At midnight on August 30, 1980, BBC 2 broadcast “Controlled Experiment”, an episode of the American series The Outer Limits.

The classic sci-fi series exploring the boundaries of man’s inner self when faced with alien forces in time and space.

Controlled Experiment

starring
Barry Morse

Carroll O’Connor

with Robert Fortier
Robert Kelljan

Linda Hutchins

Man has a peculiar characteristic – his capacity for murder. Two researchers from Mars arrive to analyse this perhaps uniquely-human phenomenon.

Radio Times, issue 2963 (August 23-29, 1980)

Who hasn’t seen the dark corners of great cities, where small and shabby creatures wander without purpose in the secret corners of the night? Without purpose? There are those whose purpose reaches far beyond our wildest dreams.

Who knows? Perhaps the alteration of one small event may someday bring about the end of the world. But that someday is a long way off, and until then there is a good life to be lived in the here and now.

Opening and closing narration [Wikipedia]

Martians maintain inconspicuous monitors on Earth. The Martian agent Deimos (O’Connor) is contacted by Phobos One (Morse), a researcher who wants to investigate the concept of “murder”. Using a machine that can manipulate time, they review the same murder scene over and over again. Phobos One, however, is unable to resist the opportunity to tamper with time.

Episode star Barry Morse says that this was a pilot for a proposed science-fiction comedy series that was subsequently broadcast as an Outer Limits episode. It is the only comedy episode of The Outer Limits. [Wikipedia]

Cast Notes

This episode features Barry Morse, who is perhaps more famous in science fiction circles as Victor Bergman in Space: 1999.

Star Trek‘s Grace Lee Whitney co-stars with Robert Fortier, who also appeared in the Star Trek episode “By Any Other Name”. Fortier appeared in two other episodes of The Outer Limits: “Production and Decay of Strange Particles” (featuring Leonard Nimoy) and “Demon with a Glass Hand”.

Leslie Stevens, who was uncredited as the voice of Martian Computer Control, was the creator of The Outer Limits and he went on to co-develop Buck Rogers in the 25th Century with Glen A Larson. He also worked with Larson on the Battlestar Galactica pilot “Saga of a Star World”.