The Descent into Hell: "A Feasibility Study" (1964)

It is hard enough to find anyone who will die on behalf of a just man, although perhaps there may be those who will face death for a good man. —Romans 5:7

At the outset, the opening narration from the Control Voice tells us of the planet Luminos, a planet in a distant system. Earth scientists have concluded that the planet is too close to its sun to support life, but life exists there nonetheless, a strange and suffering form of life that now searches the galaxy for a planet with a healthy population—one that can be enslaved.

Meanwhile, a man prepares to drive to the office, while his wife lovingly chides him about spending too much time at work. Next door, another man, breaking off a continuing argument with his wife, seeks refuge at church, but finds his car will not start. Outside a mist has settled over the neighborhood—is it radioactive? Such are the mundane features of an everyday Sunday morning on Midgard Drive in Beverly Hills, USA, Earth, a neighborhood that is about to become the subject of a most unusual experiment—a feasibility study.

I

Ralph Cashman (David Opatoshu), a driven businessman, prepares to go to the office on Sunday morning—he has a "success compulsion," according to his wife Rhea (Joyce Van Patten), who wants him to at least have breakfast first.

Outside, he meets his neighbor, Dr. Simon Holm (Sam Wanamaker). Simon’s car won’t start, so Ralph offers to give him a lift to church. Simon’s wife Andrea (Phyllis Love) appears in the doorway; they hadn’t said good-bye, and she’ll be gone by the time he gets back. On the way, Simon confides to Ralph that he and Andrea are separating. They’ve only been married a year and a week, but Simon says it’s been "long enough to find out we made an honest mistake."

    David Opatoshu

After dropping Simon off at church, Ralph continues on his way to work. He drives into a heavy, cloud-like fog in front of him (always a mistake in these kinds of stories), so thick that it’s impossible to continue; when he stops the car to investigate, what looks like some kind of monstrous hand presses against the front windshield. He gets out of the car and finds himself in a rocky landscape, with three shadowy figures coming toward him. Running from them, he sees another hand, held up as if to stop him.

Back in the neighborhood, Simon returns to find Andrea still home; she couldn’t call a taxi because the phone is out of order. It is obvious that Simon doesn’t want Andrea to leave, and he renews his plea to her to stay, but she is adamant. She won’t stay if Simon won’t let her have "some part of my life to live my own way." If you really love someone, you should be able to "understand another person’s heartbeat, even if the rhythm is different from yours." "I can’t live with you if life has to be lived according to your prescriptions," she tells Simon. "I can’t! No matter how benevolent or secure you’d make it, it’s slavery!" Simon replies that he’s not trying to run her life; "I just don’t want you wandering around the world with your camera and your typewriter worrying about everybody else, when I need you here, always, at home."

Their argument is interrupted by a scream from Rhea. Someone is walking up the sidewalk to her front door. When the figure collapses, Simon sees that it’s Ralph, his face and hands covered by grotesque skin eruptions, similar to those on the beings that surrounded Ralph’s car. Ralph warns Rhea, in a ghostly voice, that she must not touch him, and adds, "We’re not on Earth." His body then vanishes.

They next see a figure going into the garage. Rhea is sure it must be Ralph, but Andrea tells her it wasn’t even a man. He goes to the door, but a voice from inside the garage warns him not to come in. Simon tells Andrea to get the car in case they need to take whoever it is to the hospital; then, talking through the door, asks if he needs help or is hurt. The voice replies that he’s not hurt physically, just afraid. "I came through the shield," the voice says. "I’ll be punished if I spoil the experiment." He’s only 16, the voice says, "I’m almost an old man." He says he’ll go back, but they can’t see him. Simon tells Rhea to go back indoors. Meantime, Andrea waits in the car she was going to use to drive Ralph to the hospital. When the being emerges, he heads for the car and tells Andrea to take him back, "or I’ll touch you." Andrea speeds into the cloud, and Simon runs after her, disappearing from sight.

Emerging on the other side, Simon finds himself in the same unearthly setting that Ralph entered earlier, surrounded by the same creatures—ponderous figures, bodies encased in the same kind of rocky terrain as the planet’s surface, almost becoming part of the background. Simon sees Andrea suspended in a tube-like cylinder, before he is led in front of some kind of council. One of them, referred to in the credits as The Authority (voice of Ben Wright, physically played by Robert H. Justman), tells him that their entire neighborhood, six square blocks, has been teleported to the planet Luminos.

