"The Man Who Was Never Born" (original title: "Cry of the Unborn") is an episode of the original The Outer Limits television show. It first broadcast on October 28, 1963, during the Halloween week of the first season.[1][2] Its premise — preventing the birth of someone in the past to change the future — is echoed in the Terminator films. The episode has been described as a "perennial favorite among Outer Limits fans".[2]:129
Plot
After accidentally traveling through a time warp (a "time convulsion"), astronaut Joseph Reardon arrives on Earth in the year 2148.[2]:128 He finds a desolate world and an erudite but grotesquely mutated survivor named Andro.[2]:128 Andro explains that a biological disaster was caused by Bertram Cabot Jr., a "corrupt" 20th century scientist who isolated and developed an alien viral symbiont microbe that physically altered the entire human race and rendered it sterile.[1][2]:128 Andro laments that mankind has no hope of survival after the last of his generation die off.
But Reardon is determined to return to the past via the same time warp, with Andro along as a living warning of what the future holds.[2]:128 During their journey through the time warp, Reardon slowly fades away and vanishes,[2]:128 but manages to give Andro a revolver and tells Andro to kill Cabot if he must to save humanity.[1]
Now on Earth in the year 1963, and with the ability to make himself, with preparation, appear undeformed, Andro searches for Cabot and meets Noelle Anderson.[1] It soon becomes clear that he has arrived too soon: Bertram Cabot Jr. has not yet been born, and Noelle will shortly marry Bertram Cabot Sr.[1] In the guise of a normal human, Andro tries unsuccessfully to convince Cabot not to marry Noelle, an outcome that reflected Andro's lack of experience in interacting with people despite his being extremely well read.[1]
Andro begins to fall in love with Noelle, who lives in the boarding house that Andro had taken a room in.[2]:128 While attempting to shoot Cabot during the couple's wedding ceremony, Andro hesitates and is assaulted by Cabot and the wedding party.[2]:128 Andro's true grotesque appearance is revealed and he flees, though he is pursued by Cabot and other members of the wedding party.[2]:128 Noelle catches up to him and he explains his mission to her.[1] She confesses that she has fallen in love with him,[2]:128 and does not see his deformity.[2]:130 Noelle convinces Andro to take her with him to the future,[1] thereby avoiding any possibility that she will have a child with Cabot, and they leave in Reardon's ship.[2]:128
However, the flow of time has been altered by Andro and Noelle's actions: because Bertram Cabot Jr. was never born, the symbiont was never created, and Andro was never born. Andro vanishes just as the spaceship arrives in 2148 A.D., leaving Noelle, weeping, to face the future alone.[1][2]:129 The final scene, which has been described as being the "most famous" of the series,[1] breaks the fourth wall by showing Noelle in her spaceship seat next to a similar empty seat, on a dimly illuminated stage instead of in the confines of a spaceship.
It is interesting to note that the main antagonist, the "true monster" as it were, Bertram Cabot Jr., is never seen in the episode.[1][2]:130–131 The episode has been described as Science Fiction / Horror,[1] and the "first sheer fantasy" episode of the series, owing to lapses in logic in the story.[2]:130
The story's writer, Anthony Lawrence,[1] said in an interview that the story was inspired by "...one of my old favorites, Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, the French version, which was a beautiful film. I was thinking of that film, and also just the idea that had always kind of fascinated me. Joseph Stefano loved the idea, and it had [in it], as I remember, a lot of what I was feeling at the time. I always liked romantic stories, and this was a chance to do something that you really don't get to do very often in television. I gravitated toward that."[3][unreliable source] Lawrence's first draft was submitted in August 1963 as "Cry of the Unborn".[2]:131
La Jetée, 1962 French short film in which a man travels back in time from a devastated post-nuclear future as part of a project to rebuild.
12 Monkeys, 1995 American film based on La jetée in which the protagonist must find in the past the source of a bacteriological infection that has devastated his future earth.
"Patient Zero", episode of the 1990s Outer Limits revival series in which a future soldier travels back in time to prevent the formation of a deadly virus
