The Outer Limits: Season 1, Episode One “The Galaxy Being”

Original Air Date: September 16, 1963
Writer: Leslie Stevens
Director: Leslie Stevens

“There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat, there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… The Outer Limits.”

KXKVI is a local radio station is situated along highway 601, six miles south of Cotterfield (“where the supermarkets meet the people”) serving all of Los Feliz in sunny Southern California. DJ Gene “Buddy” Maxwell (Lee Philips) plays top ten radio hits like “Come Rock With Me.” However, his brother and apparent owner of the station has been conductive reclusive scientific experiments that are sucking the station’s power, and it may cause them to lose their sponsor.

Obsessive and distant, Allan Maxwell (Cliff Robertson) doesn’t have time for his friends or his wife Carol (Jacqueline Scott), instead preferring to spend his days listening to strange static noises and microwaves over the radio. Carol walks over to confront Allan and she finds him intently listening to high-pitched static coming in over his visualization monitor –he believes it is coming from space. His monitor shows a visual image of sound in three-dimensions formed out of microwaves –height, width, depth. He believes that every important change in recent years has come from research into microwaves –radar, television, even the H-Bomb. Why is he doing this? Who is Allan to believe himself important enough to be conducting such radical experiments? He answers, “Nobody. Nobody at all. But the secrets of the universe don’t mind. They reveal themselves to nobodies who care. Isaac Newton was a nobody. Michael Faraday was a bookbinder’s apprentice.”

However, Carol reminds Allan that this very evening half the town is scheduled to attend a testimonial dinner celebrating him, offering a scroll and a plaque in his honor (the mayor will be in attendance). Reluctantly, Allan promises Carol that he will be dressed and ready on time.

But when Carol leaves, a strange high-pitched frequency rises over the transmission screen and the silhouette of a frightening alien figures appears on the screen. Alan picks up his microphone and asks, “Who are you? Can you hear me? Can you see me?” He tries to communicate in a variety of ways, but with no response, until the computer manages to translate binary impulses which allows these two distant beings to communicate with one another –Allan learns the transmission is coming from somewhere beyond the constellation Pegasus in the “Great Spiral Andromeda” which has 31 planets. The alien asks about holes in the human face like the nose and mouth, and he explains that he is actually forbidden from contacting humans because humanity is a violent and dangerous species (he has broken his planet’s rules in contacting earth). When asked if he has a god, the alien/Galaxy Being responds that he does not understand the concept of a god but that electromagnetic force underlies all things: intelligence, space, time –all the same. God is simply a word for infinity. All brainwaves are interconnected.

Shortly after this extraordinary moment, Allan is pulled away to his celebratory dinner by his wife Carol. In the meantime, the radio station will be watched over by DJ Eddie Phillips. Allan asks Eddie to keep the power frequency balanced, but of course Eddie deliberately disobeys Allan’s order and dials up the power which causes the connection to overload and sends the Galaxy Being crashing through Allan’s screen onto planet earth. The Galaxy Being materializes in an electricity storm, causing general mayhem, and he begins wandering around town, violently responding to people with radiation bursts if they shoot at him while ‘glowing and flickering like a person made of blue light.’

Allan and Carol soon confront the Galaxy Being which leads back to the radio station where he claims that he will be destroyed back in his own galaxy because he has broken his own laws. But the trio is being trailed by police and troopers who are investigating the situation, and in the course of the police investigation, Carol is wounded and the Galaxy Being prevents her death by the use of radiation. However, the Galaxy Being is attacked by the militant police force as it arrives at the radio station, though –unaffected– he instructs them not to use force because there are powers I the universe beyond anything they know.

“You must explore. You must reach out. Go to your homes. Go and give thought to the mysteries of the universe. I will leave you now in peace.”

The Galaxy Being reduces his microwaves and ends his transmission before he disappears, and the townsfolk shrug this experience off and slowly walk away. A narrator: “The planet earth is a speck of dust –remote and alone in the void. There are powers in the universe inscrutable and profound. Fear cannot save us; rage cannot help us. We must see the stranger in a new light, the light of understanding. And to achieve this we must begin to understand ourselves and each other.”

