As Harlan Ellison observes in David J. Schow's indispensable book The Outer Limits Companion, weak ratings allowed quality episodes to slip under the radar of ABC executives. Ellison's own classic teleplays--"Soldier" (which would later inspire The Terminator and subsequent legal squabbles) and "Demon with a Glass Hand"--yielded the season's finest stand-alone episodes, while the two-part "The Inheritors" (featuring the young Robert Duvall) fulfilled the series' neglected potential for longer-form plotlines. While these highlights redeem the season, "Wolf 359" (a title that would later factor in Star Trek: The Next Generation) is eerily effective despite low-tech restrictions, and "Behold Eck!" is the "best" (relatively speaking) of the tepid monster-themed shows that ABC demanded. It wasn't enough: After 17 episodes against the Saturday-night dominance of The Jackie Gleason Show, the greatest science-fiction anthology series of the 1960s was mercifully canceled, primed for phenomenal success in syndication and eventual revival as the "new" Outer Limits in 1995. --Jeff Shannon