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 101: Skulking Permit

​A small colony, cut off from Earth for generations, must prove they are a model of Earth culture when a ship arrives to effect their 'reclamation'. They strive to provide archetypes of Earth society, including a town criminal...
​Repeat of episode 38, but with different cast.

​First broadcast: 4 July 1957.
Original Story by Robert Sheckley.
​Cast: Richard Hamilton, Wendell Holmes, Dean Olmquist, Mandel Kramer, Ted Osborne, Santos Ortega, Bob Hastings.
Episode 102: Early Model

​A personal forcefield provided for a First Contact Agent backfires when the natives he's meant to survey interpret his invulnerability as demonic influence and decide he must be destroyed.

First broadcast: 11 July 1957.
Original Story by Robert Sheckley.
​Cast: Alistair Duncan, Anthony Campbell, Bob Hastings, Joseph Bell.
Episode 103: The Merchant of Venus

Overcrowding on Earth means colonizing Venus — a steaming, putrid hellhole of jungles and swamps. So how come nobody wants to go there?

First broadcast: 18 July 1957.
Original Story by A. H. Phelps, Jr.
​Cast: Jackson Beck, Bernard Lenrow, Jared Reed, Joseph Julian, George Erwin, Ted Osborne.
Episode 104: The Haunted Corpse

A scientist, who resents the 'protection' of the military in his secret work to transfer minds from one body to another, hatches a private plan to outwit his benefactors.
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​First broadcast: 25 July 1957.
Original Story by Frederik Pohl.
​Cast: Leon Janney, Jim Boles, Joseph Bell, Reese Taylor.
Episode 105: End As A World

People all over the world seem to know that the world, as they know it, is about to come to an abrupt end at a certain hour of a certain day... but no one seems particularly concerned.

​First broadcast: 1 August 1957.
Original Story by F. L. Wallace.
​Cast: Jack Grimes, Larry Robinson, Peter Fernandez, Alice Yourman.
Episode 106: The Scapegoat

Rescuing an old man from an apparent mugging is not necessarily a good idea — especially if the 'victim' happens to be an alien exiled from his own planet for what soon become obvious reasons.

​First broadcast: 8 August 1957.
Original Story by Richard Maples.
​Cast: Karl Weber, Wendell Holmes, Jane Aymar, Bobby Alford, Guy Repp, Roger De Koven.
Episode 107: 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. Repeat of episode 94.

​First broadcast: 15 August 1957.
Original Story by H. L. Gold.
​Cast: Arnold Moss, Frank Maxwell, John Griggs, Maxine Stewart, Sam Raskyn, House Jameson.
Episode 108: Drop Dead

A survey team encounters a planet with only a single indigenous species, a bizarre life form which is both utterly harmless and invariably deadly.

​First broadcast: 22 August 1957.
Original Story by Clifford D. Simak.
​Cast: Lawson Zerbe, Ralph Camargo, Joseph Bell.
Episode 109: Volpla

A scientist creates a race of intelligent flying creatures that soon get out of hand.

​First broadcast: 29 August 1957.
Original Story by Wyman Guin.
​Cast: Nelson Olmsted, Ann Pitoniak, Adele Newton, Sarah Fussell.
Episode 110: 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. Repeat of episode 83.

​First broadcast: 5 September 1957.
Original Story by Theodore Sturgeon.
​Cast: Elaine Rost, Jock MacGregor, Mandel Kramer, Nat Polen, Wendell Holmes, William Keene.
Episode 111: The Old Die Rich

An unusual number of elderly turn up dead with money stuffed in their pockets, yet having died of starvation. The investigation leads to an unscrupulous woman who is using a time machine to send people back in time to make her fortune. Repeat of episode 60.

​First broadcast: 12 September 1957.
Original Story by H. L. Gold.
​Cast: Jim Boles, Jan Miner, William Zuckert, Guy Repp, Wendell Holmes, Ralph Camargo, Ivor Francis.
Episode 112: Tsylana

In a future society which prizes order and conformity above all else, a statistician is horrified to uncover an act of petty theft. Concerned for the welfare of civilization, he determines to become a petty thief himself in order to catch the subversive sociopath. But to do so requires the aid of a very unorthodox psychoanalyst, who harbours some very serious ulterior motives of his own.

First broadcast: 19 September 1957.
Original Story by James E. Gunn.
​Cast: Walter Black, David Ross, Adele Ronson, Guy Repp.
Episode 113: The Native Problem

An explorer marooned on a distant planet is ecstatic to witness a ship descending, until he discovers it is an antiquated generation ship filled with an archaic crew who mistake him for a hostile native.

