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The Best Episodes of Out of the Unknown

Every episode of Out of the Unknown ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Out of the Unknown!

Binge this in 1d 16h•Peaking at 9.6/10

Out of the Unknown is a British television science fiction anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in four series between 1965 and 1971. Each episode was a dramatisation of a

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    Out of the Unknown Season 3 Episode 13 - Get Off My Cloud
    9.6/10(16 votes)

    S3:E13

    A bed-bound SF author finds himself within one of his own fantasies after a mental breakdown.

    Director:Peter Cregeen
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. Out of the Unknown Season 1 Episode 9 - Andover and the Android
    8.6/10(11 votes)

    S1:E9

    Roger Andover will inherit a fortune if he marries. But he is a solitary man with no ambition: human relationships mystify and dismay him. But to present a life-like female android as your wife: surely that will satisfy everyone? Andover finds more than he bargained for when his robot bride challenges his preconceptions about humanity.

    Director:Alan Cooke
    Writer:Bruce Stewart

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  3. Out of the Unknown Season 2 Episode 12 - Satisfaction Guaranteed
    8.5/10(8 votes)

    S2:E12

    A human-looking robot housekeeper is the latest gadget to acquire in the ceaseless battle to keep up with the Joneses. But housewife Claire Belmont starts to question the wisdom of her husband's purchase when TN3 (Tony) arrives. Can a man-like robot do everything a man can do: but willingly, obediently, tirelessly? Is a robot less than a man, or more?

    Director:John Gorrie
    Writer:Hugh Leonard

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  4. Out of the Unknown Season 3 Episode 1 - Immortality, Inc.
    8.4/10(6 votes)

    S3:E1

    The very rich can buy eternal life: all that's needed is someone desperate enough to donate, for a high price, a young body into which their personality can be transferred.

    Directors:Terence Dudley, Philip Dudley
    Writer:Jack Pulman

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  5. Out of the Unknown Season 3 Episode 2 - Liar!
    8.4/10(11 votes)

    S3:E2

    The positronic brain of robot RB-34(Herbie) has an unforeseen 'extra': he can read human thoughts. So his take on the First Law of Robotics ("A robot may not harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm") is unorthodox: he tells human beings only what he believes will not hurt their feelings. Can renowned robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin 'fix' RB-34? Or are there areas of her own psyche where she would rather not hear the truth?

    Director:Gerald Blake
    Writer:David Campton

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  6. Out of the Unknown Season 3 Episode 6 - Random Quest
    8.4/10(9 votes)

    S3:E6

    Following an explosion in a laboratory accident, physicist Colin Trafford is sent to a parallel universe where he enters into the body of his counterpart, a popular writer married to an attractive woman who hates him.

    Director:Christopher Barry
    Writer:Unknown

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    The 20 WORST Episodes of Out of the Unknown

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  7. Out of the Unknown Season 3 Episode 8 - The Little Black Bag
    8.2/10(35 votes)

    S3:E8

    When a down-at-heel, alcoholic physician discovers a medical kit, based on future technology, accidentally left in the wake of a time-travel expedition, he becomes a dispenser of miracle cures. But is his discovery enough to salvage his self-esteem and redeem his life?

    Director:Eric Hills
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. Out of the Unknown Season 3 Episode 12 - The Yellow Pill
    8.2/10(14 votes)

    S3:E12

    A murderer is examined by psychiatrist John Frame who is surprised to find the criminal knows many details of his private life.

    Director:Michael Ferguson
    Writer:Leon Griffiths

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  9. Out of the Unknown Season 2 Episode 4 - Level Seven
    7.9/10(67 votes)

    S2:E4

    In the huge, labyrinthine nuclear bunker meant to shield the survivors in government from the aftermath of atomic war, Level 7 is the deepest and the safest from radiation. But in spite of its hermetic isolation, the nerve center of government is ultimately not safe from the consequences of the holocaust which rages miles overhead.

