Out of the Unknown


Out of the Unknown is a British television science fiction anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in four series between 1965 and 1971. Each episode was a dramatisation of a science fiction short story. Some were written directly for the series, but most were adaptations of already-published stories.
The first three years were exclusively science fiction, but that genre was abandoned in the final year in favour of horror/fantasy stories. A number of master video tapes of episodes were wiped during the early 1970s, as was standard procedure at the time. A large number of episodes are still missing, although in recent years they have occasionally turned up—for example, "Level Seven" from series two, originally broadcast on 27 October 1966, was returned to the BBC from the archives of a European broadcaster in January 2006.

Origins

had been a science fiction fan since college. In 1961 suggested to her superior Sydney Newman, then head of the drama department of ABC Television, an ITV franchise contractor, with a proposal to create a science fiction version of Armchair Theatre. This became Out of this World, a sixty-minute anthology series hosted by Boris Karloff that ran for thirteen episodes between June and September 1962. Many of the episodes were adaptations of stories by writers including John Wyndham, Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick.

Series one

Shubik began work, and soon found that finding science fiction stories suitable for adaptation was a difficult task. She later recalled "I had to read hundreds of stories to pick a dozen. You have no idea how difficult some of these authors are to deal with, and it seems a special thing among SF writers to hedge themselves behind almost impossible copyright barriers, even when they have got a story that is possible to do on television. So many you can't. Either the conception is so way out you would need a fantastic budget to produce it, or the story is too short, too tight to be padded out to make an hour's television". When working on Out of this World Shubik had made a valuable contact in John Carnell, a key figure in British science fiction publishing. He was the founder of science fiction magazine New Worlds, and agent for many of Britain's science fiction writers. Carnell was able to suggest stories and authors for her to consider. Shubik received copies of science fiction anthologies from British publishers, and also sought advice from many authors including Frederik Pohl, Alfred Bester and Robert Silverberg. The latter two admitted to her that they had run into similar difficulties in finding suitable material for television adaptation. She considered asking Nigel Kneale if he would write a new Quatermass story for the series, and contacted Arthur C. Clarke regarding the possibility of adapting his novel The Deep Range.
In March 1965, Shubik travelled to New York City to negotiate rights with authors whose works she was considering, to seek ideas from US television, and to obtain more science fiction anthologies from US publishers. During her visit she met with US science fiction editors and also with Isaac Asimov, who granted permission for two of his stories to be adapted on the condition that they could only be shown in the UK: sales to foreign territories were not allowed. The trip to New York would become an annual event for her during her time on Out of the Unknown.
On her return to London, Shubik learned that she had been appointed producer and story editor for the new anthology series. She obtained the services of George Spenton-Foster as her associate producer. Spenton-Foster was a science fiction fan and his wide experience of BBC television production proved invaluable to Shubik. By this stage, she had found the twelve scripts she needed for the series: ten episodes would be adaptations of stories by John Wyndham ; Alan Nourse ; Isaac Asimov ; William Tenn ; Ray Bradbury ; Kate Wilhelm ; John Brunner ; J. G. Ballard and Frederik Pohl. Two original stories—"Stranger in the Family" by David Campton and "Come Buttercup, Come Daisy, Come...?" by Mike Watts—were also commissioned. Among those commissioned to adapt the stories were a few notable names in television writing: Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks for Doctor Who and later of Survivors and Blake's 7, adapted Bradbury's "The Fox and the Forest" while Troy Kennedy Martin, co-creator of Z-Cars, adapted Pohl's "The Midas Plague".
A title for the series had not been decided when production began. Names including Dimension 4, The Edge of Tomorrow and From the Unknown were considered, before Out of the Unknown was settled upon. The title music was composed by Norman Kay and the title sequence was created by Bernard Lodge. It was intended from an early stage that, as with Boris Karloff on Out of this World, each story would be introduced by a regular host. Christopher Lee and Vincent Price were approached but were not available and the idea was dropped. The episode “Some Lapse of Time” is notable for having Ridley Scott, future director of such films as Alien and Blade Runner, as designer.
Out of the Unknown made its debut on Monday, 4 October 1965 at 8pm on BBC2, with Wyndham's “No Place Like Earth” selected as the opening story. Science fiction and fantasy was popular on television, with Doctor Who, The Avengers, Thunderbirds, The Man from UNCLE and Lost in Space all notable hits at the time. Out of the Unknown, however, would offer more adult, cerebral fare. Initial audience and critical reaction was mixed, but improved as the series went on with “Andover and the Android” and “Some Lapse of Time” proving particularly popular with audiences and critics alike. BBC2 Controller David Attenborough praised the “overall professionalism that has become a hallmark of the series”. By the end of its first run, Out of the Unknown was the second-most popular drama on BBC2, after the imported Western The Virginian.

