A Special Edition

Updated on Nov 23, 2023

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Episode no. Season 3 Episode 18 Written by Naren Shankar Original air date 25 July 1997		Directed by Mario Azzopardi Production code 62

"A Special Edition" is an episode of The Outer Limits television show. It was first broadcast on 25 July 1997, during the third season.

Introduction

Donald Rivers, a journalist for the television show The Whole Truth, has found proof that the government and large defense contractors have been illegally and secretly cloning human beings. After locking himself in the studio with only a small crew, he plans to air his report to the world.

Plot

Rivers has the show of a lifetime: rock solid proof that the government and private defense contractors have been engaging in secret genetic cloning experiments. However, many mysterious and powerful forces are trying to stop him in order to keep their secrets. He goes on-air live, in a locked studio, accompanied only by a skeleton crew and Dr. Avery Strong, a live eyewitness to the history of the dark side of science. As he presents his evidence, the powerful begin to interfere. First, they try to block the transmission. Then, the network's parent company disavows the show. When thugs with guns break down the studio door, Rivers continues the show on the fly, transmitting live from the back of the show's mobile unit. However, during this, another signal overrides theirs, showing a clone of Rivers giving a fraudulent report, saying that Dr. Strong went crazy and killed everyone but Rivers and his driver, who managed to escape. Shortly thereafter, clones walk into the van followed by the Rivers clone, who pulls a gun on the crew. Stating that the viewers are already starting to forget due to the "fraudulent report", the Rivers doppelganger adds that no matter how influential he is, his show is just a show. Rivers, Strong, the producer, and the crew are summarily shot to death by the Rivers clone.

Trivia

This episode is a clip show, and Donald Rivers's reports are made up from clips from other episodes of The Outer Limits. However, this episode is unusual because one clip came from an episode that had yet to be broadcast; the report that Rivers runs on Mason Stark did not air for another four episodes. Furthermore, given the ending of In Another Life, Rivers's claim to contact Stark's representatives establishes that every episode of The Outer Limits that fits in this continuity takes place on the reality where Stark developed the inter-dimensional technology and not the one in which he was killed.

Dr. Avery Strong is a brother of Randall Strong, a former member of Army intelligence, who tried to convince a high-level government committee that a number of different alien invasions of Earth were occurring, demanding an official investigation and response to those threats (The Voice of Reason). In this episode, Dr. Avery Strong tells us that his brother, Randall, was committed to an asylum.

Footage of the episode Dark Rain is used out of context; it is used to show a video clip of babies that have been cloned and experimented on, but, in the actual Dark Rain story, these babies were mutants birthed by humans who were supposed to be sterile due to contamination. The babies in the original story are not clones at all or even vaguely referenced as clones, and Dark Rain clearly takes place on an alternate Earth. Also, the episode In Another Life is referenced showing multiple Starks even though there are numerous versions of him due to use of an inter-dimensional machine which has nothing to do with cloning at all. It is reasonable to assume that the footage they show of multiple Starks is just believed to be a cloning experiment, since the only information they have on it is the video footage, which could just lead them to believe that they are clones.

Referenced episodes:

Blood Brothers

The Voice of Reason

Afterlife

New Lease

Last Supper

Dark Rain

In Another Life