As we reported early this month, ABC Television is planning to run four episodes of Masters of Science Fiction. ABC now confirms it, and has posted the schedule of the anthology series, which will be narrated by physicist Professor Stephen Hawking. It will indeed air Saturdays at 10PM on ABC, starting 4 August.
The first episode (on 4 August) will be “A Clean Escape,” based on John Kessel’s short story. Mark Rydell directed from a script by Sam Egan. In the episode, “set not too far in a post-Apocalyptic future, psychiatrist Dr. Deanna Evans (Judy Davis) interrogates a distinguished, if befuddled, man (Sam Waterston) who appears to be suffering from a lapse in memory. Why can’t he remember—and why is it so important that she uncover the secret he holds deep inside?”
The second episode (11 August) is “The Awakening,” based on a story by Howard Fast and directed by Michael Petroni. Starring Terry O’Quinn and Elisabeth Rohm, “the episode opens outside Baghdad, where US soldiers discover a mysterious casualty—one they can’t even identify as human. William B. Davis guest stars as the President of the United States.”
Episode three (18 August) is “Jerry Was a Man,” based on the Robert A. Heinlein story, directed by Michael Tolkin. Featuring Anne Heche and Malcolm McDowell, the story is “set in the future, the world’s seventh richest couple, the van Vogels, find their lives changed forever when they acquire an anthropoid named Jerry.”
The series will conclude 25 August with “The Discarded,” based on the story by Harlan Ellison. Ellison co-wrote the script with Josh Olson, and it was directed by Jonathan Frakes. “Brian Dennehy, John Hurt, and James Denton star in this ultimate story of despised minorities sentenced to drift in the darkness of outer space forever. These men and women make a desperate pact in the hope of being offered refuge at home on Earth.”