Episode
The Outer Limits: Stream of Consciousness
Overview
In a world where neural implants allow everyone instant access to information, Ryan Unger is a throwback, a moron. Because of a brain injury he suffered as a child, he's unable to tap into the Stream -- an electronic collection of all human knowledge -- so he struggles in vain to keep up by reading books, a primitive and forgotten art. But, when a virus in the Stream starts killing people by overloading their brains with data, only Ryan has the skills and independence to stop it. Can a primitive human, relying only on books and his own brain, save a world of machine-made geniuses from self-destruction or will the Stream wash over all of them?
Details
- Series
- The Outer Limits
- Season
- Season 3
- Episode
- Episode 5
- Air date
- 1997-02-07
- Runtime
- 45 min
Episode context
Stream of Consciousness is Episode 5 in Season 3 of The Outer Limits. It aired on 1997-02-07. The runtime is 45 min.
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Episode 4: Last Supper
Frank Martin can't believe his eyes when his son Danny brings home a beautiful new girlfriend from college. The girl, Jade, is a dead ringer for a woman Frank rescued from a top-secret military experiment when he was a private in the army 20 years earlier. Of course, she can't be the same woman. Or can she? The Martins' world is turned upside down as Frank's past catches up with him and they gain a deeper understanding of Jade's timeless beauty.
Episode 6: Dark Rain
The value of the greatest of joys -- a healthy baby -- becomes evident after chemical warfare leaves humanity unable to produce normal offspring. Those rare couples like Sherry and Tim who do conceive a normal child become the focus of intense government attention as desperate officials seek a cure. Held captive in a secret maternity hospital run by Dr. Royce, Tim and Sherry realize the panic-stricken government plans to make their beautiful new-born daughter a permanent ward of the state.
More episodes from this season
Episode 3: Re-Generation
After their four-year-old son Justin dies in a household accident aspiring politician Graham Highfield and his wife Rebecca get a second chance at happiness. Dr. Lucy Cole clones a new embryo from Justin's brain and nerve cells and implants it in Rebecca's womb. As the pregnancy progresses, however, it becomes clear to Rebecca that this isn't just any fetus -- this is Justin himself, a fetus with the skills -- and the memories -- of a little boy. As he shares those memories with his mother, Justin reveals secrets that may destroy the whole family.
Episode 7: The Camp
For Twelve generations, mankind has lived in concentration-type camps, imprisoned by the human collaborators of the alien New Masters. But when one woman dares to challenge the authority of her Commander, the desire to be free is pitted against this seemingly, unvanquishable foe. Or are they as powerful as they seem?
Episode 2: Second Thoughts
Karl Durand (Howie Mandel) is in his 30's, but he has the mind of a child. That is, until he receives a unique gift from Dr. Jacob Valerian, a dying scientist who has been working on a secret project. As his last living act, Valerian uses his new invention to transfer his memories and experiences into Karl's brain. But Karl isn't content with just being a genius. In an effort to win the love of his social worker, Rose, he uses the doctor's invention to capture other minds. Leaving a trail of bodies in his wake and his own brain ever more crowded and confused, Karl soon discovers that sometimes the mind can be a minefield.
Episode 8: Heart's Desire
A mysterious alien descends upon the town of Heart's Desire and offers to share his extraordinary powers with four outlaws - Jake Miller, his brother Ben and their partners in crime, Frank and J.D. Kelton. Taking on the human form of his first victim, a mild-mannered preacher, the alien follows the quartet to the Miller's hometown and gives both sets of brothers strange new powers that make them virtually invincible. As the Keltons kick off a crime spree by destroying all opposition with blasts of pure energy, Jake struggles with his divided loyalties, between love for his family and his childhood sweetheart Miriam -- and the terrible question: who is this mysterious stranger and why has he given the outlaws such deadly powers?
Episode 1: Bits of Love
Aidan Hunter may be the last man on earth after a nuclear holocaust, but he's not lonely. In his subterranean bomb shelter, hes surrounded by his family, friends, lovers, anyone he wants ... Unfortunately, they're holograms -- computer generated people controlled by a beautiful holographic interface named Emma. But when curiosity turns to touch and Aidan makes love to Emma in a virtual reality pod, he quickly learns that trifling with a computers feelings can be dangerous ... and the morning after can be all too real.