The Authority explains that the Luminoid race has virtually no physical mobility. They are not born that way, but at a particular age, because of an organism in their genes, the skin eruptions begin, and their bodies begin to turn to stone, leaving them "doomed, immobile, unable to do anything but think," and requiring able-bodied beings to perform their work. This used to be done by Luminoid youth, but they have now rebelled, necessitating the need for another source of labor; the Earthlings are now part of an experiment, to test the feasibility of bringing the entire population of Earth to Luminous as slave labor. They have nothing to fear; they will be happy, their lives comfortable and secure. The Authority tells Simon that Andrea will be returned to their home presently, and that he should "tell your neighbors to fear no fears and dream no dreams of escape—for there is no escape."

II

There’s an interesting footnote to this, as writer Ted Rypel observes: the fact that the Luminoid children have apparently rebelled, necessitating the Luminoids’ mission to abduct and enslave the Earthlings. Does this imply that the desire for freedom isn’t the sole province of humans, that it’s somehow inherent in all sentient beings? Or does the appearance of the Luminoid youth, curious to see what exists outside the foggy barrier, suggest that the young are alike all over, rebelling against their parents and against the system, nothing more than a Luminoid Rebel Without a Cause?

III

   Sam Wanamaker and Phyllis Love

Returning to their home, Simon finds Andrea there; she explains that the Luminoids used a sterilizing gas on her; even though the boy didn’t touch her, they breathed the same air and the Luminoids used the gas as a precaution. They realize now that they never stopped loving each other, and each asks forgiveness for having tried to change the other. "I didn’t want to leave you," Andrea says, and Simon replies, "I gave you no choice." The truth of her earlier words must have occurred to him: No matter how benevolent or secure you’d make it, it’s slavery!

"That’s the whole bright mystique of life, choice," Simon tells her. "Maybe that’s what the soul is. Choice."

"Can we live with the loss of it?" Andrea asks.

"Perhaps," Simon replies. "But I think it would be better to die trying to win it back."

Simon decides they must alert the rest of their neighbors to what has happened, and set up a meeting in the church, to discuss what they must do. Andrea tells Simon she’ll meet him there, and after he leaves, she looks at herself in the mirror, at the first sign of eruption that’s started to break out on her shoulder.

As everyone gathers in the church, Simon looks for Andrea, but the priest, Father Fontana, assures him that she will show up. To the group, Simon now explains what the Luminoids plan for them. As Father Fontana recites The Lord's Prayer, someone starts pounding at the door. Simon, thinking it is Andrea, implores the two men guarding the door to let her in; when they refuse, Father Fontana approaches them and raises his hand, palm facing the doors as if in the form of a blessing, and the men part. Outside is Ralph, fully enveloped in the disease. The priest moves to take Ralph in his arms, but is held back by Simon; the rest shrink back in fear and horror.

Ralph stands in the doorway: alone, weeping, utterly desolate. Rhea runs to him, but Ralph will not let her touch him. We see that Andrea is also there, standing behind Ralph. She now admits to Simon that she, too, has been infected, just from the time she spent in the car with the boy, breathing the same air.

Simon then turns back to the rest, and bluntly tells them there is no way of escape, no way back to Earth. Their future is as slave labor. They don’t have to suffer the same fate as Ralph, not as long as they remain in their homes and don’t travel more than six blocks in any direction; even if some, like Andrea, catch the disease through the air, enough of them will survive to make the experiment feasible. And then the Luminoids will teleport the entire population of Earth to the planet to be enslaved. "We will live in labor camps," he says, "we will toil and sweat and die in controlled areas."

But we have a choice, he reminds them. Human choice. They can let the Luminoids know that they will not simply stand by while the entire human race is enslaved. They can choose to voluntarily expose themselves to the disease, to become what the Luminoids are. "My wife has already been infected," he tells them. "I’m going to take her hand. Will someone take mine?"

After a moment’s hesitation, Andrea stretches out her hand, which is taken by Simon. Rhea then takes Simon’s other hand; her free hand, in turn, is grasped by Father Fontana, and in turn the others, one by one, form a human chain, hand in hand. A chain forged by love, and a resolution to thwart the Luminoid plan.

