you're listening to fusion patrol a listener supported podcast each week we take a single
episode of a science fiction tv series or movie and overanalyze it to within an inch of its life
welcome to the discussion
Hello and welcome to another episode of Fusion Patrol. I'm Eugene.
And I'm Simon.
Tonight we're going to be looking at something quite special.
We're going to be looking at the 1953 Nigel Neill classic, The Quatermass Experiment.
This is available on DVD if you want to watch it.
I would highly recommend it to Sarah at the bat.
And I'm going to start with a synopsis.
This one's going to be a little different today.
And you'll see why in a bit.
But this is BBC 1953, Quatermass Experiment.
A thriller in six parts.
Part one, contact has been established.
The British Experimental Rocket Group and its leader, Professor Bernard Quatermass, are tense.
The world's first manned spacecraft, British of course, has gone missing for 57 hours.
The scientists can only wait, searching the skies for any kind of a sign of what happened to the missing craft.
When contact is re-established, the craft has been on a wildly elliptical orbit over 38,000 miles into space,
much farther than the near-Earth orbit that was planned.
There is no response from the crew, but they are able to return the craft with reasonable success
by remote control. It comes down in a house in Wimbledon. The craft is sealed, and when it is
finally opened, only one of the three astronauts is still aboard, Victor Caroon. He is unresponsive
and collapses when they try to question him. End of part one. Part two, persons reported missing.
Caroon is taken to hospital while Quatermass's team explore the rocket. Inside, two empty space
suits are found. With a rocket smashed into a home and two men missing, Chief Inspector Lomax
of the Yard is on the case. He and his men collect evidence in the form of a spacesuit and,
unbeknownst to Quatermass, Karun's fingerprints. Judith, an important member of Quatermass's team,
is also Karun's wife. She confesses that she and Karun were unhappy and she was going to get a
divorce, but now that Victor has returned, damaged, she won't leave him. She can't leave him,
despite the fact that she is in love with Gordon Briscoe, the flight surgeon on the team. Victor
is cold all the time and wrong. While obviously he is Victor Caroon, his features are slightly
wrong in ways they can't account for. Quatermass is incensed when he learns the police fingerprinted
Caroon as if he were a suspect. He withdraws Caroon from the hospital and he goes to see Lomax.
To dispel any future misunderstanding, Quatermass gives Lomax all their personnel files. Lomax,
in turn, gives Quatermass something to think about. The spacesuit they took to examine
still contained all the attached undergarments inside, as if the occupant had disappeared
without taking them off. The wife of one of the missing astronauts, Mrs. Green and Dr. Briscoe,
return from the launch facility in Australia. Briscoe examines Karun and suspects there may
even be changes to his bone structure. Mrs. Green tries questioning Karun and is surprised
that he calls her by the nickname her husband used for her. But he says nothing meaningful.
Lomax and his team discover something strange about Karun's fingerprints.
They don't correctly match what Quatermass had on record, but they do appear to be an amalgam of the fingerprints of all three astronauts.
At no point do they ever communicate this information to Quatermass.
Quatermass shows Karun the launch footage to see if it jogs his memory.
It does slightly, and he starts speaking German, a language Karun doesn't know, but that the third astronaut, Dr. Ludwig Dreykenheim, spoke natively.
They are all called to the rocket where Patterson, one of Quatermass's team, has discovered lots of colloidal goo packed throughout the walls of the rocket.
End of episode two.
Also, end of Quatermass experiment, as we know it, as a video presentation from the BBC.
As we've talked on previous episodes, the earlier Quatermass and earlier British television was, in those days, like Quatermass and the Pit, it's what they called recorded as live.
This was not recorded.
It was just live.
And they were taking recordings.
They did recordings of the first two episodes, and they just didn't bother to record episodes three to six.
So we're going to talk a little bit about the actual production that you can watch and see.
And then we'll carry on with how you might be able to find out the rest of the story.
And then we'll talk about the rest of the story or the story as a whole.
So for starters, Simon, what did you think about what you got to see?
I certainly enjoyed it.
It's classic Quatermass, really.
