The Outer Limits (TV Series) The Duplicate Man (1964) User Reviews

Doubling Down

[henri sauvage · 8/10 · 18 February 2009]

When it comes to the ground-breaking sf anthology series "The Outer Limits", the episodes most people remember are often the more shocking and lurid, like "Corpus Earthling" and "Nightmare", or the superbly bizarre "Demon with the Glass Hand".

In its own quiet way, though, the "The Duplicate Man" is one of the most notable entries in the original series. The story -- written by well-known sf author Clifford Simak -- explores some unusual themes in Simak's own distinctively humanistic style, weaving a surprisingly complex and powerful narrative within the limitations of a 50-minute-long TV show.

"The Duplicate Man" is set in the early 21st Century, decades after the first interstellar expeditions of the 1980s and 90s. (Yeah, I know: "The Future ain't what it used to be.") Henderson James (Ron Randell) is a wealthy scientist whose obsession with studying an intelligent, telepathic, but implacably hostile and deadly alien lifeform known as a Megasoid is complicated by the fact that the creature is deemed so dangerous it's a capital crime to keep a living specimen anywhere near Earth. However, two years earlier he managed to bribe starship captain Karl Emmet (ubiquitous Irish character actor Sean McClory) to smuggle a live one in for him.

Of course the monster escapes. The good news is it isn't interested in going on an immediate rampage; the bad news is that's because it's getting ready to enter its reproductive phase. (I guess you only need one Megasoid for that.) Uncertain of his ability to kill the Megasoid on his own, James arranges for an illegal "bootleg" clone, programmed to hunt down and destroy the alien.

James is warned that his clone will quickly begin to assume more and more of the original's memories and identity, until the duplicate becomes indistinguishable from the original. (In fact, there have been several cases where the original was destroyed instead of the clone.) So the illegal duplicate will have to be eliminated as soon as he's completed his assignment.

The focus of the story then shifts to James' clone, as he wakes up in the museum where the Megasoid is hiding. When he confronts the alien, it tells him he's not the real Henderson James, but a temporary duplicate, then takes advantage of duplicate-James' shock and confusion to escape.

And then, as they say, complications ensue. The neat trick the author pulls here is to introduce James as a rather unlikeable individual who cold-bloodedly creates a disposable human being to deal with the dire consequences of his insane gamble. Then Simak turns right around and skillfully evokes the audience's sympathy for his duplicate. Uncertain of his identity, an inexorable fate hanging over him -- the duplicate's dilemma is something straight out of a film noir.

And like many episodes of the Outer Limits, this one has a distinctly noir look to it, too, especially since the story takes place over the course of a single night. It's also remarkable how the costuming and art direction achieve a striking "New Frontier Futuristic" ambiance with really very little. Jame's turbine-powered (ok, so it's just a sound effect) George-Barris-customized Buick Riviera is an especially cool prop, and the awesome "Chemosphere House" features prominently in several exterior shots, as well as an interior set designed to look somewhat like the real thing.

Of course, no episode of this series would be complete without Harry Lubin's eerie electronic score, including a wistful and haunting little theme associated with the duplicate Henderson James.

Though not quite as memorable as some of TOL's highly original aliens, the Megasoid is fairly scary -- if you can get past that silly beak. Better camera work and editing would have made it more terrifying, though I also have to say whoever wore the suit managed some disturbingly convincing moves, like when you see the creature from a distance, half-loping, half-scurrying across the grounds of James' estate.

But ultimately the Megasoid is more a plot device than a fully-realized entity. The real drama lies in the interaction between the duplicate and original James, and their(?) wife (Constance Towers). She finds herself torn between the two, attracted to the duplicate because his "younger" personality reminds her of James as he once was, before his obsession with the creature drove them apart.

A meditation on memory and identity, played out against a background of marital angst, set at night in a gloomy mock Tudor mansion with a ferocious alien monster roaming the grounds? This is why the original Outer Limits series remains unsurpassed in both style and content.

