Episode 10: Nightmare

The tenth in the series, which is based on a `War Of The Worlds' theme, this episode was one of the most interesting episodes of The Outer Limits that I have seen.

Earth is in war with Planet Ebon, and some soldiers are captured in the new planet, and made prisoners. The Ebonites have powers in which they can control all the five senses of man, and use this to control the men. The Ebonites interrogate the men, one by one, for more information, by playing with their senses. One of the soldiers suddenly dies and the men fear that the Ebonites killed him. To make things worse, one of the men have turned traitor by leaking important information to the Ebonites. The men, once united, now turn against one another and start pointing fingers. There's Pvt. Arthur Dix (played by Martin Sheen) who sees hallucinations of his mother, and fears that he might have blurted the information to her; James Willowmore (played by Bill Gunn), who loses his sight and would do anything to get it back; Col. Luke Stone (played by Ed Nelson), who says he slept but might have been in a trace and leaked out the information; and Maj. Jong (played by James Shigeta) who is tortured in the chambers and could have said anything to stop. Who is the real traitor, and will these men ever be able to escape?

What started off as a battle between the Worlds, this episode soon turns into a psychological drama of finding the culprit; it shows the human nature of people under pressure, and how they would react to one another. The ending has its own twist too, as whom we thought as the enemies turn out to be harmless, and there is a more sinister conspiracy behind the incident. The acting of the entire cast was great, especially by James Shigeta and Ed Nelson. Martin Sheen overacted a bit and at times turned out to bee a little irritating.

To quote Vic Perrin (The Control Voice): "The exploration of human behavior under simulated conditions of stress is a common placed component of the machinery called War. So long as man anticipates and prepares for combat, be it with the neighboring nations or with our neighbors in space, these unreal games must be played; and there are only real men to play them. According to established military procedures, the results of the Ebon maneuvers will be recorded in books and fed into computers for the edification and enlightenment of all the strategists of the future. Perhaps they will learn something."

Surreal "Nigthmare" !

I agree with the other reviewers that this episode was one of the best from the original series. I saw this as a kid when it first aired and again in a re-run. "Nightmare" has stuck in my mind for 40 years now.

The idea of a United Earth, with men of all races, fighting an enemy that resembles Satan himself was the hook of the story. Yet, as events unfold we find that the cruel Ebonites may not exactly be the Aliens of inhuman brutality we first think they are, as they go about torturing the Earth men for information.
There motivation actually coming from a very human source.

This well acted Sci-Fi is well worth watching again. It explores moral issues on the question, is torture and humilation of a POW justified, even for a so called greater purpose?

In light of the recent 21st Century Iraqi nightmare prison scandal "Nightmare" should be viewed by neo-conservatives and any other Americans who believe the "Geneva Convention" rules need not apply, as they use "immoral and inhuman" methods to extract information from captured human beings.