The Omega Factor

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.

I too have been waiting 25 yrs for this to be repeated or appear on VHS or DVD, but now it is available as a complete 3 DVD set: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0009UCET6

Very good review here: http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=58025 which notes:

"When Mrs Whitehouse called the show "thoroughly evil", executives giggled behind their hands, but they also conceded that guidelines had been breached, mistakes had been made, and so forth. They would "forcibly" remind producers about their responsibilities. So they solemnly promised. And while they patronised her - no such reminder was made - they also gave in to her, because when it came to deciding which shows to renew, this one disappeared in the night. I doubt if there was any explicit prohibition, but it was never repeated, never shown on UK Gold, never syndicated abroad, never released on video tape. In the quarter-century since broadcast, these ten 50-minute episodes acquired considerable mystique. Every now and again I would hear about somebody who had a friend who had a copy."

A man with psychic powers is recruited by a secret department devoted to the rum and uncanny. Good fun and very atmospheric and creepy at times. The first main villain is described as 'The man Crowley refused to meet... just in case.' I wonder if the spooky recurring symbol motif from 'Watchmen' was unconsciously borrowed from the very similar one in the early episodes of this?

In some ways it was ahead of its time and it's a shame a second series wasn't made. Re the other reviewer who suggests Mary Whitehouse put the kybosh on it - this seems unlikely as I found an interview with Louise Jameson online where she says that whenever Whitehouse attacked the show everyone involved was delighted as the ratings would go up.

I've only just recently been able to prize the tremulous fingers away from my fear blanched boat-race after watching show runner George Gallaccio's anxiety-inducing, pioneering small screen spook show 'The Omega Factor' again, which actively remains some propah old school creepy telly, mayte! This has the kind of insidious 'creeps-under-the-skin', 70s freak-beard weirdness you just don't see manifested today! And our handsome proletariat hero Tom Crane (James Hazledean) still remains one of my favourite truth-seeking TV psychic protagonists! And the delectably lithe, foofy-haired Crane is ably assisted in his increasingly dark conspiratorial travails by the deliciously dynamic, no less aesthetically appealing scientist Annie Reynolds (Louise Jameson), whose radiant beauty is readily matched by her inquisitive, equally luminous mind!

The Omega Factor's starkly beauteous, majestically moody Edinburgh setting adds a grim, palpably ominous veneer of inclement atmospheric despair, with its dizzyingly eclectic, mind-warpingly wicked terror tales of morbid body snatching, malign government conspiracies, demoniacal displays of terrifying telekinesis, macabre black magic rituals, weird flights of astral projection, deadly duplicity, Machiavellian brainwashing, and old fashioned, black-handed murder! The persistently paranoid, oppressively sinister series that dared to venture far beyond the nebulous veil of reality and eerily expose mad, disturbingly alien, nightmarishly vivid vistas to terminally quake the stoutest heart, unhinge the most resolute of minds, 'The Omega Factor' may even have those fearless, fright-loving boys and girls of all ages anxiously peeking into the dusty voids under the bed before lights out! Don't say I didn't warn you!!!!!!!!!

Saw this when it was first broadcast (when I was 12) and I found it truly disturbing. I don't think the BBC ever repeated this but it was a show which has lingered in my memory ever since. It built up quite nicely and the use of urban locations added a certain realism to the whole proceedings.

The story revolved around investigations into a number of paranormal incidents which are eventually revealed as part of a satisfying over-arching conspiracy - with a lot more plot coherence than, say, the X files or Millennium.

I would be very interested in getting this on DVD - even if it was only to compare the reality to my hazy memories.