The LOST PLANET

   1) Film serial (1953). Columbia. Dir Spencer G. Bennet, starring Judd Holdren, Vivian Mason, Ted Thorpe, Forrest Taylor, Michael Fox. Script George H. Plympton, Arthur Hoerl.

   This 15-part children's series - Hollywood's last sf serial - featured an investigative reporter, a mad SCIENTIST, a ROBOT and an attempted alien INVASION of Earth. Individual "chapters" had titles like "Blasted by the Thermic Disintegrator" and "Snared by the Prysmic Catapult".

   2) UK tv serial (1954). BBC TV. Prod Kevin Sheldon, starring Peter Kerr, Jack Stewart, Mary Law. Script by Angus MacVicar, based on his The Lost Planet (1953). 625 min episodes. B/w.

   This was one of the first sf-related BBC TV serials for children; previously it had been a very popular RADIO serial. An atomic-powered spacecraft takes a group, including one child, to the lost planet of Hesikos. A sequel, Return to the Lost Planet, based on MacVicar's Returnto the Lost Planet (1954), was produced the following year. We can find no evidence for the assertion in The Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction (1990) by Roger Fulton that MacVicar is a pseudonym of Andre NORTON.

   PN/JB