Outer Limits

There is nothing wrong with your TV set. We are controlling the transmission. We can control the vertical. We can control the horizontal. For the next hour we will control all that you see and hear and think. You are watching a drama that reaches from the inner mind to..."The Outer Limits." Those ominous words began the science-fiction anthology series "The Outer Limits."

A cracked cosmonaut helmet, footsteps in the moon dust, a mysterious flash of light outside a spaceship window — these are some of the images the Weinstein Co. has released from "Apollo 18," a documentary-style sci-fi thriller opening Friday that the studio is marketing as a movie culled from "found footage" from a U.S. space mission. "In 1972, the United States sent two astronauts on a secret mission to the moon," the trailer says. "Despite decades of denial by NASA and the Department of Defense, classified footage of the mission was leaked to the media.

Bug-eyed monsters ain't what they used to be. And so into the breach steps--or should we say, creepy-crawls--a cable revival of "The Outer Limits," due in weekly installments on Showtime. The original mid-1960s series was distinguished from that other science-fiction staple of the period chiefly, of course, by its producer's insistence that each week's show be written to incorporate a full-makeup creature. (Only a few episodes somehow slid by with an all-humanoid cast.

Shareece Wright would welcome a heavier workload Saturday when No. 20 USC plays Washington State in a Pacific 10 Conference opener at Martin Stadium. The senior cornerback is the most experienced member of USC's young secondary. He was mostly left alone the last two games as Virginia and Minnesota attempted to exploit freshman cornerback Nickell Robey and sophomore safeties Jawanza Starling and T.J. McDonald . "I got a couple throws in the Minnesota game, but that's about it," Wright said.

JOHN COLTRANE "The Major Works of John Coltrane" Impulse! * * * * This two-CD set chronicles Coltrane's creative state of mind in 1965, a time when he had become the patron figure in New York's burgeoning jazz avant-garde movement.

Twenty-year-old John Goetz, an office courier from Simi Valley and comic book enthusiast, has some esoteric tastes. "When I buy comic books, I generally look for stuff that seems out of the ordinary," he said. "Stuff from independent publishers, instead of major labels. One comic book I like is Yusagi Yojimbo. It's in English, but it's a comic book that's set in medieval Japan. The main character is a masterless Samurai rabbit. His lord dies early in the series . . .

If a science-fiction writer had to invent an art form existing on another planet, it might look like Richard Godfrey's "Clara's Song," an installation at Rancho Santiago College Art Gallery in Santa Ana. Visitors look through a window cut waist-high in a white wall to see a coldly perfect image: a blue pyramidal object suspended nose down above fathomless cloudy-blue water. On the surface of the water lies a glass-like floating black square.

Joseph Stefano, who wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller "Psycho" and was the influential first-season producer-writer of the 1960s science-fiction anthology TV series "The Outer Limits," has died. He was 84. Stefano, who underwent surgery for lung cancer in 2001, died of heart failure Friday at Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, said his wife of 52 years, Marilyn.

Without opening a door or stepping foot off stage, Art Davis took his audience outside for the finale of his concert with flutist James Newton on Saturday at Orange Coast College. The bassist-educator's quartet headed into the great musical outdoors with swirling cacophony, emotionally charged improvisations and the kind of unbridled interplay that marks the best avant-garde music.

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling all that you see and hear. You are about to participate in a great adventure ... --The Control Voice "The Outer Limits" is back. With a vengeance. Though the original '60s science-fiction anthology series created by Leslie Stevens aired only 16 months on ABC, it has developed a cult status over the past three decades, thanks to syndication and home video.

Government forces neared the Tamil Tiger rebels' main town in fighting that left 29 guerrillas and five soldiers dead, the Sri Lankan military said. The army says its soldiers are slightly more than a mile from the outer limits of the rebels' administrative capital, Kilinochchi. Rebel officials could not be contacted for comment because most communication lines to guerrilla-dominated areas have been severed.

THE most famous riff in rock is the 3 1/2 -chord skull buster that stalks Deep Purple's 1972 "Smoke on the Water" -- a branding moment in the infancy of heavy metal. And as Deep Purple's set at last year's Montreux Jazz Festival (recently documented on DVD) climbed to its climax, the customers stood waiting for that coup de grace. Then it came. Sort of. Goateed Don Airey tinkled a sprightly mutation of the "Smoke" melody on piano.

The many facets of saxophonist Kenny Garrett's musical imagination were on full display by his quartet Saturday night at Catalina Bar & Grill. Opening with a stunning burst of notes that must have scared the wits out of the weekend date-night couples sprinkled throughout the near-capacity crowd, Garrett then ripped into a long, exploratory solo that scoured the outer limits of his alto saxophone.

Joseph Stefano, who wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller "Psycho" and was the influential first-season producer-writer of the 1960s science-fiction anthology TV series "The Outer Limits," has died. He was 84. Stefano, who underwent surgery for lung cancer in 2001, died of heart failure Friday at Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, said his wife of 52 years, Marilyn.

Donald Crockett's new "The Ceiling of Heaven" would make a striking impression anywhere. But placing this five-movement piano quartet at the end of an Xtet new music group program Monday evening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art powerfully completed a cannily planned journey.

"Are we riding bicycles or are we running?" Local cyclist Dorothy Wong describes the basic confusion inherent in the mutant sport of cyclocross. "You're getting on the bicycle, then getting off the bicycle, then getting on. You're riding, then running and jumping." Confusion is a constant companion in the multi-tasking realm of cyclocross, which resembles a bike steeplechase race -- complete with hurdles you leap over with your bike -- except for the little matter of the hills.

Vic Perrin, a mainstay of radio's Golden Age who was heard more often than he was seen on television, died Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of cancer. The voice known to millions for intoning, "There is nothing wrong with your television set. . . . Do not attempt to adjust the picture. . . . We are controlling transmission . . .," was 73.

The sight of workhorse closer Eric Gagne pitching four consecutive days no longer raises eyebrows, so Gagne's save Friday night of a 4-3, 10-inning interleague victory over the Cleveland Indians at Jacobs Field was business as usual for the hot Dodgers. What might occur today would be groundbreaking.

There was a "Twilight Zone" episode 40 years ago about a boxing mismatch between androids, an outdated B-2 named Battling Maxo and a state-of-the-art B-7 named the Maynard Flash. Maxo is so run down that he can't make it out of the dressing room for the opening bell, forcing his manager, Steel Kelly, to disguise himself as an android and enter the ring even though it was illegal for humans to fight. Predictably, the Maynard Flash almost kills Kelly.