Dimension X
1950-1951
Known Episodes: 50
Adventures in time and space, told in future tense! “Dimension…. X! x! x! x! x!”
This popular science-fiction series offered a lot of frightening speculation, from living dolls to nuclear devastation. There were relatively few sci-fi radio shows, and the stories were often adapted from the pulp magazines of the time. In fact, they developed a direct partnership with a magazine called Astounding Science Fiction.
The radio show X Minus One continued the tradition of Dimension X with many of the same scripts, and continued the same type of media partnership with Galaxy magazine.
Sources:
Wikipedia
Digital Deli
OTRR Certified
Cold Equations
A rescue pilot bringing antidote serum to an interplanetary colony discovers a stowaway. But there is only enough fuel to get the ship and one personto the destination safely. Will the pilot jettison the attractive young woman… or will he fall in love and sacrifice himself?
Dr. Grimshaw’s Sanitarium
A private eye goes undercover to discover why a man’s death was faked. They are shrinking the people. They shrink the private eye. Hee hee!
Folded Hands
In a future of interplanetary travel, a man creates robots to serve mankind… but does it too well. Humans are forced to sit with folded hands and be fed, surrendering our free will… or get a lobotomy! Can the professor finish his secret weapon before the robots locate him? This show is preceded by a great commercial mentioning the (real) Mark III mainframe computer.
Haunted Corpse, The
The military takes over the lab of a scientist who has perfected the transference of a mind from one body to another using a quasitron. (“Just so.”) Rather than have his discovery used as a weapon, the old man uses it on himself… to take over a younger body! [Adapted from Frederick Pohl.] (See also: X Minus One version)
Nightfall
On a planet without blindfolds or closets, an eclipse of the only of six suns currently in the sky forewarns the end of the world. Civilization will burn, the prophecy tells, as people start to light fires on a global Guy Fawkes Day, trying to banish the darkness in this tale of science vs. cult superstition.
Outer Limit, The
An ace pilot takes an experimental jet to the outer edge of the atmosphere and returns with a warning:
if ALL nuclear explosions are not stopped, the Earth will be destroyed by aliens! They put him in a straight-jacket and launch a test missile anyway. Then his C.O. wonders… how did he keep his jet in the air for ten hours with only ten minutes of fuel?
Perigi’s Wonderful Dolls
A doll kills a little girl’s dog. If you aren’t bothered by that, this is pretty creepy. Miniature aliens are blackmailing military heads for invasion information.
There Will Come Soft Rains
In the future, a poem reflects how nature will continue on oblivious to the absence of mankind. We see a family with an automated house, happy until a meteor shower kills everyone (including the dog), and the house brews coffee into the long lonesome night. [Adapted from Ray Bradbury]
Zero Hour
A girl and her friends play a new game led by an imaginary friend named ‘B’, who lives in a bush. He gives the kids trans-dimensional yo-yos. It’s called “Invasion,” and by the time the adults realize it’s no game, they think they can just hide from their own kids up in the attic. [Adapted from Ray Bradbury]