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The Worst Episodes of The Outer Limits

Every episode of The Outer Limits ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of The Outer Limits!

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Anthology series of 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 Worst Episode
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    The Outer Limits Season 6 Episode 22 - Final Appeal (2)
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #1 - Final Appeal (2)

    S6:E22

    It is the year 2076 and Dr. Theresa Givens, a time-traveler from the 20th Century has been sentenced to death. Her crime - violating severe anti-techology laws passed in the wake of the nuclear holocaust 20 years earlier, an event that destroyed most of the world and prompted those who survived to return to the bucolic world that existed before the Industrial Revolution. Theresa has one last chance for a reprieve. Her lawyer, Nicole Whitely has won leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, a body headed by Chief Justice Haden Wainwright. The balance of the court is divided evenly between conservatives who support the ban on technology and liberals who favor a review. In light of the importance of the case, the government has sent Solicitor General Wallace Gannon, a fierce defender of the law, to argue its case. The court has suspended the normal rules, allowing Theresa to join her lawyer in speaking in her defense.

    Director:Jimmy Kaufman
    Writer:Sam Egan

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  2. The Outer Limits Season 7 Episode 22 - Human Trials
    5.3/10(194 votes)

    #2 - Human Trials

    S7:E22

    A decorated soldier undergoes life-and-death tests for a mysterious mission.

    Director:Brad Turner
    Writer:Mark Stern

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  3. The Outer Limits Season 5 Episode 9 - What Will the Neighbors Think?
    5.7/10(284 votes)

    #3 - What Will the Neighbors Think?

    S5:E9

    Mona Bailey (Jane Adams) lives with her husband Ned (Peter Outerbridge) in the Clackson Arms, an old apartment building that is being taken over, apartment by apartment, by a mysterious developer called KM Inc. Mona is a hypochondriac, an able-bodied woman who rides a wheelchair, who treats the Physician's Desk Reference like a personal bible and who has not left the building in six months for fear of catching a disease. One day she backs her wheelchair into an electrical box and gets a shock, leaving her hearing strange voices and seeing bodies dropping out of windows...

    Director:Helen Shaver
    Writer:A L Katz

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  4. The Outer Limits Season 7 Episode 11 - In the Blood
    5.7/10(211 votes)

    #4 - In the Blood

    S7:E11

    An exploratory mission into space passes through a quantum hole torn into the very fabric of the universe and enters another continuum, a trans-space just beneath its surface.

    Director:Jorge Montesi
    Writer:Alan Brennert

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  5. The Outer Limits Season 2 Episode 14 - The Heist
    5.9/10(337 votes)

    #5 - The Heist

    S2:E14

    Embittered after a friend's betrayal cost him his Army career, Lee Taylor helps a self-styled militia major hijack an Army shipment. He reaps a deadly reward. The militia, which includes Lee's brother Calvin, expected a missile shipment. Instead, they find a mysterious, sealed cargo and a lone Army Guard. Under threat of death, Captain Teri Washington refuses to reveal the nature of the cargo but warns it is deadly. The major thinks she is lying until an alien lifeform begins a chilling series of attacks. Discipline crumbles and loyalties are tested as the creature stalks its prey with impersonal efficiency.

    Director:Brad Turner
    Writer:Steven Barnes

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  6. The Outer Limits Season 1 Episode 21 - The Voice of Reason
    6.0/10(422 votes)

    #6 - The Voice of Reason

    S1:E21

    A civilian with strong ties to the military tries desperately to use concrete evidence to convince a high level committee that alien forces are trying to overcome the human race.

    Director:Neill Fearnley
    Writer:Brad Wright

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  7. The Outer Limits Season 4 Episode 25 - Black Box
    6.0/10(253 votes)

    #7 - Black Box

    S4:E25

    A missing package contains powerful secrets, and everyone wants a piece of the action.

    Director:Steven Weber
    Writer:Brad Markowitz

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  8. The Outer Limits Season 6 Episode 7 - Seeds of Destruction
    6.0/10(227 votes)

    #8 - Seeds of Destruction

    S6:E7

    Macroseed, a cutting edge biotechnology company, chooses the small farming town of Hobson to test and develop TX-40. This is a new genetically- engineered strain of fast-growing corn that, it hopes, will increase yields and make the company millions. Linda, the veterinarian in Hobson, begins to wonder about the safety of TX-40 when Old Man Rivers brings in a dead cat from his field that has horrible mutations, including a giant tumor which sprouts a fifth leg.

    Director:Steve Anker
    Writer:Chris Ruppenthal

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  9. The Outer Limits Season 7 Episode 20 - Dark Child
    6.0/10(172 votes)

    #9 - Dark Child

    S7:E20

    An alien abductee 17 years ago copes with a teen daughter.

    Director:Steve Anker
    Writer:Michael Sloan

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  10. The Outer Limits Season 1 Episode 5 - White Light Fever
    6.1/10(585 votes)

    #10 - White Light Fever

    S1:E5

    An experiment at St. Peter's Hospital threatens nature's order of existence, when billionaire Harlan Hawkes pays a brilliant cardiologist, Dr. "Mac" McEnerney to help him cheat death.

