The Outer Limits (1995)

The 90s reboot of The Outer Limits did its best to preserve the often grim themes and twist endings of the original 60s series. Naturally, the reboot would have to live up to the various strange aliens the original series had provided, as well as provide occassionally gruesome setpieces. Many special makeup effects studios worked on the series; Greg Nicotero's KNB EFX Group, Steve Johnson's XFX Inc, Toby Lindala's Lindala Makeup Effects Inc, Todd Masters' MastersFX Inc, and the rather vaguely named Northwestern Effects Group Ltd.

'The Sandkings' was the series' first episode, and based on the novella of the same name by George R. R. Martin - like the original novella, the episode focuses on an amoral scientist raising a colony of sentient insects, realized as puppets with eerily human-like mouthes and bulbous eyes; I wonder if this wasn't the reboot series' attempt to live up to the iconic Zanti of the original Outer Limits, especially with the faces. This episode had its creature effects done by KNB, who did the episodes up to and including 'The Voyage Home'

The spectral aliens in 'The Second Soul' were a prosthetic face makeup designed, obscured in the episode itslef with digital effects. This episode's makeup effects were not credited, unlike the other earlier episodes.

The demonic aliens in 'Corner of the Eye' were fully-encasing prosthetic makeups worn with fanged dentures and contacts.

'Under the Bed' focused on a family being menaced by a grotesque boogeyman, realized as a performer in a latex bodysuit and designed like the typical snarling ogres of fairytales. The first image here is from issue #141 of Fangoria, who had covered the series at the time.

'Dark Matters' had a human spaceship ending up stranded in a strange void of dark matter, with some of the only other occupants being the ghosts of an alien spacecraft; these ethereal aliens are realized as puppets, being spindly humanoids in their design. The human crew also had a pet alien that was actually a reuse of the Hydra puppet head from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

A scaly prosthetic appliance was made for Nicole de Boer as the mutating cadet Tristan in 'Quality of Mercy'.

'The Voyage Home' had a team of astronauts facing off an alien that has infiltrated their spacecraft, in a very clear lift from Ridley Scott's Alien. The alien intruder here was realized as a full body suit, and is reptilian in design with a beaky face and tentacles coming out of its sides.

'Beyond the Veil' had its creature effects by Steve Johnson's XFX Inc, who supplied several Grey puppets for the episode; however, these Grey puppets may have been reuses of the puppets Johnson had supplied for the TV movie Roswell a year before. Johnson's XFX supplied the creature effects for all episodes up to and including 'Feasibility Study'

The true form of Matt Frewer's wife in 'First Anniversary' was realized as a sculpted bodysuit sculpted to be covered in lumpy warts and resembling an anglerfish. Unfortunately, the moody direction coupled with poor DVD quality means it is actually pretty hard to see the alien properly in the episode itself.

A Grey-like alien head is seen in 'Trial by Fire', presumably a puppet; it actually resembles the Grey puppets that Johnson's XFX made for Visitors of the Night in 1995; perhaps it was a redressing of the same animatronics?

A painted rubber head appliance was made for Clancy Brown as the alien hybrid in 'Afterlife', with a full-face version made for the alien that rescues him at the end.

'The Deprogrammers' was set on a future Earth enslaved by reptilian humanoids, with lumpy scaly skin and domed heads, with ridges around the jowels and mouth.

The true form of the alien in 'Heart's Desire' was a full body suit with a shell and tentacles on its back. Unfortunately the suit is never really seen clearly onscreen, obscured by digital lighting effects.

'Tempests' focused on a crashed spaceship's crew being menaced by alien spiders who give a nasty bite, its side-effects including hallucinations. These gnarly alien spiders were realized as puppets, and designed with a pale texture remniscient of the facehuggers from the Alien films.

'The Awakening' actually didn't involve aliens, but rather a conniving couple pretending to be aliens as part of an elaborate scheme to defame the reputation of a medical corporation - these fake Greys are static masks and painted bodysuits.

