Soldier, The Outer Limits – S02E01 (1964)

IMDb meta-data is: broadcast on 19 September 1964 for 52 minutes, rated 7.9 by 426 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy.

Verdict: Meow!

This IMDb summary leaves out the best part:  A soldier from the far future is accidentally teleported through time back to 1964. The psychiatrist assigned to examine the soldier realizes that he has been bred purely as a killing machine, but tries to reawaken the warrior’s humanity. Meanwhile, a second soldier arrives, dedicated to hunting and killing his enemy.  Yada, yada…

There is an opening scene on a vast no man’s land, potted with shell holes, mangled trees, laser blasted rocks, and a miasma hangs over it all as Cochise in body armour with a visored helmet creeps from shelter to cover. 

Just as Cochise closes in to kill Enemy in single combat, the two of them trip over a script and are hurled back in time 1800 years to era of the Yankee Dynasty in MLB.  Poor saps.  Once there an emeritus Mike Shayne sets about boring Cochise back to his lost humanity. There is marvellous scene when the suspicious Cochise, who thinks he has been taken prisoner by a clever and deceitful enemy disguised as an inept pensioner, sees a house cat and tries to communicate with it to escape these fiendish do-gooders.  This, however, is not a battle cat and scoots to the bowl.

Mike Shayne feels very smug in rekindling Cochise’s suppressed humanity with psycho-babble, right up until Enemy from that no man’s land arrives in his living room!  Human or automaton, a stereotype has got to do what a stereotype has got to do.  

After seeing this episode, no cat will ever look the same. I watched it again recently when I found it, after some searching, on Daily Motion, where finding anything happens by chance.