Worlds Apart (The Outer Limits)
 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
| "Worlds Apart" | |
|---|---|
| The Outer Limits episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 10 |
| Directed by | Brad Turner |
| Written by | Chris Dickie |
| Production code | 32 |
| Original air date | 22 March 1996 |
| Guest appearances | |
| Bonnie Bedelia as Nancy McDonald, Chad Willett as Astronaut Chris Lindy, Colin Cunningham as Professor George Ernst, Michael MacRea as Greg Tilman | |
"Worlds Apart" is an episode of The Outer Limits television series. It first aired on 22 March 1996, during the second season.
Introduction
An astronaut crashes on an alien planet—but by some miracle he is quickly able to contact Earth and speak directly to the space agency behind his mission. Unfortunately, twenty years have passed for them and his former lover is now the director of the agency.
Opening narration
As technology evolves, the means to communicate with each other become increasingly sophisticated. But will these means ever be sufficient to bridge the gaps between us... or will they only serve to pull us further apart?
Plot
An astronaut makes a water landing on an alien planet, escaping from a squid-like creature by inflatable raft. When he contacts home, using a radio on the raft, he is unaware that 20 years have passed. In those years the new head of the space agency, his former lover, has moved on with her life. A senator critical of the space agency interjects himself into the situation as they debate the possibility and merits of a rescue through an unstable wormhole. Once the astronaut learns of the risk to the rescue team he requests not to be rescued. A care package is sent through the wormhole but the rescue attempt is aborted. His lover then reveals that it is 20 years in the future on Earth, and the astronaut gazes at a picture of the two of them. He puts in a disk, and the scene closes with the couple's song Ella Fitzgerald's "Someone to Watch Over Me". The portal to home closes and he is left to his fate on an alien world. However, as dawn breaks on the alien planet, it is revealed to be a tropical paradise.
Closing narration
The distances between us, so vast and so close, are so easily bridged. Not by what we make... but by what we feel.