Writer | Mann RubinDirector | Don MedfordAir Date | April 18, 1952 As “Time to Go” opens, Natalie (Sylvia Sidney, whom I’ve never seen in any movie or TV show when she was young… or younger) barricades the front door with furniture and frantically tries to reach her husband, Michael (Ed Peck) on the telephone.…

Writer | Mel GoldbergStory | Raymond F. JonesDirector | Don MedfordAir Date | Feb. 29, 1952 “The Children’s Room” is a variation on an earlier episode of Tales of Tomorrow, “A Child is Crying.” That is to say, in the context of the series, it doesn’t feel original. We’ve seen episodes with similar themes, but…

Writer | Mel GoldbergStory | Henry KuttnerDirector | Charles S. DubinAir Date | Feb. 8, 1952 These days, if someone told me they had what I need, I’d think either I was being set up for a scam, they’d be peddling something I absolutely did not need, or they wouldn’t want to know what it…

Writer | Max Ehrlich, Gail Ingram, Harry IngramBased on | the novel by Jules VerneDirector | Don MedfordAir Date | Jan. 25, 1952 and Feb. 1, 1952 The first episode of the one and only two-episode story on Tales of Tomorrow, an adaptation of the Jules Verne novel, Twenty Thousand Under the Sea, is missing.…

Writer | Henry MyersBased on | the novel by Mary ShelleyDirector | Don MedfordAir Date | Jan. 18, 1952 For a 30-minute live television show from 1952 that now resides in the public domain, the “Frankenstein” episode of Tales of Tomorrow is not bad at all.  In fact, it’s downright thrilling to see Lon Chaney,…

Writer | Robert Foshko and Mort ZarcoffDirector | Don MedfordAir Date | Dec. 12, 1951 Put an elder scientist, his son, and his assistant (who happens to be his daughter), together on a boat and it’s a recipe for drama, if not disaster. Dr. Burroughs (Edgar Stehli) disapproves of his son because instead of following…

Writer | Mel GoldbergDirector | Charles S. DubinAir Date | Nov. 9, 1951 Vic Russo (Jack Carter) arrives at Mother Walker’s Boarding House in Las Palmas, New Mexico (population 860), looking for a room. He’s followed newspaper headlines and other leads in search of proof that flying saucers exist. When he encounters the one man…

Writer | Mel GoldbergStory | H.G. WellsDirector | Charles S. DubinAir Date | Oct. 12, 1951 At the beginning of “The Crystal Egg,” we don’t know why Professor Frederick Vaneck’s (Thomas Mitchell) peers believe he’s hallucinating. He desperately records his tale in case something happens so him. Oddly, the tale doesn’t begin with him. Eventually,…

Writer | Alvin SapinsleyStory | John D. MacDonaldDirector | Don MedfordAir Date | Aug. 17, 1951 In August of 1961, in the lobby of a “military proving ground” in New Mexico, Mrs. Massner (Peggy Allenby) waits impatiently to see her daughter, Lily (Robin Morgan), who’s behind a “No Admittance” door with a roomful of doctors…