The Outer Limits!
And though it pushed creative limits as Science Fiction always does,
if you see those early 60's episodes today they seem both campy and low budget.
Shift for a moment here, a tangent that relates....
It's been said that Roger Waters of Pink Floyd wrote "Dark Side of the Moon" to be a companion sound track for "The Wizard of Oz". That most of us know and many of us have done the match up, which clearly works. If you haven't heard about this, Here's one link, there are many more.
The Dark side of Oz
Now, back on subject.
Back in the 60's during the Original Outer Limits TV series, they ran a program titled,
"The Guests" Hopefully you are old enough to remember this show, and this write up of that show will refresh your memory:
QUOTE
THE GUESTS
The secret of long life is unfolded in this dramatic story of young lovers. As long as the people remain as "guests" in their strange surroundings they will retain youth forever. If and when they leave, they will suddenly be transformed to their actual age.Is it better to be a "guest" in strange surroundings, or risk the chance of returning to reality? Or if the "guests" return to reality, will they really find what they are seeking? Our young lovers must find the answers to these provocative questions.
Directed by: Paul Stanley Written by: Donald P. Sanford
Starring: GLORIA GRAHAM (Florida), GEOFFREY HORNE (Wade), NELLIE BURT (Ethel Lattimer), VAUGHN TAYLOR (Latimer) and LAUNA ANDERS (Tess)
The secret of long life is unfolded in this dramatic story of young lovers. As long as the people remain as "guests" in their strange surroundings they will retain youth forever. If and when they leave, they will suddenly be transformed to their actual age.Is it better to be a "guest" in strange surroundings, or risk the chance of returning to reality? Or if the "guests" return to reality, will they really find what they are seeking? Our young lovers must find the answers to these provocative questions.
Directed by: Paul Stanley Written by: Donald P. Sanford
Starring: GLORIA GRAHAM (Florida), GEOFFREY HORNE (Wade), NELLIE BURT (Ethel Lattimer), VAUGHN TAYLOR (Latimer) and LAUNA ANDERS (Tess)
And this
QUOTE
SYNOPSIS
Following a road accident, a young man wanders into an isolated mansion looking for help. What he finds, however, are four very strange people living in a house where time stands still.
Following a road accident, a young man wanders into an isolated mansion looking for help. What he finds, however, are four very strange people living in a house where time stands still.
And Finally this
QUOTE
The Outer Limits: "The Guests"
Season 1, Episode 26
First aired: March 23, 1964
by Dr. Mality
While cruising some remote backwoods, young drifter Wade Norton accidentally hits an ancient man wearing out of date clothes who jumps in front of his car. Norton discovers the dying oldster is a Dr. Ames, who carries a locket bearing the picture of a beautiful young woman. Confused by the weird series of events, Norton enters a forbidding mansion deep in the woods. The minute he enters the house, he finds that he cannot exit. All doors and windows have been replaced by blank walls. Soon he encounters other guests in the house: a talkative and dishonest executive named Randall Latimer; his sarcastic and quick-witted wife Ethel; a former movie queen, Florida Patton, now lamenting her decayed career; and Tess, the young woman in Dr. Ames' locket. Tess is Ames' daughter. Norton discovers that these people have been in the house a VERY long time, and he also learns the reason why. He is "summoned" to the attic, where he encounters a glowing, blob-like being. This strange creature is an extra-dimensional alien who is studying "the human equation" using the guests in the house. The alien is searching for the missing part of the equation but has yet to find it. It is he who has kept the guests in the house for years without change...until Dr. Ames found a way to escape. Actually, all the guests can leave if they wish, but that means that time will catch up to them and their immortality will be at an end. They prefer to stay prisoners in the alien's timeless environment, falling victim to their own insecurities and slipping gradually into insanity. Norton wants no part of this bizarre existence. He falls in love with Tess and tells her that they are going to escape the house. But will the alien allow them to do so...or are they fated to remain eternal "guests" with no hope of rejoining the universe?
"The Guests" is one of the more surreal and bizarre episodes of "The Outer Limits." It's a story that leans more toward co-creator Joseph Stefano's idea of weird, gothic science as opposed to fellow creator Leslie Stevens' antiseptic and ultra-rational concept. In fact, the lines between horror, fantasy, and science fiction are blurred severely here, as the alien can be considered almost like a genie or demon and the timeless house is a kind of purgatory where the prisoners really choose their own fate.
This is far from hard SF but it provides its share of haunting images. The Guests are themselves aliens in a way, afraid to re-enter the real world. It's made quite clear that Norton is an outsider himself but a rebellious one. He'll take his chances in a world where he can decide his own destiny. Tess is less sure. She has spent most of her adult life in the house but now that her father is gone, the lure of the outside world is a powerful attraction. Florida Patton was a fading actress even before she entered the house. Once she exits, her beauty will evaporate and she will emerge into a world where no one remembers her. She will never find the willpower to leave. Neither will Latimer. He desperately tries every rationalization for his predicament, without realizing the obvious: he is a coward. His wife Ethel knows this all along and she stays in the house almost out of sheer sadism, constantly needling her husband and the others in cheerful glee. "My husband says this is all a dream. We've been in this house since 1928...no dream could last that long!" She emerges as the most memorable and interesting of the human characters.
The alien itself is a strange one. It's not really evil, just incredibly obsessed with understanding all phases of the human equation and willing to do whatever it takes to meet that goal. Until the arrival of Norton into the house, the alien had a pretty sorry batch of specimens to work with. He seems overjoyed that somebody new and vital has entered his laboratory, even if it's someone determined to escape.
A most peculiar episode with the surreal quality of a nightmare...
Alien: "Let me dissect it! Let me absorb it! Bring your brain here!"
Ethel: "Shut up, Randall, or I'll be NICE to you!"
OK! Part two!
The Eagles, Hotel California,
which, thanks to Walsh's guitar solo is one of my all time fav songs,
that and the connection I am attempting to explain here.
Eagles
Hotel California
Released December 8, 1976
Hotel California
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year, you can find it here
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget
So I called up the Captain,
'Please bring me my wine'
He said,'We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty
nine'
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise, bring your alibis
Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own
device'
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
The stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast
Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
'Relax,'said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave!
(Shears! Post an MP3 link if you would please?)
OK now, this is something that has been stuck in my head ever sonce the Eagles released Hotel California. Every time I hear that song which I love, I picture that episode of The Outer Limits!
Am I nucking futs? Or do you suppose the connection is no accident?
Has anyone else seen The Guests on the Outer Limits and makes the connection I do with Hotel California?
