Expanding Human
The Outer Limits (1963)
Expanding Human, directed by Gerd Oswald.
A Jekyll & Hyde story is mashed up with a very popular 1960s TV topic: the use and dangers of "consciousness expanding" drugs. This is wrapped in a standard police procedural package, the kind of format second season producer Ben Brady was comfortable with from his Perry Mason days.
Is is slow and terribly dull. The plot barely hangs together, as if scattered script pages were lost in the breeze one day.
We have an unusual number of future original Star Trek actors here:
James Doohan: Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott.
Skip Homeier: Patterns of Force (nazis in space) and The Way to Eden (hippies in space).
Peter Duryea: The Cage, reworked as The Menagerie.
Jason Wingreen: The Empath, and three previous Outer Limits episodes.
On the Blu-ray commentary track Reba Wissner gives a shout-out to even minor supporting actors. She says no one was happy with this episode.
She also notes that in this story expanded consciousness produces more selfishness and brutality. Isn't that backwards from what we expect?