'Dead Man's Switch' ended with the Earth overrun with small insect-like aliens, realized as puppets that sadly are never fully close-up in the actual episode!

The transformed humans in 'Music of the Spheres' were prosthetic facial makeups, head appliances and gloves, finished with a golden paintjob to make them look metallic.

'Feasibility Study' focused on a human town that had been abducted by a sinister alien species; one of the townspeople runs into the alien Adrielo, whose species has also been enslaved by the same force. Adrielo's species are vaguely fish-like in appearance, infected with a disease that caused barnacle-like bumps to form on their skin.

The aliens attempting to enslave the humans are the 'Triunes', reptilian humanoids who cannot do physical labour thanks to their frail, malformed bodies; they were realized as facial prosthetics and a puppet mechanism, the performer under each Triune's 'seat'.

'Hearts and Minds' was a dark-humoured parody of Starship Troopers, with a military taskforce sent to exterminate hostile alien insects, or so they think. The insectoid aliens are an impressive design, being realized as complex full body suits with detailed heads, shells and limbs.

In reality, the insects are human miners that the soldiers see differently due to the mind-altering drugs they take; the enemy forces also take said drugs, seeing them instead as grotesque humanoid reptiles, realizing via facial prosthetics.

The dinosaur-like reptilian aliens in 'Relativity Theory' were handled by 'Northwestern Effects Group Ltd', who would handle pretty much all episodes covered in this entry from then on, unless stated otherwise.

The aliens in 'Rite of Passage' were facial prosthetics sculpted to have a more subtle reptilian appearance with pronounced eye sockets and ridges across the skull and an elaborate paintjob.

'To Tell the Truth' involved a human colony refusing to heed the warnings of their lead scientist, thus paving the way to their own destruction at the hands of solar flares to the delight of the planet's original alien inhabitants; the aliens are realized as facial prosthetics designed to give a scaly, almost chitinous appearance to the skin texture.

The aliens in 'Sarcophagus' (one of which was portrayed by Doug Jones) were face, head and chest makeups, with complimentary gloves as well; they were sculpted to have a flattened appearance to the face, especially the nose.

The Tsal-Khan face makeups in 'Promised Land' were designed to have a slightly reptilian apperance, with a flattened nose and scale-like texture.

The body-snatching aliens in 'Alien Radio' were realized as a face prosthetic and sculpted body suit; unfortunately this elaborate makeup job is barely seen in the episode itself, shot in close-up shots and covered in digital effects.

Toby Lindala provided the makeup effects for 'The Grell', designing the Grell alien makeups to have a slightly more snout-like face, with yellowish skin, and each slightly unique - such as the mohawked rebel leader.

Lindala also provided a more grotesque makeup prosthetic for Ted Shackelford to wear for when his character is half-transformed into a Grell.

'Stranded' was centred on a young boy who finds a crashed spaceship in the forest, and bonds with its alien occupant without realizing its true intentions; the stranded alien was realized as prosthetic makeup, having a rather fish-like appearance with bulbous gills and fins around the neck. Oddly, the makeup effects for this episode were not credited.

The reptilian alien in 'The Vessel' was a prosthetic makeup, but obscured thanks to the digital effects overlaid on the footage; the makeup is only seen better by being on the cover of the series' DVD release. An 'SFX Studio, Inc' is credited, which itself is an infuriatingly vague title for a company! Was it a miscrediting?

'Manifest Destiny' involved a human spaceship crew becoming infected with a disease caught from the corpse of an alien 'Trion'; the corpse prop we see in the episode was designed with a humanoid frame with slightly canine-like facial features.

The reptilian alien makeup in 'Abduction' was realized by Todd Masters' MastersFX Inc, and was designed to have a snout-like nose and pronounced cranium.

MastersFX also provided the makeup effects for 'Rule of Law', which included the Medusan aliens, designed to have a slightly fish-like appearance with whiskers and a slimy skin texture.

The dead alien servant in the same episode, due to only being seen as a corpse, was just a static latex mask that was barely seen in the episode itself.