CBS Radio Mystery Theater

For the most part hosted by the late E.G. Marshall, this series ran daily from 1974 to 1982. Series creator and producer Himan Brown oversaw scripts and, though the daily format restricted the depth of sound effects, each show averaged 45 minutes, the writing was intelligent and the stories were thought-provoking. CBSRMT presented a bit of everything-- science fiction, historical drama, ghost stories, horror-- but the majority of episodes were murder mysteries, often with a supernatural bent. Because of the enormous volume of episodes, this archive could take up a LOT of time, to the detriment of other areas of this site. Therefore, I've decided to limit the archive to shows which best fit into the Plot Spot's chosen venue of SF, Horror, etc.

I do have information on many more episodes of CBSRMT than are listed here. If you want plots to any episodes not listed, Contact Me

Currently this archive contains plotlines for 135 of 1400 episodes

WEBMASTER RECOMMENDS:
Prisoner of the Machines; Resident Killer; The Captain of the Pole Star

A God Named Smith
Episode: 658
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y

An adolescent genius succeeds in designing and constructing a small planet, attracting the world's best minds to emigrate there to work for him-- but to what end?

A Horror Story
Episode: 929
Genre: Horror
Available for Listening Booth: N

A diary found in a deserted New Orleans mansion tells a tale of a psychopathic chef who uses human flesh as his secret ingredient.

A Point in Time
Episode: 536
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Two campers in the Southwest come across a town which seems to be out of the 1930's, and whose inhabitants guard a conspiracy of global proportions.

A Point of Time
Episode: 741
Genre: Future Earth/ Time Travel
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A 21st century dictator is the target of a small but elaborately calculated plot to not only overthrow his totalitarian regime, but to remove it from history altogether.

A Sacrifice in Blood
Episode:055
Genre: Occult
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Investigating an ancient pre-Toltec cult, a couple discover an abandoned child on a sacrificial altar, and decide to raise it as their own. As he grows up, however, he would appear to be no son born of man and woman.

A Very Old Man
Episode: 017
Genre: Occult
Available for Listening Booth: N

An old man living with his daughter and son-in-law seems to have an ability to heal with his touch, to the frustration of his daughter's husband, a medical doctor with no faith in faith healers. The old man takes no credit, however - he attributes his talent to a second daughter, dead for many, many years....

Adam's Astral Self
Episode: 122
Genre: Occult
Available for Listening Booth: N

A woman breaks up with a spiritualist who threatens to use his telepathic powers to kill her new lover.

A.L.I.C.E.
Episode: 1221
Genre: Humour
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A programmer builds an A.I. computer, and soon has the Russians and the FBI hot on his tail. However, compared to dealing with A.L.I.C.E., those are the least of his problems.

Alien Presences
Episode: 923
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: N

A couple follow a crashed meteor and find a baby. They decide to raise it without considering that its parents may one day want the child back.

The Assassination
Episode: 471
Genre: Historical
Available for Listening Booth: Y

An adaptation of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, with much of the dialogue modernized, but following the original storyline of the conspiracy to murder the Roman statesman and general who 'bestrides the narrow world like a Colossus'.

See also 'The Murder of Caesar' (CBS Radio Mystery Theater)

A Stranger Among Us
Episode: 678
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A woman detained by the police for possession of a stolen car relates a bizarre tale of alien abduction, but can't remember the details. A psychologist is called in to get to the truth, but when he hypnotizes her, the story only gets stranger...

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Episode: 101
Genre: War
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A Confederate saboteur hanged from a bridge by Union troops gets a reprieve when the rope snaps; can he evade the enemy's pursuit and reach home? Story by Ambrose Bierce.

Versions of this story also appeared on Suspense and Escape

Reviews:
Interesting story. I should’ve figured out what was going on from what the narrator said at the beginning about time. I knew something was up when the main character kept talking about the wind and I thought it odd that everyone he met knew of what he had done as if it had been weeks before.- Barry Howell

This was a great piece of radio drama. I say that because I had read the short story and knew what was coming, but I never lost interest in this episode. - Clarence Grigsby

Arctic Encounter
Episode: 840
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Two American pilots on an Arctic patrol sight a downed Soviet plane; suddenly their own aircraft mysteriously loses power and they too are forced down onto the ice. Just what-- or who-- is responsible for this 'Bermuda Triangle of the North'?

