1953
"Seminal" and "highly influencial" are two terms that are often associated with this grandaddy of all British sci-fi serials. Written by Nigel Kneale and directed by Rudolph Cartier, The Quatermass Experiment sets the tone of pretty much everything the BBC will dish out to unsuspecting viewers for the next ten years or so.
I have heard about it for years, regularly mentioned in sci-fi magazines the world over and yet I never got down to watch it until a few days ago. However, only the first and second episodes of this six-part serials still exist and so we are deprived of the grand finale when the unfortunate Victor Carroon, turned into an alien vegetable during an ill-fated space mission, is tracked down and killed in Westminster Abbey.
The first episode mainly consists of Pr. Quatermass and his team sitting in a room, talking over the phone and wondering exactly where the hell is their space capsule gone. Due to technical and budgetary restraints (as was the custom, the whole thing was broadcast live) The Quatermass Experiment tells a lot without showing. The second episode adds a cold-war plot as astronaut Carroon is kidnapped by foreign agents.
I really don't know what to make of all this. The problem about these oh-so influential programs from the past is the sense of expectation that develops over the years. I half-expected to watch a forgotten masterpiece of terror and alien invasion, and what I saw was dated production values, a snail-paced plot and the fact that we never see anything remotely exiting.
Still, it was fun to finally see for myself what others have been talking about for years. However, I really shouldn't dismiss this right away. The public at the time seems to have caught on, and Quatermass would return twice before the decade was over. Oh, and Hammer films did a movie version which I intend to track down and watch, so more about that later.
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