The Zanti Misfits

Directed by Leonard Horn; written by Joseph Stefano. Cast: Michael Tolan (Prof. Steven Grave); Olive Deering (Lisa Lawrence); Bruce Dern (Ben Garth); Robert F. Simon (Gen. Maximillian Hart); Claude Woolman (Major Hill). Broadcast December 30, 1963. Story: Under threat of total destruction, Earth accepts delivery of the criminals of the Zanti alien race. On the day of arrival, two human outcasts unwittingly trigger an inter-species showdown—and uncover a ruse by Zanti rulers.

For many, particularly those not familiar with the series (let alone the episode) by name, the Zantis have come to represent the "old" version of The Outer Limits. They're unforgettable in the extreme: rat-sized insects with wide-eyed, malevolently smirking quasi-human faces; deadly, though we're never informed of their lethal mechanism, and determined, they are—like so many of the series' aliens—the stuff of bad dreams. That these striking creatures are so widely remembered, earning this entry a place as one of TV Guide magazine's top 100 episodes a few years back, may obscure the intensely dark theme and final discernment of "The Zanti Misfits": that the systematic eradication of self and others is the characteristic we humans are known for throughout the universe. Paradoxically obsessed with and in denial of death, we are, accordingly, practiced executioners. The Zantis, right or wrong, merely dupe us into proving it. How many remember that bleak detail? TV Guide softened it in their cursory write-up, recalling only the episode's more apparent capital punishment focus.

Joe Stefano, as may be evident by now, communicated heavily mixed feelings toward humankind throughout The Outer Limits run. At times split between a soaring compassion which eagerly embraced the ideals of humanism and the blackest of hyper-realistic cynicism, he most often took a mature integrative perspective and demonstrated that we are all moral mixed-bags—look deep enough, and behold equal parts purity and corruption. Circumstance brought out the expression of one, the other, or some mix thereof. In "Misfits", we see it all: the unexpectedly tolerant Gen. Max Hart—interestingly, the episode's "maximum heart"; the sociopathic harbinger of doom, Ben Garth; worn out, passively suicidal Lisa, the personification of a death sentence turned inward (and of the Earthly impulse to destroy when faced with anything unpleasant); and the naively hawkish, profoundly unaware trigger man Prof. Grave, whose desire for historical participation leads him to the role of assassin. The good, the bad, and the ugly, in motivation, behavior, and sheer run of luck. Stefano once again holds a mirror to our species (and again, parallels it with an utterly alien one), finding sad deficiency. This is not an easy episode.

It is, however, easy to admire. Thematically, it moves with a clarity of purpose that epitomizes the show's most rewarding efforts; dramatically, it never flinches, consequently giving the viewer much to flinch from (for true believers, that's a big part of the attraction). Like most Stefano-written installments, "Misfits" is complex, both intellectually and emotionally demanding, but it's also swarming with surprises: the use of wry foreshadowing, reminiscent of the writer/producer's screenplay for Psycho (1960), adds a relieving, droll element to the grim proceedings (dead bodies and multi-legged pests are subtly played to the hilt); analogy abounds, as virtually all major human characters and characteristics have a correlative in the Zantis— misfit and dignitary alike; and, deep thinking begrudgingly aside, the episode works on the purely visceral level of bug-fear, of something creeping up your pant leg and biting until you die. As writer Jon Abbott proclaims in the British magazine TV Zone, "Misfits" proves that "fun science fiction and thinking science fiction don't have to be mutually exclusive." A series caveat, to be sure.

Setting was consistently well-used in The Outer Limits, and this episode is no exception. The desolate quality of the desert location—Vasquez Rocks in southern California—lends the military ghost town of Morgue (yes) a sense of isolation and imprisonment, echoing the motifs of captivity, punishment, and exile. Frequent first-season cinematographer John Nickolaus, Jr. employs a low-contrast, filtered look for "Misfits", artfully adding an oppressive pall to the brightness of the outdoor scenes. Leonard Horn directs in the seamless, unintrusive style evident in his two other series' episodes, both masterworks: "The Man Who Was Never Born" and "The Children of Spider County." Horn was a writer's director, a craftsman whose embrace of these three superb scripts facilitates their potency and asserts his own. This trio was among the best work he ever did. The technical achievements here are equally striking, with the Zantis themselves representing an effects apex for the series: their language (all hard consonants and long vowels, spoken by a menacingly audio-altered Vic Perrin), locomotion (a rare use of stop-motion animation), and look have a cumulative impact difficult to exceed. Credit the under-credited, ever-shifting team known as Project Unlimited—Wah Chang, Gene Warren, M. B. Paul, Al Hamm, Paul LeBaron, Ralph Rodine, Jim Danforth, and Harry Redmond, Jr. If the "stunt Zantis" used in the climactic attack sequence aren't quite as limber or impressive, they are at least judiciously filmed, with quick cuts and well-placed reaction shots masking their inert, rubber properties. Remember Forrest J. Ackerman's boastful photo of a crumbling "last remaining Zanti" (we'll have to take his word for it) in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine?

