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| THE OUTER LIMITS
: | THE HUMAN FACTOR
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Reviewed by Andrew Borntreger on 8 January 2008
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An Army officer is driven insane by the hallucination of a man he lost in an ice crevasse. The crazy Major believes that the only way he can escape the specter is to destroy himself and the arctic base with a nuclear bomb. Why are there nuclear bombs available? The Army wants to blast a mountain apart to create a canal for ships to use.
How do these kinds of plans start, anyway? Maybe the Secretary of the Navy was sitting around one day, complaining that, if it wasn't for that darn mountain, his aircraft carriers could just zip through the strait with ease. After listening for a while, the Army Chief of Staff piped up, "You know, I have a few extra bombs..."
Aboard the remote base, a psychiatrist has built a brain wave synchronization machine. His first experiment, performed with his attractive assistant, is a complete success. It also embarrasses the young woman, because she is in love with the older psychiatrist and he finds out. Major Lunatic is brought in for evaluation and the psychiatrist connects the ill man to the brain wave machine. An earthquake causes an overload and the two men swap bodies. Suddenly, the Major has a new identity. Masquerading as the psychiatrist, he might be able to gain access and detonate the bomb.
This story has some good acting and does not take the easy route of having the psychiatrist (in the Major's body) heroically stopping the Major (in the psychiatrist's body) from setting off the nuclear device. However, I loved the delusion that the Major relates to the psychiatrist before the body swap. It sounds like something straight out of a Cthulhu Mythos story set during the Cold War. He talks about some unearthly evil that is trapped under the isthmus. The ancient menace is causing the earthquakes. Whatever dwells under the ice and rock can only be destroyed by setting off the bomb.
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| Things I Learned From This Show: | |
|  | Earthquakes are a major stress factor for anyone in the business of handling nuclear bombs.
| | | Brain wave synchronization machines should always be protected by a reliable UPS.
| | | If you die of hypothermia your ghost will look like a human sundae.
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| | | 13 mins - Okay, you convinced me. You are a nut!
| | | 19 mins - If this is not positioned just right, I will be connected to the part of your brain responsible for the evacuation of solid waste and you will interface with my taste buds. The effect would not be pleasant for either of us.
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