The Omega Factor

A ten part series made by the BBC back in 1979. It starred James Hazeldine as Tom Crane, Louise Jameson as Anne Reynolds, John Carlisle as Roy Martindale, Cyril Luckham as Edward Drexil.

The series focuses on Tom Crane, a journalist with a high level of dormant psychic powers. Tom tragically loses his wife, he blames rogue Psychic Drexill and swears vengeance. Tom joins a Government Department, known as 7, a unit set up to look at cases out of the ordinary. The team learn they are up against a powerful organisation known as Omega. Whilst working at Department 7 Tom works closely with Doctor Anne Reynolds, and their relationship gets closer.

What an absolute travesty that only one series was made, I think there was definitely more mileage in it. There were some great characters, Tom, Anne, Drexill etc. I imagine Mary Whitehouse would have had a field day with the Series, she must have had a fit watching Powers of Darkness.

It was a wonderfully well made series, great writing, really well acted, and who wouldn't enjoy anything with the beautiful Louise Jameson in it. Always a degree of the wacky and strange in the episodes, but they never went absurdly over the top, they remained fairly grounded.

Anyone who likes a bit of mystery, and a little element of sci fi will enjoy this series. 9/10

I never saw this before until I purchased the DVD recently. Very interesting, even more so for seeing the combination of Louise Jameson AKA Leela from Doctor Who, teamed up with what to me is a Tom Baker lookalike, and the fact that his name in this series is _Tom_, seemed kind of funny. Rather like watching an alternative version of Dr Who and Leela, OK, it was maybe mainly the character Tom Crane's hair that made me think of Tom Baker, but I can't believe I'm the only one to have noticed a similarity, and maybe it's just me, but I think the similarity is more than just his hair, his face too bore a look of Tom Baker to a certain degree. Anyhow, that bit of trivia out of the way, I really enjoyed the series for the story too, very thought provoking with it's tales of mind control and secret organisations and not knowing who to trust. A shame they never made another series. Apparently another one looked likely, but the rumour is that Mary Whitehouse and her listener's association complained, (she did the same with Doctor Who, "The Deadly Assassin" story mainly, maybe she had an aversion to curly haired men! Or Tom Baker and any lookalike! LOL) and the series had loose ends that would maybe have been dealt with in a second series. How Mary Whitehouse came to have so much sway over what got shown on TV, is anyone's guess, but Doctor Who had to be 'toned down' on her say so, cuz the makers got fed up with her complaining about it. Nice to see these much loved series getting DVD releases now, this one, along with the Saphire and Steel series, and the complete set of "Timeslip", and now the Armchair Thrillers being put out on DVD too, have been well worth waiting for and praise be to whoever is responsible for them seeing the light of day now.

I bought this after seeing rave reviews on the Net, but frankly I found it a disappointment, even allowing for the fact that it is a Seventies BBC production. Even when compared with other BBC video-taped productions of the time, such as Doctor Who and Survivors, this is terribly slow and unconvincing. The actors are obviously doing their best with the lines they have been given, but honestly their faces display the boredom and dissatisfaction that I experienced when watching this ! I think the problem is with the terribly disjointed scripts. As the DVD booklet relates, this series was conceived and rushed into production with the kind of speed that didn't allow for enough thought to be put into what would nowadays be described as a story "arc". Someone seems to have made the conscious decision that each episode would end, not with a spectacularly frightening event (of which there are many in this series) but with a dull, inconclusive talky scene that makes a half-hearted attempt to persuade us to tune in next week. I felt sorry for actors who were required, week after week, to be demon-possessed or something, yet who had to turn up for the next scene apparently completely unaffected by their experiences ! And could no-one think of a way to end the whole saga? It just peters out ...

I saw the series just once, but I longed for each episode to come round. I have the book (which is good) but OHHHHH I would like to see the series again.

Expect atmosphere. Expect uncanny. Expect thrills. If you get the chance, take it. You'll be haunted by the memory! Don't expect fantastic effects, ray guns, funny aliens or obscenities. You don't need those to ice your spine. In fact, good stories, good acting, and good dialogue are far more important, and although it's been a few years now, I seem to remember that the Omega Factor has all those.

Why it isn't on DVD is a mystery worthy of the program itself. It's like Kolchak:Night Stalker and Australia's own "The Evil Touch". An absolute gem, but as with all gems, hard to find.

Channel 2 (in Australia) showed this series, so perhaps if you live in God's own country you might like to pester the ABC into a reshow.

This is an excellent TV series that clearly inspired The X-Files with its secret government paranormal unit, claustrophobic atmosphere of distrust, sexual tension between the male and female leads, and clandestine testing by the military on the unfortunate public. There's even a gifted boy who becomes a pawn and potential weapon, a la Gibson Praise. Although episodic in nature, across the series there are allusions to a higher authority within government, the shadowy Omega group, and with each episode the plot thickens. It's all delivered with a sort of downtrodden gloom that only BBC Scotland can deliver and feels distinctly British, with echoes of spy thrillers and Hammer horrors resonating through the screen.

Naturally, some episodes are stronger than others as Tom Crane investigates various paranormal goings-on, but they are mostly pretty gripping and I was completely absorbed by the overarching story, ripping through the whole series in a few days. Unlike The X-Files, it is all brought to a dramatic, logical and satisfying conclusion in the final episode, with the writers also opening further doors on an even greater conspiracy. The fact that no second series was made is a huge disappointment.