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My Thoughts on “The Galaxy Being”

A wonderful introductory first contact story to kick off The Outer Limits, “The Galaxy Being” explores the dilemma of how to handle communication and peacemaking with an alien entity for the first time (a la The Day the Earth Stood Still) that may or may not be hostile (bear in mind, this episode aired several years before the Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon). Can the Galaxy Being be trusted? Should we fear him? Ultimately, the moral indictment in this episode is on humanity –not the alien– as ordinary people naturally embody the herd mentality seen in other classic shows like The Twilight Zone’s “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” –it is a reminder not be quick to judge a stranger though he may seem terrifying at first. “The Galaxy Being” a bit trite and rough around the edges at points –with plenty of technobabble and a few drawn-out scenes—however this first episode of The Outer Limits had me hooked and I look forward to proceeding through this series!

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The Outer Limits Trivia:

• This episode was written and directed by show creator, Leslie Stevens (1924-1998). He created two television series for ABC, including The Outer Limits (1963–1965) and Stoney Burke (1962–1963), as well as a show for NBC, Search (1972–1973). Stevens was the director of a horror film entitled Incubus (1966), which stars William Shatner and was apparently the second film to use the Esperanto language. Stevens was involved in several other popular shows like Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century and Battlestar Galactica, along with the revival show for The Outer Limits between 1996-1997.
• The show’s now-famous introduction and epilogue narration from “The Control Voice” was performed by veteran radio, screen, and TV actor, Vic Perrin (1916-1989). He appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone (as a Martian in “People Are Alike All Over” and a trooper named Jim in “Ring-a-Ding Girl”) and had three cameos in Star Trek –twice as a voiceover artist (uncredited as a Metron in “Arena” and Nomad in “The Changeling” and once onscreen as Tharn in “Mirror, Mirror”). He also appeared in shows like Gunsmoke, Have Gun – Will Travel, Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century, and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! among many others.
• The Galaxy Being creature in this episode was performed by William O. Douglas, Jr. and Charles McQuarry. But the voice of the creature was performed by show creator Leslie Stevens. William O. Douglas appeared in a total of four episodes, donning three different alien/monster costumes.
• This episode was apparently broadcast just before the accidental discovery of the cosmic microwave background.
• The production of this episode cost about $213,000.
• In reality, “Los Feliz” is not an LA county, but rather the region east of Hollywood, bordering on Eagle Rock.
• The Galaxy Being creature’s shimmering effect was achieved by filming William O. Douglas in a brown rubber outfit. The footage was then negative reversed and super-imposed over the main episode.
• Cliff Robertson (1923-2011) famously played Uncle Ben Parker Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. Among many other classic shows and movies (such as Flowers for Algernon for which he won an Oscar for Best Actor), he also appeared in two Twilight Zone episodes – as a 19^th century desert traveler named Christian Horn in “A Hundred Yards Over the Rim” (1961) and as ventriloquist named Jerry Etherson in “The Dummy” (1962). Robertson later played Theodore Harris in Joyride (1999) along with Leonard Nimoy, David McCallum, Barbara Rush and Peter Breck. In it, he encounters aliens while aboard the Aspire 7 on September 16, 1963 –the same day that this episode was first broadcast. Robertson is one of only five actors to appear in both The Outer Limits (1963) and The Outer Limits (1995).
• Jacqueline Scott (1931-2020) plays Carol in the episode. She appeared in many shows and movies, including as nervous wife Helen Gaines in The Twilight Zone episode “The Parallel.”
• Burt Metcalfe (1935-2022), who plays DJ Eddie Philips in this episode, also played Don Martin in The Twilight Zone classic episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” He later became a writer for M*A*S*H and had an uncredited role as “Agent Maxwell” in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever (1971).
• Lee Philips (1927-1999), who plays DJ Gene “Buddy” Maxwell in this episode, also appeared in Also in 1963, he played a lead role in “Passage on the Lady Anne”, an hour-long episode of The Twilight Zone; he returned to the show the following year in the episode “Queen of the Nile”, where he played a reporter named Jordan “Jordy” Herrick. He also appeared in episodes of Perry Mason as well as Alfred Hitchcock Presents/The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
• James Frawley (1936-2019), who plays a state trooper inn this episode, later directed The Muppet Movie (1979) and The Monkees television series, among other shows and movies.
• Filming for this episode took nine days to complete. It occurred at radio station KCBH (now KYSR) in Coldwater Canyon, the MGM Backlot #4 Andy Hardy Street, and the Soundstage #3 at KTTV Channel 11.
• At the time that this episode aired, the Twilight Zone was about to launch its fifth and final season, and Star Trek was still a couple years away.