In 1961 she suggested to Sydney Newman, then head of the drama department of ABC Television, an ITV franchise contractor, that the company create a science fiction version of Armchair Theatre.

Many of the episodes were adaptations of published short stories by writers including John Wyndham, Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick.

You have no idea how difficult some of these authors are to deal with, and it seems a special thing among SF writers to hedge themselves behind almost impossible copyright barriers, even when they have got a story that is possible to do on television.

[1] When she had been working on Out of this World Shubik had made a valuable contact in John Carnell, a key figure in British science fiction publishing.

Shubik also received copies of science fiction anthologies from British publishers and sought advice from many authors, including Frederik Pohl, Alfred Bester and Robert Silverberg.

She considered asking Nigel Kneale if he would write a new Quatermass story for the series,[2] and contacted Arthur C. Clarke regarding the possibility of adapting his novel The Deep Range.

[3] In March 1965 Shubik travelled to New York City to negotiate rights with authors whose works she was considering, to seek ideas from U.S. television, and to obtain more science fiction anthologies from U.S. publishers.

During her visit she met science fiction editors and also Isaac Asimov, who granted permission for two of his stories to be adapted on the condition that they could be shown only in the UK: sales to foreign territories were not allowed.

By this stage she had found the twelve scripts she needed for the first series: ten episodes were adaptations of stories by John Wyndham ("Time to Rest" and its sequel "No Place Like Earth", dramatised together as "No Place Like Earth");[5] Alan Nourse ("The Counterfeit Man"); Isaac Asimov ("The Dead Past" and Sucker Bait); William Tenn ("Time in Advance"); Ray Bradbury ("The Fox and the Forest"); Kate Wilhelm ("Andover and the Android"); John Brunner ("Some Lapse of Time"); J. G. Ballard ("Thirteen to Centaurus") and Frederik Pohl ("The Midas Plague").

The opening title sequence was designed by Bernard Lodge, using stock shots and specially created optical illusion patterns filmed on a rostrum camera, combined with a face frozen in a scream and a mannequin falling repeatedly through space.

Science fiction and fantasy were popular on television, and Doctor Who, The Avengers, Thunderbirds, The Man from UNCLE and Lost in Space were all notable hits at the time.

"Andover and the Android" ("It's not until intelligence, humour and gaiety break into television that you notice what tasteless pap we've been living on"[6] – Daily Mail) and "Some Lapse of Time" ("It was not surprising to hear from Late Night Line Up that there had been many complimentary telephone calls after the play [...] it left the viewer with the disconcerting feeling that there was more than a grain of truth in its fantasy"[7] – Birmingham Evening Mail and Dispatch) proved particularly popular with audiences and critics alike.

In response to Kenneth Tynan's use of the word "fuck" on the satirical programme BBC-3 Sydney Newman issued directives to his producers regarding language and content.

In the case of Out of the Unknown this led to particular attention being paid to the scripts for "Second Childhood" (about reawakening of sexual desire when an elderly man undergoes a rejuvenation process) and "Satisfaction Guaranteed" (about a woman taking a robot as a lover).

The new series was promoted by the Radio Times, then owned by the BBC, with a front cover photograph of Yvonne Mitchell, star of "The Machine Stops", and an article previewing the upcoming episodes written by Michael Imison.

Priestley's script had begun life as a potential screenplay for a feature film and condensing it down to Out of the Unknown's standard running time of 50 minutes proved impossible.

Reviewing "Level Seven" in The Listener (also then owned by the BBC), J. C. Trewin wrote that "the tension was inescapable, the excitement incontestable, more so, undoubtedly, than other thrusts into the future".

Shubik was in the middle of her third visit to New York in early 1967 when she received a call from Sydney Newman offering her the opportunity to co-produce, with Graeme McDonald, BBC1's most prestigious drama slot, The Wednesday Play.

and The Naked Sun (the sequel to The Caves of Steel, which Shubik had dramatised for Story Parade in 1963)); John Brunner (The Last Lonely Man); Clifford D. Simak (Beach Head and Target Generation); John Wyndham (Random Quest); Cyril M. Kornbluth (The Little Black Bag); Rog Phillips (The Yellow Pill) and Peter Phillips (Get Off My Cloud).

"[19] "Beach Head" was entered into the Sixth Festival Internazionale del Film di Fantascienza in July 1968, in the hope of repeating the earlier success of "The Machine Stops", but did not win.

Encouraged by the BBC's Head of Plays, Gerald Savory, Bromly and Parkes sought to recast the show as "not straight science fiction, but with a strong horror content, all starting out from a realistic basis".

The opening title sequence was changed again, designed by Charles McGhie, employing a variety of techniques, from computer-generated images to real-time visual effects and stop-frame model animation.

In the mid-1970s BBC Enterprises disposed of a lot of older material for which the rights to sell the programmes had expired, and the Engineering Department routinely wiped videotapes in an era when rescreening potential was limited.

The wiping policy officially came to an end in 1978, when the means to further exploit programmes by taking advantage of the new market for home VCRs started to become apparent.

Neither any audio and/ or video extracts nor any tele-snaps exists from the Series 4 episodes Taste of Evil, The Sons and Daughters of Tomorrow, The Chopper and The Shattered Eye.

As mentioned above, Isaac Asimov granted permission for his stories to be adapted on the condition that they could only be shown in the UK: sales to foreign territories were not allowed.

32 episodes from Series 1, 2 and 3 (except the Asimov stories) screened in New Zealand (in black and white of course since colour television was formally introduced to New Zealand in 1973–1975 and the episodes aired till circa 1970), then the prints were sent to various overseas stations such as Finland in October 1968 and February 1970, Hungary in February 1969, Sweden (March 1970), Sierra Leone (December 1971) and Yugoslavia in June 1973.

Some uncertainty still surrounds the fate of the last episodes of Series 4, The Chopper and The Shattered Eye apparently documented as being dispatched to Dubai in the 1976 but not returned.