4/3/56 **Having a robot can make life around the house easier in the 21st Century. But it makes life miserable when the robot starts making more robots and you can't turn it off. Kind of cute story dealing with a robot with an attitude.
4/3/56 **Having a robot can make life around the house easier in the 21st Century. But it makes life miserable when the robot starts making more robots and you can't turn it off. Kind of cute story dealing with a robot with an attitude.
4/10/56 ****A little girl is more than just intelligent. She can read minds and is the foundation for the next evolution. Reminds me of the girl in my Fourth grade class that was the teacher's pet and read the words for our spelling tests and was in the Fifth grade reading class. Well done story, originally written by Mark Clifton.
4/17/56 **A little confusion in terminalogy. This is really about stowaways, not jaywalkers. Marsha doesn't want to be married to her husband Jack, the space captain, anymore. But when she finds out she's pregnant, she becomes a stowaway on Jack's space ship, which causes his space ship to be too dangerous to land. On the ship Marsha finds out that Jack is in love with space stewardess Sue.
Think of this episode as "As The Space Ship Turns". For a better version of the same type of story, check out "#015 The Cold Equation".
4/24/56 **Your basic 1984-type story based on a space ship that has been sailing for 10,000 years on a journey with no end. All elements in the ship are strictly monitored. Emotional ties are considered "deviations" and are not allowed. "Praise the ship." But the leader of the space ship finds out that he is doomed because he finds out who his parents were. This episode carries a strong flavor of a cheap Star Trek episode, including the character acting.
5/1/56 ***Robert Craig is returning to the planet where his parents were born: Earth. But first, he has to get used to living in gravity, and many people try to talk him out of this in this heavy-handed political story.
5/15/56 ****This is an updated version (June 2007) that is not truncated. Thanks to Franz from North Carolina (for the foreseeable future) for the this.
A man has been isolated on a planet for several years. Is that voice on the intercom just a computer or a woman? I guess this was a foretelling of on-line chat sessions. Good story by J.T. MacIntosh.
NOTE: This recording cuts off just before the ending... think of it as suspense... If anyone has a full copy of it, please let me know and I can then put that up here instead of this one. Thanks.
A robot from the planet Zanthar comes to study the planet Earth. He is a very advanced robot. One of the Seventh Order. But of course these robots have no need for inferior humans...
5/22/56 ***A family has lived underground for years because of a constant war going on above ground on the surface of the Earth. Typical nuclear war idea, but well done. (See Hello, Tomorrow for yet another underground-radiation story).
5/29/56 **Gordon R. Dickson's one X Minus One story. Dorsi, a small planet, is peaceful unless provoked. Then they fight to the death. Reminiscing about one guy's home planet, Lulunganeena, where they speak Hexabrod, Hexabrod's speak only the truth and only facts. Highly logical. A whole bunch of planets and races argue. Is Lulunganeena the most beautiful planet in the universe? This is a Jerry Springer "Aliens Who Argue" episode.
6/5/56 ***Another good story where a group of time travelers want to go back in time to set up a colony in prehistoric times. Kind of like wishing you had bought Apple stock when it first came out.
6/12/56 **The people on the planet Mocklin look more like Earth people every day, and they should because they sound like they're from 1950's Brooklyn. The Mocklins have set up a trading post when the corporation is supposed to have exclusive trading rights on this planet. The Mocklins say the post is run by humans, but they just stepped away for a moment. The Mocklins can make their babies based on desired looks instead of inherited looks. They like Earthlings so much they begin to look like humans. This is the 50's right? It's a semi-commentary on Communisum. Interesting idea not really carried out.
6/19/56 ***Some soldiers think they can fool the Nazis into thinking the British have a secret weapon that will cause the Germans to surrender. Or maybe the Germans will try to come up with a weapon that will surpass the British weapon.
Oops.
Clever story by Ernest Kinoy, who transcribed a lot of the scripts for X Minus One besides writing this original piece for the show.
6/26/56 ***A graduate student working on a paper concerning witchcraft meets Abby from the Ozarks, a girl with very unusual talents.
She's a normal teenager, unless she gets mad. If she's angry then look out!
For those with teenagers, imagine the worse.
Oh, the horror.
7/3/56 **Mr. Costello is a passenger on the commercial/supply space ship Starclimber. This is a story about paranoia and mental manipulation... how people can be controlled... how, as a population, they blindly follow their leader(s), and, in turn, turn on each other because they just can't seem to think for themselves.
Or am I talking about some other country right now?
7/10/56 ***Apparently there's just as many wackos in the future as there was in 1956. It's May 2103, and Elwood Casswell admits he's a homicidal maniac with a gun in his pocket. Fortunately, times have advanced - you can go to the local hardware store and by a psychiatrist robot.
But unfortunately for old Elwood, he buys the floor model which is meant for psychotic Martians. The machine uses Martian terms and language to cure Elwood but for the psychological problems of Martians.
A concept similar to Robert Sheckley's "The Lifeboat Mutiny", except in a much more serious tone.
X minus One
NOTE: All the episodes are now here... enjoy!
X Minus One was a science fiction radio series on NBC from April 1955 through January 1958. The show feature stories written by some of the big names in 1950s science fiction, like Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and Issac Asimov.
