The Vaccine (The Outer Limits)

Infobox Television episode
Title = The Vaccine
Series = The Outer Limits


Caption =
Season = 4
Episode = 11
Airdate = April 3, 1998
Production =
Writer = Brad Wright
Director = Neil Fearnley
Photographer =
Guests = Maria Conchita Alonso as Marie Alexander
Episode list = List of "The Outer Limits" episodes
Prev = Identity Crisis
Next = Fear Itself

"The Vaccine" is an episode of "The Outer Limits" television show. It first aired on 3 April, 1998, and was the eleventh episode of the fourth season.

Introduction

Most of the world is dead or dying from a worldwide, artificially engineered virus. Thirteen survivors are supplied with a vaccine, but there is only enough for three people.

Opening narration

"Along with futures we dare not imagine, come choices we dare not make."

Plot

A genetically engineered virus, developed and released by a doomsday cult, has wiped out almost all human life on Earth. Twelve hospital patients, accompanied by the one remaining staff member, nurse Marie Alexander, are living on borrowed time in the hospital, with food and fuel for the generator running dangerously low.

A soldier arrives with a newly developed vaccine, but Marie is horrified to learn that there is only enough for three people. Along with this, the vaccine requires three days to fully develop before it can be injected into any humans.

Marie only reveals to the group that there is a vaccine, not the amount, a fact she only reveals to her closest companion in the group, terminally ill cancer patient Bernard Katz.

When two members of the group discover the truth, they arm themselves with the only gun and force Marie to administer the vaccine to them, which she agrees to only if the third recipient is the child Harry. While she is preparing the vaccine, she turns her back only to see the third dose of vaccine being administered to one of the others, dooming young Harry to the virus.

Immediately, the three die of anaphylactic shock, leading Marie to conclude that the group survived not due to the hospital's sterile atmosphere but because they were immune, and after three months of confinement the group emerges from the hospital to face the new world.

Closing narration

"Though Survival of the fittest is the cornerstone of evolution, perhaps, the meek shall inherit the earth after all..."

External links

* [http://www.theouterlimits.com/episodes/season4/48.htm Episode Summary from the Outer Limits Website]