Today brings a piece of the BBC science-fiction television series Out of the Unknown to your header gif. This scene is taken from the very first episode released for the series entitled “There’s No Place Like Earth” and it follows the adventures of an astronaut that has managed to escape from Earth right before the planet’s destruction. Having found refuge on Mars, he wanders as an outsider, searching for a true home as satisfactory as the one that he has lost. An opportunity to relocate to Venus will perhaps give him the life and home that he desires. But are his recollections of the life he left behind accurate and can he find what he desires on a new planet? Well you’ll just have to watch and find out, my friend. I’ve included a direct link to the episode below for your streaming pleasure, as well as one to the rest of the episodes from the first season, found on the Internet Archive.
My reworking of the scene riffs heavily on Tom Toro’s brilliant single-panel cartoon (below). Because if there’s one thing that post-apocalyptic historical storytelling around a fire reminds me of, it’s looking back on the good ol’ days of late-state capitalism.
Out of the Unknown ran for four seasons between 1965 and 1971. The series was the brainchild of Irene Shubik, an assistant of Sydney Newman, then head of ABC’s drama department. When Newman was poached by the BBC to head up their drama department in 1962, he asked Shubik to join him. She did by 1963 and became the story editor for a number of well-regarded anthology series and modern novel adaptations produced for the network. One such series was Out of the Unknown, where she acted both as editor and producer. The series concentrated initially on science fiction adaptations of works and included plot lines penned by such notable writers as Ray Bradbury, J.G. Ballard and Isaac Asimov. The “No Place Like Earth” episode is an adaptation of two short stories by John Wyndham, Time to Rest and its sequel No Place Like Earth. This episode, first of the series, debuted on the BBC in October of 1965.
Intended to be a more cerebral offering than the other popular adventure-based science-fiction shows of the day (think Doctor Who), Out of the Unknown got off to a slow start. However, eventually both critics and audiences came around. By the end of its first run, the series proved a highly-rated drama on BBC2, second only to The Virginian, an imported western from the United States. Sadly, less than half of the 49 episodes recorded over the four seasons still remain. Until 1978, the BBC had no central archive and many of the tapes were either wiped or discarded to make room for new programs and to save on storage costs. However, efforts to preserve and restore the 20 episodes that have been recovered mean that viewers can enjoy these old gems again, such as at the Internet Archives, linked below.
Out of the Unknown, Season 1 Episode 1, "No Place Like Earth"
When the guy is talking to his Mars-friends and throwing little stones into the campfire (pointlessly in my opinion) we see who can only be the Queen of Mars. Why do extraterrestrial queens always have super sooped up curly hair-dos?
Gawwwd! What a treasure you are! I laffed and I laffed. Well Done!