​First broadcast: 26 September 1957.
Original Story by Robert Sheckley.
​Cast: Alan Bergman, Charles Webster, Ellen Muir, James Dukas, John Thomas, Joseph Boland.
Episode 114: A Wind Is Rising

Two men stationed on an alien world scoured by tornadic winds ignore the counsel of the spidery natives and brave the weather to reach a damaged water main. After all, the wind outside is only blowing at about 150 mph...

​First broadcast: 3 October 1957.
Original Story by Robert Sheckley (as Finn O'Donnevan).
​Cast: Bert Cowlan, Les Damon, William Griffis.
Episode 115: Death Wish

A mishap aboard a spaceship sends it hurtling out of the Solar System with no hope of rescue, save for an onboard computer which the ship's engineer is convinced hates humans.

​First broadcast: 10 October 1957.
Original Story by Robert Sheckley (as Ned Lang).
​Cast: Joseph Bell, Maurice Tarplin, Ralph Camargo, Walter Black.
Episode 116: Point of Departure

Ancient tablets uncovered in Egypt describe what seem to be blueprints for the construction of a starship drive system.

​First broadcast: 17 October 1957.
Original Story by Vaughn Shelton.
​Cast: Dean Olmquist, Illya Bracha, Ivor Francis, James Stevens.
Episode 117: The Light

​The first astronauts to reach the Moon discover the impossible — footprints.

​First broadcast: 24 October 1957.
Original Story by Poul Anderson.
​Cast: Karl Weber, David Kerman, Bob Hastings.
Episode 118: Lulu

Hell hath no fury like a computer spurned... three spacers are saddled with a lovesick ship's computer who is unwilling to return home unless they indulge her romantic inclinations.

​First broadcast: 31 October 1957.
Original Story by Clifford D. Simak.
​Cast: Henry Norrell, Jan Miner, James Stevens, Nelson Olmsted, Walter Black.
Episode 119: The Coffin Cure

A research company discovers an answer to Mankind's oldest and greatest dream — a cure for the common cold. But as the old saying goes, the cure is often worse than the disease.

​First broadcast: 21 November 1957.
Original Story by Alan E. Nourse.
​Cast: Joseph Bell, Raymond Edward Johnson, Harvey Hayes, Betty Caine.
Episode 120: Shock Troop

A microscopic alien race expands its empire not by conquering worlds, but by waging aggressive campaigns to seize control of individual minds and bodies from within.

​First broadcast: 28 November 1957.
Original Story by Daniel F. Galouye.
​Cast: Bernard Lenrow, Edwin Cooper, John Thomas, Ralph Camargo.
Episode 121: The Haunted Corpse

A scientist who resents the 'protection' of the military in his secret work to transfer minds from one body to another, hatches a private plan to outwit his benefactors. Repeat of episode 104, but with different cast.

​First broadcast: 12 December 1957.
Original Story by Frederik Pohl.
​Cast: Al 'Jazzbo' Collins, Bob Hastings, Dean Olmquist, Edgar Stehli, Lydia Bruce, Ralph Camargo, Walter Black.
Episode 122: Double Dare

Two human engineers get caught in a deadly game of one-upmanship on an alien planet.

​First broadcast: 19 December 1957.
Original Story by Robert Silverberg.
​Cast: Ralph Camargo, Ivor Francis, Michael Ingram, Harvey Hayes.
Episode 123: Target One

In a desperate attempt to avert nuclear Armageddon, a man travels back in time to kill the one man responsible for bringing the world to the brink — Albert Einstein.

​First broadcast: 26 December 1957.
Original Story by Frederik Pohl.
​Cast: Joseph Bell, Frank Sylvera, Dean Olmquist, Al 'Jazzbo' Collins, Guy Repp, Charles Webster.
Episode 124: Prime Difference

A henpecked husband, fed up with his wife, has an illegal android facsimile of himself made to step into his domestic role so he can have a fling with his secretary.

​First broadcast: 2 January 1958.
Original Story by Alan E. Nourse.
​Cast: Lawson Zerbe, Ann Loring, Evie Juster, John Thomas, Merrill E. Joels.
Episode 125: Gray Flannel Armor

A lonely bachelor accepts a free trial offer from a matchmaking service that guarantees success through its strategy of 'spontaneous fate', and a little cheating on the sly. Last episode of original series.

​First broadcast: 9 January 1958.
Original Story by Robert Sheckley (as Finn O'Donnevan).
​Cast: Abby Lewis, Betty Galen, Fredericka Chandler, Guy Repp, Helen Gerald, Pat Hosley, William Redfield, Martin Agronsky.
Episode 126: The Iron Chancellor

A robot created to make the lives of the family which purchased it safer and healthier undertakes its role with fanatical devotion.

​First broadcast: 27 January 1973.
Original Story by Robert Silverberg.
​Cast: Leon Janney, Jackson Beck, Roy Fox, Evie Juster, Donald Buka.