Series two

In parallel with preparing for the second series of Out of the Unknown, Shubik was tasked with producing another anthology series: Thirteen Against Fate, adaptations of short stories by Maigret creator Georges Simenon. To assist her, she was assigned a script editor—initially Rodney Gedye, and then when Gedye left following clashes with Shubik, Michael Imison. As with series one, finding suitable stories for adaptation remained a problem. On her annual visit to New York, Shubik placed an advertisement looking for stories in the Science Fiction Writers Association Bulletin. One author who answered the advertisement was Larry Eisenberg, whose stories The Fastest Draw and Too Many Cooks were commissioned. Two further adaptations, of E.M. Forster’s "The Machine Stops" and Mordecai Roshwald’s Level 7, were scripts that had been offered, without success, to film studios for some years. Another script, adapting Colin Kapp’s Lambda 1, had been commissioned for series one but shelved, owing to technical considerations about how it could be realised. When special effects designer Jack Kine indicated that he had a solution to the technical challenges, the script was brought back into production for series two. Five further adaptations were commissioned: John Rankine’s The World in Silence, Henry Kuttner’s The Eye, Frederik Pohl’s Tunnel Under the World and Isaac Asimov’s "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Reason". Three original stories—"Frankenstein Mark II" by Hugh Whitemore, "Second Childhood" by Hugh Leonard and "Walk's End" by William Trevor—were also commissioned.
In response to Kenneth Tynan's use of the word "fuck" on the satirical programme BBC-3, Sydney Newman issued directives to his producers regarding language and content. In the case of Out of the Unknown, this led to particular attention being paid to the scripts for "Second Childhood" and "Satisfaction Guaranteed".
Series two was broadcast on Thursday nights at 9:30pm, beginning with the episode "The Machine Stops" on 6 October 1966. The new series was promoted in listings magazine Radio Times with a front cover of "The Machine Stops"’ star Yvonne Mitchell and an article previewing the upcoming episodes, written by Michael Imison. The two most notable productions of the series were "The Machine Stops" and "Level Seven". "The Machine Stops", directed by Philip Saville, was a particularly challenging production—later described by Shubik as "the most complex and technically demanding script I have ever had in my hand"—requiring large and complex sets, including construction of one with a working monorail. The effort paid off, however, as the adaptation was met with good reviews and was awarded first prize at the Fifth Festival Internazionale del Film di Fantascienza in Trieste on 17 July 1967. "Level Seven" was adapted by J. B. Priestley and directed by Rudolph Cartier. Priestley's script had begun life as a potential screenplay for a feature film, and condensing it down to Out of the Unknown’s standard running time of fifty minutes proved impossible. In the end, Shubik convinced the management of the BBC to allow "Level Seven" to run to sixty minutes as a one-off exceptional measure. Reviewing "Level Seven" in The Listener, J. C. Trewin said, "the tension was inescapable, the excitement incontestable, more so, undoubtedly, than other thrusts into the future". The robot costumes created for "The Prophet" were later reused in the Doctor Who serial "The Mind Robber".
Series two of Out of the Unknown had built on the success of the first series. However, as Irene Shubik and Michael Imison began work on the third series, major changes were implemented.

