Demon with a Glass Hand
The Outer Limits (1963)
Demon with a Glass Hand, directed by Byron Haskin.
Trent has no memory, just a mission. Implacable aliens from the future are after him. He kills without mercy, but they keep coming. The fate of the human race depends on him and he must stay alive, no matter what.
One of his hands is some sort of crystal computer which advises him. It is missing necessary "lobes" (=fingers) so that is another thing on his list.
Who would have thought: well into the disappointing second season we have one of the best episodes of the series, a prize-winning screenplay that shows up on lists of the best television ever.
This despite the ultra-minimal makeup effects for the aliens: raccoon circle eyes and shower caps or stockings on the head. The story is so good it doesn't matter. We know they are minions and are there to provide a high body count. No bodies, though.
This is Harlan Ellison's second and final episode. He originally wanted a cross-country chase but when given a tour of the film-famous Bradbury Building -- Double Indemnity (1944), D.O.A. (1950), Blade Runner (1982) -- he saw the benefit of keeping the action confined to the interior of that lovely building, rich with iron work and shadows.
Ellison said he wrote the part for Robert Culp, who he found unusually intelligent for an actor. Culp returns from The Architects of Fear and Corpus Earthling. Like Martin Landau and David McCallum, all of his episodes were among the best.
Arlene Martel would later play the incandescently beautiful T'Pring, Mr Spock's femme fatale fiancée in Star Trek Amok Time:
...where she lit a torch in the hearts of many adolescents, simultaneously warning them against such fascinations.
Notes:
The screenplay skillfully front-loads what we need to know and sets up what we need to find out.
Much is made of the film noir look of the series, but we also break genre conventions. Trent has no angst, no alienation or sense of "I just can't win". He is direct and unsqueamish, even when instructed to "Let them kill you".
And yet his discovery of his true nature gives him pause. His fate will be long and lonely, and he is unable to receive love. It's too much for Consuelo -- she walks away without a word.
A moment of supreme weirdness: when Trent first enters the building the disembodied voice of Arch, the alien leader, speaks to him.
More strangeness: Trent has no memory but he knows the names of his enemies. They have a sort of community together and the rules of the time-mirror and medallions make it a sort of game.
SF touching the boundaries of the spiritual: as in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) our hero is brought back to life by advanced technology.
For all the deep plot we have plenty of action. Unlike generations of TV heroes, Trent picks up the guns his enemies drop.
Like all of the second season, this is photographed by Kenneth Peach. Nicely done, looking much like season one with that star filter.
On the Blu-ray Craig Beam provides a light commentary track. He both complains about unexplained plot points and admits that an expanded or rebooted version would not be a better program.
