A timid scientist becomes obsessed with the lost potential of human beings and fantasizes about becoming more assertive and dominant in his life. But when his research leads him to develop a formula to increase aggression, he discovers that there is a reason human beings have evolved beyond our primal instincts.
Opening narration
| "What makes us human? Is it our basic instincts, or our noble aspirations? Are we slaves to our genetics, or masters of our fate?" |
Plot
Shy, unassertive researcher Dr. Arthur Zeller daydreams about what it would be like if he could unlock the animal within him. It turns out his real life is that of a "doormat" for his co-workers and even for a bum who shakes him up regularly for "lunch money". All his brilliance and scientific accomplishments take a backseat to his personality and no one takes him seriously. He begins to try to make his dreams a reality by developing a kind of gene therapy which involves injecting himself with the genes for dominance extracted from primitive primates. This starts changing his entire personality. Zeller suffers from occasional lapses in which he reverts to the mind of a caveman and attacks his boss, and kills and eats a dog.
The changes may improve his life on many levels but they are doing nothing for his love life. His affection towards his co-worker Dr. Laura White remains unrequited and so he decides to tip the scales. During a routine flu shot session, he surreptitiously injects Laura with the genes for submissiveness. The injection has severe side effects for Laura because her basic personality is not submissive at all, so she starts to pass out. Arthur takes her to his place and attempts to rape her, but regains control of his senses and begs her for help. He tells her what he has been up to and the shocked Laura decides to help him develop a way of reversing the process. Together they come up with an experimental antidote, but things go bad when he reveals to Laura that he had injected her with the submissiveness genes. Seeing he blew his chance with her forever, he escapes into the night with a batch of his syringes.
Laura has a change of heart and follows him to offer her help, but it's too late for Arthur who had already injected himself with a mega-dose of the ape genes. Arthur becomes a test subject for his former coworkers, kept in a glass enclosure so they can study him..
Closing narration
| "Perhaps we can never fully escape the animals we once were, but with our minds, and our hearts, we can always fight to remain human." |
Notes
- At one point, Dr. James Feind can be seen reading the newspaper The Tribune. The headline is "Horowitz Executed", a reference to the event that does / does not happen in the alternate timelines created by time travel in "A Stitch in Time". This implies that the events of "Descent" occur in one of those timelines. The same newspaper is later seen in "Fathers & Sons".
- This episode is included on The Outer Limits: Mutation & Transformation Collection DVD set.
- This is the only episode written by Eric Saltzgaber.
Cast
- Leland Orser as Dr. Arthur Zeller
- Jenny Cooper as Dr. Laura White (as Jenny Levine)
- Greg Thirloway as Dr. James Feind
- John Novak as Dr. Martin Stansfield
- Frank C. Turner as Mikulak
- Benita Ha as Cute Lab Technician
- John 'Bear' Curtis as Bum
- Robyn Driscoll as Detective
- David Neale as Security Guard
- Kevin Conway as the Control Voice (voice)