The BEST episodes of Tales of the Unexpected
Every episode of Tales of the Unexpected ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Tales of the Unexpected!
Tales Of The Unexpected is a British television series originally aired between 1979 and 1988, made by Anglia Television for ITV. The series was an anthology of different tales. Initially episodes were based on the short stories collected in the books Tales of the Unexpected, Kiss Kiss and Someone Like You by Roald Dahl. The stories were sometimes sinister, sometimes wryly comedic, and usually had a twist ending. The upbeat theme music for the series was written by the prolific film and television composer Ron Grainer.
#1 - The Hitch-Hiker
Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/22/1980
Paul Duveen gives a lift in his ultra-fast new BMW to an elderly hitch-hiker on his way to Epsom for the Derby. Duveen, cajoled into taking the car to its limit, is promptly booked for speeding. In the course of the remaining journey, the passenger reveals his astonishing skills as a professional pickpocket - his name for himself is a fingersmith - and before they finally part, the fingersmith has a little present for Duveen...
#2 - The Landlady
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 4/21/1979
Billy Weaver, a seventeen-year-old Londoner, arrives in Bath late at night to take up a new job. He finds a room for the night at a bed-and-breakfast house run by a sweet old woman. As he signs the guest book, Billy feels sure he recognizes the names of the two previous guests. Where on earth can he have heard them before? As he drinks a cup of tea with a curiously bitter-almond flavour, the owner of the boarding house is telling Billy she is an amateur taxidermist...
#3 - Neck
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 4/28/1979
Unworldly art collector Basil Turton inherits his father's publishing empire (and his title) and marries Natalia, an East European with a decidedly Machiavellian streak. Six years on, the new Lady Turton is not just wearing the trousers but also being far from discreet about her lovers. Sir Basil's butler, Jelks, strongly disapproves of it all. Then Lady Turton gets her head stuck in a valuable work of art...
#4 - Royal Jelly
Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 3/1/1980
In a cottage surrounded by the drone of honey-bees, the bee-keeper's baby daughter is ailing and losing weight. The corner is turned when Albert begins to feed his daughter on Royal Jelly, but a curious transformation is under way...
#5 - Skin
Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/8/1980
Drioli, a penniless old tattoo artist, has a fabulous work of art by his friend Soutine and is offered a huge amount for it. He desperately needs the money, but how can he deliver the picture to the buyer while he is still alive? - the masterpiece is tattooed on his back.
#6 - Clerical Error
Season 6 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/30/1983
Paul Standing, the son of a highly-respected doctor who has recently died, is winding up his father's affairs when he receives an account from a book-shop owned by two brothers (Michael and Ronnie Carey) demanding over a thousand pounds for pornography supplied to his late father. Paul knows that receiving this bill could have killed his mother, who has a weak heart - but he is suspicious of the claim, for a very good reason...
#7 - The Best Chess Player in the World
Season 7 - Episode 2 - Aired 5/19/1984
G.B. Shaw, a successful newpaper proprietor, sets out to use people as if they were pieces on a chessboard. His beautiful wife, Paula, has everything she could want - including a horse, a Ferrari and a very large dress allowance. Then Paula begins to live dangerously by taking a lover, and Shaw decides to deal with the problem in his usual cool, calm and clear-thinking way. But life does not always obey the rules of the game...
#8 - Heir Presumptuous
Season 6 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/7/1983
Rancher George Devon is found murdered. Devon was a rich man, and his nephews Donald and David (who are identical twins) stand to inherit his fortune. They become the prime suspects, as one of them was seen at the scene of the crime just before Devon's body was found. But Sheriff Milt Singleton faces the problem that no-one can tell the twins apart, and both of them seem to have water-tight alibis.
#9 - Where's Your Sense of Humour?
Season 6 - Episode 6 - Aired 4/14/1983
Laura and Frank Parker are the long-suffering friends of George and Julie Forester. Long-suffering, because George is a compulsive prankster, and some of his jokes are very troublesome... then one day he goes too far.
#10 - Down Among the Sheltering Palms
Season 6 - Episode 7 - Aired 5/21/1983
Gerry Armstrong, an American veteran of World War II, makes a nostalgic return trip to England and visits the town in Norfolk where he served as an airman forty years before. Carol is a pretty young woman Armstrong meets in a dance hall - which is where the sheltering palms come in. But the past can yield secrets and surprises, and Carol brings it all disturbingly alive...
#11 - The Vorpal Blade
Season 6 - Episode 8 - Aired 5/28/1983
A tale of love, honour and murder in Germany in the 1930s, looked back on many years later. The elderly von Baden, one of those who witnessed a long-ago duel to the death at Heidelberg between Macker and the bully Cassan, reveals a shocking secret...
#12 - The Wrong 'Un
Season 6 - Episode 9 - Aired 6/11/1983
Helmut Weinrich is a German business man staying in a hotel and looking for a good time after a successful deal. Helmut meets the beautiful and enigmatic Molly, a girl with an edge of danger about her. He ignores the warnings of the hotel's security officer, buys Molly dinner and invites her up to his room...
