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“ There is Nothing Wrong With Your Television Speakers” From 1963-1965, American viewers were not in control of their television sets. The new show that controlled their televisions was called The Outer Limits, created by Joseph Stefano and Leslie Stevens, and was broadcast on the ABC network. The series, lasting only a season and a half with a total of 48 episodes, changed the face of science fiction and fantasy television. While a successor to anthology shows such as Thriller (NBC, 1960-1962) and Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond (ABC, 1959-1961), and contemporaries with The Twilight Zone (CBS, 1959-1964), The Outer Limits painted a much different, yet bleak, picture of the future. With a sine wave on screen accompanied by an acousmatic Control Voice, the show promised that it would control the horizontal, the vertical, and all that the viewer would see and hear. A distinct characteristic of the show in the first season is that any damage done to the universe had to be corrected by the episode's conclusion, even if only by the Control Voice narration by Vic Perrin. The Control Voice forces our attention onto the screen, highlighting its unusual function and using its distinctly unusual purpose to demand intense attention while simultaneously increasing the audience's level of paranoia. This opening sequence, Jeffrey Sconce demonstrates, is invasive and unmatched by any other show before or since. We become passive, yet adventuring spectators, that by virtue of watching and taking part in the show's sojourns into uncharted territories. The Control Voice's closing narration often emphasizes that the episode's message is not as obvious as it seems throughout the episode. Each of the episodes culminates with someone or something gaining a new insight, along with thoughtful commentary. J.P. Telotte believes that “ The Outer Limits demonstrated that science fiction was hardly a monolithic story type, certainly not just the space opera, and that, far from being a niche form, it could effectively address and broad spectrum of the television audience.” Among its entertainment value, this Cold War era show essentially frightened viewers not of would happen, but what could happen given the trajectory of science and the tendencies of the human race.

One of most enigmatic figures in mythology is Helen of Troy. The portrait that ancient authors and scholars alike paint is that of a woman with an uncertain history and a name marred by generations, both contemporary with her life, as well as those contemporary with ours. Each of these stories has an agenda in that each writer means to portray Helen in a certain light: none of these works manages to keep a neutral or ambivalent tone in Helen’s depiction. Since the story of Helen’s life is so ambiguous, classical scholars tend to be uncertain as to the veracity of the adventures that each author has Helen embark upon and exactly which of the accounts, if any, are true. As a result, many of these accounts cause a high level of duplicity among scholars, since she is often subjected to both blame and praise. Regardless, all of these sources send the same message: women are dangerous and are not to be trusted, and that they are responsible for all that is wrong in society. Helen, of course, is, and rather unfortunately so, the archetype. In contrast, seventeenth-century Venetian opera portrays Helen quite differently, usually as a victim of circumstances beyond her control. This treatment differs from the way the ancient writers depict her. This article examines the various portrayals of Helen in ancient and early modern writings, and compares them to seventeenth-century Venetian operatic portrayals. The origins and reasons for this phenomenon are also investigated.

In the newly popularized genre of opera during the seventeenth century, the allegorical prologue was commonly used as a preface from about 1600 to 1670, with no fewer than 98 opera prologues composed throughout Venice during this period. These prologues, often sung by allegories and/or characters from myth, set the stage for the proceeding drama. In the prologue to Francesco Cavalli’s 1640 opera Gli Amori d’Apollo e di Dafne, its characters, the gods of sleep and dreams, set the stage for an opera that revolves around a dream. This article explores the act of wishing the audience peaceful and pleasant dreams by using oratory as a method that the allegorical figures use to sing the audience a lullaby. The purpose of this lullaby is to instigate the suspension of disbelief required to allow the story to gain the audience’s credibility. This article will show how Cavalli’s opera does so uniquely by spatially extending its effects outwards onto the audience rather than only onto the characters onstage.