Descent (The Outer Limits)

"Descent"
The Outer Limits episode
Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 14
Directed by	Steve Anker
Written by	Erik Saltzgaber
Original air date	25 June 1999
Guest appearance(s)
Leland Orser Jenny Levine Greg Thirloway John Novak Frank C. Turner Benita Ha John "Bear" Curtis Robyn Driscoll David Neale

"Descent" is an episode of The Outer Limits television show. It first aired on 25 June 1999, during the fifth season.

Opening narration

“

What makes us human? Is it our basic instincts or our noble aspirations? Are we slaves to our genetics or masters of our fate?

”

Plot

Shy, unassertive researcher Dr. Arthur Zeller (Leland Orser) routinely admires a Homo erectus display in the Life Sciences department of his university and daydreams about what it would be like if he could only unlock the animal within him. It turns out his real life is that of a pushover, a "doormat" for his co-workers. Even a bum shakes him down regularly for "lunch money". All his brilliance and scientific accomplishments take a backseat to his meek personality and no one seems to take him seriously. One of his only solaces is his love of the classical works of a favored composer. He begins to try to make his dreams a reality by developing a kind of gene therapy which involves injecting himself with the genes for dominance extracted from primitive primates. This starts changing his entire personality. Zeller suffers from occasional lapses in which he reverts to the mind of a caveman and attacks his boss (John Novak), and kills and eats a dog.

Unfortunately, the changes may improve his life on many levels but they are doing nothing for his love life. His affection towards his co-worker Dr. Laura White (Jenny Levine) remains unrequited and so he decides to tip the scales. During a routine flu shot session, he surreptitiously injects Laura with the genes for submissiveness. The injection has severe side effects for Laura because her basic personality is not submissive at all, so she starts to pass out. Arthur takes her to his place and attempts to attack her, but regains control of his senses and begs her for help.

He tells her what he has been up to and the shocked Laura decides to help him develop a way of reversing the process. Together they come up with an experimental antidote, but things go really bad when he reveals to Laura that he had injected her with the submissiveness genes.

Seeing that he has blown his chance with her forever, Arthur escapes into the night with a batch of his syringes. Laura has a change of heart and follows him to offer her help, but it's too late for Arthur who had already injected himself with a megadose of the ape genes. She desperately tries to appeal to his humanity with his favorite classical music, but he smashes the tape player; he rejects his thinking, brilliant mind and only wants to feel the senses of his primitive self.

Arthur has now permanently become a caveman in both mind and physical form, finding some food out in the wilderness. However, his primitive mind is unable to comprehend that he is not in fact outdoors, but now living inside the very Homo erectus display he so admired. In her work clothes, Laura watches him in silence on the other side of the glass, then sadly turns and walks away.

Closing narration

“

Perhaps we can never fully escape the animals we once were, but with our minds and our hearts, we can always fight to remain human.

”

Cast

Leland Orser as Arthur Zeller
Jenny Levine as Laura White
Greg Thirloway as Dr. Jim Feind
John Novak as Professor Martin Standfield
Frank C. Turner as Mikulak
Benita Ha as the Cute Lab Technician
John "Bear" Curtis as a Bum
Robyn Driscoll as the Detective
David Neale as the Security Guard

External links

"Descent" at The Outer Limits official website
"Descent (The Outer Limits)" at TV.com
"Descent (The Outer Limits)" at Sci Fi
"Descent" at the Internet Movie Database

Season 1	"The Galaxy Being" "The Hundred Days of the Dragon" "The Architects of Fear" "The Man with the Power" "The Sixth Finger" "The Man Who Was Never Born" "O.B.I.T." "The Human Factor" "Corpus Earthling" "Nightmare" "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork" "The Borderland" "Tourist Attraction" "The Zanti Misfits" "The Mice" "Controlled Experiment" "Don't Open Till Doomsday" "ZZZZZ" "The Invisibles" "The Bellero Shield" "The Children of Spider County" "Specimen: Unknown" "Second Chance" "Moonstone" "The Mutant" "The Guests" "Fun and Games" "The Special One" "A Feasibility Study" "Production and Decay of Strange Particles" "The Chameleon" "The Forms of Things Unknown"

Season 2	"Soldier" "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" "Behold, Eck!" "Expanding Human" "Demon with a Glass Hand" "Cry of Silence" "The Invisible Enemy" "Wolf 359" "I, Robot" "The Inheritors" "Keeper of the Purple Twilight" "The Duplicate Man" "Counterweight" "The Brain of Colonel Barham" "The Premonition" "The Probe"

1995 series
(episodes)

Season 1	"The Sandkings" "Corner of the Eye" "Under the Bed" "Dark Matters" "The Conversion" "Quality of Mercy" "The New Breed" "The Voyage Home" "Caught in the Act" "The Message" "I, Robot" "If These Walls Could Talk" "Birthright" "The Voice of Reason"

Season 2	"Stitch in Time" "Resurrection" "Unnatural Selection" "I Hear You Calling" "Mind Over Matter" "Beyond the Veil" "First Anniversary" "Straight and Narrow" "Trial by Fire" "Worlds Apart" "The Refuge" "Inconstant Moon" "From Within" "The Heist" "Afterlife" "The Deprogrammers" "Paradise" "The Light Brigade" "Falling Star" "Out of Body" "Vanishing Act" "The Sentence"

Season 3	"Bits of Love" "Second Thoughts" "Re-Generation" "Last Supper" "Stream of Consciousness" "Dark Rain" "The Camp" "Heart's Desire" "Tempests" "Awakening" "New Lease" "Double Helix" "Dead Man's Switch" "Music of the Spheres" "The Revelations of Becka Paulson" "Bodies of Evidence" "Feasibility Study" "A Special Edition"

Season 4	"Criminal Nature" "The Hunt" "Hearts and Minds" "In Another Life" "In the Zone" "Relativity Theory" "Josh" "Rite of Passage" "Glyphic" "Identity Crisis" "The Vaccine" "Fear Itself" "The Joining" "To Tell the Truth" "Mary 25" "Final Exam" "Lithia" "Monster" "Sarcophagus" "Nightmare" "Promised Land" "Balance of Nature" "The Origin of Species" "Phobos Rising" "Black Box" "In Our Own Image"

Season 5	"Alien Radio" "Donor" "Small Friends" "The Grell" "The Other Side" "Joyride" "The Human Operators" "Blank Slate" "What Will The Neighbors Think" "The Shroud" "Ripper" "Tribunal" "Summit" "Descent" "The Haven" "Deja Vu" "The Inheritors" "Essence of Life" "Stranded" "Fathers and Sons" "Star Crossed" "Better Luck Next Time"

Season 6	"Judgment Day" "The Gun" "Skin Deep" "Manifest Destiny" "Breaking Point" "The Beholder" "Seeds of Destruction" "Simon Says" "Stasis" "Down to Earth" "Glitch" "Decompression" "Abaddon" "The Grid" "Gettysburg" "Nest" "Final Appeal"

Season 7	"Family Values" "Patient Zero" "A New Life" "The Surrogate" "The Vessel" "Mona Lisa" "Replica" "Think Like a Dinosaur" "Worlds Within" "In the Blood" "Flower Child" "Abduction" "Lion's Den" "The Tipping Point" "The Human Factor" "Human Trials"

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