The Outer Limits (TV Series) White Light Fever (1995) User Reviews

You can cheat death until it decides to cheat back

[Bored_Dragon · 7/10 · 12 December 2018]

Over a hundred years old billionaire covers all costs of experimental cardiological research for having doctors keeping him alive in return... forever? Cleverly using wealth and regulations, he manages to put himself in front of all, and even blackmails doctors to neglect other patients if needed. I suppose the episode aimed to condemn the selfishness and cowardice, but it did not cause this effect in me, and I think it has perfectly demonstrated the relativity of ethics and morality. William Hickey is excellent in the role of an old man who refuses to die, the effects are quite satisfactory, and the episode has a great atmosphere. After five episodes, I can say that this is the best series of this type I've seen so far.

7/10

Good Performances Weak Religious Clichés

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 25 February 2014]

An ornery billionaire has his own suite at a hospital where research is being done on a modified heart. The old guy is about as nasty as one can get. He has the bad ticker and is pretty much holding the hospital and its principle researcher hostage. His money is talking as loudly as he is. People who are eligible for heart transplants are overlooked so the old guy can supersede their moral rights. Now throw in the old light in the tunnel thing that has been bandied around forever and a few close trips for our patient, and we have the moral dilemma to the nth degree. But there is a force out there that seems to be attacking the old man. It is lightning-like and it travels through electric cords, computers, and even elevator cables. The researcher must make a decision to save a nineteen-year- old patient or give the donor heart to the insufferable man. He chooses the latter and then the forces get stronger in retaliation. Unfortunately, there are the usual heaven and hell clichés and it's hard to take it very seriously.

"I won't live hooked up to any damn machine!"

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 13 July 2022]

It may have been a malevolent force at work, but the number of electrical problems in the story defied all the laws of probability. And why go after the hapless electrician making eleven bucks an hour? He was only doing his job. In any event, this was a classic study attempting to answer the question of who should live and who should die. Dr. McEnerney's {Bruce Davison) decision was constrained by a legal document being enforced by rich billionaire Harlan Hawkes (William Hickey) who was funding the doctor's research into an exocardial heart frame. The device looked kind of interesting but you had to be quick to catch it. A young girl's death when denied a heart transplant caused McEnerney to reevaluate his commitment to Hawkes, and could have caused massive legal complications, but death intervened once again to claim the life of the hundred two year old curmudgeon. If there's any comfort to be found in the story, it occurs when eighteen-year-old Jessie Wells (Michelle Beaudoin) meets Hawkes on the 'other side', as she prepares to journey to a nice, warm place in contrast to one's normal expectation of what the alternative would be.

This Episode Makes No Sense

[aristotle61 · 4/10 · 24 November 2020]

Despicable 102 year old man uses his massive wealth to get a heart that could have saved an eighteen year old. He supposedly cheated death, and death is trying to get him. At the end of the episode, after he died, he sees the eighteen year old girl that died because of him at the entrance to the tunnel of light he is about to enter. He asks to go with her, but she says he can't because he is going to a different place than her. The obvious implication is that he is going to hell.

Now there's nothing really wrong with this scenario as far as I have explained it so far, but the problem is that if he was going to hell, and she was going to heaven or some place good, you would think that the force that was after him was good. However, this force, whatever it was, killed an innocent man, and tried to kill the doctor as well. It also threatened more. I don't understand why they did this. It kind of ruined the episode. Maybe I'm missing something and someone else can give a rational explanation for this.

Ageism with a dollop of Unjust Theology

[markbyrn-1 · 2/10 · 19 May 2024]

In this episode, we have a selfish rich and very old man named Harlan Hawkes trying to cheat death. Not surprising, I found the writers pushed ageist narratives such as the notion of old people being selfish curmudgeons and older people should be less entitled to life than younger people. The conclusion was somewhat predictable in the sense that Hawkes could not cheat death but his selfishness also led to the death of a young woman. There was an afterlife scene in which Hawkes apparently consigned to a harsh eternal fate while the young woman went to a peaceful afterlife. I suppose one might call it karma but Hawkes fear of death had been explained by him witnessing the murder of his parents when he was a child and having to hide under their lifeless bodies. Hence, one might question the 'god' of the afterlife for not considering the unimaginable psychological trauma that adversely affected his entire life. But we can't expect theology to be just, and certainly not rational.

Ethical quandaries: Quanitity vs quality of life

[movieman_kev · 8/10 · 17 May 2007]

Harlan Hawkes (the always recognizable, always enjoyable late great William Hickey) is an obscenely old man who's so afraid of death that he keeps a highly trained medical team on call around the clock in order to cheat death as long as possible, to the detriment and neglect of all of the other hospital's patients. Over the course of the 44 minutes, you'll be privy to his deepest, darkest secrets. I found this episode to be very enjoyable, thanks, in no small part, to the quality of acting b y Hickey and Bruce Davidson (the doctor who's most involved in his case). All of the others involved give serviceable to kinda poor acting jobs. But those two carry this. Also it doesn't hurt that i find the theme of attempting to cheat death usually always fascinating.

My Grade: B+

A surprisingly emotional forty minutes

[wiedemanjesse · 9/10 · 19 May 2020]

I'm a big fan of William Hickey and ended up seeing this episode of a series I'd heard of but had never seen. I enjoyed it far more than expected, even if it was for complex reasons.

Harlan's actions as selfish and evidence of how horrible he is, but I see it differently.I have a chronic illness that will likely kill me one day, so I understand how desperate and powerful the will to live is even if it is not rational. The fact that the force had been pursuing him since he was nearly killed as a child makes Harlan's inevitable fate seem almost cruel.

This episode is done so well because of the moral gray areas portrayed, how most every character has complex and conflicted motivations, and how Harlan-with their actors being the best in the episode in part because of their interplay- and his doctor in the end cannot be judged as entirely good, bad, or justified in their actions. Who has the right to live and when can life be ended for the greater good is displayed in a uniquely fascinating-and unexpectedly personal-way.