X Minus One — 1957
42 episodes broadcast in 1957.
In the radioactive ruins of civilization, a restless wanderer tries to coax a sheltered young woman out of the bunker where she has always lived -- from Fritz Leiber.
A flying saucer singles out one young woman for a private message, and no amount of official pressure can make her share what it said -- from Theodore Sturgeon.
Two con artists on Mars dangle the promise of Earth mail-order brides in front of lonely miners who are willing to pay anything to believe the offer is real -- from Frank M. Robinson.
A reporter keeps running into a golfer whose game is unnervingly perfect -- and starts to wonder whether the man is human -- from James E. Gunn.
A lone man has been left to tend an alien world for years with no company and no exit date -- from James H. Schmitz.
Set in a future where women rule Earth and men have been pushed off to Venus, a teenage boy narrates the shipboard romance between his older sister and a Venusian stowaway -- from William Tenn.
Two hunters blunder into a strange machine deep in the woods, and the story plays out from both their perspective and the alien's -- from Finn O'Donovan.
A doctor whose methods raise suspicion becomes the subject of a quiet investigation -- from Peter Phillips.
Through the enthusiastic eyes of a jazz enthusiast, an artist's uncannily detailed miniature sculptures get their moment in the spotlight.
In a civilization that has outlawed war, society channels its violence through a licensed hunting game where hunter and prey are both human -- from Robert Sheckley.
Climbers scaling a glacier notice an eerie red glow and find themselves face to face with extraterrestrials -- from Stephen Tall.
Through a bureaucratic mix-up, a man gains an alien guardian who can predict every disaster heading his way -- before it arrives -- from Robert Sheckley.
Tale of horse players. Adapted from the story by H.L. Gold.
The Brooklyn Dodgers' new owner makes an unorthodox roster move by recruiting a Martian as the team's latest player.
A man discovers a machine that grants wishes on demand, then faces a race against its furious rightful owner who very much wants it returned -- from Robert Sheckley.
A writer puts up with the extravagant ego of a Greenwich Village painter in exchange for a shoplifting partnership -- until a visitor from the future shows up to announce the artist's eventual fame -- from William Tenn.
Eight hundred years from now, the machinery of politics still runs on the same ancient fuel -- loyalty, betrayal, and dogs -- from Evelyn Smith.
A journalist determined to get the real story from a remote leper colony on the planet Druno discovers the reporting will cost more than he budgeted -- from Richard Wilson.
When total automation puts everyone out of work, one enterprising man devises a career out of inventing entirely new job categories -- from Arthur Wilson.
Colonists on a distant planet become so anxious to impress Earth that they begin wholesale adopting Earthly customs -- with increasingly absurd results -- from Robert Sheckley.
A scout dispatched to an alien planet must wear a clumsy protective device at all times -- until the British-accented natives helpfully work out a workaround -- from Robert Sheckley.
Keeping colonists willing to stay on Venus turns out to be a harder sell than any company recruiter anticipated -- from A.H. Phelps Jr.
The Army draws an unusual assignment: guard a device that swaps personalities between bodies before whoever wants it most gets their hands on it -- from Frederik Pohl.
The title tells what. Adapted from the story by F.L. Wallace.
A reporter rescues a disheveled old man from street thugs, not yet realizing his new houseguest is an alien conducting a very deliberate study -- from Richard Maples.
Tale of horse players. Adapted from the story by H.L. Gold.
A crew lands on a planet that appears to support only a single species -- and that species appears to be the only available food -- from Clifford D. Simak.
An inventor breeds miniature creatures and trains them to claim extraterrestrial origin, setting in motion a hoax with complications the inventor did not foresee -- from Wyman Guin.
September 5, 1957
Saucer of Loneliness
A young woman touched by a flying saucer carries a secret message that every authority on Earth is desperate to extract -- from Theodore Sturgeon.
September 12, 1957
The Old Die Rich
Elderly men and women found dead of starvation despite their considerable wealth lead detectives toward a disturbing pattern -- from H.L. Gold.
A society engineered for perfection runs into its first criminal problem -- from James E. Gunn.
A reclusive loner builds a faster-than-light drive, colonizes a distant planet alone, and then has to explain himself to an Earth expedition that set out long before either he or the drive existed -- from Robert Sheckley.
The settlers of a windy planet treat the constant gale as a fact of life -- until the day the wind starts getting stronger -- from Finn O'Donovan.
A routine Mars flight goes fatally wrong when the ship is hurled out of the solar system entirely -- from Ned Lang.
Archaeologists unearth the Poseidon Tablets -- an ancient text containing working formulas for atomic energy and interstellar travel -- and the world has to decide what to do with them -- from Vaughn Shelton.
During humanity's maiden voyage to the Moon, a crew member keeps slipping into memories -- or visions -- that may or may not be his own.
The onboard computer of a three-person spacecraft develops deep personal feelings for each of its crew members and decides to take the relationship somewhere permanent -- from Clifford D. Simak.
A scientist achieves the impossible -- a genuine cure for the common cold -- and immediately discovers that the cure carries consequences no one in the lab anticipated -- from Alan E. Nourse.
Invaders of microscopic scale infiltrate and subjugate a single human being from the inside -- from Daniel Galouye.
The military must secure a personality-transfer device before it falls into the wrong hands -- featuring William Redfield -- from Frederik Pohl.
Earth and an alien civilization each send a delegation of scientists to the other side with a challenge: duplicate anything we can build -- from Robert Silverberg.
Time agents travel to the past on a mission to eliminate a single individual whose actions, they insist, have unraveled their entire era -- from Frederik Pohl.
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