Good Premise -- Unnecessary, Cheesy Alien

[michaeldouglas1 · 6/10 · 19 April 2014]

This was one of the 2nd season shows, produced after the departure of the great Joe Stefano-Leslie Stevens team. As has been related in the book "The Outer Limits Companion", ABC-TV never quite understood the whole premise of "The Outer Limits," and was always pushing for a standard "monster-of-the-week" show. Ben Brady, the network-picked successor to Stefano-Stevens, knew he had to give them what they wanted, and so many of the 2nd Season episodes with promising story-lines got "mucked up" by the unnecessary inclusion of an alien or monster. "The Duplicate Man" is a case in point -- what started out as an interesting psychological and philosophical piece regarding cloning and the moral questions it raises sadly got dragged down by the presence of an alien.

In this case a ridiculous-looking "Megasoid" -- with costume parts left over from the 1st season's Empyrian of the "Second Chance" episode (played by Simon Oakland). This may have been economical, but the Empyrian was not among the great OL aliens to begin with. Not only is the Megasoid rather cheesy, and speaks with a surprisingly weak human voice, but it just doesn't seem very menacing. Hard to see why this Megasoid is worthy of the vast dread it obviously inspires among all the characters. So allegedly "dangerous and menacing" is the beast that Henderson James, who's shown as something of a coward, resorts to cloning himself so his duplicate will go out and kill it.

There are some serious plot holes regarding the first appearance of the Megasoid, as well. We're told that it was James, himself, who illegally imported the thing to earth a couple years before, but no explanation is given as to how it was suddenly able to break out of the room in his garden-house where it's been kept all this time. The iron bars are twisted like spaghetti -- but why didn't the Megasoid do this long before? Our first view of the Megasoid is while it's hiding out in a museum, in the display for a Megasoid, but there's no explanation of why it even went there. The duplicate James shows up at the museum armed with only a pistol (a snub-nosed .38 modified to look "futuristic") and succeeds in wounding it with one shot. Granted, at the end it does take a few more bullets to drop the Megasoid, but is this is the terror that all humanity has come to live in fear of? Aside from entering a "reproductive stage" the Megasoid's motives are murky; at times it seems to be simply sitting back and enjoying the show, telling the duplicate what he is, then watching the resulting melodrama.

The story does touch on some weighty moral issues, such as at what point does a clone become truly "human", and what is the morality of destroying these obviously living, feeling duplicates. Also how it is seemingly okay for the government to create these duplicates, but Henderson James subjects himself to "life imprisonment" for bootlegging one. The plot also highlights how, in turnabout fashion, the duplicate slowly gains emotions and memories of James' life, and it is he whom exhibits much more humanity, while the real James has become totally unfeeling and uncaring. When the duplicate comes home, James' wife notices the difference and correctly guesses the truth, and even seems to desire the duplicate take her real husband's place. The climax of the story is well-handled, with a nice twist woven in, and is photographed so we don't know immediately which of the two Henderson James' has been killed by the Megasoid.

This was definitely a story that, under the previous "Outer Limits" regime, might have dispensed with the alien altogether and concentrated on the moral dilemma of the situation. Many top OL episodes managed to delve into psychological and moral issues without resorting to an overt monster/alien menace (or at least keeping such menace in the background). Even the 2nd season's "I Robot" managed to keep the proceedings on a high philosophical plain, despite the actual presence of a robot as the major protagonist of the story-line. Still, for it's obvious warts, "The Duplicate Man" is an interesting, if not altogether successful, episode. (And worth a look for the famous futuristic "Chemosphere House" in Los Angeles -- the exteriors being filmed on location at the house!)

Almost....but not good enough.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 1 July 2012]

"The Duplicate Man" is a great example of a TV episode that tries to do too much. It's also a great example of a plot that really needed to be polished up before it was made. It's a shame, as the show sure had a lot of promise and could have been exceptional.

The show begins by learning that in the future there will be an ultimate evil creature, the 'Megasoid' but that it was deliberately exterminated by mankind because it was so dangerous. But, almost immediately after the audience hears this, they see that the stuffed dead one on exhibit in the museum is NOT dead but pretending.

In the next scene, you learn that a nasty rich guy, Mr. James, was responsible for bringing this horrible creature to Earth despite it being against the law. Why? We never really know but you could likely assume he did it simply because he could! But, when it escapes and potentially could reproduce itself, he decides to kill it by creating a duplicate of himself--a duplicate unaware of much of anything other than its need to kill the Megasoid. Naturally, it doesn't work out exactly as planned.

