guys]] even though the former are usually the ones to initiate hostilities. [[spoiler: This is borne out when the American leaders start WorldWarIII.]]

* {{Zeerust}}: "The Duplicate Man", a TOS episode from 1964, is set in 2025, a future in which humanity has been exploring outer space at least since the 1980s.

* TreacherousSpiritChase: The main plot of "If These Walls Could Talk" concerns a house "infected" by an alien substance. Not only does the house absorb people into its structure, it's able to regurgitate {{Doppelganger}}s of those people to lure in their friends and loved ones when they come searching for answers.

* VideoPhone: The episode "The Duplicate Man" had video phones with rotary dials.

* TomatoSurprise: "Tempests".

!!Tropes featured:

* AdultFear: "Under The Bed" has a monster that kidnaps and kills children

* AnotherDimension: Two TOS episodes ("Production and Decay of Strange Particles" and "Behold, Eck!") feature beings from other dimensions accidentally finding their way into our world.

* BigNo: TOS example: One of the aliens in "The Chameleon" does this when [[spoiler:the human spy kills the other alien]].

* ByTheEyesOfTheBlind: "Behold, Eck!", "Music of the Spheres".

* DarkIsNotEvil: [[spoiler:The Ebonites in the TOS version of "Nightmare".]]

* {{Deprogram}}ming: "The Deprogrammers".
* DisabilityImmunity: One episode of the Revival had a mentally handicapped man with fetal alcohol syndrome who was immune to an infestation of mind-controlling brain worms because his brain was so feeble they simply starved to death.
* DoesNotWearShoes: The perpetually barefoot Mrs. Dame in the TOS episode "The Bellero Shield". The episode has several lengthy closeups of her bare feet.

* EnergyBeings: Featured in the TOS episodes "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork" and "Counterweight", plus several revival episodes.
* EpisodeTitleCard: Very distinctive on the original series; the episode title, and the names of the episode's stars, come right at the viewer, accompanied by the sine wave and (after the first few episodes) the piercing electronic whine from the TitleSequence.

* {{Fanservice}}: The revival had a lot of scantily clad and naked women (notably Alyssa Milano in "Caught In The Act").

* FreeSamplePlotCoupon: In the TOS episode ''Demon with a Glass Hand", the character Trent must find the three missing fingers of his artificial left hand to save humanity from the Kyben invasion. Fortunately Trent's incomplete left hand is a talking computer that can help him find the three fingers.

* HeWhoFightsMonsters: The robot at the end of "The Hunt".
* HeroicSacrifice: Several episodes of both series.

* HostileTerraforming: One episode of the revival had this with a new model of car that would poison the atmosphere for infiltrated aliens.

* HuntingTheMostDangerousGame: "The Hunt".
* IdiotBall: Over the duration of "Sandkings", the main character (Simon) grabs onto the ball so tightly that he practically becomes a walking-talking IdiotBall himself. To elaborate: he brings home [[spoiler:Martian insects proven to be intelligent enough to escape military security procedures. He continually expands their enclosure, maxing out his family's credit line in the process. He leaves the enclosure open-air, allowing the family dog to be [[KickTheDog kicked]]. After punishing the creatures for doing so, he leaves his upper body dangling inside the enclosure, getting himself bit. Then he invites his ex-boss over to feed the creatures, and his death spasms break open the enclosure.]]
* ImMrFuturePopCultureReference: In the episode "Time to Time", a time traveler uses "Luke Skywalker" as an alias when in the year 1969. He even finished a phone call with "May the Force be with you."
* InsectQueen: Classic episode "ZZZZZ". A giant mutant queen bee takes human form so she can mate with a human male. She can control her fellow bees and make them attack people, such as the wife of the man she wants to seduce.
* InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves: Referenced in the TOS episode "Counterweight" and the revival episode "Heart's Desire".

* LotusEaterMachine: "Tempests".

* MonsterOfTheWeek: One of the original series' central tropes; somewhat less common in the {{Revival}}.
* MultinationalTeam: The human soldiers in both versions of "Nightmare".
* MurderByCremation: One episode involves a scientist working in a sealed lab with a gas meant to be used to pacify riots. As a side effect, the latest batch ends up turning the lab monkey immortal. When the scientist's assistant attempts to steal the monkey's biological culture, the scientist's CorruptCorporateExecutive brother traps him in the lab. The angry assistant slams the door with his fist, which results in a bloody fist. The culture in his blood triggers the decontamination system, which "flashes" the lab, killing the guy. The brother later tries the same with the scientist and his girlfriend, who have discovered that [[spoiler:the culture makes you ''temporarily'' invincible, only to kill you in a few days]].