    Director:Rudolph Cartier
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. Out of the Unknown Season 2 Episode 8 - Tunnel Under the World
    7.9/10(59 votes)

    S2:E8

    Déja vu: as Guy Birkett goes through the day he has a nagging feeling that he's been here before, experienced this already; except the details are always different. Is it conceivable that he is merely a simulacrum, the ultimate in consumer market surveying? He finds there is a reality behind the reality he knows; but for a pawn to question the reality of the chessboard is a perilous undertaking.

    Director:Alan Cooke
    Writer:David Campton

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  11. Out of the Unknown Season 3 Episode 7 - The Naked Sun
    7.8/10(21 votes)

    S3:E7

    Earth police detective Lije Baley and his robot associate, R. Daneel Olivaw, investigate an impossible murder on a planet where physical proximity is taboo but nudity is not.

    Director:Rudolph Cartier
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. Out of the Unknown Season 2 Episode 1 - The Machine Stops
    7.6/10(104 votes)

    S2:E1

    In the far future, the material needs of humankind are tended by the omnipresent Machine, which makes their environment, in vast tunnels beneath the earth, comfortable and safe. But safe from what? And what if the Machine Stops? A young boy, Kuno, finds his questions can't be answered until he has lifted the veil of security and trespassed upon the surface.

    Director:Philip Saville
    Writers:Clive Donner, Kenneth Cavander, E.M. Forster

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  13. Out of the Unknown Season 1 Episode 4 - The Dead Past
    7.5/10(71 votes)

    S1:E4

    Time travel may still be impossible, but the Chronoscope, sensing the nearly imponderable tracks of ancient photons, allows a glimpse into any event in Earth's distant past. Historian Arnold Potterley is rebuffed when he petitions for use of the Chronoscope to study ancient Carthage. So he commissions the building of a private time-viewing machine, with unexpected results.

    Director:John Gorrie
    Writer:Jeremy Paul

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  14. Out of the Unknown Season 1 Episode 8 - The Fox and the Forest
    7.4/10(9 votes)

    S1:E8

    Sarah and David Kirsten are tourists from the 21st century who take a forbidden holiday in 1938 Mexico. But enforcers from the future, trying to keep the time-stream free from pollution and paradox, are on their trail. Can they evade their pursuers without betraying their origins?

    Director:Robin Midgley
    Writers:Terry Nation, Meade Roberts

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  15. Out of the Unknown Season 4 Episode 6 - Welcome Home
    7.4/10(33 votes)

    S4:E6

    Dr Frank Bowers has been looking forward to returning home after a long stay in a psychiatric ward. But when he gets there, he finds that not only does no one recognize him, but another man called Frank Bowers is living in his place.

    Director:Eric Hills
    Writer:Moris Farhi

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  16. Out of the Unknown Season 1 Episode 11 - Thirteen to Centaurus
    7.3/10(62 votes)

    S1:E11

    Interstellar travel at sub-light speeds: the enormous distances, isolation from human culture and the aching loneliness of space are enough to drive the strongest personality insane. Better to block all memories of human contact and to program the 12-strong crew to accept only the reality they can see and touch within their spacecraft. But a child born on "the Station" becomes insistent on learning the truth about 'Outside'.

    Director:Peter Potter
    Writers:Stanley Miller, Irene Shubik

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  17. Out of the Unknown Season 3 Episode 3 - The Last Lonely Man
    7.3/10(54 votes)

    S3:E3

    If, by an accident of science, it became possible for the personality to pass at the moment of death into the mind of someone still alive, then the big new problem would be into whom. To foist the wits of a rogue onto an unwilling recipient would be unjust indeed. Any government who could thus cheat death might indeed win a popular vote, but only so long as all was voluntary - mutually contracted. James Hale is a man of such a society. He has insured against death of his personality by arranging mutual "Contact" contracts with his relatives. He is already host to his late father with whose memories and prejudices he has now learned to live. He himself is a responsible parent of twins whose Contact he will arrange when they are of age.

    Director:Douglas Camfield
    Writers:Jeremy Paul, John Brunner

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  18. Out of the Unknown Season 4 Episode 10 - The Uninvited
    7.3/10(13 votes)

    S4:E10

    A Middle-aged couple are disturbed during the night by a series of unwelcome visitations.

