I think Dimension X actually changed the name of this show to X Minus One, so they are technically the same series. I have a lot of episodes of this show. One of the great radio series.
Todd,
I'm only familiar with one episode of this series.
An adaptation of Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall"
So, I'm wondering, did they mostly adapt stories already existing or use primarily new stories written for the show?
Mostly adapted existing stories . . . stuff like Tom Godwin's "Cold Equations", L. Sprague DeCamp's "Gun For Dinasour", Fritz Leiber's "Pail Of Air", Fred Pohl's "Tunnel Under The World", real highbrow sophisticated stuff for the time.
Despite the similarities of name and content, I'm pretty sure that Dimension X and X Minus One are not the same series.
Actually, they are. Dimension X was canciled (for lack of sponsorship, I think), then brought back not too long afterward under the name X-1.
I first heard X Minus One in the 1970s... during the summer, the CBC program As It Happens aired classic radio drama in the last half hour of the program. Fridays was X Minus One night.
I remember some of them:
Star Bright - This scientist has a brilliant four-year-old daughter named Star. She and a friend who is just as brilliant have figured out how to use a Mobius strip to travel through time. When dad forbids them from leaving present time, the children figure out how to travel to another dimension... but dad thinks they won't be able to get back. He follows them there just as the boy's mother is knocking. That's the end of the episode.
Another episode is the classic "Mars is Heaven", where a crew of about 10 lands on Mars, and one crewman has no family at all for the Martians to imitate.
There's an episode about one man continually being held over on consecutive tours of duty at a lonely lunar base. When he finally does have the chance to go home to Earth, personal circumstances cause him to pass it up.
Another episode is about a mysterious box with a button on it that falls into the hands of a man. He discovers by pushing the button, anything he wants can be provided to him (materialized, presumably). At the end, he discovers that a "Class One Utilizer" (or whatever the number or letter was) is a credit rating... and he's been borrowing to the hilt!
There's the episode where everybody has to have a job. These two guys are in a corner, but they manage to invent "nothing" jobs that the investigator is satisfied with.
I could remember others if I had more time. I've found a web site that lists all the episodes briefly, and several of them I recognized from the 1970s reruns. I wouldn't mind if they were all issued on a DVD (using MP3) for us fans to enjoy.
Some episodes I am thinking of might actually be part of CBS Radio Mystery Theatre of the 1970s, so I won't mention them. One of those is "Mastodonia" - the US government sends some people back in time to set up a mining colony. At the end of the episode, this news guy is bored as he recounts how the US government has recognized the independent republic of "Mastodonia". The US is going to harvest minerals from the past to use in the present.
Geoff Capp
Whitehorse
I've read the first three. They're based on classic SF short stories.
>I wouldn't mind if they were all issued on a DVD (using MP3) for us fans to enjoy.
Your wish is a reality! Otrcat http://www.otrcat.com offers the complete X Minus One series (127 episodes) on one MP3 CD-rom! I think he only charges five bucks for it, too.