Series three

Shubik was in the middle of her third trip to New York in early 1967 when she received a call from Sydney Newman offering her the opportunity to co-produce, with Graeme McDonald, BBC1's most prestigious drama slot, The Wednesday Play. Shubik accepted the new post but insisted that she be given time to commission a full series of Out of the Unknown scripts before moving on to The Wednesday Play and handing Out of the Unknown over to a new production team. At the same time, Michael Imison also moved on to produce Thirty Minute Theatre.
For series three, Shubik commissioned dramatisations of stories by Robert Sheckley ; Isaac Asimov ; John Brunner ; Clifford D. Simak ; John Wyndham ; Cyril M. Kornbluth ; Rog Phillips and Peter Phillips. Original stories were provided by Donald Bull, Brian Hayles and Michael Ashe. Two scripts, “The Yellow Pill” and “Target Generation”, had previously been used in Shubik's earlier anthology series Out of this World.
In September 1967, Alan Bromly and Roger Parkes were appointed as, respectively, the new producer and script editor. Bromly and Parkes both had a background in thriller series. With all the scripts already commissioned, Bromly and Parkes' role was mainly to shepherd them through production.
Series three – the first Out of the Unknown series to be made in colour – was broadcast on Wednesday nights beginning on 7 January 1969 with the episode "Immortality, Inc.". One viewer of "Immortality, Inc." was George Harrison of the Beatles, who can be seen discussing the episode with bandmate Ringo Starr in the film Let It Be. Scheduled opposite the very popular ITV drama series The Power Game, the series suffered in the ratings and met with mixed reviews; the Daily Express found the series “most erratic”, sometimes “wonderfully inventive” but at other times “as silly as a comic strip in a child's magazine”. The production of “Random Quest” led its author, John Wyndham, to write to director Christopher Barry praising “the hard work and ingenuity of a great number of people concerned excellent work by everybody – not forgetting the adapter. My thanks to everyone for weaving it all together so skillfully”. “Beach Head” was entered into the Sixth Festival Internazionale del Film di Fantascienza in July 1968, in the hope of repeating the earlier success of “The Machine Stops”, but did not win.
Get off my Cloud included Doctor Who's prop of the TARDIS exterior and the scenes were recorded in August 1968.

Series four

The fourth series of Out of the Unknown began production in early 1970. Bromly and Parkes were now free to put their own creative mark on the series. Encouraged by Head of Plays Gerald Savory, they sought to recast Out of the Unknown as “not straight science fiction, but with a strong horror content, all starting out from a realistic basis”. The decision to move towards psychological horror came about partly because of the difficulties involved in finding suitable science fiction scripts, partly because the production team felt that their budget could not compete with the glossy fare offered by the likes of ' and ', and partly because it was felt that science fiction could not compete with the real-life drama of the Apollo moon landings then occurring.
Another major change for series four was a move away from adapting novels and short stories. Only one episode of series four – "Deathday", based on the novel by Angus Hall, dramatised by Brian Hayles – was an adaptation; the remaining ten episodes were original works.
Series four was broadcast on Wednesday nights beginning on 21 April 1971. The new series sported a new title sequence devised by Charles McGhie and a new theme tune - "Lunar Landscape" by Roger Roger. Both ratings and critical reception were positive, although some viewers were disappointed by the move away from hard science fiction – a typical comment was that of Martin J. Pitt, who wrote to Radio Times that "it will be a pity if the opinions of people like Alan Bromly rob television of the opportunity to present intelligent and exciting science fiction".
Although the fourth series was judged to be a success, the BBC chose not to renew Out of the Unknown for a fifth series. With the exception of the Play for Today spin-off, Play for Tomorrow, no regular lengthy science fiction anthology series has been made by a UK broadcaster since Out of the Unknown went off air.

Episode list

Archive status

Of the forty-nine episodes of Out of the Unknown that were made, only twenty survive in their entirety, mainly from series one. Almost thirty minutes of "The Little Black Bag" also survive, as do shorter clips from "The Fox and the Forest", "Andover and the Android", "Satisfaction Guaranteed", "Liar!" and "The Last Witness". Complete audio recordings exist of "The Yellow Pill" and "The Uninvited" as well as audio clips of other lost episodes. Off-screen photographs, known as tele-snaps, were taken of many first- and second-series stories, including some of the missing episodes. These were published in Mark Ward's Out of the Unknown: A guide to the legendary BBC series in 2004. The fourth-series episodes "The Last Witness" and "The Uninvited", both of which are missing, were remade as episodes of Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense - respectively as "A Distant Scream" and "In Possession" - and broadcast in the UK in 1986. A new adaptation of John Wyndham's Random Quest, which had been dramatised for series three and had also been adapted as the film Quest for Love, was made for BBC Four and broadcast on 27 November 2006 as part of that channel's Science Fiction Britannia season.
The episode "Level Seven" was shown at the British Film Institute South Bank in August 2009, while the episode "Thirteen to Centaurus" was repeated by BBC Four in 2003 as part of a J. G. Ballard retrospective.
All surviving episodes of Out of the Unknown were released on DVD by the BFI in November 2014.
The BBC Archive Treasure Hunt, a public appeal campaign, continues to search for lost episodes.