History TheOuterLimits1995 / TropesAToH

** Happens with the murderous priest in the episode "Fear Itself". He is driven mad in the end and permanently experiencing being burned alive, a throwback to the punishment given to the SS commander in ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E74DeathsHeadRevisited Death's Head Revisited]]" by the ghosts of his victims. LaserGuidedKarma, anyone?

* ForWantOfANail: In "In Another Life", this is explored through the lives of three AlternateUniverse versions of Mason Stark. The lives of the clinically depressed former Eigenphase Industries project manager Mason and the more confident Eigenphase CEO Mason diverged when they were fifteen years old and they each arrived home late and got into an argument with their alcoholic fathers, who started beating them. In the project manager Mason's universe, he let his father beat him instead of fighting back as otherwise he would have beaten his mother again. In the CEO Mason's universe, he fought back and was able to stop him. As a result, his father entered detox and successfully turned his life around. The CEO Mason's life improved considerably as a consequence of this, allowing him to develop greater self-confidence. Unlike the project manager Mason, he finished graduate school and slowly worked his way up the corporate ladder at Eigenphase. The killer Mason's life followed an almost identical path to the project manager Mason's but the former shot most of the people in his office while the latter only considered doing so briefly, quickly realizing that he could never go through with it. The project manager was about to shoot himself when he was brought to the CEO's universe.

* CloningBlues: The {{revival}} has "Think Like a Dinosaur" and, unusually, subverts the trope with "Replica," which also has one of the few {{happy ending}}s in the new series.

* DreamWithinADream: In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S2E22TheSentence The Sentence]]", Dr. Jack Henson believed that he exited the VirtualReality prison that he created, was convicted of reckless endangerment in causing the death of Cory Izacks and served a 20 year prison sentence. However, he later learns that he had been in the virtual world for the entire time (which amounted to only a few hours in the real world). His guilt at risking Cory Izacks' life created the scenario.

* CruelTwistEnding: The series does this so often that the trope used to be named ''Outer Limits Twist.''

* BitByBitTransformation: In "Quality of Mercy", Cadet Bree Tristan has been captured by aliens. He meets another captive, who is being subjected to numerous surgeries to gradually change her body into that of the aliens. [[spoiler: Turns out she was actually an alien spy being reverted out of her human disguise, [[CruelTwistEnding all the while playing on his sympathies to gain information.]]]]

** "Out of Body" has a woman's experiment leave her disembodied and her body in a coma. [[spoiler: This being Outer Limits, she totally dies for real by the end, as does her husband who is trying to get the machine to restore her. It's made as un-depressing as such an ending can be - unusual for The Outer Limits, which almost always went for dark twists - by having them [[TogetherInDeath appear in spirit form and reunite]], before vanishing for parts unknown but seeming [[DiedHappilyEverAfter optimistic about it.]]]]

* {{Fanservice}}: The revival had a lot of scantily clad and naked women (notably Alyssa Milano in "Caught In The Act", although that one quickly turns into FanDisservice-[[spoiler: you get to see a man entering Alyssa Milano. Not the way you're thinking, more like "having sex and then absorbing him whole into her body"]]).

* CoitusEnsues: In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S4E17Lithia Lithia]]", Major Mercer has sex with Miranda and then Ariel with really no buildup. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] though as Mercer is the only man either has ever seen, and they're naturally fascinated. It's possibly implied too that in their society sexual mores are more relaxed.

* DepravedBisexual: In "Caught in the Act", the parasite-infected girl who [[HornyDevils absorbs people's lifeforce through sex]] tries to force herself on both men and women.

** In "Caught In the Act", a sleazy detective taunts the male protagonist and says his girlfriend is a slut (she's been infected with an alien parasite which [[HornyDevils sucks out people's lifeforce through sex]]). He angrily retorts that she would never cheat on him. The detective goes, "Oh yeah? According to her roommate, she goes both ways!" The boyfriend says eagerly, "Really?"

* HornyDevils: In "Caught in the Act", an alien parasite causes a chaste college girl to become a hypersexual life-sucking succubus who [[DepravedBisexual swings both ways]].

** "Final Exam" took this trope UpToEleven; the antagonist brought a ''nuclear bomb'' to school.

* HarmfulHealing: The {{Nanobots}} in "The New Breed" cure a man's inoperable cancer, return him to his physical prime, and give him a HealingFactor, but further testing prompts them to take a proactive approach and start adding various disfiguring mutations in order to pre-emptively protect him from any harm. These include eyes on the back of his head, gills, and an external ribcage that shocks anyone who touches it.