Between These Worlds
Episode: 1042
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y

An alien political prisoner on the planet Kronek is offered a pardon if he will spearhead the invasion of an insignificant little world called Earth.

Bottom of the World
Episode: 647
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y

With the world on the brink of global war, scientists attempt to access the planet's last energy source beneath the South Polar ice cap. The other side sabotages the project, and the resulting ecological catastrophe threatens to make an end of the world as effectively as any war.

Reviews:
Spoiler: This was actually pretty cool in setting up the suspense. Very interesting idea and well written however I didn’t quite understand why they mentioned the Earth at the end like they did other than to explain to us that we had been listening to an alien story. Still a good story. - Barry Howell

This was the first episode of RMT I'd ever heard, and got me interested in the series as a whole. Lucky for me it was a good episode, or I would not have investigated further. - Ed Corbeil

Brain Drain
Episode: 454
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y

When an eminent space scientist dies suddenly, a friend's investigation leads to a series of unexplained deaths among scientists around the world, a strange hypnotic woman and her even stranger friend.

The Captain of the Pole Star
Episode: 902
Genre: Ghosts
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A doctor hires out to a whaling vessel bound for the Arctic, where the ship becomes icebound. Strange moanings are soon heard on the Polar wind, and ghostly apparitions appear out on the ice. The ship's senior officers are convinced they have something to do with the Captain's mysterious past, but who can say for sure, since he appears to be slowly going insane?.... Story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

See also 'Arctic Rescue' (Suspense)

Reviews:
A creepy episode that leaves one with the sense that they had better leave the blinds shut on a cold winter's night for fear of what might appear out on the snow beyond the bedroom window. You'll never see another blowing drift of snow quite the same ever again. Unfortunately, the limited time frame RMT had for its daily productions did not often allow for much depth or sophistication in sound effects, but the keening of the wind and the groaning of the ship under pressure from the ice does much to bring this show to life. Highly recommended.-- Webmaster

The Children of Death
Episode: 426
Genre: Dystopian Future
Available for Listening Booth: N

In a post-Apocalyptic future, men and women have split into warring gender-based tribes. One man, however, dares question the 'natural' hatred between the sexes. Then he gets captured by the women for breeding purposes, after which he must be ritually murdered.

City of the Dead
Episode: 546
Genre: Creatures
Available for Listening Booth: N

Two Victorian scientists penetrate the Stygian depths of the Cayman Trough in a submersible, there encountering an exotic undersea race of intelligent amphibians. Based on a story by H.G. Wells.

The Colony
Episode: 540
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: N

A couple on vacation driving through New Hampshire are waylaid in a small town after an encounter with a UFO on the road. The sheriff claims they must have been drunk and locks them up, but he and the mayor are obviously hiding something...

The Crack in the Wall
Episode: 094
Genre: Horror
Available for Listening Booth: N

A hopelessly distraught mother agonizing over the death of her daughter becomes obsessed with a crack in the wall of her basement, which defies any attempt to patch it. She claims to hear the call of her daughter coming from the crack, which must be a portal to the next world. Her husband, however, thinks the source of the voice has a far more sinister origin.

Reviews:
This episode is essentially an uncredited theft from W.W. Jacobs' celebrated horror story "The Monkey's Paw." Instead of three wishes, there are only two, but the idea of wishing a loved one back from the dead, failing to take into account the person's mutilated condition after a tragic accident, and wishing that person back to the grave are all much the same. The depressing atmosphere of the episode is well done, and it has some interesting differences from the original tale, but this is really a rewrite of "The Monkey's Paw" and not an original story. - Anonymous

Darling Deadly Dolores
Episode: 102
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A scientist working on a top secret super-weapon is horrified to discover that the project's computer plans to utilize the weapon to purge the Earth of humans in favor of metal-based life.

Death on Project X
Episode: 710
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A bureaucratic bean counter turned investigator is assigned to assess the validity of a secret government research program to develop an ultimate super-weapon, and is confronted by the suspicion that the head scientist has made a critical error that could result in doomsday.

Don't Die Without Me
Episode: 583
Genre: Horror
Available for Listening Booth: N

A woman committed suicide in a hotel room. Six days later, a young man took his own life in the same room and in the same manner. A writer, facing writer's block, decides to check into the room to uncover the mystery. Based on the short story The Furnished Room, by O. Henry.

