Venus Held Me In Her Arms!
This was Shatner's first famously hammy performance, playing Colonel Jeff Barton, the first astronaut to Venus and back. Sure, he's all smiles and NASA p.r. before the cameras, but behind the scenes, Jeff's having problems. He avoids his wife, can't concentrate, can't sleep, has snappish fits of temper, suffers unremembered terrifying nightmares, and can't keep warm. Soon, his problems run deeper - he's actually physically mutating into something not human. Turns out he met something on Venus, during the eight minute telemetry loss the mission had when he went under cloud cover. He's only now beginning to remember what...

Should have been a winner. Falters due to an unintentionally comedic, melodramatic script, and the actors' obvious discomfort at having to speak such soap-opera lines. It's additionally funny today for reasons the production team could not have predicted: the manned Mars mission Shatner's character tries to sell for NASA after his Venus flight is named "Project Vulcan," prefiguring Star Trek, and at one point he makes a vow to his wife by solemnly lifting his hand and saying, "Promise!" which he did identically, years later, in T.V. promotions for Promise Margarine.

Even turkeys like this one have their good moments, though, and are not total wastes. The being Shatner encounters on Venus is a memorably clever underwater puppet effect that is kind of creepy, accompanied by an eerie, minor-key sort of waltz music, and the scene in which Shatner's wife, Geraldine Brooks, helps rescue him from his horrific condition is often moving.

Classic early Shat!
For those that are shat fans, this is a MUST WATCH! Bill stars as an astronaut whose mission to Venus goes astray as an alien infects him. He starts to change into some kind of alien with wacked-out hands. Today we would call this genetic terrorism I guess... Kinda funny that the project is called "vulcan". I am sure that it IS just a conincidence with ST because Spock was in the original pilot for Star Trek and our hammy friend Shat was not. But then again...

Overall its a pretty good ep. All the makings of Pre-ST Sci_Fi. Cool 'weirdo' music, bad (in todays standards) special effects, and good plot. All of the OL episodes kinda remind me of the old X-MINUS ONE radio show....

Johnny

An Outer Limits dress-rehearsal for Star Trek ?
Imagine William Shatner intoning: "...to lead the way to new worlds, new life, new knowledge". You might think this is a slightly skewed recollection of his famous Star Trek preamble; but in fact its a bit of his dialog from this flawed, but still enjoyable, second-season Outer Limits offering. Did Shatner compose his Star Trek "pre-ramble", by "borrowing" directly from this OL script? You can't help but wonder, and he has commented since that he doesn't remember his work in this OL very clearly (in TNT's broadcast of interview footage with him during their OL marathon a few years back). Hmmmm... But diehard Shatner fans will exonerate him with no questions asked when they get a load at his trademark hammy acting, abundantly on display here (check out the photo on the video box!). Similarly, a scene with Malachi Throne promminently foreshadows Capt. Kirk's full-contact collegial rapport with Star Base Commodore Mendez--you can see them getting their chops down as actors here, playing off each others' style and delivery. Special effects are low-budget, but still exert an effective mood. As usual for the original OL, it is the sheer staging of the scene that carries it off. Playing Shatner's wife, poor Geraldine Brooks has to keep a straight face while delivering dialog in which she talks to the planets as though calling a pet dog home; its hard not to cringe a little, especially remembering what a good part they gave her to play in a first season episode. But the story here is solid, of an astronaut who begins to undergo some disturbing changes after returning from a space voyage, while trying to hold it together in his marriage and his space exploration goals. The dream sequence in which Shatner re-lives his frightening adventure on Venus is a high point, and pretty hair-raising. As with so many Outer Limits episodes, instead of being told what's going on by some lab-coated doink standing in front of a blackboard and rationalizing it all for us (as in a lot of inferior vintage scifi pieces), we are shown--a much more dramatically effective approach, and more stimulating to the imagination. Although not one of the best, this OL episode is nonetheless quite memorable and better than much, if not most, scifi cinema. But those who dislike Shatner (and you know who you are) need not apply; for that audience, may I suggest a rerun of "Star Trek: The Pepsi Generation" instead ?

An Outer Limits dress-rehearsal for Star Trek ?
Imagine William Shatner intoning: "...to lead the way to new worlds, new life, new knowledge". You might think this is a slightly skewed recollection of his famous Star Trek preamble; but in fact its a bit of his dialog from this flawed, but still enjoyable, second-season Outer Limits offering. Did Shatner compose his Star Trek "pre-ramble", by "borrowing" directly from this OL script? You can't help but wonder, and he has commented since that he doesn't remember his work in this OL very clearly (in TNT's broadcast of interview footage with him during their OL marathon a few years back). Hmmmm... But diehard Shatner fans will exonerate him with no questions asked when they get a load of his trademark hammy acting. It is abundantly on display here in all its overwrought glory (check out the photo on the video box!), recalling his roughly contemporaneous Twilight Zone episode "Horror at 20,000 Feet" (er, wait a minute--was it 20,000 or 30,000? Well, anyway...). Similarly, a scene with Malachi Throne prominently foreshadows Capt. Kirk's full-contact collegial rapport with Star Base Commodore Mendez--you can see them getting their chops down as actors here, playing off each others' style and delivery. Special effects are low-budget, but still exert an effective mood. As usual for the original OL, it is the sheer staging of the scene that carries it off. Playing Shatner's wife, poor Geraldine Brooks has to keep a straight face while delivering dialog in which she talks to the planets as though calling a pet dog home; its hard not to cringe a little, especially remembering what a good part they gave her to play in the first season episode "Architects of Fear". But the story here is solid, of an astronaut who begins to undergo some disturbing changes after returning from a space voyage, while trying to hold it together in his marriage and his space exploration goals. The dream sequence in which Shatner re-lives his frightening adventure on Venus is a high point, and pretty hair-raising. As with so many Outer Limits episodes, instead of just being told what's going on by some lab-coated doink standing in front of a blackboard and rationalizing it all for us (as in a lot of inferior vintage scifi pieces), we are shown, without the corny explanations--a much more dramatically effective approach, and more stimulating to the imagination. Although not one of the best, this OL episode is nonetheless quite memorable and better than much, if not most, scifi cinema. But those who dislike Shatner (and you know who you are) need not apply; for that audience, may I suggest a rerun of "Star Trek: The Pepsi Generation" instead ?

Hammy
I would give this 2 and 1/2 stars. I find it odd that this pre Trek Shatner is involved with "Project Vulcan" and I can swear there is the actor who will go on to play "Stonn" on Star Trek in a VERY small bit part (watch for it). A lot of the Outer Limits (in my opinion) come off more like 50's B movies than legit 60's Sci-Fi television, and this ep. is a prime example. I have come to the conclusion that most have good ideas but simply suffer from the TZ's 4 season of "one hour programs for 30 minutes of good material." Make no doubt about it, I would buy this on dvd, but it would be one of the last I would buy. Soldier and the Man With The Power are better eps. so check those out.