A rather confused retelling of the Noah's Ark story, this time set on an alien planet facing destruction from an incoming asteroid.

Outlawed by a fearful public, bio-engineering becomes a black market commodity, the arena of organized crime, underhanded multi-national corporations, and the desperately terminally ill.

A passenger cruise across the Moon's Sea of Tranquility goes horribly wrong when the cruise liner falls into a sinkhole and is buried beneath the dust. Based on the book by Arthur C. Clarke.

This production was cut into several parts and re-aired on the CBC anthology series Nightfall.

A six-part serial about two doctors who uncover a colony of mental mutants on a remote island in the Hebrides. There seems to be a conspiracy underfoot, and it must be stopped before the mutants can undermine the government - or is it already too late? Stars Vincent Price and Peter Cushing.

A computer so all-knowing seems to have an independent life of its own.

see also 'Colossus: The Forbin Project' (Miscellaneous Shows), 'ALICE' and 'Deadly Darling Dolores' (CBS Radio Mystery Theater)

A low-grade technician, psychologically programmed to service aboard a deep-space explorer ship, is sent back to Earth by the 'Company' for rehab following an accident. As part of his corporate 'vacation', he is introduced to a woman altered to resemble a former lover, and when the two fall in love, he begins to question his assigned lifestyle and pursue his ultimate potential - with serious consequences for the Company. Story by Steve Gallagher.

A teenage witch inhabits the body of a young woman in order to experience falling in love. Story by Ray Bradbury, from the BBC anthology series Golden Apples of the Sun.

Classic Ray Bradbury tale of a safari in time back to the Cretaceous to hunt a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
From the BBC anthology series Golden Apples of the Sun.

Versions of this story also appeared on SF 68, Bradbury 13, and as 'An Imbalance of Species' on Future Tense.

See also 'A Gun for Dinosaur' and 'Project Mastodon' (both from X Minus One)

A survey team from Earth arrives on an alien world, seeking mineral rights from the primitive natives in exchange for all the wonderful technological marvels of mankind. The locals, however, appear to be anything but impressed by the offer.

In an overcrowded New York of the future, a homicide detective and his android partner must overcome social prejudice against robots to investigate the murder of an eminent roboticist, an obvious target of a ring of anti-technology terrorists. Story by Isaac Asimov.

See the CD cover art for this show.

A poignant SF classic about humankind's first contact, when a super-race calling themselves the Overlords arrive and rid the world of strife and suffering. Not everybody thinks a life without struggle is a good idea, and the Overlords' motives come into question when they refuse to show themselves and children all over the world begin to disappear... Story by Arthur C. Clarke.

Several different versions were produced by the BBC; a 5-part version was also produced for the CBC's Vanishing Point.

A professor of cosmology purchases a very unusual clock which confirms his theories about the anthropic nature of Time in a most unfortunate manner. From the series Fear on Four.

Genetic experiments at a lab in the English countryside produce an evolutionary throwback, a quasi-human creature which escapes and goes on a killing spree. Story by Steve Gallagher.

A couple become concerned over their young son's increasing fixation with 'Chocky', his invisible friend. At first it seems a harmless diversion for him, but then Chocky starts to develop a serious attitude problem...

In a distant future faced with impending social upheaval and collapse, a supercomputer makes an unusual selection from the thousands of cryogenically frozen individuals from the 20th century to be revived - an unremarkable young woman who is apparently the world's only hope for survival.

A crippled starship is compelled to make landfall on a remote colony world, where the locals refuse to allow the crew to disembark except under the strictest control. What terrible secret are they hiding?

A blinded space dock worker sent to hospital is befriended by a super-intelligent nine year old girl who can read minds and wants nothing more than to die. Story by Samuel R. Delaney. Produced for the short series Chillers.

The crew of a research base on the ocean floor discovers a source of cold fusion, the solution to all the world's energy problems. Elation turns to terror, however, when a series of 'accidents' causes several deaths, and a strange virus which mutates DNA is loosed - obviously, someone on board is a killer...

A mousey Army private in the Vietnam War, victimized by a sadistic Sergeant (is there another kind?) and assigned to corpse removal, is on the edge of a Section 8. His only solace is in broadcasting sympathetic messages on the radio to those killed in the fighting, whom he collectively refers to by the call sign of Delta Sly Honey . A harmless release - until Delta Sly Honey returns his call... Broadcast on the series Chillers.

A 1933 mail flight from France to England flies into a fog bank and emerges into an alternate time line 40 years into the future, where a defeated Britain is a mere puppet state of Nazi Europe. Not surprisingly, the crew and passengers quickly arouse the curiosity and suspicion of the fascist authorities.