** In "Ripper", Dr. Jack York, who is high on absinthe and opium, is transfixed by the sight of Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman making out until an EnergyBeing leaves the former's body, killing her in the process, and takes possession of the latter.

** In "The Vessel", a writer goes on a shuttle flight into space, but something causes the shuttle to crash on re-entry, with the writer walking away without a scratch. He later finds out that an alien EnergyBeing is living inside his body, having entered him in orbit, as the alien's own ship suffered damage near Earth (the alien's actions also unintentionally caused the crash). When the authorities figure it out, they capture the writer and perform tests on him. They eventually determine that his body can't handle the stress of two beings living in it for too long. From what the viewers are shown, the alien appears to give the writer the means to kill it, so that he can live. The writer explains the procedure to the scientists, who perform it, and let him go. Later, one of the scientists wonders if they really destroyed the alien instead of the writer. This is confirmed by the "writer" himself, as a flashback reveals that it was the writer who wanted to allow himself to die so that the alien could live.

** In "Ripper", it is revealed that UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper is a malevolent EnergyBeing who possesses people's bodies. It is stranded on Earth. Every time that it vacates one of its hosts, they are killed and their bodies are mutilated. The creature then takes possession of the nearest available body. While the creature is in control of their bodies, the hosts tend to cough up green bile, which allows Dr. Jack York to identify them.

* AccidentalChildKillerBackstory: Subverted in [[spoiler: "Fear Itself". Bernard is initially a very troubled man who believes he accidentally killed his little sister in a fire by playing with matches while she was sleeping, thus starting his crippling anxiety. In the last scene, he discovers that it was actually a Pedophile Priest who gaslit him and blamed the young boy for his crime.]]

* HumanMomNonHumanDad: In "Dark Child", Tammy Sinclair was conceived when her mother Laura was abducted and raped by an alien in 1984. The relevant alien, posing as the English teacher Marcus Fellows at Fairmont High School, entered Tammy's life around the time of her 16th birthday. He tried to convince her to join him but she decided to stay on Earth with her mother instead.

* AmicablyDivorced: In "Tribunal", Aaron Zgierski and his ex-wife Gwen Sawyer are good friends. Gwen, who is an assistant district attorney, is helping Aaron with his investigation of Robert Greene, whom he correctly believes to be Nazi war criminal SS-Obersturmführer Karl Rademacher who killed his father Leon's first wife Miriam.

* FantasticAesop:
** In the episode "First Anniversary", two aliens who are stranded on Earth use their shapeshifting/psychic powers to make themselves appear as beautiful women to seduce men. The problem is that the effect wears off after a year of exposure and reveals their hideous true forms to their husbands. The guys can't handle this revelation and and are unable to see that TrueBeautyIsOnTheInside. However, the aliens are not just ugly but so [[StarfishAliens downright inhuman]] that even touching them makes the men violently ill and eventually GoMadFromTheRevelation. As a result they look less like a bunch of superficial jerks and more like a bunch of duped victims; it's implied that the two aliens have been doing this for some time, and one of them has already stopped caring about the damaging effect she has on humans.
** The episode "Unnatural Selection" dealt with the problems {{genetic engineering|IsTheNewNuke}} could cause a society, as [[DesignerBabies "fitter" babies]] grew into supermen and outpaced "normal" people. However, while this made for great drama in ''Film/{{Gattaca}}'' it was not nearly [[ScienceIsBad bad and horrifying enough]] for the show. So to spice things up, around 5% of all genetically modified children turn into the crazed descendants of [[TheIgor Igor]], and are [[KillItWithFire killed when found.]] Naturally, the couple who originally wanted this for their child have changed their minds, ''but'' the deformed child of the neighbors kills the back alley scientist before he can undo the changes, so the [[CruelTwistEnding episode's sad ending]] is that they'll never fully trust or love their genetically enhanced son.

** "First Anniversary": Despite her attempts to keep Norman Glass as her husband, Ady is unable to do so and when the effects of her hallucinogenic disguise wear ofFf, he becomes so repulsed by her true form that he is carried off by paramedics. Her friend's husband dies under similar circumstances. A while later Ady is seen changing her form again and is being chatted up by another man meaning she will have to repeat the cycle every year and will never find true love. (Oh, and she'll also probably drive many more men to insanity or death.)

* ApparentlyHumanMerfolk: In "The New Breed", a scientist is injected with nano-bots who "correct" his cancer and myopia. When he and his friend test the limits of the robots abilities, one of the tests is to see how long the man can stay underwater. The nano-bots misinterpret this by giving the man gills so he can breathe, seriously grossing shim out.