Apr 30, 2021
Out of the Unknown: The Last Lonely Man (3.3, BBC, 1969)
"Look, I've had my fair share of troubles, but I'm not such a bad bloke. In any case, I look upon this as a kind of experiment."
"Experiment?"
"Two personalities, diametrically opposed - you and me - coming together under the same dome. We're pioneers, you and I, offering ourselves as guinea pigs; researching the frontiers of Contact for the benefit of mankind!"
"That's how you see it?"
"That's how it is!"
#Out of the Unknown#The last lonely man#john brunner#Jeremy Paul#Douglas Camfield#1969#BBC#George Cole#Peter Halliday#June Barry#Lillias Walker#Stanley Meadows#Peter Welch#Bryan Mosley#Eve Ross#Gerald Young#Anthony Woodruff#Richard Wardale#Gillian Shed#Albert Lampert#Annabella Johnston#Series 3 babeys! And we're in glorious colour! Those glossy film inserts really pop now! The move from bw to colour will always have a#Slight change on the feel of a series; here in a way it feels like it's opened the show out a bit and made it more.. Real? Slightly less#Artful a little more naturalistic. Or perhaps that's just the plot of this week's ep which is very kitchen sink Sci fi full of dull office#Types and regular world drunks. The Sci fi idea (Contact: a sort of mind transference at the point of death into a willing partner) is both#Believable and an interesting subject for unexpected side issues (conflicting personalities for eg; also this new kind of near immortality#Brings with it a sort of disregard for one's current life and body). A good conceit and a strong cast but this suffers that age old problem#Of a single entry in an anthology series: the joltingly abrubt ending (presumably to fit within a secure time slot). Here it leaves a lot#Of frustrating questions about how this plot will continue to play out and the ultimate fate of our characters. Perhaps the source story is#More complete in nature. And so there we go; alas this is the sole extant s3 episode. But we have some reconstructions to look at...