The show could have just been about the Megasoid and this might have made a good episode--provided, also, that the creature not look completely ridiculous (which it did). You just have to see it to believe it! The show could have been about the duplicate and the duplicate turning out to be a better man than the original! But that was lost among the Megasoid silliness. Streamlining the episode and making a semi-believable alien (if it would remain in the story) would have done wonders with this near miss.

This Is The Future

[StuOz · 19 July 2014]

A futuristic 21st century hour about duplicates and an ape-like monster.

The duplicates storyline is fine and very compelling, I can forgive the stupid looking ape-costume, but the thing to watch out for is the futuristic cars/phones/lights/buildings/cloths! The props/art department are the stars of this hour!

The building is question is the famous Chemosphere house which now requires research from me.

Another poster has noted how good the Harry Lubin music score is, but I don't agree, in fact I would go as far as saying that the season two scores are getting on my nerves!

1960s TV produced some of the best scores out (see Irwin Allen TV, Batman, Star Trek, The Invaders, The Outer Limits Season One) but the sleepy level of music is some of season two is just not good enough!

Megasoid Speculation

[statmanjeff · 7/10 · 16 September 2022]

Much story time goes toward the morality behind cloning, but in the main, not enough is said about the monster. It's a Megasoid, it's more evolved than a human (says who?), it's telepathic (when?), and it's extremely homicidal towards humans except when it's in a reproductive phase. Much remains sorely unapparent about this "monster," but now that I'm older than when I first saw it, I begin to wonder how these bits of info would have or should have fit together. Did the reason behind the vicious and murderous alien attacks stem from human thoughts? Did humans think of the aliens as grotesque or in terms of how to exploit them? Were the Megasoids unable to tune this out and, like a radio without an off switch, only able to find peace and silence from shouted thoughts by destroying the broadcasting systems (human brains)? That would seem a idea worthy of The Outer Limits - a species driven mad by the mere presence of devious, self-superior, disrespecting humans. Season two was under a lot of budget restraints, and cancelled, too. Under that kind of pressure, it is remarkable how palatable the Outer Limits team WERE able to make this episode and give it SOME good bones.

Five Hours

[AaronCapenBanner · 5/10 · 17 March 2016]

Ron Randel stars as Henderson James, a scientist in the near future who had successfully smuggled to Earth a fierce but banned alien creature called a Megasoid that has escaped from its captivity in his home. It is in its reproductive cycle, which means more of these things could emerge, so Henderson decides to handle the crisis himself by having a limited-life(5 hours) duplicate(clone) made to kill the creature, but instead it causes his wife Laura(played by Constance Towers) to prefer its company to his, since their marriage is on the rocks. Sean McClory co-stars as the spaceship captain who smuggled it to Earth for Henderson, and is called upon to help again. Good cast and set design, but marred by a ridiculous looking(if distinctive) monster, story flaws, and a slow pace. Towers is luminescent though(why does Henderson ignore her?)

I wanted to shut it off after only 5 minutes

[hung_fao_tweeze · 4/10 · 11 January 2015]

Clifford Simak is a fairly well-know science fiction writer though I am not very familiar with his work. I expected quite a lot by word of mouth, however. And maybe in the hands of OL's first season staff this could have played out more credibly and incredibly. We start off by being injected into a group of students being given a tour of a museum's collection of alien creatures thus far discovered. They are all stuffed and, therefore, dead -- or are supposed to be. However, the creatures are ridiculous in appearance and sport incredibly naive names (Megasoid!? c'mon!). By the time the tour guide (or is he the museum guard?) gets to the Megasoid and provides his ever so brief blurb about the characteristics and habits of this dreaded creature - closeup of the eye reveals that this creature isn't a stuffed museum prop. In fact, it reveals a very human eye looking out of an all too obvious eyehole in a bulky mask. Now I realize that OL doesn't have a budget and their effects don't always hold up well (refer to 'The Man With The Power' and the very visible wires for a levitating boulder), but viewers were able to get around bad effects because the stories eclipsed the lapses imposed by the budgets. In this episode it looks like they didn't even try. The Megasoid is, frankly, terrible. It's a large overly hairy fat kangaroo with a pronounced bony cranium (too hold all of that brain power they keep referring to, I imagine), a huge beak of some kind which probably doesn't function that way since the Megasoid has a very human mouth and teeth (groan). The only part of this costume that registers as potentially worrisome is its claws. Just a terrible costume (and I was able to accept George Barrows' in a gorilla suit with a space helmet in 'Robot Monster'). Even the Megasoid's voice is surprisingly articulate and meek - almost Roddy MacDowall-like.

