Movies - The Quatermass Experiment

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The Quatermass Experiment is a British television science-fiction serial, transmitted by BBC Television in the summer of 1953, and re-staged by BBC Four in 2005. Originally comprising six half-hour episodes, it was the first science-fiction production to be written especially for an adult television audience. Previous written-for-television efforts such as Stranger from Space (1951–52) had been aimed at children, whereas adult sci-fi dramas had been adapted from literary sources, such as R.U.R. (1938 and again in 1948) and The Time Machine
(1949). It was the first of four Quatermass serials to be screened on British television between 1953 and 1979.

Background

The serial was written by BBC staff television drama writer Nigel Kneale, who had previously been an actor and an award-winning prose fiction writer before joining the staff of the BBC. He was interested in the idea of 'science going bad', and it was this interest in science and scientific concepts that led him to write The Quatermass Experiment. The serial was an expensive one: Head of Television Drama Michael Barry had to commit the majority of his original script budget for the year to the material. Kneale famously claimed to have picked his leading character's unusual-sounding name at random from a London telephone directory.

The serial was directed by Rudolph Cartier, one of the BBC's most highly regarded directors, and transmitted live with only a few pre-filmed inserts from Studio A of the BBC's original television studios at Alexandra Palace in London. It was one of the last major dramas to be broadcast from the Palace, as the majority of television production was soon to transfer to Lime Grove Studios.

The Quatermass Experiment was transmitted weekly on Saturday nights from July 18 to August 22 1953. Episode one (Contact Has Been Established) was scheduled from 8.15 to 8.45 p.m., episode two (Persons Reported Missing) 8.25–8.55 p.m., episodes three and four (Very Special Knowledge and Believed to be Suffering) 8.45–9.15 p.m., and the final two episodes (An Unidentified Species and State of Emergency) from 9.00 to 9.30 p.m. In practice, however, due to the live transmissions each episode overran its slot slightly, from between two (episode four) and six (episode six) minutes. The long overrun of the final episode was caused by a temporary break in transmission necessitated by a failing microphone which needed to be replaced. The dramatic theme music for the serial was provided by Mars, Bringer of War from Gustav Holst's The Planets suite.

It was intended by the BBC that each episode should be telerecorded onto 35mm film, a relatively new process that allowed for the preservation of live television broadcasts. Sale of the serial had even been provisionally agreed with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In the event, however, only poor-quality copies of the first two episodes would be recorded before the idea was abandoned, although the first of these was indeed later shown in Canada. These two episodes are the oldest surviving examples of a multi-episodic British drama production and some of the earliest extant examples of British television drama at all, with only a few one-off plays surviving from beforehand.

Plot

The story revolves around Professor Bernard Quatermass, head of the British Experimental Rocket Group, and begins with him anxiously awaiting the return to Earth of his experimental rocket ship and its crew, who have become the first humans to travel into space. The rocket is at first thought lost, having dramatically overshot its planned orbit, but eventually is picked up on radar and returns to Earth, crash-landing in Wimbledon, London.

When Quatermass and his team reach the crash area and succeed in opening the rocket, they discover that only one of the three crewmen, Victor Carroon, remains inside. Quatermass and his chief assistant Paterson (Hugh Kelly) investigate the interior of the rocket, but are baffled by what they find. The space suits of the others are present, and the instruments on board indicate that the door was never opened in flight, but of the other two there is no sign.

Carroon is gravely ill, being looked after by the Rocket Group's doctor, Briscoe (John Glen), who unknown to him has been having an affair with his wife, Judith (Isebel Dean). It is not just Quatermass who is interested in what happened to Carroon: the newspapers and Scotland Yard's Inspector Lomax are also keen to hear his story. Carroon is abducted by a group of foreign agents whose government wants the information they believe he has obtained about travelling in space, but it is clear that there is something very wrong. He seems to have somehow absorbed the consciousnesses of the other two crewmembers, and is himself slowly mutating into some hideous creature.

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