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The Best Episodes of The Outer Limits

Every episode of The Outer Limits ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of The Outer Limits!

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Anthology series composed of distinct story episodes, sometimes with a plot twist at the end, with occasional recurring story elements that were often tied together during season-finale clip shows.

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    The Outer Limits Season 2 Episode 1 - A Stitch in Time
    8.4/10(880 votes)

    #1 - A Stitch in Time

    S2:E1

    FBI agent Jamie Perrin has investigated some pretty strange cases in her time but this one may be the strangest of all. During the last fifty years, seventeen men throughout the country were all murdered with the same gun. This gun is traced to Dr. Theresa Givens, a scientist who recently left a top-secret government agency. This discovery deepens the mystery because Givens was only five years old at the time of the first murder. The gun itself hadn't even been made. While investigating further, Perrin discovers a secret that lies behind the locked door in Dr. Givens' office and learns first-hand of the temptations and dangers of undoing the evils of the past.

    Director:Mario Azzopardi
    Writer:Steven Barnes

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  2. The Outer Limits Season 5 Episode 12 - Tribunal
    8.3/10(565 votes)

    #2 - Tribunal

    S5:E12

    In 1944, young Leon Zgierski (Roman Danylo), an inmate in the Birkenau concentration camp watches as First Lieutenant Karl Rademacher shoots his wife and sends his daughter to the gas chambers. The murder is witnessed by a mysterious figure, time-traveler Nicholas Prentice (Alex Daikun), who grabs Radermacher's SS jacket and, after eluding guards, pulls out an antique watch and vanishes into a glowing orange circle...

    Director:Mario Azzopardi
    Writer:Sam Egan

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  3. The Outer Limits Season 1 Episode 13 - Quality of Mercy
    8.1/10(958 votes)

    #3 - Quality of Mercy

    S1:E13

    Major John Skokes is taken prisoner by the enemy during a savage galactic war and a seemingly undefeatable alien race. The tension increases when his cellmate, a cadet named Pri, is being transformed into one of them. Skokes must find an escape to save his cellmate and to avoid a disturbing revelation of the course of this war.

    Director:Brad Turner
    Writer:Brad Wright

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  4. The Outer Limits Season 2 Episode 15 - Afterlife
    8.1/10(600 votes)

    #4 - Afterlife

    S2:E15

    Linden Stiles struggles to retain his humanity after heis convicted of a murder he didn't commit. When asked to make a frightful choice: accept execution or become the subject of a secret military experiment -- he chooses to live. As the experiment progresses, Stiles fights the dehumanizing influence of injected DNA from an alien lifeform. The attending doctor is troubled by a growing awareness of the inhumanity of the experiment itself, of the men in charge and of her own role. Using his super-human strength, Stiles escapes. Then, hunted by his former compatriots, he faces a decision even more difficult than the one that set him on such a tragic course.

    Director:Mario Azzopardi
    Writer:John Whelpley

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  5. The Outer Limits Season 2 Episode 21 - Vanishing Act
    8.1/10(626 votes)

    #5 - Vanishing Act

    S2:E21

    THE OUTER LIMITS examines the classic domestic fable of a husband who leaves to go to the store and doesn't return for ten years. Where has he been? And why? It happens to Trevor McPhee and his return is more than a little distressing for his wife Theresa, especially since he insists he was in a car crash ... only hours ago. Then, just after they reconcile, he vanishes again ... for another decade. Trevor finds himself trapped between two worlds; one is a recurring nightmare of caves and predatory creatures; the other is the real world, ever-changing as civilization leaves him further and further behind. Is Trevor mad ... or just reaching The Outer Limits?

    Director:Jonathan Glassner
    Writer:Chris Dickie

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  6. The Outer Limits Season 6 Episode 13 - Decompression
    8.1/10(398 votes)

    #6 - Decompression

    S6:E13

    Senator Wyndom Brody has just won the New Hampshire primary, upsetting a heavily favored opponent, and he's flying to South Carolina to press his campaign for the Presidency. As the plane files south, it's hit by lightning. The plane and its passengers appear unaffected, but a mysterious woman appears in Brody's private quarters and warns him the strike has damaged the airplane, which will crash on landing, killing him and six others. She explains she is a projection from the future, a virtual time-traveler sent here to save him because his presidency is the key to preventing an apocalyptic future. If he is to live he must shoot out the emergency exit and allow himself to be sucked out of the plane by decompression, whereupon he will be saved by the stranger's sophisticated technology.

    Director:Jorge Montesi
    Writer:James Crocker

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    The 20 WORST Episodes of The Outer Limits

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  7. The Outer Limits Season 7 Episode 2 - Patient Zero
    8.1/10(405 votes)

    #7 - Patient Zero

    S7:E2

    A desperate man from the future travels back to the present to find and kill the carrier of a deadly plague that threatens to annihilate humankind.