Well, fortunately the Megasoid is mostly a plot vehicle for a man, who illegally brought this creature to Earth in the first place, to have a sort of clone of himself created with initial programming to kill the Megasoid and then return to the residence at midnight to be destroyed. The 'clone' must not be allowed to live passed five hours or it will begin to resurrect the memories of its source and become 'aware'. Shades of 'Blade Runner!! Considering that this 1964, this concept alone is worthy of a good OL episode and we dump the Megasoid altogether. But for some reason we had to have the ridiculous monster imposing himself on the plot at convenient interludes in order to provide a motivation for the characters.

I am not going to dwell further on this episode since my patience with OL season 2 is just about used up. I admit giving up on season 2 at the 4th episode in 1964 and have only recently seen this. The idea of clones or robot lookalikes and the eventual moral play surrounding this was done so much better in Twilight Zone's 'In His Image'. For me, alas, this is one OL episode I have no desire to see again.

Pretty Lame Stuff

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 19 January 2015]

The megazoid is a cross between a bad gorilla suit and a big parrot. It is also known as the most dangerous alien creature yet captured in some futurist time. To have one in your possession is a capital crime. A man of science whose marriage is falling apart because of his cowardice and insensitivity has one of these things in a kind of natural history setting. He must kill it because it is about to give birth and spread these things all over the planet. So what does a coward do? He goes to a place where duplicates of himself can be made. He spends a hundred thousand dollars for this purpose and the duplicate is born. He has a Cinderella thing going. He must kill the megazoid before midnight or he will go back to oblivion. Of course, things aren't that simple. The duplicate, over time, will begin to embrace the being of the original. This is fine until the guy shows up at the original's house. The beast has been shot but survives and wreaks some havoc. The creature is one of the dumbest looking low budget pieced together things ever put forward. There are some interesting things that go on, but overall, this is a clunker.

Credible and prophetic

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 3 October 2015]

The strength of this episode is twofold: the fine performance of Constance Towers as the wife of the clone; as well as the outstanding writing. There's a lot to think about with this episode and the concept of cloning would become a big issue decades later. I agree with others who may say the megasoid did not seem scary enough. I also found it laughable that the phones they are using are rotary-dial phones. At one point the year 1986 is mentioned, as a reference to something in the past...so clearly, the writers should have known that if phones have video capabilities in the future, they would probably be button-operated and that dials would be obsolete. Aside from this use of a 1960s telephone, the rest of the story seemed very credible...and hauntingly prophetic.

"What right did you have to take creation into your own hands?"

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 21 June 2022]

Very weak episode. Don't tell us the megasoid is the most fearsome animal ever to be captured from an alien planet, and then have it vulnerable to a revolver. The principals in the story talk about it reproducing to cause devastation on the order of wiping out half a city when you could take one out with a handgun. Speaking of which, when the 'real' Henderson James (Ron Randell) picked up the weapon to shoot the megasoid crashing through his window, another gun magically appeared on his desk from where he took it. The duplicate Henderson then picks it up in a standoff against the man he was cloned from. From the perspective of 1964 when this show aired, the story takes place in the way distant future of 2011. Unfortunately, the time line wasn't placed far enough ahead, as we still haven't captured an alien animal from outer space. And if something like the megasoid is all distant galaxies have to offer, I'd be willing to put up any of Earth's mighty creatures in exchange.

When "Blade Runner" and "Prince of Space" unite.

[fedor8 · 14 September 2021]

"Duplicate man" refers to illegal temporary clones used in the future, which in this case is roughly the first or second decade of the 21st century. A scientist who had been illegally keeping a megasoid - which then escaped - has himself cloned in order for the clone to catch this rare, violent bird before it breeds, multiplies and becomes a threat to mankind. The megasoid is such an extremely dangerous alien feathery fiend that it had been banned and wiped out on Earth in 1986, 21 years after TOL's cancelation.