A meteor crashing into Lake Michigan 300 years ago means trouble for a modern-day group of entomologists engaged in field studies on the sand dunes of the lake's more remote shores. A dormant alien life form awakens and it's scattered pieces are murdering people as they attempt to reassemble.

Returning to Earth after an extended journey in deep space, the generation starship Challenger is disturbed to find that while only110 years have passed on the ship, a million years have passed in the Solar System. The crew of 4 - the only survivors of the great meteoroid strike that wiped out most of the crew - find that the Earth has vanished and the Moon is now in the Earth's orbit. Guided by discoveries there, they set out to search for the Earth. They find evidence of an earlier transit of the planet Paradise, which the crew had intended to colonize before the Great Strike, but the Starship's control computers, Angels 1 and 2, have their own agenda for the Challenger's crew. Story by James Follett.

The Angels return to Paradise, and use the resources of the Starship to terraform it's climate, sending a great flood to drive the ship's crew off the planet by drowning all the land masses. Back on the ship the crew are forced to resume the search for Earth. The Angels use reprogrammed service androids to force the crew to obey. But someone is broadcasting transmissions designed to destroy organic free will computers. The Angels seek to control the crew's children, to build a 4th generation crew that will be completely subservient.

What if the Third Reich survived World War II? It is 1964, and the Greater German Reich is looking to end its Cold War with the United States by inviting President Joseph Kennedy to a summit on the eve of Hitler's 75th birthday. But when the body of a high-ranking Reichsminister is dragged from a lake, a homicide detective in the Berlin Kriminalpolizei discovers clues to a conspiracy with global implications. Based on a novel by Robert Harris.

Classic story by Ray Bradbury about a lonely lighthouse whose bass fog horn attracts a creature from the Mesozoic out of the deeps. From the BBC anthology series Golden Apples of the Sun.

A version of this story appeared on the CBC's Theater 10:30 as 'The Beast'; This story also served as the basis for the film 'The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms'.

A survey ship crash lands on a desolate world where tensions among the senior officers obstruct repair efforts, and blind them to the planet's inhabitants, the last starving remnants of a race who exist only in the metallic dust of the planet and see the newcomers only as a source of food.

Passengers stranded at a remote train station said to be haunted by the ghosts of a tragic derailment years before face a night of increasing horrors.

Gormenghast (see 'Titus Groan')

Arthur Dent, an Earthman, hitchhikes around the galaxy with a zany cast of characters. The plot is somewhat silly, but that's not the point. If you ever feel like you are hanging on edge waiting to find out what happens next you aren't paying attention. The beauty in Douglas Adams' work is in the telling, in the way he crafts each sentence. Sit back, close your eyes and listen.

Broadcast in two, six-part series. The first one ended with each character absolutely meeting their fate... so, naturally, the BBC asked for a second series. Adams carefully extracted each character from their predicament and created a second series with a more fluid, open-ended ending. The BBC never asked for a third.

Originally written for the BBC, this classic tale eventually became a TV series, a movie, a series of books, an LP, and a pet dog. Sound engineerig from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

A brilliant and willful scientist conceives an interstellar drive, but following the launch of the first manned mission into deepest space, mission command is plagued by inexplicable deaths and mental breakdowns. A reporter teams up with one of the scientists to investigate, and together they uncover evidence of an ancient evil spreading throughout the galaxy, which now may be infecting the crew of the returning ship.

Hunter's Moon - see 'The Steve Gallagher Trilogy'

Following Humanity's destruction at the 'hands' of a conscious super-computer, five people are kept 'alive' in its belly for its sadistic amusement. Story by Harlan Ellison.

Produced for the short series Chillers.

The US government is employing 'remote viewers' - people who can travel via their psyches to any location - as spies, saboteurs, or worse, whatever the cost in trauma to their 'volunteers'.

A farce about a rescue mission to retrieve Earth's top soccer star from the evil clutches of the megalomaniacal ruler of Mars.

A highly successful, long-running trilogy about Mankind's first tentative steps into the universe.

Operation Luna (1953) Part 1: 13 episodes; 6 hrs - 'Jet' Morgan and his three-man crew set out on Man's first mission to land on the Moon. All goes according to plan until they reach the Moon and encounter a series of anomalous occurrences, that may have something to do with a very unusual nearby crater.

See the CD cover art for this show.