    Director:Mario Azzopardi
    Writer:James Crocker

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  8. The Outer Limits Season 1 Episode 14 - The New Breed
    7.9/10(702 votes)

    #8 - The New Breed

    S1:E14

    The discovery of a gifted scientist falls into the wrong hands, bringing what at first appears to be a lifesaving miracle, but ultimately the untimely death of his closest friend.

    Directors:Mark Sobel, Mario Azzopardi
    Writer:Grant Rosenberg

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  9. The Outer Limits Season 2 Episode 9 - Trial by Fire
    7.9/10(645 votes)

    #9 - Trial by Fire

    S2:E9

    On the day of Charles Halsey's inauguration as President of the United States, scientists detect a large object heading towards Earth at half the speed of light. Halsey, a peace-loving liberal, is rushed to an underground bunker by the Presidential transition team, a group of aides and military men that share the hawkish bent of the previous administration. As the crisis unfolds, it becomes clear that the object came from an armada of alien ships, which are fast approaching Earth. Contact is made, but the aliens' message is unclear. As the U.S. and the other nuclear powers gear up to defend themselves, Halsey must decide: Are these invaders bent on conquering earth or benevolent explorers reaching out to another civilization?

    Director:Jonathan Glassner
    Writer:Brad Wright

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  10. The Outer Limits Season 2 Episode 18 - The Light Brigade
    7.9/10(598 votes)

    #10 - The Light Brigade

    S2:E18

    Actor Robert Patrick returns for this first-ever THE OUTER LIMITS sequel, a follow-up to last year's 'Quality of Mercy.' On a desperate mission, a young Cadet learns the difference between heroic ideals and the bitter realities of war. The only survivors on a crippled battle cruiser - Earth's last hope for victory and survivors - are the Cadet, the weapons Chief and Major John Skokes, a repatriated prisoner of war. Exposed to fatal doses of radiation when their fleet was wiped out by the aliens, they fight illness and death to launch a preemptive strike. As the awesome responsibility for success descends on him, the Cadet learns that fear is not his only enemy.

    Director:Michael Keusch
    Writer:Brad Wright

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  11. The Outer Limits Season 2 Episode 22 - The Sentence
    7.9/10(511 votes)

    #11 - The Sentence

    S2:E22

    Let the punishment fit the crime: an ambitious inventor, Dr. Jack Henson, creates a "" virtual prison"" and wants the government to adopt it nation-wide. Using his invention, convicts serve a life sentence in just a few hours. Henson claims the harsh sentences will ensure that criminals never offend again while the short time required cuts prison costs. He seems to be making his point until they connect an innocent man to the apparatus and the demonstration goes sour. To save the young man's life, Henson must submit to his own invention -- and to a lesson in the true meaning of justice.

    Director:Joseph L. Scanlan
    Writer:Melissa Rosenberg

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  12. The Outer Limits Season 3 Episode 13 - Dead Man's Switch
    7.9/10(542 votes)

    #12 - Dead Man's Switch

    S3:E13

    Ben Conklin has been a loner ever since his parents died when he was twelve years old. This is one reason why General James Eiger selected him to spend a year buried in a bunker 11,000 feet below the Artic tundra, manning the controls of a doomsday device set up by world leaders after the Hubble space telescope spotted 11 spaceships heading towards Earth. The device is designed as a last-line deterrent against alien invasion and Conklin's job, shared with four other loners in four other bunkers, is to hit a dead man's switch on the bunkers control panel that prevents the doomsday device from going off and destroying aliens and mankind alike. At first, the job is easy, but as the aliens draw closer to Earth, and as Conklin grows closer to his subterranean colleagues, he begins to doubt the reliability of the doomsday machine. News from General Eiger becomes scarce, then Conklin's fellow guardians begin to fall victim to assorted mishaps. Conklin realizes that he carries the weight of

    Director:Jeff Woolnough
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. The Outer Limits Season 2 Episode 11 - The Refuge
    7.8/10(567 votes)

    #13 - The Refuge

    S2:E11

    ""What is reality?"" is the question before Raymond Bava after he collapses during a blizzard and awakens in a private refuge run by Sanford Valle. Valle's companions include his son and daughter-in-law, Thomas and Justine, and Gina Beaumont. Ray, drawn to the gentle Gina, recoils from the callous corruption displayed by the all-controlling Valle and the other inhabitants. Then, following a moment of violence, Ray begins to doubt reality when all the characters, including Gina, reverse roles and personalities. When he is suddenly freed from Valle's control, Ray finds he has been locked in a cryogenic-induced nightmare, but one he must return to fulfill his love for Gina.

