Showtime's head of programming, Jeffrey Offsay, said the show "found a home at Showtime because MGM, which produced the original series, supplies feature films to both Showtime and The Movie Channel. At the time we were making our deal to get into business with them, they were restarting their TV operation as well. They had the idea of wanting to make
The Outer Limits and they thought it was the kind of thing that would work very well for us". Executive producer
Pen Densham noted how anthologies can be "risky". He explained that "every week no stories are the same, no actors are the same, we don't have an easy path of an ongoing character, we have to make sure the stories are so strong, and not resort to remaking original
Outer Limits scripts". All but one of the 43 episodes in season 1 and season 2 are originals, the only remake is 'I Robot', which starred
Leonard Nimoy in the original, and he also appears in the new episode. The premiere episode,
The Sandkings, featured
Lloyd Bridges, his son
Beau Bridges, and Beau's son Dylan Bridges. In 2000, Showtime cancelled the series after 132 episodes. The show was then revived on the
Sci-Fi Channel in 2001, with the first episode featuring
Tom Arnold, premiering on March 16, 2001. Two of the executive producers at Showtime, Pen Densham and Mark Stern, also returned for the revival of the series. After one season, the Sci-Fi Channel cancelled the show in 2002, primarily due to declining viewership ratings. ==Series overview==