Dead of Night (TV series)

Dead of Night is considered by some to be a spiritual successor to an earlier horror anthology by the BBC, Late Night Horror. Like Late Night Horror, Dead of Night ran for a single series in the autumn of 1972.

Only the first, second and seventh episodes – "The Exorcism", "Return Flight", and "A Woman Sobbing" – are retained on their original 625-line PAL colour videotapes in the BBC Archives. The videotapes of "Bedtime", "Death Cancels All Debts", "Smith" and "Two in the Morning" were either erased for reuse or junked during the mid 1970s, and not even any 16mm black-and-white film telerecordings — made for overseas sales to countries not yet broadcasting in colour — are known to exist.

Another programme made by the Dead of Night production team under Innes Lloyd, The Stone Tape, running to 90 minutes and intended to be the eighth episode, also survives in the BBC Archives, but this was broadcast as a stand-alone story and not shown under the Dead of Night banner.

BBC Four rebroadcast "The Exorcism" on 22 December 2007.

The three surviving episodes of Dead of Night were released on DVD by the BFI in October 2013, with extras including a gallery of stills from the four missing episodes, the downloadable scripts for all episodes (surviving and missing); and a booklet featuring essays and biographies by Lisa Kerrigan, Oliver Wake, Derek Johnston and Alex Davidson.