History TheOuterLimits1995 / TropesQToZ

* TimePolice: The show had recurring character Nicholas Prentice, a senior agent of a future time travel agency. He and his colleagues ensure the regulation of time travel, but he is allowed to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong himself (succeeding when he brings a Nazi war criminal to justice, but failing when he can't prevent a Presidential assassination). His agency recruits its agents by plucking people out of their timeline moments before they were set to die in fatal accidents.

** Played with in one episode ("Blood Brothers"), when an attempt to create a safe and reliable KnockoutGas for crowd control results in drug that seems to boost body's ability to fight off any disease or toxin UpToEleven. The chimp that it's tested on is able to take several shots of cyanide without a problem. The scientist's brother is a CorruptCorporateExecutive, who immediately clamps down on the supposed panacea, claiming that it's likely to cause overcrowding, as people will no longer be dying at the same rate, while still breeding like rabbits. The scientist treats it as an attempt to make money, even though it's a clear case of JerkassHasAPoint (i.e. without PopulationControl, any such cure would be really bad for humanity). The exec brother then uses the drug on himself in order to treat his Parkinson's. However, at the end, it's discovered that the supposed "cure" is actually CastFromLifespan, draining the body of all resources, until the person (or the above-mentioned chimp) just drops dead in a matter of days, completely spent. The exec brother spends the rest of his life in a sterile life support chamber, unable to move, as his body is no longer able to sustain itself.

* RobosexualsAreCreeps: The show has dealt with sexbots in a number of episodes, notably "Valerie 23" and "Mary 25", especially the moral ramifications of such technology. In the first episode, a man working at a cybernetics company is selected to test their first prototype Valerie. He feels insulted at first, stressing that he's more than capable of attracting real women. He later goes for it anyway and does have sex with Valerie, but when he tries to discard her in favor of another human she becomes a {{Yandere}}. In the second episode, the guy's boss is shown using a house android designed to be a nanny for sex, which is presented as predatory. [[spoiler:Turns out he also replaced his human wife with an android after murdering her to cover up his crime, then mistreated the android "wife" until she wanted to kill her "husband".]]

* WasActuallyFriendly:
** In "Trial by Fire", a newly-inaugurated President is taken to a bunker after an object is detected on the way to Earth. It is eventually revealed that alien ships are about to enter Earth's orbit. They send a message in, apparently, their own language, which linguists are trying to translate. Meanwhile, several of their actions are perceived as hostile by the US and, especially, by Russia. Faced with the possibility of an AlienInvasion and the threat of a nuclear exchange with Russia (who claims that anyone who doesn't fight the aliens will be seen as a [[LesCollaborateurs collaborator]]), the President orders a strike on the aliens. It utterly fails due to the aliens' advanced technology. Furthermore, the aliens launch powerful missiles against Washington, D.C., and Moscow. Right before they hit, an advisor tells the President that the alien message was in English all along, just garbled due to their aquatic environment, offering friendship to humans.
** In "The Second Soul", an alien race arrives on Earth. This time, they're openly asking to be allowed to live on Earth by possessing dead humans. Throughout the episode, several characters get increasingly paranoid about the aliens' agenda on Earth. It is revealed, though, that the aliens have no evil agenda and are merely building a museum to their race, as all their children are 100% human.

* WorldWarThree:

* ThemeTuneCameo: In "Flower Child", a slower version of the theme tune is heard on a television advertisement for the company Gideon 3000, which produces plant food and nutrients.

* TheReptilians: Many of the alien species featured in the series fit this trope. In most cases, ReptilesAreAbhorrent.

** In "Seeds of Destruction", Linda Andrews is played by Christine Elliott as a child and by Jessica Tuck as an adult.

* TheScapegoat: The series sometimes does this. In "Lithia," the male soldier introduced winds up taking ''all'' the blame for everything that went wrong in the village, including a woman's death, despite the fact that he personally did nothing wrong, and all his actions were done at the behest of the women in the village, including attempting to steal electrical power from a nearby town, after trying to buy it and being rebuffed, because without it, the village was not likely to produce enough food to survive the next winter, due to the government's extremely punishing tax rate [[SarcasmMode "Praise the Goddess."]] He is definitely not a SilentScapegoat at the end.

