I was a kid and remember seeing this television drama/SciFi…might be based on a book as I don’t read science fiction.
The story was of a contest of some sort…a race or a lottery. The winner was to receive the very last parcel of land as the earth was so crowded. It was a beautiful place with grass and trees and a house. At any rate, the race or whatever was over and then it showed the winner(s) in their gorgeous house with green yard, but then the camera cut to the view from inside and you could see nothing but people reaching through the fence, crammed shoulder to shoulder trying to get into this last piece of paradise on earth. I am probably not doing the story justice as it was far more scary, and implied earth would soon be so overpopulated that there was never going to be any parks or land left in the future. Plus, it was almost as if the winners were in a zoo with the masses desperately trying to get close enough for a good look.
This might have been a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episode as I used to love to watch those, but somehow I seem to remember this was some kind of “special broadcast” so I think it might have been an early made-for-television drama based on a book or short story.
The story is called “The People Trap,” and is by Robert Sheckley. It was first published in the June 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction, and was the first story in Sheckley’s collection of the same name.
It was on TV, I remember seeing it also. The last scene showed the hero, named Steve Baxter in the story (no relation to the author, I assume ) sitting on a pleasant lawn - and then the camera pans, to see hordes of people just outside his property staring at him.
There were a bunch of anthology shows, like ABC’s Stage’67, on around then, and it might have been on one of those. It is too late for Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, and I seem to be remember it being on a normal anthology show.
I’m pretty sure this is it - I went right to it in my collection.
You’re welcome. I’m glad the Voyager SF library (the largest in the Dope - over 5,000 books and magazines) can be of help.
The version of the story I have, btw, is in a Dell paperback, no. 6881, published December 1968. I guess it affected me too, since I can still remember it after all these years.
There was also an episode ofStar Trek where Kirk wound up on a planet that had conquered disease and was - as it were - standing room only. He was on an exact duplicate of the Enterprise with people pressed up against the hull.
) sitting on a pleasant lawn - and then the camera pans, to see hordes of people just outside his property staring at him.