X Minus One

X Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 on NBC.

Initially a revival of NBC's Dimension X (1950–51), the first few episodes of X Minus One were revised versions of Dimension X episodes, but the remainder were adaptations by NBC staff writers, including Ernest Kinoy and George Lefferts, of newly published science fiction stories by leading writers in the field, including Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, Frederik Pohl and Theodore Sturgeon. Kinoy and Lefferts also provided some original scripts. Most of the new stories were taken from SF pulp magazines Astounding and Galaxy.

An unsuccessful attempt to revive the series was made in 1973 with the broadcast of the final episode, an adaptation of The Iron Chancellor by Robert Silverberg.
Episode 81: Honeymoon in Hell

​Under the dual threat of a nuclear war and a serious drop in male birth, civilization seems doomed, until a supercomputer concocts a plan to send a fertile couple on a mission to the Moon to hopefully conceive a son.

​First broadcast: 26 December 1956.
Original Story by Fredric Brown.
​Cast: Vilma Cure, William Redfield, Wendell Holmes, Roger De Koven, Leon Janney, Jack Grimes, Charles Penman.
Episode 82: The Moon Is Green

​For years following a nuclear holocaust, a husband bullies his wife to never open the windows of their shelter, for fear of the terrible mutants who live outside. But temptation proves a little too much for her.

First broadcast: 2 January 1957.
Original Story by Fritz Leiber.
​Cast: Bill Lipton, Frank Milano (as a cat), Ian Martin, Joyce Gordon.
Episode 83: Saucer of Loneliness

After an unsuccessful suicide attempt, a woman explains to her rescuer how she received a message from a flying saucer, her subsequent imprisonment and interrogation by a government bent on discovering that message, and... her lifelong loneliness.

First broadcast: 9 January 1957.
Original Story by Theodore Sturgeon.
​Cast: Elaine Rost, Jock MacGregor, Mandel Kramer, Nat Polen, Wendell Holmes, William Keene.
Episode 84: The Girls From Earth

Two crooks con the all-male colony on Mars into paying for a shipment of beautiful women from home at a hundred dollars a head, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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​First broadcast: 16 January 1957.
Original Story by Frank M. Robinson.
​Cast: Bob Hastings, James Stevens, John Gibson, Mandel Kramer, Phil Sterling, Richard Hamilton.
Episode 85: Open Warfare

A champion golfer accepts a challenge to play a round against a robot built and programmed to play a perfect game.

​First broadcast: 23 January 1957.
Original Story by James E. Gunn.
​Cast: Jack Grimes, Larry Haines, Wendell Holmes.
Episode 86: Caretaker

A mission to rescue the survivor of a long lost expedition to a remote planet discovers him not only alive and well, but engaged in a private war to protect the native humanoids from the slug-like 'Zares'.

​First broadcast: 30 January 1957.
Original Story by James H. Schmitz.
​Cast: Ted Osborne, Bill Lipton, Mason Adams, Raymond Edward Johnson, Betty Caine.
Episode 87: Venus Is A Man's World

A gender schism opens among interplanetary pioneers aboard a colony ship to Venus.

​First broadcast: 6 February 1957.
Original Story by William Tenn.
​Cast: Dennis Bellabio, Bob Haag, Gerianne Raphael, John Gibson, Fredericka Chandler.
Episode 88: The Trap

Two drunken hunters in the woods try out a new trap and end up becoming embroiled in an alien love triangle.

​First broadcast: 13 February 1957.
Original Story by Robert Sheckley (as Finn O'Donnevan).
​Cast: Donald Buka, Ralph Bell, William Redfield.
Episode 89: Field Study

An unorthodox healer selling placebos seems to be achieving a phenomenal number of cures.

​First broadcast: 20 February 1957.
Original Story by Peter Phillips.
​Cast: Les Damon, Santos Ortega, Teri Keane, Alfred Shirley, Kermit Murdock.
Episode 90: Real Gone

A sculptor becomes rich through his miniature creations, renowned for their astoundingly realistic detail. But a jazz musician friend of his soon discovers there is more to his masterpieces than mere artistic talent.

