The Borderland

"The Borderland"
The Outer Limits episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 12
Directed by	Leslie Stevens
Written by	Leslie Stevens
Cinematography by	John M. Nickolaus
Production code	2
Original air date	December 16, 1963
Guest stars
Philip Abbott Gladys Cooper Nina Foch Barry Jones Gene Raymond Mark Richman Alfred Ryder
Episode chronology
← Previous "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork" Next → "Tourist Attraction"
List of The Outer Limits episodes

"The Borderland" is an episode of the original The Outer Limits television show. It was the second episode to be produced, and first aired on 16 December 1963, during the first season.

The storyline involves a team of scientists who use an incredibly strong magnetic field to open a door to another dimension.

Opening narration

“

The mind of man has always longed to know what lies beyond the world we live in. Explorers have ventured into the deeps and the heights. Of these explorers some are scientists, some are mystics. Each is driven by a different purpose. The one thing they share in common is a wish to cross the Borderlands that lie beyond the Outer Limits.

”

Plot

A scientist encounters a magnetic field that reverses the form of living matter. A millionaire attempts to use the field to contact his dead son, while two phony famous psychics try to sabotage their attempts to travel to the other side.

Story

A British millionaire named Dwight Hartley has engaged Mrs Palmer, a famous psychic, to establish contact with his dead son, Glenn, but scientists Ian and Eva Fraser and Dr Russell expose her as a fraud during a seance, and she is thrown out, her plan to con the old man for financial gain is over. Hartley feels grateful to the scientists, and wishes to use his finances to fund Ian Fraser's research into other borderlands at Eric Electronics, where he is Head Chairman of the board of Directors.

Fraser insists that he has developed a method that can pierce "The Borderland" - a dimensional plane between this world and another - which may be the afterlife (during earlier tests the scientist's hand was reversed when he thrust it into the limbo world and he now in effect has two right hands). However, he needs all the energy of a metropolitan power grid to do so. Hartley agrees to arrange the situation if Fraser will attempt to contact his dead son. Fraser agrees and the experiment begins, but at the crucial moment Mrs Palmer reappears, planning to expose the scientists as frauds.

Fraser sends inanimate objects, as well as flowers and white rats, into the other dimension. When Ian Fraser enters in to the fourth dimensional limbo world, the psychic disrupts the power supply. Eva pulls him out, but desperate to contact his dead son, Hartley enters the inter-dimensional chamber and disappears.

Closing narration

“

There are worlds beyond worlds within which the voyager must travel, but there is one power which seems to transcend space and time, life and death. It is a deeply human power which holds us safe and together when all other forces combine to tear us apart — we call it the power of love.

”

Cast

• Mark Richman – as Ian Fraser
• Nina Foch – as Eva Fraser
• Barry Jones – as Dwight Hartley
• Philip Abbott – as Lincoln Russell
• Gene Raymond – as Benson Sawyer
• Gladys Cooper – as Mrs. Palmer
• Alfred Ryder – as Edgar Price
• Noel de Sousa – as Dr. Sung (uncredited)
• Vic Perrin – as Scientist (uncredited)

Influence in other media

• The developers of the Half-Life video game series, which deals with creatures from parallel dimensions breaking through to ours, have listed The Borderland among their primary influences for the game plot.

External links

• "The Borderland" at TV.com