The Outer Limits The Complete 7 season

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

I bought this set on another site, but since there is so much controversy and confusion concerning censorship, picture quality, and packaging, I decided to post a review treating of each season alone with regard to these issues.

Season 1: I own both the earlier MGM release and this one. The content is identical, particularly regarding “Valerie 23” and “Caught in the Act.” Digitally remastered; picture quality is a solid 8.5-9/10. Standard issue and quality of DVD case; discs arrived unscratched; easy to remove and replace the discs in and out of the case w\o damaging them. Off to a good start.

Season 2: “Paradise” edited for nudity. All other episodes uncut, uncensored for nudity; digitally remastered. Picture quality a solid 9/10. Standard type and quality of DVD case; discs arrived unscratched; easy to remove and replace the discs in and out of the case w\o damaging them. Still happy.

Season 3: Now I know what the gripe is about. DVD case is poorly designed; discs difficult to remove and replace without scratching. Picture quality appears to be direct transfer from VHS with no digital enhancement; near bootleg quality; 6-6.5/10. Heavily edited for nudity/language, esp. disappointing in the first regard is “Bits of Love.”

Season 4: New, good packaging, but the problem of poor (VHS) picture quality persists; 6-6.5/10. Heavily edited content; in particular, if you are looking for the unedited version of “Lithia,” you won’t find it here.

Season 5: They did such a good job of restoring the picture quality of the first two seasons that I have to ask myself again why they stopped there; again a disappointing 6-6.5/10. Heavily censored for nudity/language. If you are looking for the uncut version of the “Human Operators” et. al., I hope you copied it off of Showtime. Good packaging.

Season 6: Ditto season 6. Picture quality an abysmal 6-6.5/10; this, as seasons 3-5, almost unbearably bad to watch in terms of picture quality. Nudity/language, completely censored. Good packaging.

Season 7: Digitally remastered. Picture quality 8.5-9/10. Episodes content is unaltered from the original showing. This is because the SciFi channel took over production of the 7th season and produced a nudity/obscenity free final season of the series. Good packaging.

The series was apparently assembled carelessly, with terribly uneven product quality and censorship. I suppose Alliance feels that it has its audience and will get its numbers regardless of the attention it devotes to providing its customers with the very best product. Unless you are a true devotee of the Outer Limits then, I would hold off purchasing all but seasons 1, 7, and perhaps 2, until such time digitally remastered, uncensored versions are available.

-Sparky

I really wanted to give this set a higher rating. I only saw this series on local television when it first came out, not on cable, so it was fun to watch episodes that I had forgotten about, or never saw. It is also fun to see how some of the same scenes were repurposed for new episodes. So I particularly paid attention to some of the reviewer comments. The sets came in a box, no damage. Some sets were slipcased, some not. I originally had a problem with an older DVD player that would not play the discs. Statement of unrecognized format. But a newer DVD player had no problems. But I watched several seasons on my multi-region DVD player until I replaced the old DVD player. The origin is not MGM, which of the several theme DVD’s I have are of much higher quality, and apparently not censored.

For the first two seasons, I saw scenes that perhaps would have been shown on cable, but certainly not local television. The episode Heist (season 2) was annoying for me, when the officer was constantly referred to as Captain, when clearly was a First Lt. But that is nitpicking.

But as I got into the series, I was satisfied that it held up well. Other than CRT monitors, things were really relevant to even today’s standards. Of course the themes are all science related, but one was not insulted by the ‘science’, even if you had to stretch your mind to accept the premise.

And actually, the first several seasons seemed to be of decent quality and audio. On Season 7, there is a disclaimer that the quality of the audio and video reflects that age of the source material but this is the only time such a statement appeared. So clearly this indicates nothing is remastered. On Season 4, episode Criminal Nature, Monster and Fear Itself suffers from degraded video, which is jarring. Season 5 (Human Operator) seems lower quality (especially if one has the MGM DVD), and there is a flicker in episode Summit. Season 6 seems uniformly of lower quality.

Now on censorship. Season 3, Bits of Love was snipped of a scene, and Season 5, Human Operator was severely censored. It shows no pattern, as scenes comparable appeared in the early seasons, but not the later so the question is why, or does it reflect the source material? Were there other snippets censored? Possibly, but I stopped looking for them against the MGM DVD’s that I have.

The DVD’s have audio in French and English, but no subtitles. Each DVD has four episodes on it, except the last discs in each season. In a way, the last episodes of each year became annoying, as they were mainly segments of other episodes pieced together in a new tale, but hardly worth watching. However, Final Appeal (Season 6) certainly had some big name stars playing a role, as they viewed prior segments in a narrative. Never mind that in a time of no electricity, the time machine became fully functional. That may be the worst disconnect of the entire series.

Hopefully, a remastered and uncensored set of all the seven seasons will be released, so one can truly enjoy the series as it was intended.

-Avid reader

This collection in no way represents completeness, since it has been expurgated. Once bits have been removed for whatever reason the resulting products is not the same as the original. This should be so stated in the product description. The fact that the collection as received is in actuality “The Canadian Alliance Films French/English” version it can not be as indicated in the description. This collection is akin to the movies that are complete, with the exception of editing for content and time, in short the Bowdlerized version.

-Pavanas Incusus

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Actors: Bob Johnson, Ben Wright, Robert Culp, Robert Duvall, John Hoyt
Format: Box set, Black & White, Full Screen, NTSC
Language: English (Mono)
Region: Region 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Rated: NR – Not Rated
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number of discs: 42
ASIN: B004E5BQDW