Sci-Fi

Science fiction first appeared in television programming in the late 1930s. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary world not limited by the constraints of reality. Through most of the 20th century, many of these techniques were expensive and involved a small number of dedicated craft practitioners, while the reusability of props, models, effects, or animation techniques made it easier to keep using them. The combination of high initial cost and lower maintenance cost pushed producers into building these techniques into the basic concept of a series, influencing all the artistic choices.

A brief history of television SciFi before I was born

1938-59

1960-71

Television SciFi broadcast between 1972 and 1991

A brief history of television SciFi before I was born

1938-59

The BBC broadcast the first ever piece of television science fiction - a performance of an extract from the play R.U.R. - in 1938. Between 1938 and 1960, the BBC broadcast 18 science fiction productions, many of which were performed live and not recorded - or recordings were deleted - so they do not exist in the archives.

A complete production of R.U.R. was broadcast in 1948. The BBC followed this with an adaptation of H G Wells' The Time Machine and J B Priestley's Summer Day's Dream in 1949. The latter was debuting in Bradford at the time and the cast performed the play on television.

The BBC then produced a television serial for children, Stranger From Space (1951-52), followed by the first of screenwriter Nigel Kneale's Quatermass trilogy, The Quatermass Experiment (1953), which was the first television science fiction written specifically for adults. Only the first two episodes exist as very poor quality telerecordings but Hammer Productions produced a feature film version, The Quatermass Xperiment in 1955. 1953 also saw the broadcast of a short television play called Time Slip. It was broadcast live and not recorded. Two years later it would be turned into a feature film called Timeslip, which was first broadcast on television in 1983.

In 1954, the BBC commissioned a television version of a radio serial for children by Angus MacVicar, The Lost Planet. In the same year was the BBC's controversial production of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, adapted by Nigel Kneale. It starred Peter Cushing, Andre Morell and Donald Pleasance. The following year saw MacVicar adapt his sequel radio serial, Return To The Lost Planet for television. There were two further radio serials in the series but they were not adapted for television.

On September 22, 1955, the new Independent Television (ITV) service was launched in London, with a weekday service provided by Associated-Rediffusion. The following month, the BBC aired Quatermass II in a bid to assert its dominance in television SciFi. Again, Hammer produced a film version in 1957. A new children's serial, Space School broadcast in January 1956. Associated-Rediffusion produced the TV play One, based on the 1953 novel by David Karp, in April, and it starred Donald Pleasance. In May, the BBC produced the TV play The End Begins, written by Ray Rigby and which was adapted for Australian television in 1961. In September, ATV produced ITV's first science fiction serial, The Strange World Of Planet X. It was novelised by its creator, Rene Ray, and then was turned into a feature film with the same name in 1958. ABC ended 1956 with The Trollenberg Terror produced for ATV. The serial does not exist in the archive but a film version was produced in 1958.

In 1957, ABC produced a new serial, Electrode 93. In March 1958, Granada Television produced a television adaptation of another J B Priestley play, Doomsday For Dyson. The BBC ended 1958 with the third Quatermass serial, Quatermass And The Pit. It too had a Hammer film adaptation but not until 1967. The BBC produced The Offshore Island in April 1959, which was based on a play by English journalist, radio panellist, novelist and CND supporter, Marghanita Laski.

1960-71

In February 1960, the BBC produced the comic opera Hands Across The Sky. In April, ABC produced the children's drama serial, Target Luna, in 1960, written by Malcolm Hulke and Eric Paice, and produced by Sydney Newman. The serial featured Frank Finlay as Conway Henderson and Michael Craze as Geoffrey Wedgwood. Its success led to the commissioning of a trilogy of serials, Pathfinders In Space (1960), Pathfinders To Mars (1960-61) and Pathfinders To Venus (1961). They starred Gerald Flood and Stewart Guidotti in the recast roles, as Henderson and Geoffrey respectively. Flood and Guidotti were reunited as journalist Mark Bannerman and photographer Peter Blake in Plateau Of Fear (1961), City Beneath The Sea (1962) and Secret Beneath The Sea (1963).

Gerry Anderson produced his first science fiction show, Supercar, in 1961 for ATV, using puppets, and saw the introduction of Supermarionation. The following year, Fireball XL5 debuted, as did Space Patrol, which was created by Roberta Leigh with whom Anderson worked on The Adventures Of Twizzle (1957-59) and Torchy The Battery Boy in 1959. ABC produced a SciFi anthology series of plays based on stories by popular writers in the genre (John Wyndham, Isaac Asimov, Philip K Dick, Terry Nation, among others), presented by Boris Karloff.

The BBC had produced A For Andromeda in 1961, and followed it up with The Andromeda Breakthrough the following year. They produced two further serials in 1962, The Big Pull and The Monsters.

1963 saw the debut of Doctor Who, which became the longest running science fiction television series in the world. It began during the middle of the run of ABC's Emerald Soup, which found its original success flounder as a result. Earlier in the year, ABC also produced Dimensions Of Fear.

The following year, Gerry Anderson returned with Stingray, and he continued with Thunderbirds (1965-66), Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons (1967-68), Joe 90 (1968-69), and his final series using puppets, The Secret Service (1969). That same year, Anderson realised his dream of making a live-action feature film in Journey To The Far Side Of the Sun. He quickly followed this with his first fully live-action series, UFO (1970-71).

The BBC produced science drama R3 (1964-66) and ABC produced Undermind in May 1965. Associated-Rediffusion produced Object Z in October 1965, and its sequel, Object Z Returns in February 1966. Then Adam Adamant Lives! (BBC, 1966-67) was broadcast.

In 1967, the 1958 novel by Philippa Pearce, "Toms Midnight Garden" was read by Martin Jarvis for Jackanory. The following year Tom's Midnight Garden was dramatized for BBC's For Schools & Colleges strand and its Merry-Go-Round programme. It would be repeated in its own right in 1974, and a new version was produced in 1989.

Counterstrike was shown on the BBC in 1969. In 1970, the BBC debuted Doomwatch and ATV introduced a new live-action children's science fiction series, Timeslip. In 1971, the BBC's Look and Read educational series aired The Boy From Space.