The Midas Plague

After being blown away by the holy grail of lost DOCTOR WHO stories The Web Of Fear I decided to track down some more obscure BBC science fiction in the shape of OUT OF THE UNKNOWN which is a totally forgotten SF anthology show . Now to set my stall out I went in to this show knowing that it wasn't going to some sort of high concept pulpy horror show often associated with DOCTOR WHO because that's not really what the genre is about . In fact you have to remember when OOTU was produced in 1965 not even DOCTOR WHO had evolved in to the show it's best remembered for as " The show that had children hiding behind the sofa " and at this point in television only Nigel Kneale had really tried to merge horror with science fiction , something he excelled at . So I went in to OOTU with a very open mind but even then that didn't stop me feeling very disappointed at this show

The major problem with the show is the painfully dated feel that is part of television production in those days . You have to be very forgiving as to how this plays out and television today is closer to cinema where as in 1965 television was closer to filmed theatre and would remain so well in to the 1980s but even so this is no excuse to how staid and static everything appears here . DOCTOR WHO may be perceived as a children's TV show but compare that show to the episodes here and you'll notice at least DOCTOR WHO does have an imagination and ambition behind it unlike OOTU

What makes this even more unforgivable is the fact that the show has many different writers , directors and designers working on it and yet there seems to a lack of sharp contrast between the episodes . If a story is set in the future then invariably everyone must wear a bleached blonde wig and implausibly futuristic looking clothes . You might like to know one episode Some Lapse In Time has an unknown BBC employee called Ridley Scott as set designer and yet all his sets look like every other one used in the show that resemble basic plywood boards

The storytelling itself is equally uninspired and is composed of actors sitting or standing around a very limited small number of sets talking , talking and talking . You could claim I'm missing the point of drama but it should be remembered that before the apocalyptic climax QUATERMASS AND THE PIT spent five episodes of actors standing around talking and that remains the telefantasy masterwork that has never been surpassed . Talkative scenes should be compelling and here they aren't . You have to also bare in mind some of the greatest writers of sci-fi are having their work adapted such as Wyndham , Asimov , Ballard and Pohl so it's difficult to excuse the unengaging nature of the storytelling . It should be pointed out that running for 60 minutes each and every episode would have greatly benefited from having at least a quarter of its running time cut out at first draft script stage . As it stands The Counterfeit Man featuring an intriguing premise of alien infiltration aboard a spaceship is the best of a very mediocre bunch

In summary OUT OF THE UNKNOWN is an attempt to bring literary science fiction to the general British public but television isn't a good medium to do so especially in the primitive way television was produced in the 1960s . The storytelling lacks incisive brevity and the idea driven concepts lacking incidence complete with a bland staid look make this show something of a chore to sit through

In a world in which robots provide endless service and an unlimited supply of commercial goods, the 'well-off' get to enjoy the pleasures of work and of life in a spartan environment, while the 'needy' are forced to constantly consume an endless supply of goods while intrusively servile robots attend to their every whim. Enter Morrey Anderson (Graham Stark), an everyman who just wants to do more and have less, who grasps at an opportunity to throw away the brass-ring and spit out the silver-spoon. The episode is a straight-out comedy but the role-reversal (the 'poor' are 'rich', the 'rich' are 'poor') shtick wears thin pretty quickly and the anthology's frugality is on full display as the screen fills up with vaguely robotised extras in minimal make-up and zippered jump-suits. Despite being based on a short tale by prominent sci-fi author Frederik Pohl, the story is neither interesting enough or complex enough to fill sixty minutes and the 'twist' ending (which differs from the original story) is a bit sophomoric. Perhaps satirising out-of-control commercialism was 'hipper' and more novel in the 1960s, but as either as comedy or commentary, 'The Midas Plague' has not aged well.