Episode 9: Tempests
The Tempest, a rickety old spaceship piloted by space colonists John Virgil and Captain Parker, is on a mission of mercy. It is ferrying two bigwigs from Earth, Dr. Vasquez and Governor Mudry, along with a lifesaving vial of serum to the Tabloss Colony, where an epidemic of Ellysia C is devastating the population. But things go horribly wrong when the ship shifts down from lightspeed and crashes somewhere in space. As he attempts to repair the ship, Virgil is bitten by a strange spider-like creature and passes out. When he awakes, he finds himself sliding between two equally convincing realities. Is he battling for his life against the deadly Ellysia C having already delivered the serum and saved the colony, including his beloved wife and his young son, from certain death? Or is he alive, trapped in a spaceship in the middle of nowhere, with no way out? Or are both realities merely hallucinations, one man's desperate attempt to find hope and heroism in a situation too bleak to face?.
Episode 10: The Awakening
Beth Carter lives in black and white, unable to experience emotions because of a conditioncalled primary alexithymia. But when Dr. Steven Molstad implants a small device in her brain, Beth's world explodes into brilliant color. For the first time in her life, she can truly feel love, happiness and even fear. Beth is thrilled by the transformation, by her feelings of friendship for Molstad's assistant Joan Garrison and her attraction to Joan's landlord Kevin Flynn -- but there are some troubling signs. Beth begins to hear strange voices. She is abducted by aliens only to find herself back in the hospital. Is her brain rebelling at the sudden flow of emotions or is Molstad's implant defective? Or is something more sinister going on?
Episode 11: New Lease
After years of research, Dr. James Houghton and Dr. Charles McCamber have discovered how to bring the dead back to life with their new breakthrough invention, the Scanning Molecular Reorganizer. But, the process seems to be deeply flawed; the first revival, a middle-aged victim of a heart attack, lives only a day and suffers horribly before passing away again. They get a second chance when Houghton is killed by a mugger outside the lab and McCamber, using the SMR, brings him back to life. Houghton is torn between making amends with his long-neglected family and exacting revenge on his killer. He may, however, have more time than he knows and more trouble than he bargained for.
Episode 12: Double Helix
Since Dr. Martin Nodel is the most brilliant geneticist in the world, the students and staff at the university are willing to put up with a few eccentricities -- unlike his son Paul, who gets impatient with his father's behavior. However, Dr. Nodel's behavior goes beyond eccentric after he unveils his research into introns, mysterious genetic material which he believes hold the code for future evolution. After a successful animal test, Nodel secretly tries the formula on himself, with amazing and disturbing results. As his intelligence begins to grow, so do scales on his hands, strange markings on his body, and a mysterious hole in his back. And he seems to be getting instinctive messages telling him to bring 'subjects' to a remote wilderness location. When he arrives there, accompanied by six students including Paul and his girlfriend, he finds a group of heavily armed soldiers and the key to unlocking a mystery that goes far beyond human science.
Episode 13: Dead Man's Switch
Ben Conklin has been a loner ever since his parents died when he was twelve years old. This is one reason why General James Eiger selected him to spend a year buried in a bunker 11,000 feet below the Artic tundra, manning the controls of a doomsday device set up by world leaders after the Hubble space telescope spotted 11 spaceships heading towards Earth. The device is designed as a last-line deterrent against alien invasion and Conklin's job, shared with four other loners in four other bunkers, is to hit a dead man's switch on the bunkers control panel that prevents the doomsday device from going off and destroying aliens and mankind alike. At first, the job is easy, but as the aliens draw closer to Earth, and as Conklin grows closer to his subterranean colleagues, he begins to doubt the reliability of the doomsday machine. News from General Eiger becomes scarce, then Conklin's fellow guardians begin to fall victim to assorted mishaps. Conklin realizes that he carries the weight of