The Outer Limits Tribunal (1995–2002) Online

This is a wonderful episode. It would stand up as an excellent mainstream movie. It involves a lawyer's effort to bring to trial and punish a man who, at Auschwitz, killed his mother in cold blood. The man was pure evil. He works hard to come up with evidence. So much time has passed and there is little that would hold up in court. He confronts the man (in his eighties now) on the street, but is seen as a pest and at best cruel. He enlists the help of his ex-wife, another lawyer, but she advises him to forget it. It's much too complicated and the guy isn't going to be around much longer. Enter a time traveler, who, by using a watch, is able to actually go to Auschwitz in 1944 and observe. He is able to provide our lawyer with evidence to use against the guy. There are some wonderful plot turns and the acting is superb. One could take issue with the implications of traveling back in time, but at least it is not ignored by the characters.I couldn't take my eyes off this episode, certainly a high point for the series. The Auschwitz scenes are as graphic as Schindler's List and capture the heartlessness of the SS.

Sam Egan, probably the series' best and most innovative writer, was inspired to write this episode as a result of his family's tragic past. His father (whom I believe has died at some point during the intervening decade) survived the horrors of Auschwitz but his (first) wife and their daughter did not. Egan himself is a product of his father's second marriage, to another survivor. This is identical to the backstory provided for this episode's protagonist Aaron Zgierski and his elderly father Leon.

In March 1944, Leon's wife was murdered in front of him by a particularly sadistic young SS officer named Karl Rademacher. This brutal crime is witnessed by many, including a prisoner who seems to vanish into thin air when he is pursued by his Nazi captors. In the present day, his son Aaron is convinced that a seemingly innocuous Swiss immigrant named Robert Greene is Rademacher. Disgusted that he has managed to evade justice (and indeed death) for more than five decades, Aaron is committed to bringing him to justice in order to both avenge the deaths of the family members whom he never knew and give his father some peace. In his attempts to do so, he stumbles on numerous legal roadblocks relating to the fact that he has no real concrete evidence to confirm that Karl Rademacher and Robert Greene are one and the same.

Soon after confronting Greene, Aaron is approached by the enigmatic Nicholas Prentice who shares his goal. Prentice provides him with Rademacher's SS jacket and other forms of documentation to aid him. However, Aaron is suspicious as to how Prentice obtained these items and breaks into his hotel room. While there, he comes across a fob watch and, upon opening it, is transported to the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in March 1944, only days after his stepmother's murder. Aaron makes the revelation that Prentice, like Greene is more than he appears. He is a time traveller from the future.

The lead guest role is played by the German-born Canadian actor Saul Rubinek who, like Sam Egan, is the child of survivors of the Holocaust. Both of these men and their respective families have an unenviable insight into the greatest war crime ever committed. Egan's writing hits the perfect note. Through Aaron and Leon Zgierski, it epitomises how tragedies and the wounds of war can echo through a family's history, effecting not only those left behind but those who were born many years afterwards such as their children. As previously mentioned, the subject matter hits home for Saul Rubinek. Though known primarily for playing comic characters such as Donny Douglas in the sitcom "Frasier", he displays his dramatic range wonderfully in this episode. He turns in a sensitive yet passionate portrayal of a man who is desperate to punish the monster responsible for the deaths of more than 3,500.

The role of SS First Lieutenant Karl Rademacher is played by Alex Zahara, an extremely versatile actor perhaps best known for his various roles in "Stargate SG-1" and other Canadian produced science fiction series such as "Jeremiah" and "Andromeda". His role is relatively small yet pivotal for the reasons stated above. The expression of utter glee on his face and in his (very distinctive) eyes when participating in the murder of innocents is simply terrifying. I fear that I will never be able to look at another of Zahara's performances without being reminded of this one.

