Science Fiction (1950)

Robert Heinlein, writer

The 1950s saw both the twilight of the Golden Age of Radio and the birth of the science fiction radio series. Science fiction was not new to radio before 1950, but it was either targeted to juvenile audiences or were SF shows in a broader series, for example, Escape: "The Time Machine". On March 15, 1950, the first show of Mutual's 2000 PLUS aired, becoming the very first true science fiction seriesin the US. Three shows and one audition were transcribed to disk, but it's not certain if they were actually broadcast, despite announcements in newspapers.

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In the audition, the series title was Beyond This World and the audition show was "The Outer Limit". The first show under the series name Beyond Tomorrow was "Requiem", a story by Robert Heinlein, which was later be done in Dimension X. The last show, which was the same as the audition, "The Outer Limit", may be the most often used science fiction story in radio. It was also heard in Escape (Feb 7, 1950), Dimension X (Apr 8, 1950 and Sep 8, 1950), Suspense (Feb 15, 1954) and X Minus One (Nov 16, 1955).

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With only three shows prepared, it's possible the series may have been canceled before any were aired. Fortunately, the disks survived and we have a taste of what could have been an interesting series.