Editing Out of the Unknown (section)

==Series three==
{{further|List of Out of the Unknown episodes#Series 3|l1=List of series three episodes}}
Shubik was in the middle of her third visit to New York in early 1967 when she received a call from Sydney Newman offering her the opportunity to co-produce, with Graeme McDonald, BBC1's most prestigious drama slot, ''[[The Wednesday Play]]''. Shubik accepted the new post, but insisted that she be given time to commission a full third series of ''Out of the Unknown'' scripts before moving on to ''The Wednesday Play'' and handing ''Out of the Unknown'' over to a new production team. At the same time Michael Imison also moved on to produce ''Thirty Minute Theatre''.

For series three Shubik commissioned dramatisations of stories by [[Robert Sheckley]] (''[[Immortality, Inc.]]''); Isaac Asimov (''[[Liar! (short story)|Liar!]]'' and ''[[The Naked Sun]]'' (the sequel to ''The Caves of Steel'', which Shubik had dramatised for ''Story Parade'' in 1963)); John Brunner (''The Last Lonely Man''); [[Clifford D. Simak]] (''Beach Head'' and ''Target Generation''); John Wyndham (''[[Random Quest]]''); [[Cyril M. Kornbluth]] (''[[The Little Black Bag]]''); [[Rog Phillips]] (''The Yellow Pill'') and Peter Phillips (''Get Off My Cloud'').  Original stories were provided by Donald Bull ("Something in the Cellar"), [[Brian Hayles]] ("1+1=1.5") and Michael Ashe ("The Fosters").  Two scripts, "The Yellow Pill" and "Target Generation", had previously been used in Shubik's earlier anthology series ''Out of this World''.

In September 1967 [[Alan Bromly]] and Roger Parkes were appointed as, respectively, the new producer and script editor. Bromly and Parkes both had backgrounds in thriller series. A new opening title sequence was implemented, essentially a green and orange colourisation of the original. This was created when colourisation was a relatively uncommon process, particularly for television, so the results of each image vary.

Series three, the first series of ''Out of the Unknown'' to be made in colour, was broadcast on Wednesday nights beginning on 7 January 1969 with "Immortality, Inc." One viewer of this episode was [[George Harrison]] of [[the Beatles]], who can be seen discussing the episode with his bandmate [[Ringo Starr]] in the film ''[[Let It Be (1970 film)|Let It Be]]''.<ref>Ward, ''Out of the Unknown'', p. 288.</ref> Scheduled opposite the very popular [[ITV (TV network)|ITV]] drama series ''[[The Power Game]]'', the series suffered in the ratings and met with mixed reviews. The ''[[Daily Express]]'' found the series "most erratic", sometimes "wonderfully inventive" but at other times "as silly as a comic strip in a child's magazine".<ref>Ward, ''Out of the Unknown'', p. 353.</ref> The production of "Random Quest" led John Wyndham, the author of the story it was based on, to write to its director [[Christopher Barry]] praising "the hard work and ingenuity of a great number of people concerned [...] excellent work by everybody – not forgetting the adapter. My thanks to everyone [...] for weaving it all together so skillfully."<ref>Ward, ''Out of the Unknown'', p. 334.</ref> "Beach Head" was entered into the Sixth ''Festival Internazionale del Film di Fantascienza'' in July 1968, in the hope of repeating the earlier success of "The Machine Stops", but did not win.

''Get off my Cloud'' included [[Doctor Who]]'s prop of the TARDIS exterior and the scenes were recorded in August 1968.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=4489.msg51947|title = The Brachaki Police Box Prop (The War Machines to Seeds of Doom)}}</ref>

Series three is the most incomplete season of the show. While several clips and audio recordings exist for the missing episodes, only one episode, "The Last Lonely Man", exists in its entirety as its original colour videotape master. "The Little Black Bag" exists only partially, since roughly 20 minutes of footage, mainly from the first act, is missing.