Final Exam (The Outer Limits)

Infobox Television episode
Title = Final Exam
Series = The Outer Limits


Caption =
Season = 4
Episode = 16
Airdate = June 5, 1998
Production = 78
Writer = Carleton Eastlake
Director = Mario Azzopardi
Photographer =
Guests = Michael St. John Smith, Brett Cullen, Peter Stebbings, Stellina Rusich, Kevin Tighe, Kyra Azzopardi , Sharon Alexander
Episode list = List of "The Outer Limits" episodes
Prev = Mary 25
Next = Lithia

"Final Exam" is the sixteenth episode of the fourth season of "The Outer Limits" television show. It was first broadcast on June 5, 1998.

Opening narration

"They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. But what of the man who possesses too much knowledge?"

Plot

Dr. John Martin (Brett Cullen), a negotiator for the Department of Energy Nuclear Response Team, is called in when a disgruntled grad student takes hostages at a university. The student, Seth Todtman (Peter Stebbings) claims to have invented a cold-fusion bomb and is threatening to detonate it, killing millions, unless the government brings him five people on a list and kills them for him. Martin's colleagues dismiss Todtman as a crank, until a sample device he provides goes off with megaton force, wiping out a DOE team and the top-secret facility where they work. Faced with an impossible choice, Martin meets with Todtman face to face and tries to understand the logic behind his rage at the people he wants killed: cruel foster parents, corrupt professors, a heartless librarian. As the clock ticks, Martin tries to reason with Todtman while the military tries to find a way to disarm the device. They assassinate Todtman and defuse the bomb, but he warns that just like the creation of the atom bomb, someone else will find a way to create another cold fusion bomb. At the end it shows a disgruntled student in a different college taking a test, one of the questions is "why cold fusion is impossible". He crumples the paper and leaves to carry on Todtman's work.

Closing narration

"If knowledge is power and power corrupts... how will humankind ever survive?"