Fun and Games (The Outer Limits) - Plot

Plot

Mike Benson, ex-boxer and small-time crook, and Laura Hanley, a divorcee, each emotionally wounded by life, are abducted at critical points in their lives by The Senator, a sporting alien representing the citizens of the planet Andera. The Anderans have overcome war, pestilence, avarice and envy, are no longer driven by wants and needs, and find that their lives have become quite stagnant; therefore, they replace their boredom with a constant supply of "fun & games". Mike and Laura are "electroported" to an arena planet where they are to be pitted in mortal combat against two primitive aliens from the Calco galaxy for the entertainment of the jaded audience on Andera. The goal of the tournament is species survival; the home planet of the losing team will be obliterated in a cataclysmic display lasting five years for the further enjoyment of the citizens of Andera. During the combat, Mike and Laura learn to function as a team. When the male Calco alien, having killed its mate to double its own food supply, confronts Mike on a footbridge over a river of lava, Laura kills the creature with its own saw-bladed boomerang. Mike, hanging by his fingertips and weakened by the ordeal, finally falls off the bridge into the lava. Laura, believing Mike to be dead, mourning his passing and praising his efforts in defending the human race from extinction, is informed by The Senator that since the alien perished in the lava first, Mike's life was spared, and they are declared the winners, thus saving Earth. In that split second, they are electroported to safety, unaware of what had transpired and free to resume their mundane lives.