Dracula
Episode: 085
Genre: Vampires
Available for Listening Booth: Y

An adaptation of the original novel by Bram Stoker. Professor Van Helsing responds to an appeal from his friend John Seward to investigate his fiancee's strange affliction - she is slowly dying from blood depletion, apparently the victim of a vampyre.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Episode: 107
Genre: Horror
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of a scientist whose search for the dual essence of human nature and morality carries a heavy personal price for success. Host E. G. Marshall claims this version is the closest to Stevenson's original.

Versions of this story also appeared on the BBC, Favorite Story, Weird Circle, NBC Short Story, Theater Guild on the Air, the U.S. Steel Hour, and more recently by an independent producer called Monterey Soundworks.

The Eavesdroppers
Episode: 333
Genre: Aliens/ Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Physicist Dwight Addison is on the cusp of solving Einstein's restriction on traveling faster than light, and only needs a quiet retreat to complete his work. Unbeknowst to him, however, there are forces in the universe that do now want Man intruding, and Addison's housekeepers are working on their behalf.

The Eleventh Hour
Episode: 397
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: N

A successful business man suddenly becomes obsessed with a woman he met through a personal ad and claims to be from another world.

The Eleventh Plague
Episode: 1136
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Forbidden Planet revisited: A rescue mission to planet A-15 discovers their sole rescuee to be not only unwilling to be saved, but somehow capable of bringing down all the plagues of Egypt upon their heads if they don't leave.

See also 'Hallucination Orbit' (X Minus One)

Enemy From Space
Episode: 965
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y

In the year 2029, an alien spacecraft descends to the White House lawn. A voice from within announces their peaceful intentions, but the aliens' first act is to kidnap the President.....

Episode of the Terror
Episode: 1240
Genre: Historical
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Honore de Balzac's tale of the French Revolution, when Robespierre held Paris in his bloody grip. A priest and his attendant nun hold secret masses for private clients, under threat of the guillotine should they be found out. An enigmatic stranger appears to offer them immunity in return for their services, though he claims he is himself beyond hope of redemption.

See also 'The Black Band' (Hermits Cave)

The Familiar Ghost
Episode: 932
Genre: Ghosts
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A retired Victorian sea captain wins the hand of his intended lady, but his fiancé calls upon the services of famed psychic investigator Dr. Martin Hesselius when the captain becomes convinced he is being haunted by a 'familiar'. Based on the Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu story The Familiar.

The Fall of the House of Usher
Episode: 057
Genre: Horror
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Poe's story of a man's descent into madness over a family curse.

Versions of this story also appeared on NBC Short Story, Weird Circle, and Escape

The Figure in the Moonlight
Episode: 826
Genre: Supernatural
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A couple purchase on old etching of a New Hampshire mansion, then later notice that the figure of a man seems to appear and disappear within it.

Frankenstein Revisited
Episode: 059
Genre: Horror
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A film crew intend to shoot a docudrama about the Frankenstein legend on location, despite the stories of the monster returning from the dead to hunt the flesh of the living.

The Frontiers of Fear
Episode: 132
Genre: Horror
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A down and out gambler's fortunes take a turn for the better and the worse when he comes into the possession (literally) of a typewriter that can not only predict the future, but dictate it.

Future Eye
Episode: 499
Genre: Time Travel
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Assisted by a cheeky computer link, a temporal investigator returns to the present from the 29th century to retrieve a data crystal containing the future history of the world for the next 800 years. Story by Alfred Bester.

Ghost Driver
Episode: 079
Genre: Ghosts
Available for Listening Booth: N

Anxious to get away from the city, a couple purchase an old mansion in the Colorado Rockies with the intention of turning it into a ski resort, against the warnings of a former owner who claims that her dead husband's ghost has driven former purchasers off the cliff access road to their deaths.

The Ghost Grey Bat
Episode: 1176
Genre: Occult
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A young American couple rent an idyllic cottage in the Austrian Alps, complete with witches, curses, and an unearthly creature that 'lives' in the deep basement underneath.

Ghost Plane
Episode:343
Genre: Ghosts
Available for Listening Booth: N

Three people awake to find themselves aboard a strange airliner en route to seemingly nowhere.

The God Machine
Episode: 1054
Genre: Dystopian Future
Available for Listening Booth: N

In a distant and de-humanized future controlled by a master computer, a man and woman are ordered to marry and produce a child which, genetic calculations indicate, will become a genius mathematician. However, its calculations did not include the two actually falling in love....