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Occurs in more than a few episodes, but "Sandkings" is the story of one man breaking things over and over. See IdiotBall.

** This was featured in "Trial By Fire" (detailed under TheChainsOfCommanding, above). It would have been a far easier decision [[spoiler: if those on Earth knew what the aliens were saying with their transmission]].

* ResistanceAsPlanned: Part of the twist ending of the episode "[[spoiler:The Deprogrammers]]."

* ScreamingWoman: Quite a few examples, especially in the original series.
* ScrewedByTheNetwork

* TeleportersAndTransporters: "The Galaxy Being", "The Mice", "Fun and Games", "The Special One", "Think Like A Dinosaur".

* TimeIsDangerous: the aforementioned AndIMustScream situation in "The Premonition".

* VichyEarth: "The Deprogrammers"

* WarriorPoet: Major Jong in the TOS version of "Nightmare".

However, that wasn't quite the end. Despite its status as a short-lived, black and white anthology series, ''The Outer Limits'' remained popular enough to stay in constant syndication for nearly four decades. This resulted in a [[Series/TheOuterLimits1995 made-for-cable revival series]] helmed by producer Pen Densham, which far outlasted the original, beginning its seven-season run in 1995. A few of the new series' episodes were even {{remake}}s of episodes from the original series.

However, that wasn't quite the end. Despite its status as a short-lived, black and white anthology series, ''The Outer Limits'' remained popular enough to stay in constant syndication for nearly four decades. This resulted in a made-for-cable [[{{Revival}} revival]] series helmed by producer Pen Densham, which far outlasted the original, beginning its seven-season run in 1995. A few of the new series' episodes were {{remake}}s of episodes from the original series.

A [[Recap/TheOuterLimits recap page]] is in progress.

* INeverToldYouMyName: As part of the DownerEnding of the revival's "Lithia." [[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.]]

* LivingGasbag: The revival series episode "Tempests" has kilometer-long jellyfish blobs that float through the clouds of the planet Leviathan.

* AMindIsATerribleThingToRead: "What Will The Neighbors Think?"

* OrificeInvasion: "From Within".

* TheRemake: Five episodes of the original were redone as four episodes of the {{Revival}} ("Nightmare," "A Feasibility Study," "I, Robot" and "The Inheritors" parts 1 and 2 - this last, the original's only two-parter, was remade as a one-parter).

* RoboticSpouse: The premise of the Revival episode "Valerie 23" [[spoiler: and the mandatory CruelTwistEnding of its sequel, "Mary 25"]]

* SealedEvilInATeddyBear: One of the episodes in the Revival series had a literal example of this trope as part of the ColdOpening.

* SeekerWhiteBloodCells: In an episode of the new series, a spaceship crew punches a hole into another dimension, which they assume to be [[SubspaceOrHyperspace hyperspace or subspace]]. The main character, who is descended from {{Magical Native American}}s, starts to believe that it is actually the bloodstream of the living universe. What they originally thought to be asteroids turn out to have a similar structure to human white blood cells, except they use gravity to kill infection.

* SimilarlyNamedWorks: The {{revival}} episode "The Human Factor" is ''not'' a remake of the TOS episode with the same title.

* SpoilerTitle: "The Probe", considering that the story is about a group of plane crash survivors who wind up on an alien space probe--without either the characters or the audience initially realizing it--and spend about half the episode trying to figure out where they are.

* TimeIsDangerous:
** In one {{revival}} episode, the result of RippleEffectProofMemory is that an entirely new lifetime's worth of memories gets added onto the existing one, which could result in brain damage.
** Also, the aforementioned AndIMustScream situation in "The Premonition".

* TimeTravel: "The Man Who Was Never Born", "Soldier", "Demon with a Glass Hand", several episodes of the {{Revival}}.

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The setting of "Nightmare" [TOS version], "Specimen: Unknown", "Moonstone", "The Duplicate Man" and some episodes of the {{Revival}}.

* TheWildWest: The setting of the revival episode "Heart's Desire".