The octogenarian Greene is played by Czech actor Jan Rubes. As with Zahara, his role is small but pivotal. Again like Zahara, his performance is extremely powerful. I believe that it is fair to say Rubes is best known for playing likable (even lovable) elderly foreign gentlemen such as the Amish patriarch Eli Lapp in "Witness", Jan in "D2: The Mighty Ducks" and Nicholas Ballard in "Stargate SG-1". In this instance, he was cast against type. Nevertheless, it was a deft piece of casting and I could not imagine anyone other than Rubes playing the role. Though he has little screen time, he brings an intensity to the role that lesser and/or younger actors could not hope to muster. Within a career reaching to the 1940s, he has much experience to call upon.

The same can be said for the late Peter Boretski, who portrayed the elderly Leon Boretski in the 1990s sequence. His understated performance is particularly effective when he is explaining the meaning of the phrase "Arbeit Macht Frei" and its significance to his son. He has clearly told the story many times but the emotion in his voice suggests that his pain has barely diminished in more than 50 years. His finest hour is the final scene of the episode, however, which must be seen. A description cannot do it justice.

In conclusion, this was an amazingly well thought-out and sensitive portrayal of the grief felt by those left behind and those to whom they pass it on. This episode should be shown in history classes to illustrate how deeply the wounds of war can run through a family, to paraphrase the opening narration. It is simply one of the best scripts written for any television series.

Appropriately, it closed with the following words "Dedicated to the memory of my father who survived Auschwitz...and his wife and daughter who did not. Sam Egan, Executive Producer"

I have watched this episode countless times and have marveled at the story, the story telling and the terrifying reality of it's subject matter.

It is not an easy hour to spend. Reliving elements of the Holocaust from another dimension however, brings a new wrinkle in the fabric of this, one of the most pivotal moments in all human history.

The issues which are brought to the table are how we can now reconcile our continued pain and somehow avenge against those who perpetrated these heinous acts.

If you were Aaron Zgierski, the protagonist of this story, would you take the law of equalizing old but deeply painful acts into your own hands? Could we live with the guilt? Could we bring ourselves to go through this retribution? The production is a special one, because it is dedicated to the family of the writer of this story, who perished in the Holocaust.

The ending is uniquely poignant as it brings the past into the present in the special way which only Outer Limits could pull off.

I recommend it to everyone, even after we near the 60 year mark of the end of that war. Because it achieves in one short but intriguing hour what few episodes of this series ever did. It brought us deep into the humanity of the subject matter in the most real sense.

Jewish camp prisoners, marching in the mud and cold rain. In those dreadful striped uniforms, surrounded by barbed wire, dogs and guards.

Defiance from one young man, Leon Zgierski, who is a prisoner with his wife and his daughter.

His wife pleads that Leon's life be spared. She is killed instead. Then as Leon cries in anguish, his terrified little girl is taken away.

By two SS Guards.

Then a prisoner is seen with a strange glowing amulet. The prisoner flees into a bunker where he mysteriously vanishes before the guards' eyes in a strange glow.

The prisoner, it seems, is actually from the future, way into the future, and is seeking to have the guard, Rademacher, brought to justice for his crimes, by aiding the son of Zgierski, Aaron, who is an attorney and likewise is trying to incriminate Rademacher.

Nothing seems to work. It is all too circumstantial. Then Aaron learns this man from the future is also a descendant of Leon's, as well as of Aaron's.

One big happy family.

Finally, the vengeful Aaron forces Rademacher to put on a prisoner outfit and they travel into the past, Rademacher, Aaron and the man from the future.

There the elderly Rademacher, finally revealing who he really is, meets his fate.

And Zgierski's young daughter who vanished, believed to be a victim of the holocaust? She who was swept away by those two SS guards? She would have been Aaron's older sister, and a distant relative of the time traveler (I think his name was Nicholas Prentice) from the future, so they both essentially had a personal interest in seeing her rescued.

A split second decision.

Very amazing story, especially in that the time traveler could wear both the prison garb and the SS guard outfit and fit in so well.

Rather creepy actually.

But then I guess we mustn't judge on appearances, must we?