The Outer Limits episode review — 1.31 — The Chameleon

Original air date: April 27, 1964
Director: Gerd Oswald
Writer: Robert Towne (story by Lou Morheim, Joseph Stefano, and Robert Towne)

Rating: 8/10

One of the big reasons why I enjoy 1950s and ’60s science fiction so much (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Star Trek, The Twilight Zone to name a few examples), is I’m able to accept a cheesy alien or robot design or costume so long as the show or movie is examining something genuinely interested. Some of the television writing of all time with Rod Serling occupied this genre incredibly well, despite dated executioin on film. And I’m seeing a bit of that in The Outer Limits, though it seems like it’s been a while.

It seems like the best episodes of the show were a while ago, and the ones we’d gotten recently before this were pretty mediocre and forgettable. And then this episode hits.

Look, I’m not saying the episode is a masterpiece or anything like that. I’m not saying that this episode didn’t test my cheesy alien costume stance at least a little bit.

But it’s a very good episode, the best one in a while.

I suppose it helps that in the lead is the great Robert Duvall, who I genuinely consider to be one of the greatest living actors out there. I was having a discussion with a friend of mine (another massive Twilight Zone fan) recently about who we thought was the best actor to ever be on The Twilight Zone (not who gave the best performance [I think we both agreed that was Peter Falk or Gig Young], but who had the best career). A lot of worthy names were mentioned — Peter Falk, Burgess Meredith, Gig Young, Robert Redford, Carol Burnett — but we both agreed it was Duvall.

And he’s very good here. The supporting cast not nearly as much, but he elevates this episode significantly. It’s a weird, kind of goofy story, but it’s an interesting one, and there’s some pretty good storytelling.