I mean, it's got all the kind of tension and excitement,
the engaging characters.
Some of it is still quite surprising.
I mean, we've done this sort of backwards.
Yeah.
Sort of backwards.
A bit of time hopping through Quatermass and the Pit,
Quatermass 2, Quatermass Conclusion, and then back to this.
And maybe it's because we watched the Quatermass conclusion recently.
I just kind of get a bit surprised.
And I'm sure I've seen this before as well.
But I just get a bit taken aback by some of the conventions that would have been commonplace in the 50s.
But didn't really stick around after that.
And one of those is the way in which there is the narrative opening to this.
that kind of sets the scene before you get launched into the midst of the action at the beginning of this one.
And you wouldn't do that now. You would just go straight into the action.
And then through the dialogue, you'd set the context.
I don't know which is good or bad, but it's interesting. It's very, very different.
Well, you know, one of the things I noticed about this is that, and again, as you say, we have jumped around.
And let's ignore Quatermass and or the Quatermass conclusion, because that is an ITV production that's done on film.
That is not at all done like the 1950s Quatermass.
And the gap is much bigger in time.
Yeah, it's a huge gap in time.
So I noticed that this is, and this is a duh moment.
It's more primitive than Quatermass in the Pit or even Quatermass 2.
Quatermass 2 had far more film inserts.
Quatermass 3 had, at times, it was hard to tell it was a live production.
Or Quatermass in the Pit.
And even by the time they had reached Quatermass 2,
they had figured out not how to do that ridiculously slow, long, black scene fade between the two.
I actually, when I watched this, I felt like maybe they were showing the TV audience something else, like a film insert, and that the camera that was being used to record this wasn't getting to see that.
You know, that it's an artifact of what they had recorded as opposed to what actually went out in the air.
because they seemed really long you know almost almost let's draw the curtain and uh not quite
give the cast a smoke break time but you know quite long compared to what they had in the other
ones they were much smoother but my understanding is the the recording the the fit what they're
filming is the actual feed that went out they are yes i think yes it is it's just it's like so you
look at it you know well obviously the television was different back then as i say yeah yeah but
i i know i i agree i agree with you the the the kind of sense of location from quatermass 2 and
just the the kind of the the liveliness of the i don't know everything the editing the staging
everything in quatermass experiment it's so um it's so far removed from what in this feels very
much like you're on a on a stage set essentially that they're they're creating this this rocket
control room by having four or five people um sitting on benches behind each other and yeah
the the dialogue and everything is is and the performances are compelling enough to quite
quickly draw you into that but the first thing you notice is yeah this is this is five guys on
two benches and it it doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like a rocket control center no it doesn't
and i and i i will draw attention to the incredible trajectory tracking device that judith is using
which is a globe with some elliptical plastic strips around it that she moves little markers up and down to do the calculations on.
It was just drawing my eye to it.
It's like, oh, that's just brilliant.
It makes no sense, but it's such a nice one.
Not really, no.
I mean, if they're trying to calculate it, if those orbits are meant to represent elliptical orbits, then surely they don't have one that corresponds to the orbit that actually happened, which is so far out.
It went beyond the moon.
No, but what she's doing is tracking the orbit there.
They were expecting it.
I mean, just in terms of as a piece of equipment,
because, again, the kind of thing that you expect
is for them all to be getting their calculations
from computers or computing machines.
Well, no.
I mean, yeah, exactly.
It's 1953.
Yeah.
So it just, you know, I was fine with it.
I thought it was a, it was a good visual metaphor.
I don't know how practical or whether it's any basis in reality, but I,
I did kind of think it was, it,
it was just amusing what they were using to represent something that
completely alien to the way we would look at it, which would be computers.
You're even, even guys at slide rules. Yeah. But, you know, but I, I,
I mean, I would, I would be interested in what, you know, if, if,
if there'd been a rocket launch in 1953,
what would that control room have looked like?
Because some of those things felt to me like
quite effective ways of drawing your attention
from the fact that it was just five people on two benches
and the link up, the audio link up
to the control room in Australia
to give it more of that kind of,
there being this global, coordinated,
bigger virtual team
than what you're actually seeing in the room.
