Forgotten TV: The Outer Limits- 'The Origin of Species' (with Ryan Reynolds)

 The previous Episode had a Sequel a year later in 1998.

Let's get right to it...

I guess I kind of have to SPOIL the ending of the last one a bit.  Just read about/watch that Episode first...

*Pause*

So, the Professor and his Students...and his Son...and his Son's Girlfriend have found an ancient ship and are invited to enter it to meet our Makers.

The trip into orbit is rough and the Professor (Ron Rifkin) tries to interface with the ship afterwards.

It seems to hurt him and make him glow blue, so his son (Ryan Reynolds) tries to free him...and they both disappear.

There goes the future A-List Actor!
The remainder of his screen time here is limited to *sharing* a hologram role with Rifkin.
(The shot below is from The Outer Limits Wiki Page and I still can't screen cap this one proper, so no Ryan)

I kept waiting for a big return, but nope.

So now the Students (and Hope) are stuck on the ship.

They look for information, when the ship starts to morph (with some slightly dated '90s CGI).

It also starts to separate the group, pulling some into the Wall and not returning them!

They all end up being taken and are confused when they wake up with a mark on them.

Well, we only see Hope do this, but they had to squeeze lots of content into 44 minutes after all.

The Ship lands and they see....

Yeah, I don't want to SPOIL everything here.

Look- you can watch this for free (at time of Writing) on YouTube.

Stream it now already.

Well, it wasn't great in one regard- Ryan Reynolds has about 5 lines in the whole thing.  Most of them are when he's the shared hologram with Rifkin.

So, now it looks like I'm doing lazy clickbait.  Thanks for that, 26-year-old TV Show!

Joke aside, the Episode is quite good.
It makes a good use of a small, but creative Set.

Yes, this did come out a year (roughly) after Cube.  Did the Film inspire this?  Maybe.

There's more to the Episode than that of course, with some high-concept Sci-Fi and a not-so-subtle moralizing.

I'm still peeved about the lack of Reynolds here (especially how they try to explain it!), but it is not so bad that I have to lie down or anything.

A good Episode which raises many moral questions and doesn't truly answer any.  Should I go back to review Mr. Reynolds' earlier appearance next?