Straight and Narrow (The Outer Limits)

"Straight and Narrow"
The Outer Limits episode
Episode no. Season 2
Episode 8
Directed by Joseph Scanlan
Written by Joel Metzger
Production code 30
Original air date 23 February 1996
Guest appearance(s)

Peter Yunker as Instructor,
Ryan Phillippe as Rusty Dobson,
Tom Butler as the Doctor,
Tygh Runyan as James Scardale,
Steve Makaj as Officer Brown,
Peter Donat as Principal Kern,
Campbell Lane as Roland Baker,
Kavan Smith as Aloyson Tenner,
Jonathan Scarfe as Charlie Walter

Episode chronology

"Straight and Narrow" is an episode of The Outer Limits television series. It was first shown on 23 February 1996, during the second season.

Introduction

A mother sends her recalcitrant son, Rusty Dobson, to the Milgram Academy in a misguided desire to instill discipline and make him conform to her expectations regarding his future career.

Opening narration

In our relentless pursuit of career and worldly possessions, is it we who pay the highest price or is it...our children?

Plot

The administrators are actually controlling the students through a chip inserted into their heads. They want to create a group of business executives who are willing to commit murder in order to make more money for their companies.

Rusty and one other student are immune to the chip because of a medicine they are taking for ulcers.

The other student wants to wait to graduate, and then expose the place to the outside world. Rusty is convinced that this is a bad idea, and wants to escape. However, as soon as he approaches the boundary of the academy, the chip in his head gives him a severe migraine.

At the end of the episode, Rusty manages to escape by stealing the security clearance cards from the administrator's office and disabling the boundary control system. His fellow students chase after him, but he re-activates the system and they are unable to follow him past the walls of the academy.

He tries to call his mother from a payphone, but she is busy in an office. He heads to site of an assassination plan he knows of, but two policemen detain him. His friend from school performs the assassination while the policemen are shown to bear the distinctive scar from the computer chip implantation.

Closing narration

It's said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It is with these same good intentions that we blindly place our trust in those with power, the architects of our future and all too often, the manipulators of our ultimate fate.
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