Beyond Our Control

Beyond Our Control was an American youth-produced television series that aired on local NBC affiliate WNDU-TV in South Bend, Indiana for 19 seasons from 1967 to 1986. Usually televised from late-January to mid-May of each year, the program was produced by WJA-TV, a company that was part of the local Junior Achievement program, designed to give high school students business and work experience. WNDU-TV, owned and operated by the University of Notre Dame, was the local sponsor.

Approximately 30 Michiana (Indiana and Michigan) high school students were selected by audition each year as company members. In 19 seasons, over 350 teenagers participated.

As described by Jim Grey on Down the Road, "it was a TV show about TV, and there was not a thing about the medium it did not lampoon and skewer. ... It won awards; it got national press; it launched careers. But unless you lived in or near South Bend, Indiana, you never saw Beyond Our Control."

Promoted as "a very nice TV show", BOC sported its own distinctive style of parody, music, and experimental film. Footage from the program still exists, and can be seen on YouTube and occasionally on public access television in the Michiana region.

Screenwriter Chris Webb, a student participant and adult writing adviser, wrote, "I think the thing that makes BOC really work is that it is done by high school kids, and the audience can tell that it was, and the show never hid the truth. So as an audience watches it, there is an inherent suspense as to whether the kids are going to pull off a scene. Sometimes they do, and then don't - occasionally within the same scene. Comedy relies on tension, and that suspense, that tension, can make the show very very funny. But even when it doesn't work, the show is still fascinating to watch. All because of the high school element."