Amid the thematic richness and technical virtuosity, the potential for human dramatics to suffer might seem high. An earmark of The Outer Limits is that this was rarely the case; indeed, a synergy of elements defines the show. Consequently, the performances cement this entry's classic status: Dern gives an early reading of the prototypical "Bruce Dern character"—an edgy, remorseless, queasily charming piece of trash; Deering, perhaps best known for portraying Miriam, the mother of Moses, in DeMille's God-opera The Ten Commandments (1956), boldly plays Lisa as extremely unappealing and barely sympathetic, a woman suffering the fallout of a particularly reckless personality disorder (and bearing the load of being the only really cognizant person in the story). Deering is given some seriously speech-heavy moments during scenes of action, and she manages to turn what could have been ridiculous displays into the understandably tortured articulations of a troubled soul. As noted above, Simon portrays the completely unforeseen voice of reason and restraint (of a sane kind) in a tale rife with fools; the actor went on to play another genial upper-echelon soldier, Gen. Mitchell, in the early, not yet sanctimonious episodes of television's M*A*S*H. Woolman gives a nice reading of a cipher: the reactionary military bigot who all too easily loses his grip on mental and physical moderation when confronted by what he's craved all along—an enemy. Finally, profoundly, is Tolan, who went on to a small role in another biblical film, as (ironically) Lazarus in George Stevens's interesting if star-bloated The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). The character Grave continues the series tradition of subverting the notion of what constitutes a hero; Tolan, appropriately tall, square-jawed, and bland, as any good stalwart of the era should be, renders him as a man giving his all for a cause that is unexamined and, as the Zantis well know, insupportable. As casually as he snuffs out the life of an ant early in the episode, he begins the reflexive mass execution of the Zanti misfits by living up to a blundering image of action—the participation he yearns for, but with precedents and ramifications he cannot begin to comprehend. He's too busy saving the life of someone (Lisa) who doesn't want to be saved, someone who will most likely live out the remainder of her years behind bars. Our hero. It's questionable whether Tolan was aware of the basic unlikability of his leading character; it's even arguable whether or not Grave was intended to come off as a macho buffoon—the early 1960s, after all, still supported this kind of unthinking heroism. Stefano, though, had nerve, and wasn't afraid to raise questions around such sacred cultural icons as the testosterone-fueled man of action. It is perhaps "Misfits"' most cunning point regarding the human tendency toward destruction: in many ways, we promote it as a strength. Again, this isn't facile material.

The problem of teasers is handled more gracefully in this episode than in many others. These teasers—the few minutes of footage taken from the episode, preceding the initial credits—were a decidedly mixed blessing. On the positive side, they were a mood setting preview, and a sonically advantageous platform for the gripping low-tempo first strains of Dominic Frontiere's incredible opening music. On the downside, these network-imposed clips more often than not utilized footage of the episode's bear, sometimes in a grossly inaccurate manner (e.g., Andro in "The Man Who Was Never Born", comes off as a voyeur) and other times truly blowing the chance of a jarring first appearance (we shouldn't see "The Mutant"'s grisly visage so soon). Stefano and Leslie Stevens have neither decried nor championed the series' teasers; they were, no doubt, part of the routine indignity of producing for a corporate entity. "Misfits", thankfully, limits teaser footage to the Zanti ship approaching the desert as Ben and Lisa careen away from the tale's first casualty. Imagine the anti-climax if a Zanti had been presented. Somebody got this one right.

An understatement, applied to the episode as a whole: many people got this one close to perfect.

—DCH