* TokenReligiousTeammate: Brianna is a devout Christian, the sole religious member of the group.

* TwoGirlsToATeam: Dianelle and Brianna are the two girls in the five-student group.

* SadisticChoice: In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S2E15Afterlife Afterlife]]", Stiles is offered a choice by the US Army: death, or participation in a secret experiment whose details he doesn't know.

* TokenMinority: "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S4E17Lithia Lithia]]" has Pelé as the only person of color in the episode, and the sole one among her community as well.

* RobotGirl: "Mary 25" involved a Robot Girl as one of the main characters, and it ended on an absolute TearJerker.

* YellowPeril: {{Averted|Trope}} and {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in the ClipShow episode "The Human Factor," about a future UsefulNotes/ColdWar between [[UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates America]] and UsefulNotes/{{China}}, in which 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.]]

* YourCheatingHeart: In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S3E4LastSupper Last Supper]]", after rescuing Laura/Jane Frank slept with her when already married to Carol.

* RapeLeadsToInsanity: In "A Stitch in Time", a woman is raped/assaulted as a teen and grows up to be a mentally-unbalanced scientist who builds a time machine and uses it to go back and execute serial killers before they target anyone. Her ensuing RippleProofMemory does not help with her ongoing mental stability. [[spoiler:This is ultimately resolved when a cop goes back in time and saves her from getting raped in the first place. Her altered present self is significantly better off as a result. Sadly, the cop takes her place as the vigilante when her friend is murdered.]]

** In "Joyride", Theodore Harris is played by G. Patrick Currie as a 27-year-old in 1963 and by Cliff Robertson as a 65-year-old in 2001.

* TimeSkip: In "A New Life", two years pass between TheTeaser and the first act.

** In "Dark Matters", the U.N.S. ''Slayton'' and the U.N.S. ''Gagarin'' are named after the Mercury Seven astronaut Deke Slayton and the Soviet cosmonaut UsefulNotes/YuriGagarin, the first person in space.
** In "Phobos Rising", it is mentioned that the Free Alliance had a base on a celestial body called Sagan V, which was named after the astrophysicist Carl Sagan.