    Director:Eric Hills
    Writer:Michael J. Bird

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  19. Out of the Unknown Season 4 Episode 3 - This Body Is Mine
    7.2/10(41 votes)

    S4:E3

    Allen Meredith is a brilliant scientist but too mild-mannered to make an impact or fight for the money he needs. He has invented a process to exchange minds between bodies. His ambitious wife Ann persuades him to invite his boss, the domineering Jack Gregory, to their house for dinner. Once there, they drug him and Allen swaps bodies with Jack, then goes back to work to transfer millions into his account. But meanwhile Ann is finding the combination of Jack's masculine personality in Allen's body rather attractive and they begin making their own plans.

    Director:Eric Hills
    Writer:John Tully

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  20. Out of the Unknown Season 4 Episode 4 - Deathday
    7.2/10(39 votes)

    S4:E4

    Adam Crosse is a reporter for a local paper. A neurotic under-achiever, the last straw comes when he discovers his wife Lydia is having an affair and she coolly tells him she has no intention of either giving up her lover or divorcing Adam. The top crime story of the moment is a serial murderer nicknamed "The Kitchen Killer". Adam sets out to murder his wife and blame it on this shadowy psycho.

    Director:Raymond Menmuir
    Writer:Brian Hayles

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  21. Out of the Unknown Season 1 Episode 3 - Stranger in the Family
    7.1/10(68 votes)

    S1:E3

    A young man, known as 'Boy', is born with no fingernails and with mental powers that enable him to control others. He falls for a young actress, initially repulsed, whose agent-boyfriend encourages the relationship because he thinks Boy's powers can be used to make a lot of money via TV commercials. But he is being hunted by a mysterious surveillance team who have moved into the next-door flat in the tower block where he lives...

    Director:Alan Bridges
    Writer:David Campton

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  22. Out of the Unknown Season 1 Episode 5 - Time In Advance
    7.1/10(60 votes)

    S1:E5

    Imagine a future where you serve your prison sentence before you commit your crime, in the various hells of savage new planets just being colonised. If you survive, like Nick Crandall and Otto Henck, you can return home with carte blanche to commit murder...

    Director:Peter Sasdy
    Writer:Paul Erickson

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  23. Out of the Unknown Season 1 Episode 10 - Some Lapse of Time
    7.1/10(50 votes)

    S1:E10

    Dr Max Harrow is awakened from a re-current nightmare in which he is pursued by a barbaric accusing figures, to find collapsed on his doorstep, The tramp is suffering from a genetic radiation disorder that should killed him in infancy as it did Harrow's baby son. The ma is the living image of Harrow's nightmare figures, Clutched in his hand is a human finger bone and he speaks a strange, unknown tongue, Why did he collapse outside Harrow's house? What is his motive for tracing him?.

    Director:Roger Jenkins
    Writer:Leon Griffiths

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  24. Out of the Unknown Season 1 Episode 12 - The Midas Plague
    7.0/10(53 votes)

    S1:E12

    The Future is bright for most of society: robot labour and free energy make the creation of goods easy and automatic. But the disadvantaged of this Golden Age are those who have to stem the inexorable tide of robot-manufactured goods; they are continually supplied with more things than they can possibly consume. Is there any way for a 'poor' man to get off this treadmill of consumption?

    Director:Peter Sasdy
    Writers:Troy Kennedy Martin, Frederik Pohl

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  25. Out of the Unknown Season 3 Episode 4 - Beach Head
    7.0/10(25 votes)

    S3:E4

    On his thirty-seventh mission, Commandant Tom Decker and his colleague Ensign Warner-Carr become alarmed at what they find when their spaceship lands on Planet 0243/B.

    Director:James Cellan Jones
    Writer:Robert Muller

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Best Episodes Summary

"Get Off My Cloud" is the best rated episode of "Out of the Unknown". It scored 9.6/10 based on 16 votes. Directed by Peter Cregeen and written by Unknown, it aired on 4/1/1969. This episode scored 1.0 points higher than the second highest rated, "Andover and the Android".