Very well executed

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

I was lucky enough to find this on YouTube and have rewatched it a couple of times. Definitely IMO as well, it's the best of all the Quatermass offerings. I know that most people will disagree. Oh well. What makes this work is precisely what some would complain about: it's clunky. Very clunky. Funky and clunky. But I like that. Why I don't know. The main actor is.. let's say it: he's terrible. This was live television back when. Maybe that's the charm: they make mistakes. I like that. The man slotted for the part died and this fellow was brought in. Supposedly he "had trouble" with the "technical parts" of his lines. Hmm. I don't know. I just think he was a bad actor. But, as I said, I like that. Don't know why. The space trip is a riot. Really enjoyed it. Especially when they're walking around on the "asteroid". It's wonderfully ridiculous. They wear spacesuits that make them look like giant dildos. No kidding. And yet the series is actually frightening. As clunky as it is it still manages to provide a chill. Don't forget.. this was just after WW2.. after Naziism and Fascism in Europe and the rise of absolutist Communism in Eastern Europe. Therefore you could see the series as metaphor for the fascist or communist usurpation of power in the UK. That's where the chill comes from. Normal people easily corrupted and turned into grim fascist goons working for hideous monsters. That is a metaphor that still resonates and somehow the clunkiness amplifies the effect. For me anyway. You probably wouldn't see it that way. Oh well.

Every generation thinks they invented everything themselves and that everything under the sun is new; for myself I find it easy to believe that mistrust of Government, alien conspiracy and the like are all themes which came into sci-fi with the X-Files, and that in the 1950's it was all thinly veiled Communist allegory and nothing else. Quatermass is proof that this idea is of course nonsense. I have seen the film versions but fellow IMDb user Theo Robertson kindly lent me his DVD of the original series so that I can find out about it for myself. The first season offered potential but unfortunately only a couple of episodes existed, but it was enough to make me keen to watch the second season (all of which remains).As before this was broadcast live – amazing to someone like me who is used to such a thing being a "special" event a la ER or 30 Rock doing it. Using some recorded external shots, the show is impressive for being live – the odd flubbed word but no break in reality and no visible problems (although the inability to precisely hit the 30 minute mark must have been a big headache of the BBC at the time). Although the majority of the show is therefore shot on sound stages and limited in regards movement, it doesn't feel like it is because the delivery is so very atmospheric and the tone so very engaging. The very proper 1950's BBC warning about viewer discretion may be a period curio that is amusing now, but one can imagine the impact of this show in this world of sedate and family-friendly programming. The build within the show is mostly strong – from the very early episodes through to the bigger Governmental conspiracy it is mostly all very well done because it remains within the real world and takes real world suspicious and flips them within sci-fi. The lack of trust for Government and for large businesses is all here and it is very well done.Such a shame then that the last episode blows it completely by taking it from this into the realm of fantasy. Heading into this episode I had assumed that the rocket would be used as a missile to destroy the aliens high above earth; when Leo got infected I assumed that the rocket would need a pilot and that he would sacrifice himself in a good ending. While not great ideas, these are better than what we got which was a manned rocket mission which ends with Quatermass returning. It is a poor ending to an otherwise strong run of episodes and it did feel like the season could easily have done without it. Not sure what the fans feel (I may have just committed blasphemy here) but for me it was excessive, a bit silly and went against the tension and drama that had been so consistent up till that point.The cast are different from the previous season – in particular we have a new Quatermass in the form of Robinson. His voice took me a minute to get used to because at times he sounded like he was acting in a theatre rather than TV, but quickly he is natural and good – able to deliver complex dialogue but yet make it dramatic and urgent. He is reasonably well supported by those around him but Grey is a massive problem as his daughter. It is not that she is bad, it is just that she seems to have been almost too "trained" – while others are acting, she is Acting. She speaks very clearly, her dialogue is as crisp as the finest BBC announcer and it would not have surprised me if she had delivered some of her scenes with three books balanced on her head to show how good her posture was; every time she is on screen she is unnatural and rather disruptive – fortunately she is not on too much. Speaking of stiff, the performances of the infected don't really work either as they are just a bit too obviously wrong. This is not a massive problem when we have them as guards, but when they are in parliament I would have liked them to have been a bit more subtle. I remember as a child laughing myself silly at the idea that the aliens in V were easily spotted by not being able to wave without their fingers sticking together in a certain way, here it is almost as obvious – not a massive problem again, but it meant the "menace" that Quatermass describes feeling isn't really as creeping or as hidden as I would have liked.Overall though, this is a very impressive piece of sci-fi. Technically the live broadcast is all the more impressive for the fact that it isn't obviously live but it is the writing and delivery that makes it work. Feeding on themes of conspiracy and paranoia, the plot develops at a good pace and builds menace and tension throughout – it is only some wobbly moments and a really weak final episode that let it down. Well worth seeing – this is almost 50 years old but (production values and effects aside) still feels fresh and relevant.

I recently watched this TV serial back-to-back with the Hammer movie version.It was originally broadcast live, but was recorded off monitors using two different systems. One system only recorded alternate scan lines so the image is often of very low resolution. The recording is also marred by light leakage. In one episode there was clearly a fault with one of the TV cameras. As a result, the image quality is highly variable, but is still good enough for an evaluation of this early TV classic.It inevitably suffers from the limitations of live broadcasting, but also looks under-rehearsed. Actors are noticeably missing their marks, fluffing their lines, jumping their cues and freezing into 'meaningful' close-ups before the camera is ready for them. Quatermass and the Pit was also broadcast live but is a much slicker production all round.It was probably too ambitious for its paltry budget. Even without the cost of the BBC contract staff, $20,000 was an impossibly small sum for a three hour drama. In retrospect, the final episode, set in space, was probably a mistake. The asteroid set was just tarpaulins thrown over studio junk - and that is exactly what it looks like. Although the Hammer movie was shot on a tight budget and was only half as long, it still cost ten times as much.All this can be taken for granted. The real issue is which version tells the story best.Of course, they were made for different media, so told the story in a different way. The TV version was structured to gradually draw the audience into an increasingly paranoid world, week by week, building steadily towards its climax. The movie had to grab them immediately and lead them from plot point to plot point as efficiently as possible.This serial was a distinct improvement on The Quatermass Experiment. It had a tighter, more plausible story, more action, less padding and built to a more satisfying climax. But there was room for improvement.It shows signs of having been written very quickly and could have done with a re-write. When Kneale was hired to write the movie version it was an opportunity to rethink aspects of the story. His overlong screenplay was then trimmed by Jimmy Sangster and Val Guest, who brought a fresh eye to the story and introduced further improvements. A comparison of the two versions demonstrates the advantages of this script development process. I give a few examples.In the movie, the problems with the atomic rocket are established with a just couple of lines of dialogue.In the TV version, this takes two complete scenes. Quatermass is checking his rocket because he has heard the sister rocket in Australia has gone into nuclear melt-down. This is then reinforced by a scene where he views footage of the Austalian disaster. However, to allow Robinson time for his costume change, this second scene starts with Paula Quatermass and Pugh discussing the set-back. When Quatermass appears, the scene then simply repeats information we have now already heard twice.In the movie, Quatermass is introduced to Vincent Broadhead, an MP who is already suspicious about the Winnerton Flats project. He gets Quatermass into the food plant, sneaks off to investigate one of the domes and falls into the corrosive 'food'.In the TV version, he merely gets Quatermass into a meeting of the investigation committee. He is then possessed by an alien. This means another character has to be introduced to get Quatermass into the plant and it is he who falls into the food. But he is just a PR man. Why would he go snooping around? The movie version is both more efficient and more plausible.On TV, Quatermass takes a reporter to the workers' village where he gets infected by an alien. Guards turn up to investigate the 'overshot'. Now convinced Quatermass is right, the reporter phones in his story. Spooked by what he says, the workers march on the plant.In the movie, it is someone else who gets infected. The guards turn up while the reporter is telephoning his paper and shoot him. This provides much better motivation for the workers' subsequent attack on the plant.On TV, we first see a farmer possessed by the aliens, then Dillon, a little girl, Broadhead, a Minister, the reporter and, finally, Pugh. These multiple possessions contribute to the growing paranoia, but are mostly irrelevant to the plot.The movie combines the roles of Dillon and Pugh into a single character (Marsh) and omits most of other possessions. They are not really missed.On TV, we have two climaxes: the destruction of the pressure dome, followed by the destruction of the asteroid in the next episode. The movie combines them, inter-cutting between the rocket base and the siege of the control room. The puncturing of the dome releases the aliens and the destruction of the asteroid kills them, making for a neater and more striking conclusion.Overall, therefore, the TV version has the advantage of a more measured build-up of tension and can include plot details I regret were not in the movie, but is more diffuse, more obviously padded and less well plotted. The movie is arguably a bit too efficient, but in the final analysis, it is not only better made, it is better written too.However, I am delighted this TV version is finally available for viewing. It is long overdue. 15 years ago I learnt from a TV programme that it had survived intact and wrote urging the BBC to release it on video. At long last they have.Now, my only regret is that we will never see if Neale's more expansive screenplay for Hammer might have produced an even better movie.

I have to passsionately disagree with people who have come onto this page claiming this is the best of the QUATERMASS serials . I`ve not seen the original BBC QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT but both QUATERMASS AND THE PIT and the 1979 ITV serial are far better than this .!!!! POSSIBLE SPOILERS !!!!The script as you would expect from Nigel Kneale is fairly good but far from his best and there is a slight problem watching this in 2004 and that is the basic plot of mankind being infiltrated by pods taking over human beings has been done to death over the years . We`ve seen three versions of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS , alongside THE PUPPET MASTERS , THE INVADERS etc the plot is rather stale now though to be fair the aliens in this are totally apolitical as compared to being communist . Another thing you`ll notice if you`re watching this on a pirate video tape is that the story itself is very episodic ie when character A is killed off after their use to the plot is finished character B is introduced to push the story forward and after they die character C comes along . Obviously people didn`t notice this when the episodes were broadcast in 1955 but it`s strange when Kneale wrote THE PIT he included a radio report in the first episode which ties in with Quatermass`s TV speech in the final scene . Here there`s no such cohesive flourishBut what more or less ruins the serial are the technical aspects . The acting is to put it kindly patchy at best with only Roger Delgado , Rupert Davies and Hugh Griffith putting in any type of convincing performance . John Robinson was cast at very short notice in the title role and it`s painfully obvious he`s not had enough time to learn the lines never mind get into character which does bring the proceedings down and the rest of the cast give either laughably over emphatic performances , are totally wooden or sound like Dick Van Dyke in MARY POPPINS . To be fair no one from a working class background became actors in the 1950s so maybe I shouldn`t criticise a bunch of RADA trained thespians trying to portray the proles but it`s difficult not to notice the manual workers don`t sound like manual workers , and Monica Grey who plays Paula Quatermass gives probably the most annoyingly stagey performance in the serialDirector Rudolph Cartier work is also patchy . When he`s good like in the classic scene where Quatermass looks into an inspection hatch and sees the alien pods hatching he`s excellent but since I`ve complained about the acting the director should bare some blame for that and there`s too many jarring scenes where it`s obvious location film footage cuts to a studio interior , but again because television was a fledgeling media I shouldn`t criticise too much . Alas Cartier`s biggest mistake is as producer where the serial`s climax takes place on an alien asteroid out in space . Considering the show was broadcast live with severe technical limitations it seems a bad idea from the outset on having the climax take place here as the final result shows , and am I alone thinking the Hammer film version took a more sensible approachSorry if I give the impression I disliked QUATERMASS 2 . I don`t but it`s a severe disappointment especially when I consider QUATERMASS AND THE PIT to be the greatest telefantasy series ever broadcast