* ShoutOut:
** In "Valerie 23", the android title character tells Frank Hellner that she is "fully functional" when it comes to sex. In the sequel episode "Mary 25", Charlie Bouton asks the android of the same name if the same is true of her and regularly has sex with her as the episode progresses. This refers to the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E2TheNakedNow The Naked Now]]" in which Tasha Yar, suffering from the Psi 2000 virus, asks Data if he is fully functional.
** In "Hearts and Minds", the vital energy source which the soldiers are trying to protect is called pergium, a reference to the radioactive element of the same name being mined on Janus VI in the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E25TheDevilInTheDark The Devil in the Dark]]". "Hearts and Minds" was written by ''Franchise/StarTrek'' screenwriter Naren Shankar.
** There is also one to ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' in "Hearts and Minds" as the human soldiers are (seemingly) fighting an insectoid alien species whom they refer to as "Bugs."
** "Rite of Passage" features a dog in a post-apocalyptic setting who is (incorrectly) believed to be telepathic, in reference to the telepathic dog Blood in ''Film/ABoyAndHisDog''.
** In "Mary 25", Charlie Bouton says that the title character was "[[Film/MaryPoppins named after the famous nanny from the movies.]]"
** In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S4E20Nightmare Nightmare]]", there is another to the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' franchise as there is mention of the Starfleet Research Lab in Fort Dix.
** In "The Human Factor", Commander Ellis Ward and the android Link play a game of chess to determine whether humanity deserves to exist, in reference to ''Film/TheSeventhSeal''.
** Also in "The Human Factor", Link has yellow eyes, much like Data in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''.
** In "Music of the Spheres", Vic's nickname for Devon Taylor is "[[Series/DoogieHowserMD Doogie]]."
** In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S5E22BetterLuckNextTime Better Luck Next Time]]", the aliens are named Gerard and Kimble and claim they have been endlessly chasing each other, a reference to the main characters of ''Series/TheFugitive''.
** Also in "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S5E22BetterLuckNextTime Better Luck Next Time]]", Russo, [=LaRue=], Daniels and Esterhaus are all named after characters from ''Series/HillStreetBlues''.
** In "I, Robot", Adam Link was built at the Rossom Hall Robotics Laboratory, a reference to the 1920 Czech play ''Theatre/{{RUR}}'' by [[Creator/KarelCapek Karel Čapek]] which introduced the word "robot" to science fiction and the English language. The robots in the play (who are really ArtificialHumans) were created by Rossum's Universal Robots.
** In "Déjà Vu", Corporal Hanford is running a betting pool on the likely (and unlikely) outcomes of the teleportation experiment. One of the options is "Literature/TheFly".
** In "Skin Deep", Sid Camden has the poster for ''Film/TheBodySnatcher'' above his mantelpiece. This is a reference to the fact that Sid imitates Chad Warner using a HolographicDisguise and eventually kills him so that he can take over his life permanently.
** There are numerous references to ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' in "Stasis". The episode depicts a Main/{{Dystopia}} in which society is divided between the Elite and the workers with the former essentially being the Inner Party and the Outer Party combined and the workers being the Proles. Winston is named after the novel's protagonist Winston Smith.
** In "Down to Earth", Dale [=LaRose=] refers to Ceti Alpha V. This was the planet where Captain Kirk marooned Khan Noonien Singh and his followers in the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E22SpaceSeed Space Seed]]", as later seen in ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan''.
** In "Abaddon", the interplanetary hauling vehicle ''Pequod'' is named after the whaling ship from ''Literature/MobyDick''.
** In "The Origin of Species", there is one to ''Film/PlanetOfTheApes1968''. Hope and the six students initally believe that the ship has brought them to another planet but they realize that they are on [[EarthAllAlong Earth in the future]] when they find the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge.
** In "Sandkings", Dr. Simon Kress says, "Creator/CharltonHeston, eat your heart out!" when the Sandkings part into two groups in front of him. This is a reference to Moses parting the Red Sea in ''Film/TheTenCommandments''. When this scene was later shown in the ClipShow "Final Appeal", the relevant line was cut to avoid a case of CelebrityParadox as Heston played Chief Justice Haden Wainwright in that episode.
** In "Family Values", when Jerry Miller asks Gideon Robotics to take back his household robot Gideon, the robot running the company says, "[[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey I'm afraid I can't do that]]."
** In "Patient Zero", Colonel Beckett is sent back in time to 2001 to prevent the outbreak of the Gehenna Strain. This is a reference to ''Series/QuantumLeap'' and the efforts of another time traveler, Dr. Samuel Beckett, to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong change history for the better]].

* ResurrectionSickness: In "New Lease", Oscar Reynolds, whose body was denoted to medical science, is resurrected by Doctors James Houghton and Charles [=McCamber=] using a Scanning Molecular Reorganizer (SMR) module. His body was frozen after death to prevent tissue damage. Very soon after being resurrected, Reynolds' body begins to deteriorate, a very painful process, and he dies for a second time within less than 24 hours. After Anthony Szigetti kills Houghton while robbing him, [=McCamber=] brings him back to life. Houghton, whose bodily functions begin to fail in the same manner, plans to use the time that he has left to make up for neglecting his wife Page and daughter Katrine but he cannot resist the temptation to have his revenge. He shoots Szigetti dead in full view of three witnesses. [[spoiler: Soon after he does so, [=McCamber=] tells him that his condition is stabilizing and his resurrection is permanent. He has determined that Reynolds died due to the fact that his body had been frozen after his first death. The next morning, Houghton is arrested for Szigetti's murder and is told by Detective Broder that it is likely that he will receive a life sentence if he is convicted.]]

* TailorMadePrison: "The Sentence" featured a mental version of these. People would serve out their sentences within a day of real time, but would in their minds experience their entire captivity in a prison like this.

* YearInsideHourOutside: There's an episode called "The Sentence" where this trope is used for a prison.

* RayGun: In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S4E17Lithia Lithia]]", Major Mercer was armed with a laser pistol when he placed in [[HumanPopsicle suspended animation]] in 2015.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: In "Heart's Desire", an alien arrives in {{the Wild West}} and gives four outlaws superpowers. Naturally, all but one get themselves killed due to fighting amongst themselves, though the survivor was more moral and level-headed than the others, and only fought in self-defense. The alien tells the survivor that HumansAreTheRealMonsters and takes away his powers before disappearing: