Ellison, Part 2: Soldier.
In 1964, the cult sci-fi show The Outer Limits was renewed for a second season. The new production team decided to shift the focus away from a "monster of the week" format, and into a "hard sci-fi" direction. As part of this change, Harlan Ellison was brought in to write two episodes of the anthology series.
The first of these was “Soldier,” based on his own short story entitled “Soldier from Tomorrow.” As the title suggests, it tells the story of a soldier from a future war, played by Michael Ansara, who is thrown back in time to the strange land of America in the mid-20th century.
This week, Mike and Max take a look at both “Soldier” and the story upon which it's based. We discuss The Outer Limits in general, the episode in particular, and the allegations of plagiarism which Ellison brought against James Cameron's The Terminator. We also look back at the Shatner-starring, Esperanto-speaking opus which is Incubus.