After nuclear war has left the Earth in ruins, an airborne alien race arrives to whom 'groundlings' are nothing more than a food supply to be herded, bred, and harvested at will. Men and women are segregated until 'Kitestide', when annually the aliens allow the men to form into rape gangs and hunt the women down. A horrific future, until one young man discovers that 'Kites' can be killed too...

A competitive sentient species 'awakes' in the depths of the world's oceans and feeling threatened goes on the offensive. A power struggle for survival ensues between the Kraken and humans. Story by John Wyndham.

A futuristic rendition of 'Moby Dick', with a rogue comet standing in for the White Whale, and Christopher Lee as a wayward space commander obsessed with avenging himself on it for blinding him. Adaptation written by Ray Bradbury.

Cerebus is the first of a new breed of nuclear attack submarines which operates under the principle of Negative Acknowledgment Attack - every 4 hours it must surface and receive a signal from a polar-orbit sattelite - if it does not receive a signal for twelve consecutive hours the captain and his crew are under strict orders to launch the submarine's payload. Story by James Follett.

Based on the classic novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the story follows the quest of the irascible Professor Edward Challenger to prove the veracity of his claims as to the existence of a South American plateau where dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures still thrive.

The BBC produced 4 separate versions. A more recent semi-dramatized reading was done for Alien Voices.

In a remote future when the world has become virtually uninhabitable, and humanity has retreated underground to die a slow death under the auspices of the Machine, a woman's son declares his intention to violate the fabric of civilization by venturing to the surface. An early 20th century classic of science fiction by E. M. Forster, written as a retort against H. G. Wells' faith in the wonders of a future driven by technology.

Another version of this story was produced for the series 2000 X.

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 the CBS Radio Mystery Theater and Escape

The pressures of overpopulation make necessary the terraforming and colonization of Mars, but one scientist's megalomania endangers the future of the human race, and opens the way for an ancient evil to resurface.

A small town succumbs to a strange force that puts everyone within a 2-mile radius to sleep for 24 hours. Afterwards it is discovered that every woman of child-bearing age that was affected is now pregnant. All of the children are born healthy, highly intelligent, and mostly normal, except for their golden eyes and general creepiness... The novel was also made into a movie called "Village of the Damned". Story by John Wyndham.

The log entries of the last survivor of a doomed expedition to a planet of inexplicable terrors.

Based on the landmark William Gibson novel, a washed up cyber-spy gets a second chance when he is hired into a rich, but unstable ex war hero's plot to steal data from the world's most powerful and impregnable corporation.

An American judge searching for his missing son comes into contact with the dreaded Northcott family and a descent into lycanthropic madness. Starring Vincent Price and his wife, Coral Browne. Story by Victor Pemberton.

While playing a computer game in which he has to save Earth from attacking alien ships, a young boy is surprised when the aliens in the game begin behaving in strange ways not mentioned in the computer manual. Apparently, the leader of the aliens wants to surrender to young Johnny and asks for his help. Story by Terry Pratchett.

On the brink of World War Three, the West sends envoys to recruit aid from the penal colony on Venus, only to learn a hard lesson in morality from the sub-culture which has evolved out of the brutal living conditions there.

A more recent version was produced for the NPR series 2000 X, as 'The Mission of the Vega'.

A British space shuttle mission is endangered by a seemingly foolish American mission specialist, whose agenda includes the covert recovery of a strange object orbiting the Earth.

An astronomer in residence at an English university receives a call from a colleague who claims to have picked up intelligent signals originating from the edges of the Solar System. His investigation of the matter leads to the discovery of strange glowing cylinders which suck both heat and matter from everything around it. Unchecked, they could turn the Earth into a freezer as cold as deepest space....

Presented as a serial in 6 parts.

Contact with a technologically superior race is made via radio telescope, but it doesn't take long for the aliens to start dictating commands to the poor backward humans. Are their intentions benign or malevolent?
See also 'Childhood's End' (BBC)

Eager to get their hands on anti-gravity crystals on Ganymede, Earth scientists dispatch a robot proxy to negotiate with the primitive natives, who are unwilling to trade for the gems. When the scientists resort to threats, their robotic envoy provides a lesson in ethics, but to whom?

The only survivor of an expedition to the Purple Planet cannot convince his psychotherapist of the truth behind his story of the sadistic tortures he and his crew-mates suffered at the hands of the super-advanced, slug-like natives there.

A husband purchases an android to help out his nervous wife while he is out of town on business, and 'Tony' quickly proceeds to turn her life and her outlook on it upside down. Story by Isaac Asimov.