* YouLookFamiliar: Both series did this.
** The {{Revival}} had several episodes featuring the time-traveler Nicholas Prentice, played by Alex Diakun. Alex Diakun also played unrelated characters in unrelated stories, most confusingly the store owner in "Alien Shop", which aired after two Nicholas Prentice episodes had established character continuity.
** Creator/KimCoates played two different, unrelated characters, ''seven years'' apart.
** Crystal Cass appeared in "Paradise", "Bits of Love", and "Rite of Passage". Emmanuelle Vaugier appeared in "Rite of Passage" and "The Other Side". Kristen Lehman appeared in "Falling Star", "Dead Man's Switch", "Stasis", and "Time To Time". MichaelIronside appeared in "Summit" and "Rule of Law". Each time, these are different characters in unrelated stories.
*** The original series did this as well, most notably with Robert Culp, who starred in three episodes.

* TheAmericanCivilWar: The setting of most of the {{Revival}} episode "Gettysburg" (better known as The One With Music/MeatLoaf), complete with one of the characters plotting to assassinate UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln.
* AndIMustScream:
** The fate of the Limbo Being in "The Premonition", who gets trapped in a VoidBetweenTheWorlds.
** Also happens with the murderous priest in the {{Revival}} episode "Fear Itself", driven mad in the end, a throwback to the punishment given to the SS commander in the ''TwilightZone'' episode "Death's Head Revisited" by the ghosts of his victims. LaserGuidedKarma, anyone?

* ArcWelding: The season finales of the {{Revival}} are {{Clip Show}}s that tie together the plots of various previously unconnected stories, one involving a SuperSoldier project & another with a pair of immortal EnergyBeings who have been [[ChessMaster setting up the events of several stories]], all for no other purpose than their own amusement.

* TheBadGuyWins: Frequently invoked in the 90s revival.

* BigNo:
** Delivered by Creator/MarkHamill himself at the end of "Mind Over Matter".
** Robert Patrick delivers one at the end of "Quality of Mercy".
** The two evil aliens deliver this as they are defeated at the end of "Better Luck Next Time".
** TOS example: One of the aliens in "The Chameleon" does this when [[spoiler:the human spy kills the other alien]].
* BittersweetEnding: The most common type of ending in the Revival, behind outright {{Downer Ending}}s. The original series did it fairly often as well.

* [[BornInTheTheater Born on Pay Television]]: The revival's introduction, similar to the original's, has a "please stand by" notice added to it in syndication since the Showtime airings did not have commercials.

* TheChainsOfCommanding: The episode "Trial By Fire" deals with the US President being sequestered in a bunker after being informed that a massive object, traveling at half the speed of light, is going to hit Earth in roughly a half hour. It's up to him to decide what to do from there, though he has plenty of noise from his advisers.

* ClipShow: The {{revival}} had no less than seven: one each in Seasons 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 and two in Season 7 (those being the last two episodes...)
* CloningBlues: "The Duplicate Man" in TOS. The {{revival}} has "Think Like A Dinosaur" and, unusually, subverts the trope with "Replica", which also has one of the few {{happy ending}}s in the new series.
* ColorMeBlack: "Tribunal" featured an ending where a Nazi war criminal whose escaped justice for 50 years put into the uniform of his prisoners and taken back in time to his own camp. His younger self shoots him for being Jewish.

* CrapsackWorld: In [[TheRemake the remake series]], at least. Many episodes are interconnected through the mysterious [[EvilInc Innobotics Corporation]] and their RidiculouslyHumanRobots, not to mention that every season produces a couple of sequel episodes for earlier stories for double the CruelTwistEnding!

* CruelTwistEnding: The {{revival}} series did this so often, the trope used to be named Outer Limits Twist.

* DeathIsTheOnlyOption: In the episode "Better Luck Next Time", a police detective is manipulated by a pair of malevolent energy beings into being their plaything, intending to turn her into a host after they've tricked her into shooting a fellow cop. However, their hosts burn out rapidly, they can't survive for long without one, and their current hosts are just about to expire. She [[TitleDrop utters the episode's title]] just before shooting herself in the head, bringing the energy beings' centuries-long murder spree to an end.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: A few episodes, even in the revival.

* IncrediblyLamePun: Music/MeatLoaf plays a character named Col. Angus in "Gettysburg".

* {{Science Is Bad}}: A recurrent theme and the basis for the plots of many (though not all) of its episodes.

* StockFootage: Used from time to time in the original series. Some spaceship shots come from earlier science fiction films and series. "The Premonition" starts with footage of an actual X-15 flight; it also includes scenes of a coyote chasing a rabbit through the desert, which were taken from ''Series/MutualOfOmahasWildKingdom''.