    Director:Ken Girotti
    Writer:Alan Brennert

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  14. The Outer Limits Season 2 Episode 12 - Inconstant Moon
    7.8/10(628 votes)

    #14 - Inconstant Moon

    S2:E12

    When a lonely physics professor realizes the sun is going to burn out, he knows that he and humanity have only a few hours to live. In that time, Stan resolves to make up for lost years. He courts and proposes to Leslie, a woman he has known for two years but never dated. Leslie, although puzzled, finds herself more and more entranced by Stan until she finds out the reason for Stan's sudden attention. Based on a short story by famed sci-fi writer Larry Niven, this episode brings its characters face to face with both death and their own visions of life - with surprising results.

    Director:Joseph L. Scanlan
    Writer:Larry Niven

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  15. The Outer Limits Season 3 Episode 17 - Feasibility Study
    7.8/10(502 votes)

    #15 - Feasibility Study

    S3:E17

    The residents of a suburban neighborhood have their lives turned upside down when a four block section of their subdivision is ripped from the earth by a mysterious force and transported to a distant planet. Thrown together in crisis, Joshua Hayward, his daughter Sarah and their neighbors try to understand what has happened to them -- why their neighborhood now ends abruptly in an invisible force-field. Sarah gains some insight when she comes across Adrielo, a horribly disfigured alien who tells her that they have been brought here by another group of aliens. Guiding Sarah through a gap in the force-field, Adrielo begs for her help in curing the disease that is turning him and his people to stone. Meanwhile, Joshua makes an even more startling discovery when he is pulled through the force-field and comes face to face with his captors, the Triunes. These big-brained, feeble-bodied creatures subject Joshua to strange and painful tests and explain without apology, that he and his neighbor

    Director:Ken Girotti
    Writer:Joseph Stefano

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  16. The Outer Limits Season 4 Episode 15 - Mary 25
    7.8/10(440 votes)

    #16 - Mary 25

    S4:E15

    Charlie Bouton's (Tom Butler) last project for the Innobotics Corporation was a sexy female companion robot named Valerie 23. It almost put the company out of business when it went berserk and attacked someone. So, his bosses are skeptical when he and scientist Melburn Ross (Michael Shanks) introduce Mary 25 (Sophia Shinas), a nanny robot adapted from the earlier model. In order to overcome their doubts, Charlie proposes letting the robot take care of his own children - a move that is met by serious resistance from his wife Teryl (Cynthia Geary) and his children Brad and Brook. From the beginning, there are problems. Unlike the human nanny, Carmen, Mary doesn't grasp the subtleties of child care and Melburn must fine tune her. But, Melburn sees that the problems go beyond Mary's programming. Charlie is smitten with his inorganic creation and has begun to abuse Teryl - a woman with whom Melburn was once romantically involved.

    Director:James Head
    Writer:Jonathan Glassner

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  17. The Outer Limits Season 4 Episode 16 - Final Exam
    7.8/10(428 votes)

    #17 - Final Exam

    S4:E16

    Dr. John Martin (Brett Cullen), a negotiator for the Department of Energy Nuclear Response Team, is called in when a disgruntled grad student takes hostages at a university. The student, Seth Todtman (Peter Stebbings) claims to have invented a cold-fusion bomb and is threatening to detonate it, killing millions, unless the government brings him five people on a list and kills them for him. Martin's colleagues dismiss Todtman as a crank, until a sample device he provides goes off with megaton force, wiping out a DOE team and the top-secret facility where they work. Faced with an impossible choice, Martin meets with Todtman face to face and tries to understand the logic behind his rage at the people he wants killed: cruel foster parents, corrupt professors, a heartless librarian. As the clock ticks, Martin tries to reason with Todtman while the military tries to find a way to disarm the device.

    Director:Mario Azzopardi
    Writer:Carleton Eastlake

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  18. The Outer Limits Season 5 Episode 7 - The Human Operators
    7.8/10(442 votes)

    #18 - The Human Operators

    S5:E7

    For as long as Man (Jack Noseworthy) can remember, he has lived aboard Ship as it floats through space. And for just as long, Ship has been his master, instructing him to do the repairs that keep Ship working and torturing him whenever he shows any signs of free will. But when Ship orders him to repair the Artificial Intelligence module Man's Father (Noah Heney) smashed years earlier in a final, fatal act of defiance, Man learns Ship's secrets...

    Director:Jeff Woolnough
    Writer:Naren Shankar

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  19. The Outer Limits Season 1 Episode 12 - The Conversion
    7.7/10(829 votes)

    #19 - The Conversion

    S1:E12

    Henry Marshall is a greedy man who has paid for his greed with a prison sentence but has yet to learn his lesson. His life abruptly changes when he encounters visitors from another planet who instill new sense of compassion for others.