A final image shows the crater that marks where the Midgard neighborhood once stood. An official sign has been posted telling people not to enter the area due to threat of possible radioactive dirt or rocks, and asks anyone with knowledge concerning the disappearance to contact the police. The Control Voice advises us that the Luminoid feasibility study has concluded. "Abduction of human race: infeasible."

IV

Watching the first half of "A Feasibility Study," a viewer might reasonably wonder why I’ve chosen to include it in this series. It unfolds as a mystery, a domestic drama, a science fiction story complete with alien monsters. A horror story to be sure, but not the same kind of horror that we’ve witnessed here.

That is the way it is, the way events sneak up on you until, before you know it, you find yourself in the middle of it.

Of course, what "A Feasibility Study" is really about is slavery, among other things, but a unique and most seductive kind of slavery, that of the velvet fist. As the Authority tells Simon, "You will be happy. Your lives here will be comfortable and secure, and you will be free to worship and love and think as haphazardly as usual." Kind of like You will own nothing, and you will be happy, don’t you think? I can’t remember who said that, but I’m sure you know what I mean.

The power of Joseph Stefano’s script is that the horror of slavery is never seen. There are no scenes of tortures, of beatings, of vengeful masters whipping helpless slaves trying to escape. These masters are literate, even eloquent, not the monsters of "1984" and "Darkness at Noon." And talk about accommodating—or at least practical, for as Simon tells his fellow humans, we are no good to them dead. No, I think Stefano trusts us to understand this; he never even bothers to explain what type of work the slaves are to carry out, and in truth it makes no difference, for the kind of slavery he’s talking about doesn’t require work; it merely requires people to let themselves be led around like sheep—unthinking, uncaring, unfeeling.

Where "A Feasibility Study" makes its point is in presenting the alternative to slavery, what David Schow, co-author of The Outer Limits: The Official Companion, describes as "vivid sketches of the human spirit." It is what the Luminoids, for all their advanced knowledge, could not anticipate: the power of caring, of loving, of sacrifice; of overcoming fear and uncertainty; most of all, the power of choice. For Stefano, human beings by definition cannot be sheep, are incapable of being sheep, as long as they have free will and an intellect, as long as they are capable of choice. Of course, if one chooses to be a sheep, there is nothing stopping them.

(Incidentally, about the name of the street everyone lives on, Midgard Drive: According to Norse legend, Midgard describes "the world inhabited by men," and J.R.R. Tolkien derived from it the term Middle-earth. Midgard was also said to be surrounded by Jotunheim: the world of the hostile giants.)

"A Feasibility Study" was the ninth episode in the production cycle, wrapping up in August 1964, but it would not air until eight months later, on April 13, 1965, as the series’ 29th episode. The delay was unwelcome, but not exactly unexpected; "There was enough thinking going on in The Outer Limits to worry people," recalled the show’s creator, Leslie Stevens, and approval from the network’s Standards and Practices department was unusually slow in coming. ABC was particularly nervous about the ending, which network censor Dorothy Brown read as condoning mass suicide. "She saw the act of martyrdom as a negative gesture rather than a noble one," Stefano said. "But I probably proved my point when ABC saw the finished film, with everyone joining hands. It was very moving and inspirational, and that’s when they approved it."

A few words about the performances of the principals in the cast. Sam Wanamaker and Phyllis Love as Simon and Andrea Holm, display a quiet vulnerability that, once they reunite, turns to strength and courage. David Opatoshu* and Joyce Van Patten, as Ralph and Rhea Cashman, inject their brief scenes together with the comfortable affection borne of a successful marriage; Opatoshu’s reappearance as the infected Ralph is simply heartbreaking, and Van Patten’s response is both touching and inspiring. Ben Wright, providing the voice of The Authority, is appropriately superior and distainful; Frank Puglia, in the small but not unimportant role of Father Fontana, projects a quiet power and spirituality, particularly in the closing scene.

*You’ll remember him from the earlier essay on the Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon," where he played a considerably less honorable character.

The unsettling atmosphere of the planet Luminos, its oppressive fog and darkness contrasting with the everyday normality of the human neighborhood to create a growing sense of impending doom, is portrayed in stunning, glorious black and white by cinematographer John Nickolaus; the poignancy of the episode’s final scene, as the humans commit to their heroic sacrifice, is enhanced by the lovely, heartrending music of Dominic Frontiere—and, surprisingly, it wasn’t even composed specifically for the episode, instead consisting of musical cues composed for other Outer Limits episodes.

