GHOSTMAN

Monday, 27 February 2023

Out of the Unknown

Out of the Unknown is a British television science fiction horror anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in four series between 1965 and 1971. Most episodes of the first three series were a dramatisation of a science fiction short story. Some were written directly for the series, but most were adaptations of already-published stories.

Out of the Unknown

Created by	Irene Shubik
Theme music composer	Norman Kay (series 1 -3) Roger Roger (series 4)
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	4
No. of episodes	49 (28 missing, 1 incomplete) (list of episodes)
Production
Producers	Irene Shubik (series 1 & 2) Alan Bromly (series 3 & 4)
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	c. 60 minutes per episode (series 1) c. 50 minutes per episode (series 2-4)
Release
Original network	BBC 2
Picture format	625 line (576i) PAL 4:3 Monochrome (series 1 & 2) Colour (series 3 & 4)
Audio format	Monaural
Original release	4 October 1965 – 30 June 1971

The first three years were exclusively science fiction, but that genre was mostly abandoned in the final year in favour of horror-fantasy stories, with only one story based around science-fiction. Many videotapes of episodes were wiped in the early 1970s, as was standard procedure at the time. A large number of episodes are still missing, although some have resurfaced—for example, "Level Seven" from series two, originally broadcast on 27 October 1966, was returned to the BBC from the archives of a European broadcaster in January 2006.