Leon Janney stars in a script by Edgar Marvin that was originally presented on the science fiction series 2000+on 1950-08-02 and starred Luis Van Rooten. The story is set in the year 2500, and some of it sounds strange because many of the technological capabilities that were 500 years away seem to already be here, such as artificial intelligence and self-regulating systems. There are other aspects of the story that have the typical characteristics of 1950s sci-fi, such as robots needing to have some kind of human-like construction. Setting all that aside, however clunky the story is to modern ears, it attempts to address serious philosophical and ethical issues about the hubris of creating something perfect and what would happen if an artificial being had no constraining moral aspects that played a role in the calculus of its “decisions.”
The story is not that good. The question is whether it is simple or simplistic, and ignorant because important knowledge was not discovered by its scripting in 1950, or it was ignorant because many of the concepts were too complex or subtle to be presented in 20 minutes of drama. That broadcast duration limitation makes for some production difficult trade-offs. Considering how the desire of the public for basic scientific knowledge was growing because of the nuclear age and the space race, it is surprising that this story “made the cut” and was considered acceptable and fitting for Suspense. The audience could have handled a better and more suspenseful story.
Janney plays Dr. Atley Ferris who is so frustrated with human limitations and frailties that he wants to create a “pure brain” that is free of such weaknesses. He does so, and his creation, “Max,” who has such a brain that has “maximum electronic mentality.” If things did not go wrong, there would be no story. Things go wrong, Max turns out to be very inflexible in the objective decision-making, and that causes serious issues that can’t seem to be stopped. The story does stop, and is mostly unsatisfying in the end.
The program was recorded on Monday, February 19, 1962. It may have been moved to this date because the Washington’s Birthday holiday was on the usual day for recording, Thursday. The session began at 1:00pm and concluded at 6:00pm.
Scriptwriter Edgar Marvin wrote for various radio series and specials. He became involved in 1950s TV, including a script on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
When some early classic radio collectors were attempting to find and restore as many 2000+ episodes as possible, some took this Suspense episode and clipped its opening and closing, and put the 2000+ series name on it, and the date, and did not add a notation that it was a Suspense episode. This recording was intended to be a “placeholder” until the time, if and when, the actual 2000+ broadcast recording ever surfaced. It was not a nefarious act of deceit, it was what they believed was a good idea at the time. This unfortunately befuddled many collectors of 2000+ and casual radio fans who were not aware of the Suspense production.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP620304
THE CAST
Leon Janney (Dr. Ferris), Elaine Rost (Sally Ferris / Hostess), Bernard Grant, Eugene Francis, Cliff Carpenter (roles: Jack, Phillip, Max)
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