IMAGINE The Twilight Zone given a glossy revamp and you have the measure of these six TV adaptations of sci-fi stories, "hosted" by Professor Stephen Hawking and featuring a top-flight cast (Malcolm McDowell, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Sean Astin, etc).

There's much that chimes in with current anxieties but the moral purpose occasionally comes over as a little preachy, as in The Awakening, in which kindly aliens invite Man to reflect on the folly of his ways. Personal favourites include Jerry Was a Man, a courtroom drama about an anthropoid's battle for human status, and A Clean Escape, which reveals the reason for a patient's 25-year memory loss.