1986, huh? That's roughly the time Sean Penn appeared in the public... Coincidence? Perhaps. Could Penn be the only surviving megasoid? He certainly fits the description: violent, devious, and has a bird's beak. Check, check, check, check and check. Also, the megasoid is described as having higher intelligence than humans...

OK, forget about Sean then. Clearly he doesn't fit the beak. I mean the bill. At all.

Anyway... The scientist's name is Henderson James instead of James Henderson, probably because this sounds more "futuristic".

Henderson doesn't go out to kill the bird himself because he is a coward. Then again, would a coward illegally hold a creature that could easily kill him? Would a coward defy laws that make him a felon? So this whole coward business doesn't quite add up. Committing a felony (cloning) to cover up another felony (harbouring a dangerous megaseanpenn) certainly seems even riskier than going for the kill himself. After all, the clone seems awfully confused, gets questioned by cops, and doesn't even accomplish his mission initially, barely wounding the Sean Penn creature. In fact, instead of having to kill "just" the bird, Henderson gave himself the additional task of getting rid of the renegade clone as well. Not the smartest cookie, this scientist - and this is not the only example of his ineptness.

For example, the whole escape thing. The megasoid being extremely violent, (allegedly) extremely intelligent and extremely illegal would surely mean that Henderson would keep him somewhere SAFELY, right? How the hell could it escape! Because the groundskeeper mistakenly opened a door?! Because Henderson had kept it in his damn basement like a pet instead of safely caged? The details of the escape aren't elaborated upon, but there is no doubt that Henderson is quite confused.

I do like the idea of these temporary clones being illegal and allowed to live only a few hours - when they had been in use i.e. Legal. It's a decent concept that is a sort of small precursor to "Blade Runner".

However, the bird looks stupid, resembling not only Sean, but being like a close cousin of the Birdman from the episode "Second Chance". I wouldn't be surprised if the same alien costume from that episode had been re-used, altered only slightly. The megasoid chicken might also be genetically connected to the inept bad guys from the Japanese kiddie sci-fi "Prince of Space".

The megasoid shows incompetence rather than skill and brilliance during his rather feeble escape from the Zoo/museum. The encounter between the bird and the clone was poorly scripted and directed. Generally speaking, the dialogue is somewhat uneven, meandering between stereotypically mediocre and solid.

Nor do we understand how the hell this bird managed to sneak from Henderson's cellar all the way to the City Zoo without getting shot, or at least spotted. Unless it can fly very high, there is no way it could do that. It appears to be a flightless chicken though... A flightless Sean that growls yet has the voice of an older woman: TOL's special-effects department must have been partaking in those early LSD experiments...

More logic holes come up when the clone phones up his "own" place, which leads Henderson's wife to find out about the cloning, which definitely wasn't planned, just as it wasn't planned that the clone attracts so much attention to himself. Speaking of plans, how did the real Henderson plan to get rid of his clone? He had admitted that he couldn't bring himself to kill his own clone. Why did the clone's creator wait so long to tell his client Henderson that the clone was set for destruction by midnight? (Obviously so the writer could thrown in a very dramatic plot-twist in the finale.)

What did the megasoid do with the stuffed megasoid he replaced in the Zoo? We are given to understand that this bird is of superior intelligence, but its ability to roam the city unnoticed proves not his smarts but that the writer is somewhat sloppy.

A glaring script error is that Henderson, who had studied the megasoid for two years, didn't realize that bullets wouldn't kill him, at least not easily and in small number. Some scientist, huh? The guy keeps this thing as a pet, and studies it for years, yet he had never bothered to read up the literature on how to kill one of them - just in case. I mean, considering how dangerous it is, and all... It took about ten bullets to finally kill the feather-brained bird.

The megasoid didn't display any above-average cunning. Far from intellectually superior. Both of his attacks on the Hendersons were clumsy and oafish, not at all thought-out or smart, both resulting in bullet wounds. He might as well have been an escaped ape, except twice as large, which is why his unnoticed roaming is so absurd. A dumb bird that got lucky, NOT a superior alien.

I like the fact that the premise tries to balance two very different themes, the hunt for the renegade loony chicken and the self-discovery of a confused clone. An unusual combination which sets this episode apart from the others, all of which are more linear. I am glad that the clone drama plot somewhat overshadows the monster-hunt plot.