I kind of think those things did help a bit because one aspect of what they must have been dealing with here is the fact that you would actually expect there to be a hell of a lot of people working on this.
And yet they were on a TV budget that they couldn't show a bunch of people or even a big room with a load of extras.
This feels to me like, you know, those plucky British, the Dunkirk spirit.
We can get this done.
You know, there's four of us and an old man who's putting the blinds down during the Blitz.
But, you know, it's like, yeah, it has that stereotypical feel that that Americans get about the British where we'd send a big team.
They send we get a couple of people.
So it does kind of it does kind of have that feel.
It's like whether or not this contributes to that or whether or not this is an accurate reflection or just it didn't feel out of place for me that the British rocket experimental rocket group would be tiny.
Not maybe not five guys, but pretty darn small, pretty darn small.
And, you know, at some point we can discuss the British space program.
But yeah.
So right now we're kind of concentrating on the production itself.
This is produced and directed by Richard Cartier.
Rudolph.
Rudolph, sorry.
You're right, Rudolph.
Got it written down here wrong.
Cartier, who also did Two and The Pit.
The guy is really talented.
Oh, yeah.
that this even this in its most rudimentary form and with us only having two episodes to watch
is clearly the guy knew what he was doing and he he stages it well he's got he's got scenes like
when they're in the old lady's house where the rocket came down which is a brilliant way of not
having to go on location um come on just put it in a put it in a studio in a somebody's house um
it well except it's not it's it's it's it's the it's the bomb site effectively because it's
right it's the house but it is still it's a nice set it's indoors though in other words what you're
looking at supposed to be outdoors really it looks like you are in her living room where the rocket
has come down but uh okay i see so maybe it didn't work as well as i thought there is no roof you
know oh yeah yeah no there's no anymore i agree you're in amongst the rubble i agree but in other
words there's enough walls around it oh yeah you're not trying to portray a field or or chimneys
and smokestacks in the distance of london or whatnot you just yeah yeah so it's uh uh it's
it works well but what i was getting at is you know he's got a relatively small set there and
he's got the press and the police and Quatermass's team and the Rockets and the bystanders.
And they all kind of move in and out of that set.
They're all still there, but they all get blocked away in such a way that you can concentrate
on the characters that you need to concentrate on.
And then they kind of move off.
It's like it's in a stage production.
It would be like if two people walked on, gave their bit and walked off.
But they're not quite doing that here.
They're sort of walking into the four or perhaps the camera's panning a bit to bring them into the four.
And then another group is kind of coming to the four and those are going out.
It's really well done considering how many people he's got on the screen or right there in that set.
It's slick because, I mean, bearing in mind that this is this is actual life, you know, this is there's no.
Yeah. Well, it would be a it would be a pain if we had to stop the cameras.
We can't stop the cameras. This is going out as we're watching it.
And there there would be a similar thing if you were to perform something on stage,
except you probably wouldn't actually do something quite this complicated with this many people or try and achieve the level of realism that he manages with.
the background you know the the activity that goes on behind as you say it's the way it's
choreographed in front of the camera because you but the camera allows you to focus the attention
it doesn't allow you to focus but it also it also can't do on a stage on yeah on a stage you have to
simplify it because you know you you've got to bring you've got to bring your foreground characters
into a position where the whole state can see him you just can't do this the the you know the the
multiple bits of action going on at the same time like we are seeing everything to do here
and he doesn't have to do it yeah yeah he's he's he's it's got it's a flourish that he's doing he
is he is creating bigger uh i mean when i say this is the birth of television obviously there's been
some television going back to the 30s. And obviously the productions of film crews
and how movies are made has gone back decades prior to this point. So it's not like putting
somebody in front of camera is a new thing, but this is kind of the, you know, the, the, the,
we are going from stage to televised stage,
which ultimately became more film-like as it is now,
which is recorded and edited,
but he's clearly pushing the boundaries of the metaphor of
we're filming a stage production to something new and something different
that just evolves on and then ultimately goes away
when entirely edited programs come along.
It is an impressive piece of work.
And you're right.
I mean, it is incredibly early
because we're talking about if...
I mean, in terms of broadcast television,
which, as you say, is a different medium
because it's live, more akin to radio.
And it's been around at this point for...
It would be...
What would it be?
The equivalent of...
if here we are sitting in 2021 it's been around for about as long as doctor who's been back on
the screen it's like television was into it was invented when rose aired it's that kind of timescale
yeah yeah and it's shocking to think that this is almost 70 years ago yeah yeah um but anyway i i
And, you know, the opening scenes in the control room, it's the writing, it's the directing.
Not a whole heck of a lot exactly is happening there.
But at the same time, they've done a beautiful job of making it interesting and tense.
And let's not, you know, dismiss the acting as well.
But, you know, that is a scene that, in a way, kind of shouldn't work.
But it does.
And I found myself enjoying this from the very beginning.
It dragged a little bit when mom and pop were standing in the rubble there and going on about the old lady and her cat.
And that part was, I don't know, felt like they were letting the actors have a breather off the scene or that they were killing him at a time, which I know that that's not the case.
These all ran long.
but they are getting them
they're giving the actors
chance to do the change
because any
movement from one set to another
any costume changes anything
like that they have to do it
in real time obviously
and I don't know that there was anything that needed
a lot of time but it just
that scene just kind of dragged off
now I get that that probably
played very differently
with 1953 audiences
who have just lived through the Blitz less than a decade before or so,
or about a decade ago,
there's clearly imagery here that is meant to remind you of the Blitz.
And also, again, that stereotypical British keep calm and carry on
kind of attitude that was projected for what was going on during the Blitz.
So I'm guessing this probably resonated differently with audiences than it did.
You know, it probably was more interesting to the audiences, though, because they had a connection to it.
And it probably drew them in more than it did me, which was kind of like, yeah, this seems kind of unlikely that that would have crashed on a house and those people would be standing around.
Oh, they dropped one, didn't they?
It's like, uh, yeah, no, I, no.
It's like, no, be gone.
Long gone.
Get the hell out of there.
One of the things that we have noted about the Quatermass serials that we've looked at
is that there are no two Quatermasses alike.
And here we're looking at Reginald Tate, the original Quatermass.
And I guess this is the, I think I read this was Neil's favorite Quatermass.
i i've said to that i've certainly seen him speak highly of him yes yes and i think i've
heard him speak well i personally haven't heard him speak you know uh of comparing the others
to reginald tate which tends to make me think if he thinks of reginald tate as the that's the
holotype which he would be but it's the archetype for uh for quater mass and so i i definitely know
that you know when they came along in 1955 and made a movie out of this he hated the the actor
who played quater mass there's no other word for it um and and we might even have a chance to
briefly talk about that but what what did you think of of tate's performance reginald tate
died quite soon after this didn't he don't know exactly when but i think he was definitely not
available through death for quater mass in the pit i'm not sure about quater mass 2 well the pit
was 57 so he must have died within four years uh yeah 50 55 he died so he he may have been alive
for the release of the film but only just yeah yeah and they were they weren't going to hire him
No way, no how.
The distributors, Hammer Film.
Wanted to name.
No, they were required.
The distributors required Hammer to have an American, period.
An American?
A discussion.
I see.
An American.
That was just part of the deal to get it sold to the United States.
So they had to have leads who were, they had to have an American lead in it.
And so they got Brian Dunleavy, who was drunk, on the outs on his career, didn't care.
I've heard all sorts of things about how much he really just didn't care what he was doing.
And his performance matched that.
I haven't watched it.
I thought about watching it before we did this podcast.
But I ultimately rejected the idea of watching any of the newer Quatermass stuff.
Until after.
And until after done the proper Quatermass.
Although I have seen all of them.
You've seen it in the past.
You just haven't rewatched it recently.
Oh, 40 years ago.
Okay, quite a long time in the past.
A really long time ago, yeah.
I'm pretty sure I've never seen it.
I've seen the 2005.
I have certainly seen the 2005 version.
In 2005, yeah.
This was very familiar.
So I've definitely seen some, maybe episode two of this in the past.
