In 1967, the BBC submitted its first entry to the Festival Internazionale del Film di Fantascienza in Trieste. Their choice seems mildly odd, as it was merely an episode of their anthology show, Out of the Unknown — and an episode which was not particularly successful at the time it ran.
However, they ended up winning the first prize, the Sigillo d’oro città di Trieste (later replaced by the Golden Asteroid).
I need to point out that “The Machine Stops” looks like a TV production. The design work is quite impressive, and it helps that it is meant to be a story set within an over mechanized world where everyone lives inside his own tiny little box that provides all his needs — although the sets are still far more impressive than what one might expect from watching the first few seasons of Dr. Who. It has that strong, clear look so many BBC shows had at the time and even has a few fairly extensive effects (particularly when the repair machine stops an unauthorized exit from the city).
Now it is true that the sets themselves are all small and, as this is a giant machine of a city, are reused with no real changes to represent all the locations. But the detail, care and working parts of the main set is truly impressive.
Now the source for this episode was a remarkable dystopian tale from 1909, written by (of all people) E.M. Forster. It’s a story which seems remarkably prescient, particularly in our day and age.
In the distant future, man has finally won out against nature. No longer does he have to struggle, or work hard for his living. The machine does all that — it feeds him, clothes him, and takes care of his every need. He longer needs to leave his room, everything he needs is brought to him and he can talk to anyone in the world — or even give lectures to an appreciative audience spread out throughout the globe.
No one ever goes to the surface, except a few who get special permission and have to wear a ventilator. But then, there is no need to go, as everything you could possibly desire comes right to you.
Vashti is a fairly ordinary citizen of this strange future, incredibly busy with all her social contacts, her lectures and her search for the spiritual. Her son, Kuno, however, isn’t happy with the way things are, and wants to go to the surface. She can’t understand why, and hopes that his pursuits will not lead him to homelessness…
There is a lot packed in Forster’s story and Out of the Unknown did an incredible job bringing it to life. The original is a fairly daring sort of story because Vashti is the main character, with her far more sympathetic son in the background and some of the important events taking place offscreen. As you would expect in a TV version, Kuno gets a lot more screen time, although Vashti still dominates the story. There’s a nice little hint that she isn’t quite as conventional as she seems as she feels a highly unusual sense of connection to her son Kuno (although not to any of her other children).
Yvonne Mitchell gives an impressive performance in the lead role, one in which she starts out self-obsessed and rather dismissive of her son’s unusual desires and yet, by the end, she is transformed and becomes quite sympathetic.
Another element of the original which has been nicely handled is that the machine has become a religion, one which tries to mold man in the machine’s image, and the user’s manual has become its holy book. I have to wonder whether that would get presented so forthrightly in our day and age.
Despite this being a TV production, the editing isn’t sedate and ordinary but indulges in some seriously flashy moments. It’s a bit unexpected, as if this were an actual film production rather than merely yet another episode of a TV series. I do have to wonder, though, whether this is because it was the first episode of the second season, and they spent more on it to draw in a bigger audience.
The end result is as dark and disturbing as the original tale. While never as famous as a lot of other dystopian works of the early Twentieth Century, Forster’s story is a forceful and compelling vision of where we might be going and his take on what he saw happening at the time.
And, unlike some of the early science fiction stories, the passing years have not weakened the story.
Instead it grows more plausible all the time…
rivets on the poster 
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