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 actors
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

"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 1
Opening narration 2
Plot 3
Closing narration 4
External links 5

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.

”

External links

Episode on Hulu

The Outer Limits episodes

1963 series
Episodes

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"

Straight and Narrow (The Outer Limits)