A down-and-out farmer and his family inherit a Midwestern farm, but only if he is willing to also assume the former owner's second occupation as the Grim Reaper. Story by Ray Bradbury.

A six-part historical melodrama set in ancient Egypt, about a young man who finds himself the unwitting enemy of an evil usurper to the throne of Thebes.

Two time travelers from separate worlds are drawn to the same location - a beach on a strange unknown planet with no way back home and stalked by deadly predators. Story by Tanith Lee.

A mother becomes increasingly paranoid for the safety of her two sons when they obsess over a snowman in the yard that only they see. Story by J.C.W. Brooke.

Produced for the series Fear on Four.

Psychologist Kris Kelvin is dispatched to a remote research station studying Solaris, a planet dominated by an ocean of living plasma, there to investigate the death of a scientist and the mental disintegration of the entire research team - despite their total isolation, they seem to have been plagued by 'visitors'. Story by Stanislaw Lem.

Two film versions were made, a lengthy Russian production out of the 70's, and the more recent Hollywood version starring George Clooney.

A colony world, long cut off from Mother Earth, witnesses the arrival of an outbound starship which must repair its crippled engines. The crew and colonists must face the hard realities of colonizing the stars when they are forced to part once again. Based on the book by Arthur C. Clarke.

A lone astronaut on a long interstellar journey develops romantic feelings for the ship's 'female' computer when 'her' attempts to understand his psyche result in the evolution of an electronic personality.

An alien colony ship encounters a meteor storm and is forced into the atmosphere of a giant hostile planet where they must find an energy source to regenerate their power core. They find one - in the form of a human brain.

The Earth cruiser Eumenides is dispatched on a salvage and rescue mission into deepest space to retrieve vital medicines from a courier ship attacked by enemy aliens. NOTE: This was a one off for a series targeted to schools called Secondary English 11-14 and aired three times starting on 12-4-86. Of the 38 programs listed, this seemed the only one of the Sci Fi genre.

Dinner at Spiro's is an occasion to be both anticipated and remembered as the finest dining experience in the world - but why is the chef so fanatically adamant that no one be allowed in his kitchen? From the series Fear on Four.

The staff aboard an orbital research station is attacked by a space borne virus that invades the brain and drives the victim mad with delusions and excruciating pain.

A lengthy serial about the relationship between man and machine in a future where the lines dividing the two become increasingly, and more dangerously, blurred. Never is there a proper title for the trilogy mentioned, though some sources refer to it as the 'Last Rose of Summer Trilogy', perhaps because that segment was the original novel upon which the entire story evolved in radio form. Each segment of the trilogy contains its own story line, though naturally it makes more sense as a whole. The series is not actually from the BBC, but a product of Piccadilly Radio out of Manchester, UK.

The Last Rose of Summer (1978) 2 hrs 30 min - In the future the world's population resides entirely in the City, a megalopolis controlled down to the minutiae of everyday life by Central Command, a supercomputer. A lowly nobody by the name of Mitchell decides that this just won't do. He embarks on a crusade to overthrow the system, hunted down by Randall, one of the hard core 'Elite', enforcers trained since birth to serve the State.

Hunter's Moon (1979) 3 hrs 20 min - The Central Computer destroyed, society is on the verge of collapse, only to be 'saved' by the advent of the Council, tyrants who have seized power in the vacuum. Randall, contaminated by his exposure to Mitchell, is packed off to a polar prison complex. Then a new threat emerges: an alien race arrives - the Wekk - who rape planets to build their Worldships. Having patterned Mitchell's persona into a mechanical simulacrum, they begin building an army of simulacra to overwhelm the Earth. The Council has even sold out to the Wekk to save their own hides. Only Randall, Lobo - a fellow convict - and the Mitchell simulacra stand in their way.

The Babylon Run (1980) 1 hr 40 min - Hundreds of years later, in a time when Man has spread out to the stars, a commercial charter makes a forced landing on the Babylon asteroid, a luxury resort for the super rich. Their ship damaged, they are dismayed to find the complex abandoned due to an incoming 'something' on a collision course. If that weren't bad enough, there is mutiny brewing, and Babylon itself is not what it seems to be...

Story by Steve Gallagher. See the CD cover art for this show.

When an interplanetary liner is cast adrift in the depths of space, the passengers are faced with a limited food supply, and the looming threat of cannibalism. Story by John Wyndham.

From the BBC series Fear on Four. See also 'A Fall of Moondust' (Nightfall), and 'Space Wreck' (2000 Plus); also 'The Map Makers' and 'Death Wish' (X Minus One)

A couple living alone on the Scottish coast must deal with the husband's suppressed trauma over having heard a supposedly dead young girl tapping from within a coffin when he was young. Little do they realize the dangers of dredging up the past...

