MovieChat Forums > The Outer Limits (1995) Discussion > What's with all the lame clip shows?

What's with all the lame clip shows?

posted 12 years ago by OldGeezer916
10 replies | jump to latest

It appears that the writers were just plain lazy putting together a poorly written story with a lot of filler from unrelated past episodes unsuccessfully trying to tie them together.

[–] WalletGuy 12 years ago

There was a about one per season, usually the the season finale. I am guessing that this was done to save money as some episodes probably cost much more to make than others. While I'm not a fan of clip shows, I didn't hate the Outer Limits ones as much as most people since tying episodes together was something I've never seen an anthology show do before or since. I thought the way the Outer Limits approached it was clever as they would often take clips out of context to create a new story. For example, there was one clip show that presented two duplicates as clones, even though in the original episode they were the same person from parallel universes.

[–] Frumious_Bandersnatch_46 12 years ago

I don't know if they were running out of ideas or money — or energy. I didn't care for them and I said so in the thread were someone was commenting about the time traveler stories.

«I think the series hurt itself more when they made so many episodes by piecing together semi-related clips of earlier episodes — all too often with little or no attention to consistency and continuity.»

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
— Arthur C Clarke

[–] Jaydogg1994 11 years ago

Season 2 was the only season that didn't end with a clip show due to the fact that they had a budget increase due to the high ratings of season 1

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] OldGeezer916 11 years ago

No, I'm talking about taking scenes from completely unrelated episodes and twisting them to blend scenes out of context to try to make a "new" story. And yes it is about money. It's either pay the actors the big bucks or get at least one episode per season paying the editors union scale.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] tbonesays 11 years ago

Showtime was the network, dealing with an array of Canadian people.

[–] siukong 11 years ago

Apparently it aired on Showtime. We used to watch it on Global here (one of our networks). Sundays at 10, IIRC. So, after the watershed - which started/starts at 9pm here. There may have been some editing out of nudity in syndication since I personally don't remember any full frontal being shown - or maybe I just don't remember it very well since I was a pre-teen at the time.

To the OP, clip shows are often an inevitability in the low budget world of TV (although they're somewhat less common these days). You just have to hope that there is a framing story around the clips that's interesting enough to sit through.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

i assume they did it to save money.

[–] bobbydallas (8682) 4 years ago

i hate those.

agree it's lazy as hell.