​First broadcast: 27 February 1957.
Original Story by Ernest Kinoy, from an idea by Al 'Jazzbo' Collins.
​Cast: Al 'Jazzbo' Collins, Harold Huber, John Baragrey, John McGovern.
Episode 91: The Seventh Victim

In a future which regulates the instinct for violence by staging government-subsidised hunts — in effect making a social institution of murder — there is no place for human compassion. Or is there?

​First broadcast: 6 March 1957.
Original Story by Robert Sheckley.
​Cast: Arthur Hughes, Frank Maxwell, Ian Martin, Irv West, Lawson Zerbe, Teri Keane.
Episode 92: The Lights On Precipice Peak

Two men determine to find the cause of strange glowing lights emanating from atop a high Wyoming mountain.

First broadcast: 13 March 1957.
Original Story by Stephen Tall.
​Cast: Jim Boles, Joseph Helgeson, Ted Osborne, Court Benson.
Episode 93: Protection

When a man receives a guardian alien to watch over him, he doesn't realise just how much trouble he is really in for.

​First broadcast: 20 March 1957.
Original Story by Robert Sheckley.
​Cast: William Redfield, Elliott Reid, William Keene.
Episode 94: At The Post

Where do the minds of catatonics go? A horserace bookie finds out when his wife's comatose condition draws him into an alien operation to record all of our collective human knowledge before we destroy ourselves.

​First broadcast: 27 March 1957.
Original Story by H. L. Gold.
​Cast: John Griggs, Sam Raskyn, Frank Maxwell, Arnold Moss, Ann Thomas.
Episode 95: Martian Sam

The losing LA Dodgers sign a new player to bolster their chances for a winning season — a Martian with eight arms.

​First broadcast: 3 April 1957.
Original Story by Ernest Kinoy.
​Cast: Ivor Francis, Santos Ortega, William Zuckert, Mandel Kramer, Bob Hastings, Jack Orrison.
Episode 96: Something For Nothing

A down-on-his-luck nobody wakes up to find a wishing machine from the future in his room, and an army of service techs ready and willing to see to it that his every desire is fulfilled.

​First broadcast: 10 April 1957.
Original Story by Robert Sheckley.
​Cast: Joseph Julian, Dan Ocko, Jock MacGregor, John Gibson, Wendell Holmes, Ralph Bell, Karen Ford.
Episode 97: The Discovery of Mornial Matheway

​A worthless artist receives a visitor from the future who tells him his art will come to be known as the work of a genius.

​First broadcast: 17 April 1957.
Original Story by William Tenn.
​Cast: Leon Janney, Guy Repp, Wendell Holmes, Les Damon.
Episode 98: Man's Best Friend

In the 28th century, a reclusive man is chosen by a central computer to assassinate the Overlord and take his place. All of society is egging him on, including the Overlord himself — but the computer has ulterior motives.

​First broadcast: 24 April 1957.
Original Story by Evelyn Smith.
​Cast: Wendell Holmes, William Redfield, Santos Ortega, Raymond Edward Johnson, Bob Hastings, Leona Powers.
Episode 99: Inside Story

A newshound on Mars looking for a big story goes undercover in a colony of ‘nullies’ — a segregated camp reserved for the violently insane.

​First broadcast: 20 June 1957.
Original Story by Richard Wilson.
​Cast: Bob Hastings, Leon Janney, Ralph Bell, Richard Hamilton, Edwin Cooper, Pat Hosley.
Episode 100: The Category Inventor

In the future, staying competitive in the super-automated, highly specialised job market can be tough — unless you can invent a profession nobody has ever thought of before.

​First broadcast: 27 June 1957.
Original Story by Arthur Sellings.
​Cast: Nelson Olmsted, Wendell Holmes, Joseph Bell, Hetty Galen, Alan Bergman, Bert Cowlan, Edwin Cooper.