I’ve never watched a single episode of a “reality” TV series—well, except for SyFy’s So You Want to be a Superhero, but superheroes don’t qualify as reality.
Come to think of it, neither does Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (the name alone gives me hives), Duck Dynasty, or any other shows that pretend to be objectively observing “real” people going about their lives, when in real reality they're structured for maximum drama via producers who tell their narcissistic, exhibitionist “stars” exactly what they want to them to do, and shoot them over and over until they get it right.
My little diatribe was triggered by the news that DD family patriarch Phil Robertson has been “suspended” from the show for his troglodytic comments re gays and black people. So what’s going to happen on the show—is grandpa going to visit relatives? On vacation? In the hospital? (Sitcom excuses I’ve heard in the past when an actor takes ill or holds out for more money.) Are they going to pretend he doesn’t exist during his exile? I suspect the last thing you’re going to hear is a relative explaining “he shot his mouth off and the network wants to keep him out of sight for a while.”
These thoughts (not to mention the ongoing NSA revelations) led me to a favorite TV show of mine, the original Outer Limits series, and to be specific a 1963 episode titled “O.B.I.T.” Follow me through the swirling orange wormhole and I’ll explain why.
The idea of people volunteering to live out their supposed private lives in full view of the rest of the world, the opposite of what most of us would prefer for ourselves, is also the opposite of the theme of this episode—the ability to eavesdrop on anyone, anywhere, without their knowledge or consent.
Which it turns out, is exactly what the NSA has been up to. Anyway, in the episode an ominous machine, the “Outer Band Individuated Teletracker” is able to tune in on any person via their biological ‘signal’—a combination of their pulse, respiration, nervous system activity, etc.
It’s led to a murder at a top-secret Defense Department installation, and a crusading senator (who bears an obvious resemblance to JFK—the episode aired three weeks before November 22) arrives to find out what’s going on. He discovers a completely demoralized base where no one feels secure, knowing their most private thoughts and behavior are somehow under observation.
There’s some beautiful dialog in this episode, as when an elderly scientist reveals he was taken in for questioning about letters criticizing his superiors he wrote and destroyed without anyone seeing them:
They know—they know everything. They know what you say in your sleep, and everyone’s rumors, fears. Cypress Hills is just like a ghost town. People whisper in their own houses. Husbands distrust their wives. And…nobody laughs
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Turns out no one knows where the machine came from or who actually authorized its use—authorization came from somewhere up above the chain of command. Ultimately, Senator Orville uncovers the truth…
SPOILERS AHEAD—YOU’VE BEEN WARNED
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The machine (and it turns out there are hundreds of them, throughout the government, military and private business) is an alien invention, designed to rob us of any sense of privacy, leading to a world of frightened people afraid to trust each other—and making us easy prey for that planet’s eventual invasion.
In a great visual effect (for its day, and it still holds up nicely), the mastermind—one of the people in the hearing room—is revealed as an alien on the device’s big round screen. Still in human form though, he leaps to his feet, and moving in more or less perfect synchronization with his onscreen true self, delivers an arrogant, smug speech to the onlookers:
The machines are everywhere! Oh you'll find them all, you're a zealous people. And you'll make a great show of smashing a few of them. But for every one you destroy, hundreds of others will be built. And they will demoralize you, break your spirits, create such rifts and tensions in your society that no one will be able to repair them! Oh, you're a savage, despairing planet, and when we come here to live, you friendless, demoralized flotsam will fall without even a single shot being fired. Senator, enjoy the few years left you. There is no answer. You're all of the same dark persuasion! You demand – insist – on knowing every private thought and hunger of everyone: Your families, your neighbors, everyone — but yourselves.
He vanishes in a flash, and as the stunned onlookers shuffle out of the room, the series’ “Control Voice” (who opens every episode with his famous “do not attempt to adjust your television—we are controlling transmission” introduction) sums things up:
Agents of the Justice Department [Scully and Mulder, perhaps?] are rounding up the machines now. But these machines, these inventions of another planet, have been cunningly conceived to prey on our most mortal weakness. In the last analysis, dear friends, whether O.B.I.T. lives up to its name or not—will depend on you.
I saw the episode in its original airing 50 years ago, and I’ve never forgotten his warning. What most considered a silly, ‘monster of the week’ TV series at the time is addressing me as a “dear friend” and challenging me to live a moral life; for better or worse, and for many reasons including
The Outer Limits, I’ve tried to live up to that challenge.
Apart from the fact the NSA is probably working on an O.B.I.T. device even as we speak (if they don’t already have one), here’s the real irony: O.B.I.T., shmobit: nowadays there's no shortage of people eager to toss their privacy aside and live out their lives in front of the entire world.