Odd though it seems, the late 1950s and early 60s was the prime time in TV history for intelligent sci-fi. America had The Twilight Zone, we’d already had all the Quatermass serials and various plays. Sci-fi was smart.
In fact, so smart was sci-fi that the Beeb turned to noted cosmologist Fred Hoyle and said, “How would you like to write us a TV show?” which he did. Surprisingly, it turned out to be pretty good.
A for Andromeda is now the kind of show that other shows and movies steal from. Look at Species. Look at Contact: they’re basically A for Andromeda at heart. The Earth gets a message from outer space that contains instructions on how to build a machine. With some reluctance, humanity does as it’s told and then begins to wonder if it was a good idea after all.
A for Andromeda‘s machine is a computer which then goes on to create life in the form of Julie Christie, who, it turns out, humanity really does need to worry about. Not much of the show survives, but what does remain is available on DVD. That still makes it a Lost Gem. Cue the weird old title sequence and one of the only remaining episodes.
As has been discussed before, Big Finish are in a dilemma with these Lost Stories. Just how authentic should they be to a half-finished script that never saw the blessed red of a script editor’s pen? Should they improve them or give the fans exactly what they want – a word-for-word identical version of the script as is, no matter what state it’s in?