    Director:Tibor Takács
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. The Outer Limits Season 5 Episode 10 - The Shroud
    6.1/10(266 votes)

    #11 - The Shroud

    S5:E10

    When Marie Wells (Samantha Mathis) and her husband Justin (Robert Wisden) can't have a child on their own, they turn to the fertility clinic at the Tilford Institute for help. There, Dr. Gail Cowlings (Sara Botsford) uses in-vitro fertilization to implant an embryo in Marie's uterus. What Marie doesn't know, but Justin does, is that the embryo was actually created from DNA lifted from the Shroud of Turin...

    Director:Stuart Gillard
    Writer:Scott Peters

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  12. The Outer Limits Season 5 Episode 14 - Descent
    6.1/10(229 votes)

    #12 - Descent

    S5:E14

    Dr. Arthur Zeller is the doormat of the anthropology department, a mild-mannered professor who is the butt of his colleague's jokes and who never gets the respect he deserves. After the department head, Prof. Martin Stansfield passes over his cutting-edge research into evolutionary psychology and funds the project of his rival, Dr. James Feind, Zeller takes matters into his own hands.

    Director:Steve Anker
    Writer:Erik Saltzgaber

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  13. The Outer Limits Season 7 Episode 13 - Free Spirit
    6.1/10(190 votes)

    #13 - Free Spirit

    S7:E13

    A strange entity possesses schizophrenics in a mental asylum.

    Director:Brad Turner
    Writer:Danny McBride

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  14. The Outer Limits Season 3 Episode 18 - A Special Edition
    6.2/10(289 votes)

    #14 - A Special Edition

    S3:E18

    Muckraking TV journalist Donald Rivers, host of 'The Whole Truth,' has the show of a lifetime: rock solid proof that the government and private defense contractors have been engaging in secret genetic cloning. But powerful forces are working to stop him, forces that will stop at nothing to keep their secrets. He goes on-air live, in a locked studio, accompanied only by a skeleton crew and Dr. Avery Strong, River's eyewitness to the history of deception and dark science. As he presents his evidence -- all gleaned from earlier episodes of The Outer Limits -- the powerful begin to interfere. First, they try to shut down his transmitter. Then, the network's parent company disavows the show. When thugs with guns knock down the studio door, Rivers continues the show on the fly, transmitting live from the back of a broadcast news van. But a van can only drive for so long. When it stops, will the truth, even The Whole Truth, be enough to protect Rivers, Strong and the crew?

    Director:Mario Philip Azzopardi
    Writer:Naren Shankar

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  15. The Outer Limits Season 6 Episode 19 - Zig Zag
    6.2/10(215 votes)

    #15 - Zig Zag

    S6:E19

    The bombs are in place, ready to destroy the super-computers at the Department of Information Technology. Inside, the members of the Syndrome, the anti-technology group that planted the bombs, lay dead or dying. All of them, that is, except Cliff Unger, or as he calls himself now, Zig Fowler. Unger has his finger on the detonator as he negotiates with Pete Yastremski, the head of the department. As the two men talk and FBI agents prepare to storm the building, we move back in time, through the hours, days and years leading up to the attack.

    Director:James Head
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. The Outer Limits Season 4 Episode 5 - In the Zone
    6.3/10(298 votes)

    #16 - In the Zone

    S4:E5

    With its deadly lasers and hand-to-hand battles, 'The Octal' is a combat sport for a new generation of athletes - but Tanner Brooks is no longer a young man. Although he's promised his wife Jessica that this will be his final tournament, Tanner is desperate to go out a winner. Dr. Michael Chen has a way to make that happen. Through an experimental treatment that taps the power of the human nervous system, Chen accelerates Tanner's reflexes and perceptions. To Tanner, everything in the Octalbegins to move in slow motion ... and Tanner quickly becomes unbeatable. However, there are side effects: Jessica notices that Tanner is tired, haggard and his hair is going gray. But, when Tanner's body begins to blur and fade out of existence, Tanner and Jessica must choosebetween one last moment of glory ... their love for each other ... and oblivion.

    Director:David Warry-Smith
    Writers:Jon Povill, Naren Shankar

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  17. The Outer Limits Season 4 Episode 17 - Lithia
    6.3/10(402 votes)

    #17 - Lithia

    S4:E17

    It is 2055 and the post-apocalyptic world is populated exclusively by women; all the men were killed in the Great War and the Scourge that followed. Into this matriarchy comes Major Jason Mercer (David Keith), who was cryogenically frozen forty years earlier and now awakened in Lithia. Lithia is a small agricultural enclave overseen by a group of women that include the regal elder Hera (Julie Harris), Ariel (Claire Rankin), Miranda (Nadia Capone) and Pele (Kirsten Williamson). Mercer's arrival sparks a debate about the nature of men among some women and revives long-dormant sexual feelings in others. The debate intensifies as Mercer, seeing the enclave's poverty and primitive tools, begins to repair the community's broken machines and pushes Miranda, the group's trade representative to barter with Hyacinth, a neighboring community, for electricity to run the machines. Over the objections of the elders, Mercer gets the machines running.

