Mar 18, 2021
Out of the Unknown: Some Lapse of Time (1.10, BBC, 1965)
"He may have just understood us!"
"So it seems."
"Well, that's fantastic!"
"Not really. What is fantastic is the language he's speaking."
"Well, what is it?"
"It just doesn't make sense. I'll have to consult another opinion."
"Oh, now look, this man is ill. If you know how to make contact with him, it's of the utmost importance! We have to know the answers to certain things before we can treat him properly. Whether it makes sense to you or not doesn't matter, but we've got to know."
"Alright. He's speaking English."
#Out of the Unknown#Some Lapse of Time#Single play#john brunner#BBC#1965#Leon Griffiths#Roger Jenkins#Ronald Lewis#John Gabriel#Jane Downs#Richard Gale#Delena Kidd#Moultrie Kelsall#George Woodbridge#Peter Bowles#Blake Butler#And so we continue‚ having hit the first pocket of missing episodes (eps 8 and 9 of this first series). That makes series 1 by far the best#Represented in the archives (just two of 12 missing; so 10 of the 20 surviving episodes are from the first series!). And what do we return#To? Somethjng... Very different. This one... Got to me. There's something deeply disturbing at the heart of this play‚ something rather#Difficult to express. For the first time this series seems to really be going for the sci fi horror hybrid‚ not just in sfx or gloop but in#Tone and theme and execution. The horror element is twofold; a whiff of the supernatural in with all the sciency wiency (bones as some kind#Of totem of the past world; or future‚ as it may be...). The other horror element is probably the more disturbing and that's because it's#The more real: the horrible implications of nuclear disaster. Whether that disaster is accidental or precipitated isn't clear nor is it#Important; the results are the same. There's this deep‚ disturbing‚ slightly paranoid sense of hopelessness and helplessness to the action#Here. The idea that no matter where in time you are (before or after) the event is coming or has been but it will always BE. This was after#All the era of the Aldermaston marches and the CND; of near misses and heightened tensions between East and West. It's something of a#Masterstroke‚ actually‚ to mostly ignore the politics of the issue: it keeps the sense of this episode very much centred on the human#Aspect‚ the mutual loss and universal suffering. Phew. Quite a lot to take in and deeply unsettling. Just as it should be. Oh and Ron Lewis#Stars! That was quite a get for this series; he was still a legit film star at this point (perhaps not A list but a B movie legend)
