The WORST episodes of Tales of the Unexpected
Every episode of Tales of the Unexpected ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst 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 - Mr Botibol's First Love
Season 2 - Episode 13 - Aired 5/24/1980
William Botibol is a pathetic failure whose life-long ambition is to conduct an orchestra. He fills his lonely life with music, pretending to be a great composer and conductor. Then Botibol meets a young lady who shares in his fantasy - but why is she really putting herself out for him?
#2 - 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.
#3 - 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...
#4 - In the Bag
Season 5 - Episode 15 - Aired 8/1/1982
An honest girl called Cara aims to recover her family jewellery (which has been consfiscated as a result of a lover's tiff) by stealing it from a hidden safe. She hires the ultra-cautious safebreaker Sam to do the job for her, and persuades him to take her along. Realizing that Cara will be a danger, he insists she must follow his orders. The plan is for them to dress as students and make their getaway by mingling with college crowds... But Sam has made the first big mistake in his long and successful career as a peterman.
#5 - The Boy Who Talked with Animals
Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/19/1981
David, a nine-year-old boy, talks his father into getting him a giant turtle. And there is more to David's desire for this unusual pet than meets the eye. Then Sam Jenner, a rugged American, gets drawn into David's holiday adventure in Jamaica.
#6 - My Lady Love, My Dove
Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 4/19/1980
Arthur Beauchamp's wife, Pamela, decides to have some fun with their weekend guests, the Snapes - they instal a hidden microphone in the Snapes' bedroom. After a game of bridge for high stakes, the microphone reveals that the Snapes have a complicated system for signalling their bridge hands to each other...
#7 - The Finger of Suspicion
Season 9 - Episode 8 - Aired 4/29/1988
American safe-cracker Steve Baker is married to a beautiful Arab, and they are leading an idyllic life together in a Middle Eastern country - but then Steve is threatened with extradition for a crime he says he didn't commit.
#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 - 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...
#10 - The Open Window
Season 7 - Episode 15 - Aired 10/21/1984
The 'open window' of the title is in a hunting lodge in the Connecticut hills. A young fellow goes through it and finds a strange new world on the other side which does not look much like New England...
#11 - 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...
#12 - 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.
#13 - 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.
#14 - 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?
#15 - 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...
#16 - Death in the Morning
Season 5 - Episode 12 - Aired 7/11/1982
Rich landowner Sir Ian Masterson marries, and Karen, his new wife, moves into his magnificent house in the country. Karen is befriended by Linda Larch, a neighbour. But Linda has her own agenda, and Karen also senses that there is an evil spirit which wants to see her off.
#17 - Decoy
Season 5 - Episode 7 - Aired 6/6/1982
Pretty policewoman Mary Bryan is out to get her man, in seductive, skin-tight silver pants. And it's all in the line of duty, as Mary is the bait to trap a suspected serial killer who has been murdering young women around the city. But things do not go according to plan.
#18 - A Glowing Future
Season 4 - Episode 15 - Aired 7/19/1981
Betsy's long term live-in lover, Jack, is planning to get married - but not to her. He has a new girlfriend half-way across the world, in Australia.Betsy is even more enraged when Jack starts to pack up their shared belongings for shipping to his new home. As the paintings come off the walls, Betsy decides to give the bride a present - she has just the thing in mind.
#19 - 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...
#20 - 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...
#21 - Wet Saturday
Season 7 - Episode 8 - Aired 7/7/1984
Wet weather, and a dead body in the house. Mr Princey's dim-witted daughter, Millicent, thwarted in love, has killed a young preacher with a croquet mallet, and Princey decides he must cover it up, or risk losing his high standing in the community. The police need to be persuaded that there was a tragic accident...
#22 - Run, Rabbit, Run
Season 5 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/16/1982
Just after the Second World War, Robert Simpson was a young U.S. Army interpreter stationed in liberated Paris and living in the house of Jacques Vareille, a hero of the French Resistance, and his downtrodden wife, Nathalie. Robert had no idea why the hectoring Jacques never set foot outside his house. Now, ten years after the war, Robert is back in Paris to write a book about the Resistance, and he pays a call at his former digs. Only Nathalie is still there - and she has a story to tell of a very different kind. It seems that she sought revenge on her bullying husband, with unforeseen consequences.
#23 - Depart in Peace
Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 5/3/1980
An art collector finds himself drawn into an unusual struggle with two beautiful women.
#24 - A Time to Die
Season 9 - Episode 9 - Aired 5/6/1988
Yves Drouard is a romantic French electronics expert whose love life has become rather too complicated. His marriage to Marthe has cooled, and his young mistress, Violette, has announced that she is pregnant. Yves is forced into a decision - but something he failed to foresee leads to an outcome he did not reckon on at all.
#25 - The Moles
Season 5 - Episode 6 - Aired 5/30/1982
Edward Boyle and George Balsam are newcomers to crime, respectable businessmen on the brink of bankruptcy, who join forces with Meakins, a professional criminal, to rob a bank. They tunnel under the bank's vaults, burrowing through the earth like moles... but their plan comes unstuck.