#13 - The Luncheon
Season 6 - Episode 10 - Aired 6/19/1983
Susan Mandeville is a glamorous, extravagant American who inveigles Tony Medway, a struggling young writer, into buying her an expensive lunch. Tony believes Susan is still married to a film producer, so he risks a bill he can't afford in the hope of an offer for the film rights of his book. The lunch turns out to be full of surprises...
#14 - The Tribute
Season 6 - Episode 11 - Aired 6/25/1983
Three English ladies who served the Empire in distant places, Fanny Soane, Mable Ince, and Lady Eleanor Benson, hear of the death of Nanny Dench, who had served all of them. The three ladies decide against the expense of a notice in The Times and plan instead to meet Nanny's niece for lunch. But a shock is in store for them...
#15 - Hit and Run
Season 6 - Episode 12 - Aired 5/10/1983
Roger Ashburn is a young hospital doctor with a beautiful but selfish wife. They hold a dinner party for Steve and Carol Hutchins, but the party is ruined when one of the men finds his wife's wedding ring in his dinner - her ploy to signal that the marriage is over.When Roger's wife disappears, he is desperately worried - but there is a surprise in store for him.
#16 - Youth from Vienna
Season 6 - Episode 13 - Aired 7/2/1983
Caroline Coates, a television station interviewer, is promoted to be anchorwoman of the station's main news programme - and there are two men who want to marry her. But Caroline worries that she won't keep her looks forever. Humphrey Baxter, one of her admirers, is a scientist working on a formula to stop the aging process. Unfortunately, though, some of the effects of the fountain of eternal youth are unforeseen...
#17 - The Turn of the Tide
Season 6 - Episode 14 - Aired 9/3/1983
Slade is a criminal lawyer - and a perfect gentleman who plans to commit the perfect murder. He has his reasons for wanting to kill a friend, of course, and he knows he needs to destroy all the evidence. The pivotal moment is an early morning swim... but Slade has overlooked something.
#18 - The Dirty Detail
Season 7 - Episode 1 - Aired 5/12/1984
Fred Pearson is a Vietnam war veteran, but he came out with a miserable service record, thanks to the bullying of Guedo, his sergeant, who constantly gave him dirty detail punishments and broke his nerve. Since discharge, Pearson hasn't been able to keep a job and feels the world is against him. Years on from Vietnam, and after an unsuccessful day of looking for work, Pearson goes to his favourite bar to drown his sorrows and finds Guedo boasting about his time in the army. Pearson sees a chance of revenge...
#19 - A Harmless Vanity
Season 5 - Episode 9 - Aired 6/20/1982
Mary Hitchman's disbelief turns to curiosity when a friend tips her off that her husband George is having an affair with a pretty young secretary. Mary arranges a chance meeting with her rival at a beach party - and George does not foresee what is coming to him.
#20 - A Sad Loss
Season 6 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/23/1983
Claire Hawksworth is a young widow who owns a smart hotel in the Caribbean, where she lives with her good-looking hotel manager (and lover) Dave Bingham. Alas, Claire is struggling financially and faces bankruptcy, so she is having to look to her rich Aunt Alicia to save the day. But then Alicia announces she has a new heir. What's to be done?
#21 - The Memory Man
Season 6 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/16/1983
Colin Mearns, called 'the memory man', is going through a very thin patch. Out of funds and facing the loss of Mary, his gorgeous girlfriend, he advertises for customers and agrees to help Charlie Krebs, an obviously shady character, to remember the number of a station locker. But then Mearns gets curious and wonders if he might be missing his only chance to make a fortune...
#22 - A Passing Opportunity
Season 6 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/9/1983
Frank Jesmond is a struggling tough guy who is jealous of his rich and successful former schoolmate Peter Madison. And Frank will do anything for money - including murder. But what about Jesmond's loving wife and young son, Timmy?
#23 - The Skeleton Key
Season 5 - Episode 18 - Aired 8/22/1982
An arrogant young man called Max has to have an emergency operation just before he is due to go away on a holiday with his girlfriend, Emma - a holiday he hoped to turn into a honeymoon. Max panics and gets bad-tempered, and Emma tries to calm him down. Meanwhile, Andy, who is a radiologist at the hospital and a much more pleasant character than Max, is also keen on Emma. So she has to choose between them...
#24 - Who's Got the Lady?
Season 5 - Episode 17 - Aired 8/15/1982
Parnell is an art dealer who plans to steal an important picture from his own London art gallery. During a ceremony to unveil The Patrician Lady (a masterpiece on temporary loan) gun shots and an explosion suggest a robbery. Afterwards, surprisingly, The Patrician Lady seems to be unharmed, but then Parnell finds the name 'Zarchetti' stamped on the back of the canvas, suggesting the picture is a fake. With the original under suspicion, Parnell plans that his artist girlfrend will then forge copies of the painting, which he can sell to several of his collectors who will each pay a good price for what appears to be the real masterpiece. But something goes wrong with the plan...
#25 - A Man with a Fortune
Season 5 - Episode 16 - Aired 8/8/1982
John Smith is a rich but lonely Californian wine-grower visiting England in the hope of finding his long-lost family. In London, he meets two girls, Janet Murdoch and her room-mate Eva, and things start to go terribly wrong.