In Another Life (The Outer Limits)

"In Another Life"
The Outer Limits episode
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 4
Directed by	Allan Eastman
Written by	Naren Shankar, Brad Wright, Naren Shankar, Chris Brancato
Production code	?
Original air date	February 20, 1998
Guest appearance(s)
Kelly Rowan as Kristin Matthew Laurance and Mitchell Laurance as Mason Stark
Episode chronology

"In Another Life" is an episode of The Outer Limits television show. It was first broadcast on February 20, 1998, during the fourth season.

Opening narration

“

Do we have the power to shape our lives or are we predestined to be who we are? If our Fate is but one amongst many, then whose life, if anyone's, is real?

”

Plot

Mason Stark, a project manager for a company called Eigenphase, hates his life. A year ago, his wife Kristin was killed by a mugger's bullet; Mason still blames himself for failing to protect her. His depression continued to worsen, and today he was fired from his job. Mason is given a generous severance package, but in the privacy of his office he produces a gun — and contemplates killing either himself, or his coworkers. Rejecting murder, he puts the gun to his head. But right before he can pull the trigger, Mason becomes disoriented and vanishes, finding himself in a parallel universe — one where dozens of duplicates of himself are imprisoned in an Eigenphase lab. His counterpart indigenous to this universe is the CEO of the company.

The CEO version (Stark) explains to Mason that he built a machine called the Quantum Mirror, to explore all those different versions of himself. However, his experiments quickly turned to disaster — one of their counterparts is actually an insane killer (Mace), who murdered Stark's entire family. And Mason — the first version we met — has been enlisted to stop the killer. To Mason's surprise, Stark tells him that for whatever reason, he is actually the closest version to Mace, which makes him the most qualified to understand the murderer. To that end, Stark promises to reunite Mason with Kristin — specifically, her counterpart in this universe — as his reward.

Mason quickly learns that things are not as they seem. He is confronted by Mace, who he learns is actually much like himself, apart from one fundamental difference: Mace made the choice to burst out of his office and murder all of his coworkers at Eigenphase. Now that Mace has found himself in another universe, he has decided to put things the way he thinks they should be — by murdering all of the counterparts of the people he originally killed. Mace claims that he knows the truth about why they, and all of their counterparts, were brought here: Stark, the Mason of this universe, for all of his wealth and power hates his own life as well — and was looking for a version of himself who was happy, and whom he could replace. (Mace appeared happiest of all the duplicates, so he was chosen.) Once Mason stopped Mace, Stark would not honor his promise and instead send Mason back to his own universe.

Mason reluctantly teams up with Mace to return to Eigenphase and confront Stark. A fight breaks out, and two of the Masons — the murderer Mace and the CEO Stark from this universe — are trapped in the Quantum Mirror, which activates, sending them to other universes...

Mace appears in Mason's universe from the beginning of the episode. He is trapped to continue Mason's original action and shoots himself in the head. His coworkers, who hear the gunshot, investigate and discovering the body, wonder why he is so badly scarred...
Stark is sent to Mace's universe, right after Mace had killed his co-workers. Over his protests that he is not the murderer, Stark is shot to death by police.

In the end, Mason is left to take Stark's place as CEO of Eigenphase. He meets the local version of Kristin, and the two strike up a friendship...

Closing narration

“

If our lives are indeed the sum total of the choices we've made, then we cannot change who we are. But with every new choice we're given, we can change who we're going to be.

”

Trivia

Identical twin actors Mitchell Laurance and Matthew Laurance played the various versions of Stark in this episode. Which versions they played depended largely on the specific scenes (as various combinations of Stark appeared together); generally, Mitchell played the 'normal', protagonist version of Stark, whereas Matthew played the 'killer' and 'CEO' versions.
The spherical earth-like seen in previous seasons Birthright (The Outer Limits) The Voice of Reason (The Outer Limits) is present in the office of Stark.

External links

"In Another Life" at TV.com
"In Another Life" at the Internet Movie Database

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"

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