It’s the unknown that most troubles us…

Televised between 4 October 1965 and 30 June 1971 on BBC 2, Out of the Unknown contained some of the best Science Fiction Drama ever to appear on television. The first three series were pure SF, the fourth series, unfortunately, abandoned the SF formula and went for out and out (weak) horror…

One or two of the most memorable episodes:

No place like earth

This was an adaptation of two stories by John Wyndham: Time to Rest and its sequel No Place on Earth. We follow our hero good ol’ Bert, one of a small number of humans on Mars  – the earth was totally destroyed fourteen years earlier. But Bert unlike the others cannot settle: he is an itinerant tinker, travelling the Martian canals from place to place, fixing pots and pans and basic mechanical devices for the indigenous population…

The Machine Stops

This short story by E M Forster written in 1909 predicted television, E-mail and the Internet. It shows us a bleak future where human beings live underground and communicate via Cinematophote. The omnipresent Machine of the title controls the environment and keeps everybody “safe”. But what happens if the machine stops…?

The Counterfeit Man 

Based on the short story by Alan E Nourse –  at least one malicious, malevolent shape-shifting alien has infiltrated the crew of a space ship bound for earth. The ship’s medical officer investigates…

The Naked Sun

From the Isaac Asimov novel  – police detective Lije Baley and his robot associate, R. Daneel Olivaw, investigate the impossible murder of Rikaine Delmarre, a prominent “fetologist” ,on a planet where physical proximity is taboo but nudity is not.