The Martians and Us - Episode Guide

This edition looks at our relationship with aliens, from Wells's invading Martians to the Daleks, via 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Midwich Cuckoos, and the Mekon.

It also explores the genre's preoccupation with the big questions of evolution, and includes interviews with Arthur C Clarke, Brian Aldiss, Doris Lessing and Steve Jones.

A look at the utopian dreams and dystopian nightmares of books such as Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and 1984 by George Orwell.

One is a vision of the future full of sex and shopping, the other is a story of oppression and violence. But why have the British been better than anyone at imagining these future heavens and hells? Contributors include Margaret Atwood and Iain M Banks.

A look at the genre of destruction, where the writers abandon time travel and alien invasion and declare the end of the world as we know it.

Including floods, plagues, poisonous clouds and walking plants, from late Victorian disasters like The Purple Cloud, through Day of the Triffids and TV series like Survivors.