While critics were divided on the merits of the story, "A Feasibility Study" struck a note in viewers that made it one of the most-remembered episodes of the series, a profoundly moving meditation with a singularly memorable ending. If there isn’t a moment in it that causes you to think about your life and the lives of your family and loved ones—well, there’s something about you that just isn’t human.

V

There can be no return, Simon tells his fellow slaves. No escape, no way back to Earth and their former lives. It does not, however, mean that there is no alternative. "We can choose to make their enslavement of our Earth infeasible. We can choose not to escape infection. We can deliberately become what they are."

The climactic scene of "A Feasibility Study" takes place, appropriately, in a church. It is there that we see the symbols of religion most clearly: the candles, the statues, the Rosary beads. And at the heart of it, looming ever-present in the darkness as Simon makes his impassioned plea, the symbol of the ultimate sacrifice, the Crucifix.

This is not the first time we’ve discussed an act of self-sacrifice here; "Dialogues of the Carmelites," "Murder in the Cathedral," and "The Obsolete Man" all end with the protagonists accepting their deaths with courage, defiance, and faith—a reminder that death is not the end of life.

But even if we were in a studio stripped bare of any decoration, we wouldn’t be able to overlook the religious aspect of this drama, and I can’t help but wonder if this caused any of ABC’s discomfort, because it leads to some uncomfortable questions, the biggest of which being the nature of free will.

Free will is one of the greatest mysteries of life. Why do we have it? The standard answer is that we were given it in order that we might choose good over evil, right over wrong, things you probably learned in Sunday School.

Joyce Van Patten  

That leads to a whole other series of questions, of course. We wonder about those who choose evil, who use their free will to commit acts that we recognize as bad or immoral, often with consequences for the innocent. Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? Where is the justice in that? On the flip side, though, one asks if an act can be truly good if it is not freely chosen? Would a good deed be praiseworthy if it was done without choosing, without considering the ramifications, if it were as automatic as breathing?

Whether we like it or not, free will is a gift to us, one that asks of us that we exercise it thoughtfully. It tests our mettle, shows what we’re made of, appeals to both the best and the worst in us. Most of all, it asks us to choose. "That’s the whole bright mystique of life, isn’t it?" Simon muses. "Choice. Maybe that’s what the soul is: choice." Those people I mentioned above all had something in common: they were given a choice, and their choices were driven by their faith.

For the Carmelites, they chose to offer their lives as martyrdom, moved by a faith that, by being persecuted for their beliefs, the fire of hatred that inflamed the revolution would become uncontrollable and would wind up consuming itself and burning out, leading to divine graces for the people and for France. And especially for Blanche, the young sister who had fled in order to save her life and then had returned so that she could give it up, the knowledge that she would no longer be ruled by fear.

For Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury locked in a struggle with King Henry II, he has only to submit to the authority of the king to avoid death; but having returned to England from France, and the protection of King Louis VII, he chose to remain in an unlocked Canterbury Cathedral despite the pleadings of his monks to either flee or barricade himself inside, and instead faced the knights he knew would assassinate him.

For Romney Wordsworth, the obsolete man, his choice was to accept death as an act of resistance, echoing the words of St. Paul, "Death, where is thy sting?" And, as he sat in his room reading from his banned Bible and honoring a faith he refused to renounce, he might have hoped that the people would realize that the emperor had no clothes, that the Chancellor was driven by fear just like they were; and that therefore, they could defeat him, bring down the State, and show that no man is obsolete.

All of them faced execution as punishment for their choice. By contrast, the deal offered to the humans on Luminos seems to be a pretty good one. The Luminoids "don’t intend to harm us," as Simon points out. "They want us strong and well. They need our strength." True, you could die just from breathing the same air, but we can chalk that up to the same risks we face every day; after all, getting out of bed in the morning is a risk, we often remind ourselves. Whatever it is that they have to do as slaves to the Luminoids, one could envision living a good life, or at least a tolerable one. Get up in the morning, go off to work, come back in the evening, have dinner, catch up with the wife and kiddies, and go to bed. You can even go to church on Sunday! And anyway, aren’t we all just wage slaves already, working for The Man every night and day?