    Director:Helen Shaver
    Writer:Sam Egan

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  18. The Outer Limits Season 4 Episode 18 - Monster
    6.3/10(271 votes)

    #18 - Monster

    S4:E18

    The four people gathered in the top-secret research facility seem at first to have nothing in common: Ford Maddox (Harry Hamlin) is a former spy, Rachel Sanders (Nicole Deboer) is a nurse, Roger Beckersly (Aaron Pearl) is an Army Ranger and Louise McDonnaugh (Bridget O'Sullivan) is a computer programmer. What has brought them together is their telekinetic ability, a talent that Mr. Brown (Robert Guillaume), a CIA project head, hopes to exploit through the use of Teeks, devices that amplify telekinetic power. At first, Brown tries these individual's talents out on simple tasks - moving or crushing a granite block with their minds - but soon his true intentions are revealed. Their first real assignment, says Brown, is to use their powers to kill a Balkan terrorist leader and war criminal. Rachel objects to the assignment on moral grounds, but Brown forces her to take part by threatening to send her brother to jail for life.

    Director:Allan Eastman
    Writer:Chris Ruppenthal

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  19. The Outer Limits Season 5 Episode 21 - Starcrossed
    6.3/10(269 votes)

    #19 - Starcrossed

    S5:E21

    It is 2056, six years after the Hing, a humanoid race, invaded Earth. While America fights on, Russia has reached an uneasy truce with the aliens, leaving some regions under their control and others declared neutral. In the neutral city of Archangel on the Barents Sea, cynical American expatriate Michael Ryan (Nathan Fillion) runs Heaven, a small coffee bar and music club, where shady Russians mingle with Hing soldiers and other dubious characters.

    Director:Helen Shaver
    Writer:Chris Ruppenthal

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  20. The Outer Limits Season 6 Episode 20 - Nest
    6.3/10(205 votes)

    #20 - Nest

    S6:E20

    William Grimes, the leader of an exploration team from an Arctic research facility, goes crazy while exploring an ice cave and kills two colleagues before dying himself. Psychologist Jack Burrell is sent up to counsel the staff at the facility. Among his patients is the head of the facility, Robby Archer, a friend from his boyhood. It is not a happy reunion because of a traumatic childhood incident they shared but now they must work together. Grimes has infected the facility with polar mites, a strange ant-like species who take up residence in the warm tissue of the human body and create sort of psychosis.

    Director:Scott Peters
    Writer:Scott Peters

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  21. The Outer Limits Season 7 Episode 18 - Lion's Den
    6.3/10(211 votes)

    #21 - Lion's Den

    S7:E18

    A high-school wrestling team takes new drugs which cause some unexpected changes.

    Director:Matthew Hastings
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. The Outer Limits Season 1 Episode 3 - Blood Brothers
    6.4/10(641 votes)

    #22 - Blood Brothers

    S1:E3

    Two diametrically opposed brothers, wrestle for control of a million-dollar pharmaceutical company. A vaccine that could hold the secret to eternal life, becomes the object of the brothers' bitter struggle.

    Director:Tibor Takács
    Writer:Brad Wright

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  23. The Outer Limits Season 1 Episode 8 - Living Hell
    6.4/10(497 votes)

    #23 - Living Hell

    S1:E8

    Ben Kohler's life is saved after having an experimental chip implanted in his brain, but when he starts seeing and experiencing violent images, it becomes clear something is desperately wrong.

    Director:Graeme Campbell
    Writers:Melinda M. Snodgrass, Pen Densham

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  24. The Outer Limits Season 1 Episode 10 - Under the Bed
    6.4/10(506 votes)

    #24 - Under the Bed

    S1:E10

    When a little boy is abducted the only witness, his sister, claims that someone or something under the bed took him.

    Director:René Bonnière
    Writer:Lawrence Meyers

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  25. The Outer Limits Season 4 Episode 1 - Criminal Nature
    6.4/10(293 votes)

    #25 - Criminal Nature

    S4:E1

    Genetic Engineering has produced a generation of super-babies, but the technology is not perfect. It has also produced horribly deformed children who suffer from Genetic Rejection Syndrome (GRS), a condition which makes them even stronger, faster, smarter than the super-babies and more deadly to boot. Detective Ray Venable (Gary Cole), is in charge of the team that must hunt down the most severe GRS cases, but he carries with him a dark secret. Years before, he and his wife Marie (Lynda Boyd) had a child, Dylan (Jason Gray-Stanford), who developed GRS and who they secretly sent away to a home. Now, Ray suspects that Dylan is behind a series of brutal murders and is closing in on his old family. The only way Ray can stop him is to take a genetic serum that will make him more like the son he rejected.

    Director:Steve Anker
    Writer:Brad Markowitz

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Worst Episodes Summary

"Final Appeal (2)" is the worst rated episode of "The Outer Limits". It scored /10 based on 0 votes. Directed by Jimmy Kaufman and written by Sam Egan, it aired on 9/3/2000. This episode scored 5.3 points lower than the second lowest rated, "Human Trials".