Hosted by Truman Bradley, a radio/TV announcer and 1940s film actor, each episode introduced stories which had an extrapolated scientific or pseudo scientific emphasis based on actual scientific data available at the time. Typically, the stories related to the life or work of scientists, engineers, inventors, and explorers. The program concentrated on such concepts as space flight, robots, telepathy, flying saucers, time travel, and the intervention of extraterrestrials in human affairs. Broadcasting a total of 78 25–26 minute episodes, the series was also known as Beyond The Limits for repeat syndication during the 1960s, and alternatively as Science Fiction Theater. Opposite to what happened during the 1960s transition to color, the first season was filmed in color, but to cut production costs, the second season was filmed in black-and-white. The producers had originally thought that color television broadcasting would progress faster than it actually did. Like the syndicated Out There and Tales of Tomorrow anthology series before it, Science Fiction Theatre was a predecessor to later science fiction anthology shows such as The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. Other than host Bradley, the show had no fixed cast, although a number of actors appeared in multiple episodes in different roles. Dick Foran, Marshall Thompson, Dabbs Greer, Arthur Franz, Whit Bissell and Bruce Bennett appeared in more episodes than most. The show also featured stars such as Basil Rathbone, Kenneth Tobey, Victor Jory, Gene Barry, DeForest Kelly, Phyllis Coates and Vincent Price.
Intro and outro
Each episode was introduced by a stirring brass, string, and woodwind fanfare, while the camera panned over a science laboratory. Then, Bradley showed a simple scientific experiment which was related to the topic of that week's show. Bradley's demonstrations were often staged, but yielded results consistent with the outcome of true experiments. He was always careful to point out that the story presented was fictional: that "it did not happen". Because of the limited budgets and intense production schedules of ZIV episodic television shows, most of the scientific, and not-so-scientific apparatus appears again and again as props with many different functions. First lines of each episode: Host: "How do you do, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Truman Bradley". Last lines of each episode: Host: "I hope you enjoyed our story. We'll be back one week from today with another exciting adventure from the world of fiction and science. Until then, this is your host, Truman Bradley, saying, see you next week".