But the Carmelites, Becket, Wordsworth, the Luminoid slaves: they’re all human beings. And, as Simon tells them, we can choose.

We can choose.

In a way Dorothy Brown was correct; without that faith, and without that freedom to choose, there is no sacrifice: it simply amounts to mass suicide.

VI

I’ve written about fear many times in this series; it’s a theme that runs through most of these stories. Fear is the greatest destructive power on Earth, one of the most fearsome human emotions, for those who know how to use it. Fear of authority, fear of reprisal, fear of being a non-conformist; fear of the unknown, fear of the future. The totalitarian state is constructed on fear; it is what the overlords count on—what they depend on—to remain in power. It is also what drives them; fear of the loss of power.

For fear to be overcome, it first has to be acknowledged, recognized for what it is. The phrase "Be not afraid," or variations thereof, appears more often in the Bible than any other admonition. The great entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. once said that "reality is fear of the unknown waiting around the bend." In the British science fiction series Doctor Who, the title character accepts death as the price for overcoming fear; "I had to face my fear," he says. "That was more important than just going on living."

In "A Feasibility Study," the Luminoids are banking on the human fear of death, and the willingness to do anything to avoid that death. The Authority astutely sized up the Earthling as "vain fleshmen who love their bodies above all else that nature has given to them," and concludes that, "you will obey. At the threat of our touch, you will obey." And in truth, it’s hard to blame them for coming to that conclusion. After all, look at what the human race did in the name of a virus that had a survival rate in the upper 90s. They subjected themselves to an untested "vaccine" without regard to the possible side effects, closed down society and business, demonized anyone who "questioned the science."

But that’s not all. Over the last few decades, humans have become so sensitive to any kind of risk that it’s almost pathological. From food allergies to antibacterial soap, fear and disease lurks around every corner. Understand that this isn’t to demean or diminish those who actually suffer from such maladies, but one has to wonder sometimes if the preventative actions we take aren’t, in fact, responsible for the ailments in the first place; a basic exposure to germs, for example, is necessary to the development of a functioning immune system.

No, for all the bluster about how savage humans are at heart (a theme of many a science-fiction story, including ones seen on The Outer Limits), we’re actually quite timid when it comes to it, so risk-averse that one wonders what value there is to a life that doesn’t allow for taking chances. I’m fond of quoting Harry Reasoner, the legendary television newsman, who wrote that "The idea of trying to outguess life, to avoid everything that might conceivably injury your life, is a particularly dangerous one. Pretty soon you are existing in a morass of fear." Life asks a great deal of man in exchange for what it provides, but "if life asks him to cringe in front of all reasonable indulgence, he may at the end say life is not worth it. Because for the cringing he may get one day extra or none; he never gets eternity."

So the Luminoids could hardly be blamed for believing that their human captives would accept slavery rather than suffer the consequences. They would have looked at this as manna from heaven, absolute proof that they could exploit that fear into creating a slave race.

But there is one thing that can overcome fear, and that is love. It is the equalizer, the great healing power, because without love there can be no sacrifice, not really. And a very interesting thing about "A Feasibility Study" is that it is about love as much as it is fear. The first half of the story highlights the absence of love, or at least the relegation of love to a lesser status. Despite their words, it’s obvious that Simon and Andrea love each other, but they won’t let that love breathe through layers of ambition and disappointment and cynicism. It’s only when they’re confronted by something that is bigger than either of them that they realize how only by coming together can they face it.

And if the first part of the story is about the absence of love, then the conclusion shows us what happens when love is allowed to overcome fear. It’s what happens when Simon and Andrea support each other and, in doing so, gain the strength to defeat it. It’s what happens when Father Fontana approaches the church doors and, with a simple gesture, is able to move aside the two men barring entrance to the church, reminding them that the church closes its doors to no one. It’s what happens when, in one of the most moving scenes in the drama, the weeping David is comforted by his wife Rhea, who is not afraid to go to him.

Another thing that occurs to me: you might have noticed than when Father Fontana opens the door and finds the infected David standing there, his first instinct is to reach out to him until he is restrained by Simon. I don’t know if Joseph Stefano or anyone involved in makeup for the show had this in mind, but the effect of David’s appearance there evoked, at least in me, an image of someone infected by leprosy—a disease which, similarly, caused people to recoil in horror for fear of contamination. And I thought of Fr. Damien, the Catholic priest who treated the lepers of Molokai and eventually was infected himself; it is said that in his first sermon after the diagnosis, instead of his usual greeting of "My fellow believers," he began, "My fellow lepers." A small moment, perhaps.

