This forgotten show was the original Black Mirror |
Sixty years ago, anthology series Out of the Unknown premiered on the BBC. It served up serious, one-off sci-fi dramas exploring our relationship with technology, among other things.
In a crowded TV landscape, few shows have carved out as distinct a niche as Black Mirror, Netflix's anthology sci-fi series comprised of individual, standalone dramas, all dealing with the dark side of modernity and technological progress. But while it may be strikingly different from anything else out there now, it's certainly not unique within TV history. In fact, you can see its roots all the way back in a classic British sci-fi show celebrating its 60th anniversary this month.
Airing on the BBC between 1965 and 1971, and re-released on DVD in 2014 by the British Film Institute, Out of the Unknown was a cultural outlier. While there were various sci-fi shows on British and US TV at the time, they mostly offered escapism, such as Doctor Who (1963-89) and Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's various serials like Stingray (1964-65) and Thunderbirds (1965). Out of the Unknown's aim was more elevated: it set out to tell sci-fi tales that explored serious, adult subjects such as war, politics and technology, and mixed original scripts with adaptations of stories by celebrated authors like John Wyndham, Ray Bradbury and JG Ballard. Like the best sci-fi, it also managed to depict imagined futures while really commenting on the fears and tensions facing the world at the time of its production.
In this respect and others, the parallels with Black Mirror are clear although there is an irony to this comparison. "I have to confess I haven't seen it!" Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker tells the BBC. "The inspiration for Black Mirror really came from Tales of the Unexpected, The Twilight Zone, and lots of slightly odd BBC single dramas like [Nigel Kneale's] The Stone Tape and The Year of the Sex Olympics. I'm definitely riffing on work directly connected to [Out of the Unknown], yet I haven't seen it. It's interesting!"
Out of the Unknown was the idea of pioneering producer, Irene Shubik. Initially working as story editor at the now defunct UK broadcaster ABC television on the show Armchair Theatre, her enthusiasm for sci-fi eventually led to the production of 13 episodes of the series Out of This World (1962) for UK broadcaster ITV. Later, Shubik was story editor on the BBC anthology series Story Parade (1964-65) which was a series of standalone adaptations of modern novels, and which tellingly dramatised Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel. The success of both ventures convinced the BBC Head of Drama Sydney Newman, who had worked with Shubik at ABC, that she should devise an anthology show dedicated to intellectual sci-fi.
Television historian Jon Dear explains the initial rationale behind the series. "Out of the Unknown was really the first time that sci-fi was presented as serious and intelligent adult drama," he tells the BBC. "Today, series like Alien: Earth and Andor are unremarkable as being made for adults, and obviously have their origins in cinema, but this series was the first time many people would have watched speculative........