Episode no. Season 5
Episode 5 Original air date 18 October 1999 | Production code 1 | |
"The Other Side" is an episode of The Outer Limits. Its first United States airdate was 18 October 1999.
Contents
Plot
Dr. Neal Eberhardt (Ralph Macchio), a former boy genius gone bitterly to seed, studies brain-damaged and comatose patients hoping to learn how the brain reroutes itself. Despite having a revolutionary new machine to work with - the Neural Intercortex Stimulation Array or NISA - Dr. Eberhardt is getting nowhere. To make matters worse, his valued assistant Vince Carter has just quit. But suddenly, Neal has a breakthrough. The brain waves of two comatose patients, Adam (Aaron Smolinski) and Lisa (Emmanuelle Vaugier), fall into sync while they're hooked up to the NISA and one of them whispers the other's name. Neal knows he's onto something and tells his boss, Marty Kilgore (Michael Sarrazin). What Neal doesn't know is that Adam and Lisa have landed in an idyllic parallel consciousness and are falling in love. As Adam and Lisa get to know each other, Neal continues his research, joined now by his ex-girlfriend and colleague Janice Claymore (Susannah Hoffman). Desperate to try the technique on other comatose subjects, Neal loses patience and makes the journey himself. After giving himself a calculated overdose of fentanyl, he hooks himself up to NISA and launches himself into Adam and Lisa's world. He catches a glimpse, but he's pulled back at the last minute, leaving him more determined than ever to find a way to rescue his patients from the other side. But do they really want to be rescued? Or is it really Neal that wants to cross over to the other side?