The X Minus One series followed in the footsteps of another great sci-fi series called Dimension X which appeared on the airwaves in 1950-51. Some of the X-1 shows were later rebroadcast on X Minus One. X Minus One truly was one of the forefathers of the science fiction television/radio age.
Each X Minus One starts with this intro, to the sound effects of a rocket lifting off:
Countdown for blast-off. X Minus 5, 4, 3, 2, X Minus 1, Fire. From the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future. Adventures in which you will live in a million could-be years on a thousand maybe worlds. The National Broadcasting Corporation in cooperation with (Galaxy Magazine, then Astounding Science Fiction) presents . . . . X Minus One
Comment:
It's amazing how relevant many of the 1950s science fiction stories still are... take away the chrome rocket fins and aliens, and suddenly you've got the evening news.
Pete Comely
X Minus One theatre plays...
Other stuff out there
MindWebs. More free Old Time Radio Sci-fi.
More X-Minus One
Botar. MoreX minus One Radio Sci-fi.
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Episodes
- 000 And The Moon Be Still As Bright
- 001 No Contact
- 002 The Parade
- 003 Mars is Heaven
- 004 Universe
- 005 Knock
- 006 The Man in The Moon
- 007 Perigi’s Wonderful Dolls
- 008 The Green Hills Of Earth
- 009 Dr. Grimshaw’s Sanitorium
- 010 Nightmare
- 011 The Embassy
- 012 The Veldt
- 013 Almost Human
- 014 Courtesy
- 015 The Cold Equation
- 016 Shanghaied
- 017 The Martian Death March
- 018 The Castaways
- 019 And the Moon be still as bright
- 020 First Contact
- 021 Child’s play
- 022 Requiem
- 023 Hello Tomorrow
- 024 Dwellers in silence
- 025 The Outer Limit
- 026 Zero Hour
- 027 Vital Factor
- 028 Nightfall
- 029 To the Future
- 030 Marionettes, Inc.
- 031 A Logic Named Joe
- 032 The Roads Must Roll
- 033 Time And Time Again
- 034 Perigi’s Wonderful Dolls (Rebroadcast)
- 035 The Parade (Rebroadcast)
- 036 Cave Of Night
- 037 C-Chute
- 038 Skulking Permit
- 039 Junkyard
- 040 Hello, Tomorrow
- 041 A Gun For Dinosaur
- 042 Tunnel Under The World
- 043 $1000 A Plate
- 044 A Pail Of Air
- 045 How-To
- 046 Star Bright
- 047 Jaywalker
- 048 The Sense Of Wonder
- 049 Sea Legs
- 051 Hallucination Orbit
- 050 The Seventh Order
- 052 The Defenders
- 053 Lulunganeena
- 054 Project Mastadon
- 055 If You Was A Mocklin
- 056 Project Trojan
- 057 Wherever You May Be
- 058 Mr. Costello, Hero
- 059 Bad Medicine
- 060 The Old Die Rich
- 061 Stars Are The Styx
- 063 The Last Martian
- 062 Student Body
- 064 The Snowball Effect
- 065 Surface Tension
- 066 Tunnel Under The World
- 067 The Lifeboat Mutiny
- 067 The Map Makers
- 069 Protective Mimicry
- 070 Colony
- 071 Soldier Boy
- 072 Pictures Don’t Lie
- 073 Sam, This Is You
- 074 Appointment In Tomorrow
- 075 (Repeat of episode 17)
- 076 Chain Of Command
- 078 There Will Come Soft Rains
- 079 Hostess
- 080 The Reluctant Heroes
- 081 Honeymoon In Hell
- 082 The Moon Is Green
- 083 Saucer Of Loneliness
- 084 The Girls From Earth
- 085 Open Warfare
- 086 Caretaker
- 087 Venus Is A Man’s World
- 088 The Trap
- 089 Field Study
- 090 Real Gone
- 091 The Seventh Victim
- 092 The Lights On Precipice Peak
- 093 Protection
- 094 At The Post
- 095 Martian Sam
- 096 Something For Nothing
- 097 Discovery Of Morniel Mathaway
- 098 Man’s Best Friend
- 099 Inside Story
- 100 The Category Inventor
- 101 Skulking Permit
- 102 Early Model
- 103 The Merchants Of Venus
- 104 The Haunted Corpse
- 105 End As A World
- 106 The Scapegoat
- 107 At The Post
- 108_Drop Dead
- 109 Volpla
- 110 Saucer Of Loneliness
- 111 The Old Die Rich
- 112 Tsylana
- 113 The Native Problem
- 114 The Wind Is Rising
- 115 Death Wish
- 116 Point Of Departure
- 117 The Light
- 118 Lulu
- 119 The Coffin Cure
- 120 Shocktroop
- 121 The Haunted Corpse
- 122 Double Dare
- 123 Target One
- 124 Prime Difference
- 125 Gray Flannel Armor
- 126 The Iron Chancellor
Donate for Bandwidth?
I have preset the 'donate' amount at $2... I don't think anyone should donate more than that... I would rather people download and enjoy the stories.
Myself, I just need to find the space for the MP3 files. :-)