'' was a syndicated
Science Fiction Anthology Series . It was produced in the
United States by
Ivan Tors and Maurice Ziv.
Hosted by Truman Bradley, a
1940s film actor and former war correspondent, each episode introduced stories which had an extrapolated scientific, or pseudo-scientific emphasis based on actual scientific data available in the
1950s . The program concentrated on such concepts as space flight, frozen
Dinosaurs ,
Robot s,
Telepathy ,
Flying Saucers and time travel.
It ran from
1955 to
1957 , with a total of 78 half hour episodes.
It was also known as 'Beyond The Limits' in second run
Syndication during the
1960s and alternatively as 'Science Fiction Theater'.
"Science Fiction Theatre" was a forerunner of similar shows, such as
The Twilight Zone and
The Outer Limits . 'Science Fiction Theatre' was mentioned in the
1985 film
Back To The Future starring
Michael J. Fox and
Christopher Lloyd .
Each episode was introduced by stirring brass and woodwind fanfare (uncredited, but probably composed by . Then Truman Bradley showed a simple scientific experiment which was usually related to the topic of that week's show.
Due to the limited budgets and intense production scheduals of ZIV episodic television shows, most of the scientific, and not so scientific aparatus appears again and again as props with many different functions. It's great fun watching the clumsy levers, dials, boxes and lights blinking and spinning in their supporting roles.
