Long before Close Encounters of the Third Kindor E.T. put Steven Spielberg on the map as one of the greatest science fiction visionaries of all time, he was a hungry young director aiming to elevate the look of early 1970s television. Back then, Spielberg was dipping his toes into the cold, electric waters of sci-fi storytelling with such efforts as an all-but-forgotten TV episode titled “L.A. 2017,” a weird, dystopian vision of what is now present day. In this then-futuristic imagining of Los Angeles, milk is only for the rich and jokes are nothing more than strings of digits.

In the early 1970s, before Spielberg had broken into the world of major motion pictures, he was taking work as a television director. His first gig for the small screen was an episode of the Twilight Zone follow-up, Night Gallery, and during this period, he also directed episodes of Columbo, Marcus Welby, M.D., and his first feature-length effort, the automotive thriller Duel. But in January of 1971, less than a year before Duel (originally a TV movie that was later released in theaters) hit the airwaves and established him as a serious filmmaker, Spielberg directed an episode of the show The Name of the Game titled “L.A. 2017.”

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