Publicity Still of Nicholas Lea as Jacob Hardy
Main Cast: Tom Irwin : Dr. Ian Michaels Nicholas Lea : Jacob Hardy Stacy Grant : Kara Delaney Don MacKay : Ollie Gibb Sarah-Jane Redmond : Kelly Risely Michael Kopsa : Curtis Sawyer Bill Smitrovich : Lieutenant Joseph Dane Featuring: Corrine Koslo : Abby Rachel Victoria : Shana Michael St. John Smith : Angus Wheaton Ron Small : Harold Sanborn Nicole Robert : Librarian Betty Linde : Helen Darnell Candus Churchill : Nurse Maya Massar : Daria Michaels   Based Upon the Original Episode By: Sam Neuman & Seeleg Lester & Ed Adamson   Written By : Sam Egan Directed By : Mike Rohl

Jacob Hardy
The Outer Limits:
The Inheritors

(episode #5.17) 16 July 1999
 
 

Synopsis

Musician Jacob Hardy (Nicholas Lea) is strolling with his fiancee Kara Delaney (Stacy Grant) when a meteor explodes over the city. One of the tiny fireballs which rain down seems to chase Jacob, striking him down and penetrating his skull, instantly killing him. Medical Examiner Dr. Ian Michaels (Tom Irwin) conducts the autopsy with the help of his assistant, Ollie Gibb (Don MacKay). He finds an unusual bullet-like projectile lodged in the victim's brain.

Moments after removing the object, the hole in Hardy's skull begins to emit an eerie light, and a horrific tentacle emerges, thrashing briefly before retreating back into the wound. And, more astonishing still, the corpse sits bolt upright, shoves the coroners aside and escapes into the night. Ian, shaken, reports the bizarre events to homicide investigator Lt. Joseph Dane (Bill Smitrovich), who is skeptical to say the least. The mystery deepens, when during a visit to his comatose wife (a long-term victim of a hit and run driver) at a local hospital, Ian learns that Jacob Hardy was not the only meteor casualty who had inexplicably risen from the dead. So did taxi driver, Curtis Sawyer, and waitress Kelly Risely (Sarah Jane Redmond).

Police Lieutenant Dane investigates and learns that all three have apparently become borderline geniuses in the wake of their transformations. More unsettling, they seem to be working in concert. Unbeknownst to Ian or the police, the three meteor victims are using the alien projectiles which struck them, to build a mysterious machine, capable of vaporizing any living thing. The conspiracy becomes more sinister when the three gather a large group of patients who are near death, including Ian's wife, Daria and prepare to subject them to the incinerating ray. Is it mercy killing? Is it murder? Or is it something beyond human understanding?