The Golden Girl
Episode: 972
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Studying Earth from afar, a race of pacifists feel compelled to intervene in our world by sending an assassin to eliminate a fanatical cult leader.

The Hand
Episode: 080
Genre: Occult
Available for Listening Booth: N

A Corsican doctor befriends an enigmatic English adventurer who has taken up residence on the island. The Britisher receives the bizarre gift of a severed hand and soon becomes convinced of his own impeding death, despite being as robust as a bull. Story by Guy de Maupassant.

Harry's Taxi and the 'T' Machine
Episode: 1268
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A hover-taxi driver invents a teleportation device in his garage, but his grand designs for its use attract the attention of unscrupulous associates.

The Haunted Mill
Episode: 737
Genre: Ghosts
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A small New England seaside town, a love triangle, murder, and an old abandoned mill which harbors dark secrets, darker spirits, and a plea from beyond the grave.

The Headhunters
Episode:1201
Genre: Dystopian Future/ Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y

The government is transplanting personalities of aging scientists into the bodies of condemned criminals to prolong their lives. Sounds like a great idea - but is it legal, or even moral?

The Headless Hessian
Episode: 349
Genre: Historical
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Forestalled at the siege of Trenton, Washington's troops are bewitched by the nightly appearance of a headless horseman in enemy uniform riding through their lines toward the British. Washington is infuriated by the fear that prevents them from bringing the 'apparition' down, and sets out to prove that the headless Hessian is no ghost.

The Heart of Boadicea
Episode: 1300
Genre: Historical
Available for Listening Booth: N

Roman Britain, AD 60-- Violated and betrayed by her Roman overlords, Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, stages a bloody uprising to cleanse her land of foreign oppressors, but then finds herself torn between her lust for vengeance and her love for a pacifistic vassal. Loosely based on reality.

Reviews:
This show presents the historical figure of Boadicea (Boudicca) in a relatively positive light. In truth, she was a horrible woman who was responsible for the brutal massacre of tens of thousand of her own countrymen, as well as Romans. Her atrocities are dealt with only in passing, easily missed if you are not listening carefully. Like so much of RMT, there is little in the way of sound effects to bolster the story-- no thunder of armies, no clash of sword and shield, only a weak drumbeat beneath the narrated account of the final battle. Still, if you're not a purist, it's well enough written.-- Webmaster

The Hole in the Sky
Episode: 978
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Roger Thorpe is an interstellar smuggler whose turn of bad luck has cornered him into accepting a commission which would compel him to take passage through a dreaded black hole. He has already made the passage once before and survived, but to tempt fate twice could have 'unfortunate' consequences...

The Horla
Episode: 044
Genre: Supernatural
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Guy de Maupassant's famous semi-autobiographical story about his obsession with an intangible, malignant force which he is convinced has arrived in his coastal town aboard a mysterious Brazilan cargo ship.

The Horror of Dead Lake
Episode: 428
Genre: Creatures
Available for Listening Booth: N

A couple inherit an old pirate stronghold in Florida, the dead lake beside it, and the thing that lives in that lake.

Reviews:
This is a fun tale that makes the theater of the mind buzz with horrific images of the monsters that are described. Don't expect a deep moral or to learn anything scientific from this one. Just pure unadulterated fun. - Brian Lane

The Horror Within
Episode: 076
Genre: Occult
Available for Listening Booth: N

An idealistic young religious fanatic intends to use his God-given psychic powers for good, but you know what they say about good intentions.....

The House on Chimney Pot Lane
Episode: 824
Genre: Supernatural
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A couple purchase a neglected cottage in a remote area of Virginia despite its troubled past and happily start redecorating. The mural of a jungle scene they mount in the living room soon begins to exhibit signs of a life of its own, however, when faces start appearing in the brush and the animals seem to move.

See also 'The Veldt' (Bradbury 13, Dimension X , BBC, X Minus One)

Reviews:
An interesting twist on Ray Bradbury's famous story 'The Veldt'. Well presented and engaging. Recommended. - Webmaster

Identified Flying Objects
Episode: 800
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y

An alien lands in a big city with a message for Earth: 'Voor e amana'. As he looks like us and doesn't seem able or willing to say anything more, no one takes him seriously. A judge hands him over for psychiatric treatment.