Produced for the series Fear on Four.

A narrative account of an automated house which continues to function long after its human occupants have gone. Story by Ray Bradbury.

Versions were also produced for Dimension X and X Minus One.

Adrift aboard a space wreck, third rate mechanic Gully Foyle has managed to survive for months in a tool locker, only to be ignored by a passing ship. Finally rescued by the inhabitants of a ramshackle asteroid colony, his search for vengeance on the vessel that abandoned him leads him into conflict and conspiracy involving mega-corporations, covert government agencies, and the secret behind a substance known only as PyrE. The outcome could determine the fate of Earth in its war with the Outer Planets, and maybe much more...

Based on the classic novel The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester; Produced for the BBC series The Shape of Things to Come.

Frank and Paul are two engineers tinkering with a supposedly non-working Electronic Agitator stroke Molecule Adjustor (for the layman, a copy machine that makes working 3-D copies of anything). When they accidentally and unknowingly create duplicates of themselves, things get a bit confusing. They and their frustrated wives have to solve many existential crises, such as: Who is the original? How do we get rid of the impostors? and Who gets the only pair of house slippers? Story by Wally K. Daly..

Split into two parts, each 90 min; Part 1 - 'Titus Groan', Part 2 - 'Gormenghast'

Mervyn Peake's classic fantasy of intrigue and power-brokering in the ancient moldering castle of Gormenghast. Titus, the young heir to the throne, is threatened by the machinations of Steerpike (played by Sting), a kitchen servant whose sole ambition is to destroy the Groan dynasty that has dominated Gormenghast for 76 generations.

Scientists at a secret British research facility find themselves 'invaded' by beings from another dimension who are willfully de-evolving to escape the ramifications of the technology humans are so desperately trying to achieve.

A researcher travels to Romania to interview a beautiful Countess whose ancestor had been renowned as a vampire. Story by Kingsley Amis.

A team of planetary surveyors working to build a landing field for future colony ships encounters a strange and deadly native creature.

A couple purchase a holo-theater to keep their son and daughter amused, but the recreation of the sweltering African savannah the children concoct is anything but amusing... Story by Ray Bradbury.

See also 'The House on Chimney Pot Lane' (CBS Radio Mystery Theater)

One of Bradbury's most popular stories, versions appeared on X Minus One, CBC Playhouse, and Dimension X.

A common, unassuming man fantasizes about an exciting life as a secret agent on Mars, and seeks to fulfill his dreams by having artificial memories implanted into his brain. But reality and fantasy become confused when the implants trigger the repressed memory of a life he never knew he had. Based on a story by Philip K. Dick.

This story was the basis for the film Total Recall.

A research team in the Antarctic finds the shell of a spaceship which had crashed in prehistoric times, and the mummified remains of its pilot frozen into the ice. They drag the ice block into their station and it begins to thaw...

Based on a story by John W. Campbell Jr., the publisher of Astounding Stories. Broadcast as part of the series Chillers.

This story inspired two Hollywood film versions, both called The Thing.

An alien disregards protocols and contacts the primitive natives of Earth to warn them of the dangers of nuclear weapons.

A woman receives a letter left by her recently deceased husband, an Oxford don, explaining that he has participated in a medical experiment. Just after his cancer kills him, his doctor will remove his brain and sustain it artificially. The letter tells the wife to contact the doctor, to find out whether the operation was a success. Story by Roald Dahl.

From the BBC series Fear on Four

Created especially for BBC Radio 4 Extra, a dramatization of the novel Witch Week, by Diana Wynne Jones, who wrote about a young wizard at a magical academy 20 years before J.K. Rowling picked the same topic. At Larwood House, a school for witch orphans, witchcraft is utterly forbidden, but there is a rumour going around that there is a witch in class 2Y.

Part of the Chrestomanci children's fantasy series. Stars Bill Milner.

"I remember the day they burned the witch. I was young, still in my pushchair, and Bernadine was pushing me through the market square while mum did the shopping. We watched as the bonfire caught and we watched the witch, who was a large fat man with a wobbly astonished face. Maybe he thought his magic would save him at the last moment, but it didn't.... Soon after that they changed the laws. There are no public burnings these days. The bonfires are lit inside the walls of the jails instead, and the Today program simply announces: 'Two witches were burned this morning in the Holloway Jail.'" --- student in class 2Y

Copyright © 2001-2012 - This work by www.otrplotspot.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.