Perhaps the most inhuman thing the human race did during the virus scare was to intentionally isolate themselves from each other, to cut off the most vulnerable from human companionship and contact. How many times we heard of those not allowed to see their loved ones in a hospital or nursing home, not able to furnish them with companionship, not able to be with them in their last hours of life. They not only reacted out of fear—fear that had been imposed on them—they themselves stoked that fear, added to it until it became hysteria.

That contact, the human touch and the love that comes with it—so simple, and yet we deliberately, willingly removed it from use. There was a lot of talk thrown around at the time about caring for others, about this isolation being an act of love. In some specific cases, there may well have been a medical justification for it. But make no mistake—this was no act of love. There was no love involved in it.

VII

Death does not mean that life has ended, but merely changed.

There is a tendency, in all allegorical stories, to view them as something of a commentary on current affairs, a way to offer a thought-provoking or unpopular take on something that’s part of the zeitgeist. In this case, one would be forced to look at the threat of communism or the fight for civil rights as inspirations for "A Feasibility Study." (Ironic, considering that proponents of civil rights were often accused of being part of the communist threat. And certainly that possibility can’t be ignored.

However, the issues that Joseph Stefano explores—freedom, choice, love, fear—go far what would have been necessary to make a simple plea for tolerance. For that reason, I’m convinced that Stefano did not want the episode to be seen purely through the lens of contemporary events. For him, the idea of martyrdom, the voluntary sacrificing of life in order preserve the human race, seems to have been his main interest, and there’s no way to fully understand and appreciate that aspect without looking at everything else. And those are timeless themes, applicable to any era.

When I rewatched "A Feasibility Study" episode for this essay, I couldn’t help thinking about the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93, the flight that crashed in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. You remember: the passengers, having learned from their phones of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, fought back against their hijackers, forcing the plane to crash well short of its intended target. Like the humans held captive by the Luminoids, they understood that they could not escape, that there would be no return to their former lives, their friends and loved ones.

But those passengers understood—their actions indicate they must have understood—that even though the fact of their deaths could not change, the meaning of their deaths could, and would. They would die at the hands of their captors, or they would sacrifice their lives to prevent their captors from accomplishing their goal, and taking yet more innocent lives. Either way, they would be dead—but nothing else would be the same. One can choose to die as a slave, or to die as a free man.

We can choose.

There is one major difference in these sacrifices. The whole world would know soon enough about what happened on Flight 93, and that their rebellion, directly or indirectly, would lead to the crash of the plane, the failure of its mission. The sacrificial act made on Luminos, on the other hand, will go unknown by the billions on Earth, including many who may not have merited it. They will supply no encouragement; they will raise no standard under which others can choose to fight back, there will be no shrine constructed in their honor. In fact, were you to ask Simon, he might tell you that this is the way it had to be, for it would mean that their rebellion had succeeded, that the continued teleportation of Earthlings had been found to be unfeasible, that no one on Earth would ever know about it.

And while those on Earth might remain ignorant of what happened, we can observe that there is a lesson to be taken from it all, which is that freedom is something intrinsic in the human spirit. It may lie submerged, deep in the recesses of the psyche, perhaps for generations at a time; nevertheless, it exists, waiting for the moment when it will be called on, when a spark will bring it to life.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free," St. Paul writes to the Galatians. "Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." The apostle was writing about the slavery of sin, but there is more than one kind of slavery, just as there is more than one kind of freedom. The Luminoids did not understand that, but we do, because humans have always had to fight for their freedom.

We can choose.

Some people look at the ending as sad, depressing, but that’s not how I see it, not really; in fact, I’m rather encouraged by it, because it suggests the indominable spirit of the human being, the desire for freedom, and the ability to love. Even in these times, the times in which we live today, it’s comforting to think that this spirit is ingrained in us, even when we doubt its existence. I think it’s natural to wonder if, when put to the test, we’ll really respond the way we hope we would, we’ll make the right choice.

The Luminoids would have accused their would-be slaves of having chosen death, but in reality they chose freedom. They chose life. Possibly—just possibly—we will, too.  TV