The Ice Palace
Episode: 774
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y

When huge portions of the Arctic ice cap simply disappear without a trace overnight, Canadian authorities fear cataclysmic worldwide flooding is imminent. No natural catastrophe could account for the meltings, so there must be a human effort behind the nightmare.

The Intruder
Episode: 1063
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A physicist and his wife begin to suspect their teenage son recently come home from college is not who he appears to be.

Invaders from Atlantis
Episode: 1294
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Millenia ago, the Atlanteans left Earth to colonize the galaxy. Recently, they have returned, occupying all the world's large cities. Now they are targeting the small towns, but the citizens of Parson's Corners are not going to stand for it.

The Island on Silver Tree Lake
Episode: 726
Genre: Supernatural
Available for Listening Booth: N

Pamela Allen crashes her car into a tree and upon waking finds herself an unwilling guest at an island resort. According to the management, her tenure there is, to put it mildly, permanent.

Is the Lady Dead?
Episode: 186
Genre: Supernatural
Available for Listening Booth: N

After a wealthy industrialist's newlywed bride fall prey to a sudden fatal illness, he insists that his love has returned her from the dead, and his life begins to unravel as he tries desperately to keep her from slipping back to the Other Side.

Jobo
Episode: 618
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y

An archaeologist and his daughter suspect a link between the statues on Easter Island and a 'malformed' Tennessee hillbilly who happens to resemble them. Does the association stop there?

The Judge's House
Episode: 1245
Genre: Ghosts
Available for Listening Booth: N

A mathematician looking for a solitary retreat to do his work rents a house reportedly haunted by the specter of its former occupant, the infamous 'Hanging Judge'. Story by Bram Stoker.

A version of this story also appeared on Hall of Fantasy

Killer Crab
Episode: 1345
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A warring couple on a mining colony planet indulge in a deadly feud over the husband's invention of a new superweapon, a crab-like all-terrain attack 'tank'.

Reviews:
Fun sci-fi tale here, but the "KC" seems to take a backstage to the foundation for the moral of the story. The ending isn't too surprising, but it is somewhat unlikely given the overall bleak tone to the piece. - Brian Lane

Land of Dreams
Episode: 1243
Genre: Dystopian Future
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A morality tale of love versus duty in a Dystopian future where people live their lives through Virtual Reality dream machines while a computer regulates their society.

Land of the Living Dead
Episode: 734
Genre: Supernatural
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Two anthropologists in search of a mysterious Amazonian tribe run into engine trouble, but are amazed to come upon an ultra-modern airport in the deep jungle, peopled by nothing but missing persons.

The Legend of Phoenix Hill
Episode: 607
Genre: Supernatural
Available for Listening Booth: Y

An archaeologist planning an expedition into the Chinese interior is reluctant to allow his son to accompany his team, except that the young man seems to have an intimate connection with the ancient Chinese princess whose tomb they intend to excavate.

The Lodger
Episode: 090
Genre: Mystery
Available for Listening Booth: N

An updated, Americanized version of the horror classic about a town plagued by a phantom serial killer of women, and a boarding house madam who takes in a suspicious boarder. The original story revolved around Jack the Ripper, but this one is set in modern day America.

The original story was made into three films- two of the same name, and one called The Man in the Attic.

Look Who's Coming
Episode: 987
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: N

A housewife addicted to soap operas can't understand her husband's fascination with sci-fi TV shows, and is particularly agitated when her television begins broadcasting a warning about an alien invasion fleet on its way to Earth.

The Lost Tomorrows
Episode: 750
Genre: Occult
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A scientist and his reluctant daughter ignore the warnings of a local holy man and venture into the sacred Cave of Lost Tomorrows in search of Mayan relics.

The Magic Stick of Manitu
Episode: 1304
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Eight hundred years from now, Mankind is extending his influence over the galaxy, negotiating and intimidating other races into trade pacts. A heavy-handed negotiator is assigned to include the remote and peaceful world of Manitu in the galactic hegemony, but his assistant entertains her doubts when a furtive native of the planet tries to warn them away. Stars Keir Dullea and Fred Gwynne.

The Man of Two Centuries
Episode: 1191
Genre: Time Travel
Available for Listening Booth: n

Jack Carter, a writer researching a book on the history of Canada, befriends Donnacona, a Huron Indian who claims to be a thousand years old and able to travel between the centuries at will. He also claims Carter is the famous explorer Jacques Cartier-- not his reincarnation, but Cartier himself, and offers to take him back in time to prove it.

