The Miraculous Serum

I thought this looked familiar until I checked the same story a few years later on Science Fiction Theater. The plots are identical. It involves an experimental serum used on a terminal tuberculosis patient, a young woman who has no other options. Not only does it work, it revitalizes her. Unfortunately, she turns bad, able to adapt to her situations through evil means. Now the men have a twofold problem. They must support her in her recovery (not to mention their medical chicanery) and yet must control her. She has also taken a shine to the doctor who invented the serum and is manipulating him. She actually ends up in Washington with plans to rule the world. The solution in both of the episodes is the same and equally unsatisfying. In addition to the title product, these guys seem to have the ability to do some pretty incredible things in the medical field.

This is an interesting episode of "Tales of Tomorrow". A doctor has created an amazing serum that he's successfully used on animals. In each case, the animals with fatal illnesses 'adapted' to the illness and overcame it--almost instantly. Not surprisingly, he wants to use this on people but is having trouble getting hospitals to let him try it out on folks. When he uses to save a woman near death, she is cured--and then comes the twist. Something unforeseen happens and they've created a bit of a monster.

While not among the very best shows in the series, it is very good and thought-provoking. If you want to see it, try following the IMDb links or go to archive.org and download the available shows from the series (about half of them). It's sort of like an early incarnation of "The Twilight Zone" but with MUCH cheaper special effects.

A scientist develops a serum from fruit-flies that transfers the insects' supposed 'extreme adaptability' to other organisms. This is the first of three 1950s versions of Stanley Weinbaum's 1935 short story 'The Adaptive Ultimate' (the others being TV's 'Science Fiction Theatre's: Beyond Return' (1955) and the low-budget film 'She Devil' (1957)). Besides its miraculous healing properties, the serum seems to make recipients ruthless, selfish, and avaricious (whether these changes are intended imply that 'adaptation' in a Darwinian 'survival of the fittest' sense is inherently amoral is never discussed). Like the other versions, the story misses the point that the studies of fruit fly 'adaptation' that likely influenced Weinbaum's story were genetic and not about changing traits in individual flies. This low-budget ToT episode is stripped-down, stagy and minimalistic - the story takes place in a couple of rooms and the only visible 'adaptive changes' in Kyra Zelas (the dying patient whose TB the adaptive serum cures, played by Lola Albright) is her increased beauty. Although dated and scientifically shaky, this episode of TV's earliest sci-fi anthologies is worth investing 20 minutes in for fans of the genre. The idea that the most successful 'adaptive change' that a woman can make is to get prettier is an entertaining comment on the times.