Before 1968, science fiction on screen mostly meant B movies, rubber creature suits and cheap thrills. Then Stanley Kubrick, fresh off Dr. Strangelove and obsessed with extraterrestrial life, was pointed toward Arthur C. Clarke, a prominent author living off the grid in Ceylon. Kubrick initially dismissed him as a recluse who lived in a tree; Clarke cabled back that he was frightfully interested. They met over tropical drinks at a Trader Vic's in New York in April 1964, and a four-year collaboration began that would produce 2001: A Space Odyssey.

This episode traces how the film took shape: eleven months of working titles before Homer's Odyssey supplied the framing, Carl Sagan's argument against humanoid aliens, the hyper-mundane production design that made the fantastical feel real, and Kubrick's decision to throw out a commissioned score  ...