Man-Sized in Marble
Episode: 633
Genre: Occult
Available for Listening Booth: N

A man and wife seeking peace and quiet in the Scottish hills instead run afoul of a medieval vengeance enacted by two statues of 12th century knights.

Another version of this story appeared on Hall of Fantasy

The Man who Could Work Miracles
Episode: 510
Genre: Humour
Available for Listening Booth: N

George Fotheringay has discovered the secret to performing miracles - all he has to do is ask and it is done. the only thing he can't seem to control are the consequences. Story by H.G. Wells.

Other versions were produced for Escape and the BBC

The Man who Saw Martians
Episode: 1154
Genre: Aliens/ Humour
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Budding small town news reporter Amos Jones constructs an elaborate hoax about a Martian invasion to impress the girl he wants to marry, but when a real UFO lands, he is forced to confront the value of being true to himself and others.

Message From Space
Episode: 790
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: N

An American reporter travels to England to write a story discrediting a group of UFO nuts - or are they nuts?

The Meteorite
Episode: 632
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: N

A strange meteor crashes into a farmer's barn - out of which emerges a wounded alien. The farmer and his wife take the alien in and care for him, in defiance of the authorities and in spite of the alien's threat to destroy the Earth.

See also 'Meteor Man' (Lights Out) and 'Meteor' (Miscellaneous Shows)

Reviews:

Interesting to compare this show with Lights Outs' 'Meteor Man' - one wonders if the writer of this RMT episode was directly inspired by the other. In any case, the two shows illustrate the contrast of the prevailing attitude toward aliens between the paranoia of the 50's and the self-recrimination of the 70's. The former is all menace and evil, as loathsome in appearance as it is in character. Two decades later the alien is no implacable, unstoppable 'thing', but an all too vulnerable, almost unwilling enemy, driven to seek our destruction not because of its rapacious nature, but because of ours. John Wyndham's 'Meteor' (Vanishing Point, 1985) completes the circle - now it is the poor defenseless aliens who are menaced by the monsters of Earth. What does it all mean? Not much, really; it's just interesting to note the progression-- Webmaster

Mission from Zython
Episode: 991
Genre: Aliens
Available for Listening Booth: N

An alien lands in a remote Midwestern farming community, claiming to be of no threat, but shows an unsettling interest in the area's nuclear weapons silos.

Reviews:
Whatever drama the story might generate is destroyed whenever the alien opens his mouth - he sounds just like a Conehead. Someone at RMT must have thought Coneheads made believable aliens. - Webmaster

The Movie Makers
Episode: 1038
Genre: SF
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A scientist who conceives a super-weapon capable of destroying the Earth finds himself distracted by a corporation which claims to have made a movie of his life - not just a biography, but a visual record of his day to day life. Why would anyone bother to do such a thing?

The Murder of Caesar
Episode: 1121
Genre: Historical
Available for Listening Booth: N

A retelling of the assassination of the Roman dictator, inspired by Shakespeare and narrated by old Julius himself.

See also 'The Assassination' (CBS Radio Mystery Theater)

Night of the Howling Dog
Episode: 334
Genre: Creatures
Available for Listening Booth: N

A group of people camping on a remote island in the Baltic are tormented by a strange wolf-beast that seems to somehow be tied in with one camper's frustrated love for another.

Night Visitor
Episode: 922
Genre: Ghosts
Available for Listening Booth: N

Ancient Macedonia is the setting for this tale of a dead woman's return from the underworld to be with the man she could never have had when alive.

The Ninth Volume
Episode: 761
Genre: SF/Occult
Available for Listening Booth: Y

Oil drillers stumble upon a subterranean cavern several billion years old that contains modern trappings and a library of great literary works, including eight volumes of a history of the world up to the present time. The ninth volume is missing, but should record the future.

Now You See Them, Now You Don't
Episode: 557
Genre: Dystopian Future/ War
Available for Listening Booth: Y

In the year 2175, a militaristic America is entrenched in the desperate horrors of World War Five. The key to victory may lie with the patients of a trauma ward, who seem to appear and disappear without a trace. Story by Alfred Bester.