    Director:Rebecca De Mornay
    Writer:Brad Wright

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  20. The Outer Limits Season 2 Episode 7 - First Anniversary
    7.7/10(587 votes)

    #20 - First Anniversary

    S2:E7

    As he celebrates his first wedding anniversary, Norman Glass thinks he's the luckiest man alive. His wife Ady, whom he met after the tragic death of her first husband, is stunningly beautiful and talented. She loves him more than anyone alive. They have two great friends, Dennis and Barbara, who were arried on the same day and are just as madly in love as Norman and Ady. But suddenly things start to change. First, Dennis leaves Barbara. Then, Norman must struggle with the strange, growing revulsion he feels when he touches, smells, tastes or sees his lovely wife. Norman thinks he's going crazy, but Barbara and Ady know better. Is love blind? Is beauty only skin-deep? Guess again.

    Director:Brad Turner
    Writers:Ali Marie Matheson, Richard Matheson, Jon Cooksey

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  21. The Outer Limits Season 7 Episode 7 - Replica
    7.7/10(290 votes)

    #21 - Replica

    S7:E7

    A biogeneticist illegally clones his comatose wife.

    Director:Brad Turner
    Writer:Sam Egan

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  22. The Outer Limits Season 3 Episode 5 - Stream of Consciousness
    7.6/10(458 votes)

    #22 - Stream of Consciousness

    S3:E5

    In a world where neural implants allow everyone instant access to information, Ryan Unger is a throwback, a moron. Because of a brain injury he suffered as a child, he's unable to tap into the Stream -- an electronic collection of all human knowledge -- so he struggles in vain to keep up by reading books, a primitive and forgotten art. But, when a virus in the Stream starts killing people by overloading their brains with data, only Ryan has the skills and independence to stop it. Can a primitive human, relying only on books and his own brain, save a world of machine-made geniuses from self-destruction or will the Stream wash over all of them?

    Director:Joe Nimziki
    Writer:David Shore

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  23. The Outer Limits Season 3 Episode 9 - Tempests
    7.6/10(450 votes)

    #23 - Tempests

    S3:E9

    The Tempest, a rickety old spaceship piloted by space colonists John Virgil and Captain Parker, is on a mission of mercy. It is ferrying two bigwigs from Earth, Dr. Vasquez and Governor Mudry, along with a lifesaving vial of serum to the Tabloss Colony, where an epidemic of Ellysia C is devastating the population. But things go horribly wrong when the ship shifts down from lightspeed and crashes somewhere in space. As he attempts to repair the ship, Virgil is bitten by a strange spider-like creature and passes out. When he awakes, he finds himself sliding between two equally convincing realities. Is he battling for his life against the deadly Ellysia C having already delivered the serum and saved the colony, including his beloved wife and his young son, from certain death? Or is he alive, trapped in a spaceship in the middle of nowhere, with no way out? Or are both realities merely hallucinations, one man's desperate attempt to find hope and heroism in a situation too bleak to face?.

    Director:Mario Azzopardi
    Writer:Hart Hanson

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  24. The Outer Limits Season 4 Episode 6 - Relativity Theory
    7.6/10(429 votes)

    #24 - Relativity Theory

    S4:E6

    Biologist Teresa Janovitch (MELISSA GILBERT) is a civilian among military men, traveling on the Resource Survey Vehicle Cortez to Tau Ceti Prime in search of minerals for an Earth that has squandered its own. Initial signs indicate that the planet is both uninhabited and rich in mineral resources, which could mean a million dollar payday for both the crew and the company that owns the Cortez. But on the first exploration, the crew is attacked by gigantic and apparently primitive aliens. After the command falls to Janovitch, she is overpowered by her crew: Sgt. Adam Sears (Jeremy Ratchford), a veteran of pacification missions on Earth, who favors annihilation of the new race and an ambiguous Corporal Charles Pendelton (Tim Guinee). Sears leads a patrol that hunts down and kills the aliens, in the process seizing a golden object that appears to be a religious totem. As he celebrates his slaughter, Janovitch examines his victims and makes a shocking discovery.

    Director:Ken Girotti
    Writer:Carleton Eastlake

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  25. The Outer Limits Season 1 Episode 2 - Valerie 23
    7.5/10(1121 votes)

    #25 - Valerie 23

    S1:E2

    Frank Hellner, a lonely paraplegic, takes part in a top-secret project -- allowing an "inorganic human," or robot named Valerie, to be his companion for a week. The experiment goes awry when Valerie, unable to control her programmed emotions, becomes jealous and threatens the life of Frank's physical therapist and close friend Rachel.

    Director:Timothy Bond
    Writer:Jonathan Glassner

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Best Episodes Summary

"A Stitch in Time" is the best rated episode of "The Outer Limits". It scored 8.4/10 based on 880 votes. Directed by Mario Azzopardi and written by Steven Barnes, it aired on 1/14/1996. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "Tribunal".