The Worst Episodes of Out of the Unknown

#1 Worst Episode
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5.4/10(47 votes)
#1 - Lambda I
S2:E310/20/1966
Why take the Great Circle route to Australia when you can tunnel through the very molecules of the solid earth itself in a TAU-mode shuttle? When a routine TAU-shuttle becomes entombed in solid rock miles under the earth, the only means of rescue may be the wildly experimental LAMBDA-mode shuttle; and even its creator has no idea how it will behave, or whether its pilot can keep his sanity during the rescue mission.
Director:George Spenton-Foster
Writer:Bruce Stewart
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Director:George Spenton-Foster
Writer:Bruce Stewart
4.0/10(10 votes)
#2 - The Chopper
S4:E96/16/1971
The vengeful spirit of a dead motorcyclist is reluctant to leave his wrecked machine and manifests itself to a woman journalist as motorbike noise.
Director:Peter Cregeen
Writer:Nigel Kneale
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Director:Peter Cregeen
Writer:Nigel Kneale
6.2/10(77 votes)
#3 - No Place Like Earth
S1:E110/4/1965
Earth is no more, destroyed by nuclear war; but itinerant handyman Bert Foster, wandering the canals of Mars, is possessed by a restlessness for a home which no longer exists. Perhaps the isolated outpost on Venus retains something which could satisfy this hunger; or has the madness which shattered a world merely settled in a new location?
Director:Peter Potter
Writer:John Wyndham
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Director:Peter Potter
Writer:John Wyndham
6.2/10(31 votes)
#4 - The Man in My Head
S4:E86/9/1971
A team of soldiers break into an enemy missile base. Such is the secrecy of their mission, they have been hypnotically programmed with their orders and will only remember each stage of the operation when they hear a pre-arranged signal. It seems foolproof, but gradually doubt and paranoia begin to overtake them.
Director:Peter Cregeen
Writer:John Wiles
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Director:Peter Cregeen
Writer:John Wiles
6.6/10(54 votes)
#5 - To Lay a Ghost
S4:E24/28/1971
Eric and Diana Carver move into a new home in the country, but a series of strange events soon cause Diana to suspect the house is haunted by the ghost of a man. A ghost who seems to be interested in her particularly. She was sexually assaulted when she was a schoolgirl and ever since has had a complex about sex and intimacy. When they call in Dr Philmore, a paranormal expert, he suspects that Diana subconsciously wants to the dominated by this supernatural intruder.
Director:Ken Hannam
Writer:Michael J. Bird
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Director:Ken Hannam
Writer:Michael J. Bird
6.6/10(51 votes)
#6 - Come Buttercup, Come Daisy, Come... ?
S1:E611/8/1965
Henry Wilkes cultivates rare tropical plants as a hobby; with an attention to detail which is, perhaps, closer to an obsession. The length to which he goes to propagate and nurture new hybrids alarms his wife. Is there more going on in the greenhouse than could safely be exhibited at the next Battersea Flower Show?
Director:Paddy Russell
Writer:Mike Watts
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Director:Paddy Russell
Writer:Mike Watts

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6.7/10(50 votes)
#7 - Sucker Bait
S1:E711/15/1965
An expedition sets out to discover what has happened to a lost colony on a distant planet. Amongst the scientists is a strange, intense teenager called Mark Annuncio, raised to be a kind of human computer, able to make connections between different specialisms. Disliked by the crew, Mark nevertheless may be the only person capable of saving the ship when they land and scientists begin dying mysteriously.
Director:Naomi Capon
Writer:Meade Roberts
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Director:Naomi Capon
Writer:Meade Roberts
6.9/10(72 votes)
#8 - The Counterfeit Man
S1:E210/11/1965
On Jupiter's moon Ganymede, an alien life-form has taken over the body of a human astronaut, creating an almost perfect copy. But perfect enough to escape discovery on the long return trip to Earth? Can the deadly counterfeit be detected and stopped before its hunger for new life can endanger an entire planet?
Director:George Spenton-Foster
Writer:Philip Broadley
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Director:George Spenton-Foster
Writer:Philip Broadley
7.0/10(53 votes)
#9 - The Midas Plague
S1:E1212/20/1965
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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Director:Peter Sasdy
Writers:Troy Kennedy Martin, Frederik Pohl
7.0/10(25 votes)
#10 - Beach Head
S3:E41/28/1969
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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Director:James Cellan Jones
Writer:Robert Muller
7.1/10(68 votes)
#11 - Stranger in the Family
S1:E310/18/1965
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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Director:Alan Bridges
Writer:David Campton
7.1/10(60 votes)
#12 - Time In Advance
S1:E511/1/1965
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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Director:Peter Sasdy
Writer:Paul Erickson
7.1/10(50 votes)
#13 - Some Lapse of Time
S1:E1012/6/1965
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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Director:Roger Jenkins
Writer:Leon Griffiths
6.8/10(8 votes)
#14 - 1 + 1 = 1.5
S3:E93/4/1969
The population of the United Kingdom at the beginning of the 21st Century is static, thanks to computerized population control, but the wife of the Population Officer becomes pregnant for the second time.
Director:Michael Ferguson
Writer:Brian Hayles
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Director:Michael Ferguson
Writer:Brian Hayles
7.2/10(42 votes)
#15 - This Body Is Mine
S4:E35/5/1971
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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Director:Eric Hills
Writer:John Tully
7.2/10(39 votes)
#16 - Deathday
S4:E45/12/1971
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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Director:Raymond Menmuir
Writer:Brian Hayles
7.3/10(62 votes)
#17 - Thirteen to Centaurus
S1:E1112/13/1965
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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Director:Peter Potter
Writers:Stanley Miller, Irene Shubik
7.3/10(54 votes)
#18 - The Last Lonely Man
S3:E31/21/1969
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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Director:Douglas Camfield
Writers:Jeremy Paul, John Brunner
7.3/10(13 votes)
#19 - The Uninvited
S4:E106/23/1971
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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Director:Eric Hills
Writer:Michael J. Bird
7.4/10(9 votes)
#20 - The Fox and the Forest
S1:E811/22/1965
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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Director:Robin Midgley
Writers:Terry Nation, Meade Roberts
7.4/10(33 votes)
#21 - Welcome Home
S4:E65/26/1971
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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Director:Eric Hills
Writer:Moris Farhi
7.5/10(71 votes)
#22 - The Dead Past
S1:E410/25/1965
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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Director:John Gorrie
Writer:Jeremy Paul
7.6/10(104 votes)
#23 - The Machine Stops
S2:E110/6/1966
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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Director:Philip Saville
Writers:Clive Donner, Kenneth Cavander, E.M. Forster
7.8/10(21 votes)
#24 - The Naked Sun
S3:E72/18/1969
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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Director:Rudolph Cartier
Writer:Unknown
8.4/10(6 votes)
#25 - Immortality, Inc.
S3:E11/7/1969
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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Directors:Terence Dudley, Philip Dudley
Writer:Jack Pulman