Reviews:
A lame satirical parable based on an Alfred Bester tale that doubtlessly deserves much better. Marred by overly exaggerated and not very comical comic characterizations, a milked out storyline, and a payoff that's only mildly poignant and doesn't really satisfy.. - Bruce Fisher

Ocean of Emptiness
Episode: 1117
Genre: Space Exploration
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A couple on a deep space mission to reach Jupiter encounter a strange object hounding their course, and a cryptic message from home announcing their own deaths.

The Old Country
Episode: 1306
Genre: Time Travel
Available for Listening Booth: N

A businessman on a trip to Yugoslavia begins to experience flashbacks to WW II wherein he discovers the truth about his father, a hero in the Resistance.

Only a Woman
Episode: 1312
Genre: Historical
Available for Listening Booth: N

The legendary Semiramis, Queen of Assyria, recounts the story of her life - an insatiable quest for love, power, and conquest.

The Outsider
Episode: 983
Genre: Supernatural
Available for Listening Booth: Y

For thirty years the town of Hanover Hills has been cut off from the outside world. There have been no births, no deaths, no one has been able to leave, nor has anyone ever arrived - until Doug Watson somehow stumbles upon the town. The residents quickly come to see him as their savior.

Overnight to Freedom
Episode: 505
Genre: Espionage
Available for Listening Booth: N

An American POW assumes the identity of a French volunteer worker on leave to escape from Nazi Germany on a train to occupied France. Unfortunately, he is accompanied by a troop of German soldiers and several Gestapo agents aboard...

The Permanent Man
Episode: 969
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A futuristic version of 'Frankenstein'-- a scientist on the Neptune colony turns a volunteer into a quasi-human 'superman'.

The Phantom Lullaby
Episode: 098
Genre: Ghosts
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A couple rent a luxury condo to make room for their daughter, the victim of an abusive relationship, ignoring the superintendent's warnings about the flat being haunted. Nonsense, they say, until their traumatized daughter begins speaking in foreign tongues....

The Phantom of the Opera
Episode: 264
Genre: Horror
Available for Listening Booth: Y

The classic tale of a Paris Opera house haunted by an angry spirit.

The Pharaoh's Curse
Episode: 067
Genre: Occult
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A beautiful female singer is tempted into joining an expedition to penetrate the forbidden tomb of an ancient Egyptian princess, in spite of the curse placed on the tomb against intruders and the strange string of 'accidents' that have befallen precious attempts. Stars Kim Hunter.

The Pit and the Pendulum
Episode: 223
Genre:
Available for Listening Booth: N

The classic is loosely adapted into a story about a scientist and his wife who are kidnapped and threatened with slow death if he does not reveal a secret formula for a deadly nerve gas. Based on the story by Edgar Allen Poe.

Versions of the original were produced for Suspense and Appointment with Fear.

The Pleading Voice
Episode: 614
Genre: Ghosts
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A man fears for his daughter's sanity when she becomes obsessed with a voice she claims to hear coming from the burned out shell of the gatehouse to their lonely New England manor.

The Power of Zeus
Episode: 1113
Genre: Super Science
Available for Listening Booth: Y

In the year 3000, the Earth is still divided into East and West and faces starvation from the disintegration of the ozone. A husband and wife research team travel to the colony world of Zeus to find a solution to hunger, but instead make a far more volatile discovery, one that could alter the balance of power permanently.

Prisoner of the Machines
Episode: 1051
Genre: Dystopian Future/ War
Available for Listening Booth: Y

1400 captured prisoners of a future war are sent to a POW camp on a remote asteroid operated solely by machines. However, nobody bothers to inform their robot jail-keepers when the war ends. Stars John Lithgow. Story by Henry Slesar.

Reviews:
First rate production - Lithgow is terrific, the story moves at a good pace, and generates some real tension. While I have not heard every episode of RMT, this is my choice for the best of the shows I've heard so far. - Webmaster

Reflected Terror
Episode: 780
Genre: Supernatural
Available for Listening Booth: Y

A gothic tale of a young housemaid who takes a job at a spooky old manor replete with a stern housekeeper, a pack of ravening hounds, and an eccentric old codger who has banned mirrors from his household for fear of what they reveal to him about the house's dark secrets.

Resident Killer
Episode: 1386
Genre: SF/ War
Available for Listening Booth: Y

What does a society based on pacifism do with those citizens with an inherently violent nature? This society has found a solution-- they are shipped off into deep space, where they act as Earth's sole defense in a war against alien invaders.