The Quatermass Experiment

n 2005 the BBC did a live version of Nigel Kneale's Quatermass Experiment. Originally a 6 part three hour TV series about a rocket that returns to earth with only one of its crew still alive, and he's horribly changed. It was the first appearance of Professor Quatermass a flawed genius who is in a way the precursor to Dr Who.(This version co starred David Tennant, the current Dr Who).

The production is very good and the cast is excellent with Jason Flemyng making an excellent Quatermass.The show is for the most part very creepy and had it held together until the end it might have actually crossed into scary. The problems with the show come from two places. First the 96 minute program effectively removes half of the originals 180 minutes. There is a great deal of story compression especially in the second half as the plot does not zip along as much as it jumps. I have not seen the original series (only two episodes survive the last I heard) but I've read on the show and seen the film that was made from it so I know there was a bit more towards the end than we see. The other problem with the show is that in adapting the 195-something scripts for modern day broadcast they didn't update enough. the space shot is secret, the technology is often out of date (audio cassettes in a black box?), the media is much too trusting and not enough in your face. It creates a nice sense of its own world, but at the same time its not wholly believable. That said its still a very good retro-sci-fi drama 7 put of 10

The original TV series and movie were ground breaking in Sscience fiction. Why BBC remade this as a 90 minute film , is a mystery. The story line, sets and especially the acting were all atrocious. Good actors appeared to be embarrassed in their attempt to utter their lines from an appalling script. The BBC should be censured for this nonsense and I doubt Nigel Kneale, the original author (mentioned as a consultant) had anything to do with this travesty. I could go on using all the derogatory adjectives in the English language but who really cares, but I have to to make this submission the required length. I sincerely hope they do not attempt a remake Quatermass and the Pit. probably one of the best ever science fiction series.

I started to fast forward to see if it got better but unfortunately it didn't. Cheap sets and production (looks like handy cams with poor acting) let this movie down. At one stage you could see the camera and sound men the next shot pans too. Also you can tell the transitions between shots as there is a awkward pause before the actors start acting! It was also hard to believe as there were no hospitals for the sick astronaut or isolation chambers, etc as if the script had not been updated. The whole movie looked cheap, very c-grade and was extremely implausible to watch, so much so it had me cringing and wanting to turn it off. I Give it a miss.

Just found out this was originally broadcast live, I watched a broadcast much later.

I really liked the old Quatermass films and even though I discovered them belatedly, being from the US, I got some enjoyment out of the TV series. But this remake was simply dreadful. The writing and direction were horrendous. Most of the time it was simply dull, but occasionally the poor actors had to deliver lines that made no sense, or go from quiet discussion to drastic scenery chewing in a heartbeat. I'm a huge science fiction fan and will watch (and enjoy) almost anything with a hint of science fiction to it. I can find great pleasure in a good B film and put up with almost anything to enjoy a bit of space travel, alien contact, or futuristic speculation of any kind. But I had to give up after about 36 minutes of this. I skipped forward, dropping in once in a while if anything looked remotely interesting. It never was. Partly because it was live, partly because it was cheap, and partly because the people who created this were completely lacking in intelligence or imagination, it was utterly without even a pretense of supporting special effects (e.g., monitors with important data the actors are all discussing are tilted away from the camera so you only see the back of the monitor), the sets were plain and very few, the audio was terrible, the whole show was dark and dreary looking, and the ending was as uneventful and lame as any movie or television program I've ever seen. Do not waste your time. It's not even interesting as a curiosity. There is absolutely nothing to recommend it.

Like the previous poster, I too was impressed by the Quatarmass drama aired live on BBC4 on April 2nd. Though I am too young to remember the original and its various adaptations, I had heard enough about it to convince myself that this would be some schlock 1950s-style "creature feature" sci-fi fest. Instead, the BBC served up a couple of hours live science fiction, that although short on special effects was not short on tension and creditable performances. Jason Flemyng's performance as the eponymous Professor was one that captured well the scientist's terror at what his experiment unleashed combined with the cool, detached analytic mind of the scientist trying to sort it all out. The mix of studio and location settings in a live drama was ambitious and cuts between them were seamless, the use of VT was a bit of a cheat, but hey they used to do it in Z cars all the time. This was, nevertheless a triumph for live television, a credit to all those involved.