Saturday 5 February 2011

The Outer Limits - The Invisible Enemy (1964)


The Invisible Enemy is the 7th episode of the 2nd series of  the US cult sci-fi anthology show; The Outer Limits.  And this is probably one of my favourite episodes of the whole series.
Astronauts land on the seemingly lifeless Mars and are attacked by something unseen.  A rescue mission is sent to find out what occurred and it all starts happening again.  There’s something under the ground; A sort of Martian sand shark.  Brilliant stuff.  This has to be the inspiration for the Tremors film and it’s such a cool idea I’m surprised nobody referenced it before that.
And the space suits are kind of cool too.  By the looks of it, it’s the same helmet as seen in Cold hands, Warm Heart and The Invisible Enemy, possibly the same suits too.
They’ve jazzed them up a bit with corrugated tubing around the arms and legs, though oddly, not over the joints which is where they used to put them on real pressure suits so that the high altitude pilots could actually bend their arms and legs.  So it’s just a design affectation but it still works for me
It all adds up to give them the look of the Major Matt Mason action figures but a couple of years ahead of the toys release

Steve

3 comments:

  1. These appear to be redresses of the suits from the 1959-1960 "Men Into Space" television series; the "neck rings", harness straps, and backpacks are definitely the same. Both Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone made extensive use of these, as well as models, interiors (note the head rests in the last image) and effects shots from the older show.

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    1. Hi Chris, Yes. I joined all the dots up after writing this particular post and I don't as a rule go back and edit pots after the fact except for outright errors, however if you click on; Helmet - Men into Space, link at the bottom of this post, you'll see the connections I've made so far. Cheers

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    2. that should obviously read posts not pots...no one would edit pots!

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