Stranded

The main character, Kevin, is a very smart high school boy with a father who is showing rather obvious favoritism to his athletic older brother. The funny thing is that the father is hardly even aware of it, I've met people like that. Anyway, the boy discovers a crashed space ship with an alien pretending to be an injured U.S. pilot through the power of telepathy. The alien is rather nice and encouraging to the boy, seemingly because he likes him but also because he needs his help. Like all good episodes of the New Outer Limits you get involved with the characters and wish them well, you hope that the dad will stop being so blind, that the alien really ends up being benign, and that things work out well for the Kevin.

One thing that I really liked about the episode was that the main character, Kevin is not an idiot, I hate when characters blindly do stupid things. He is observant, he questions the alien when he notices something wrong. I really liked how this episode progressed and delivered at the end.

One last note, someone mentioned bad special effects, I watch the New Outer Limits for the character development and empathy. The special effects were good enough to deliver the story. For example, Inconstant Moon was a classic and well received because everyone was cheering for the couple, we weren't waiting for the Armageddon special effects to carry that story. At least this is how I see it.

I was surprised by the rather low 7.1 rating at the time I watched this episode, it was a very pleasant surprise.

The story is interesting. A kid whose father has no respect for, who is bullied at school, who has intellectual pursuits, sees a spaceship go down as he's walking his dog. Upon investigation, he finds an injured man in the wreckage who convinces him that he is in the Air Force and this is an experimental plane. Eventually, the man has to reveal himself as an alien, claiming that he is a law officer who is transporting a prisoner, who is now dead. The boy helps him with an amazing medical kit and the guy begins to recover. He also receives a kind of patch that increases his strength. The kid and his father go down different roads and this alien becomes like a father. Of course, like so many Outer Limits episodes, there can never be a satisfying conclusion. I just found that the whole world the kid lived in was so exaggerated and clichéd. He seemed like he would have fit in with the cast of Glee. Just nothing special about this episode.