Mar 4, 2021
Out of the Unknown: Time in Advance (1.5, BBC, 1965)
"Nicholas Crandall. Otto Henck. Having regard to the work that you have achieved in helping to colonise those places in which you have spent the last seven years, I accordingly grant you your complete discharge, and your legal licences - to go forth from this place, and kill one man, or one woman, of your own choosing."
#Out of the Unknown#Time in advance#William Tenn#Single play#1965#BBC#peter sasdy#Paul Erickson#Edward Judd#Mike Pratt#Wendy Gifford#Dyson Lovell#Jerome Willis#Judy Parfitt#Danvers Walker#Peter Madden#Peter Stephens#Ken Parry#Philip Voss#Again this series is proving itself a very adult answer to whatever else the BBC were doing with Sci fi in the 1960s: altho not lingered on#The early scenes contain quite a variety of gruesome injury detail while the finále contains sporadic but quite graphic violence. That was#A surprise as well; this is the first story where I've actually read the source material (probably in one of the stacks of old amazing#Science fiction mags I hoarded as a youth) and whilst I didn't remember much outside the central conceit (a quite brilliant thought#Experiment: what if you served your sentence in advance of committing your crime) but I thought I knew where the end was going and then..#Suddenly it wasn't. Someone decided to take this in a different direction for TV which is interesting (as the original plot makes for a#Fine TV play in itself; there's only one minor change but it's a huge tonal shift making what is in print a slightly dark joke of a tale#Into outright tragedy). But it's a good script and an impressive production (bar some understandably basic model work). Always lovely to#Catch Mike Pratt in a guest star role even if (as here) he doesn't seem to be able to decide on an accent. Most disturbing of all tho (far#More than the plot) is the worrying reappearance of the blonde wigs. Is this the genuine prediction of the future that Irene had? Or were#The crew trying to establish a kind of fictional universe like the mcu (Future Earth Blonde Hair Cinematic Universe? FEBHCU. Needs work)