I liked Reginald Tate in this.
I wouldn't necessarily, I mean, if I had been Neil in 1953,
I would probably have been very pleased with the performance.
Looking back on it now and ranking my quarter equator masses.
I mean, for me, it's still Andre Morrell.
I think he is absolutely terrific.
That's in the pit, right?
Yeah. And the pit. I probably think I prefer John Mills to to Reginald Tate.
I think it it's difficult because we've only got two episodes.
And that's the problem. That's the problem. I don't think Quatermass is very interesting in these first two episodes.
Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, the two episodes, that's, I guess, equivalent to one episode of Quatermass or one quarter of Quatermass.
and Mills gets some much more interesting stuff to do in that
just that opening episode. Tate is
you know, he's
He's competent. That's all I can say.
Yeah, he's competent but also he conveys
the excitement. He's
reasonably commanding. He's
You know, it's that balance between being, I don't want to say bluster, but it's the worry because he's in a tense situation and being someone who has the confidence to command the situation he's in.
because kind of one of the things about Quatermass is this kind of,
I don't want to describe him as a visionary,
but he is able to see almost intuitively,
actually almost supernaturally what is going on
before anyone else is able to get beyond all of the kind of
quite rational assumptions that they are making about the situation.
So for me, I did think Andre Morel absolutely nailed that.
And it would have been interesting if Morel had played this because Tate was the second choice.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, OK. Do you have anything else about the actual production version of it?
Any other actors, anything?
No, I think I think that we've well know that I will say I will say one thing, actually, while we're on actors, because there is a character in this story who does appear in the first two episodes who we are familiar with because we have watched Quatermass in the pit beyond Quatermass himself.
There aren't that many returning characters, are there?
No, just full of love.
Right. James full of love.
Yeah, exactly.
What a fantastically ridiculous name.
But OK.
yeah exactly so the marshal from the mutants indeed and uh and from from from uh room without
a view and other avengers episodes so a familiar face in paul witson jones as as seems to be the
tradition in quater mass not the actor who played it in quater mass and the pit right but um i really
I really, really liked him in this.
I liked the kind of the opening scene.
I mean, it's both the character who I enjoyed in Quatermass and the pit.
I like the way Neil is writing him again as being slightly quicker
and more able to grasp what's going on than necessarily those people around him.
And so that scene with his editor where he surprises the editor by taking the story, I really, really enjoyed that.
And I did think Paul Whitson-Jones was absolutely superb in this.
And one of my regrets about the missing episodes is the fact that we don't get to see more of him in this role.
Yeah, I agree.
I think he was and the character is more interesting as he goes on.
Okay, so I'll just say, if I didn't get this part out, they were originally thinking of selling this overseas.
And that's why they started recording the episodes in the very primitive way that they did.
And two episodes in, despite the fact that the show was getting really, really excellent ratings, they just said, eh, let's not bother.
And so it is not like Doctor Who, where the episodes have been wiped.
They were never recorded.
And, you know, obviously in 1953, nobody was at home with a VCR.
So, you know, it just isn't.
And probably not even anybody with a tape recorder attached for the sound.
Nothing of that sort of thing.
That's what has given us so much of Doctor Who that, you know, within 10 years, there would be a lot of that going on, but not in 1953.
But we're not going to leave you, Cliff, hanging on this because Greater Mass Experiment is a key piece of science fiction story as well.
There are a couple ways that you can know the goodness, not including watching the film, which I understand is actually a reasonable adaptation,
or the 2005, which I feel like wasn't such a good one, but I'll maybe talk about that.
Well, okay, let's start with the DVDs.
On the DVDs are the scripts.
Photocopies of the scripts.
That was how we were originally going to watch the last four episodes.
They are terrible.
They're so terrible, it actually says they're terrible in the Wikipedia entry.
Uncle Hermes.
Yes, it does.
It says, oh, the scripts were included on the DVD.
But in many cases, they can't be read, which is absolutely true.
You just...
It is. Yeah, they cut. There are patches of them where you can't make out the writing.
So, yeah, while from the point of view of being able to examine a camera script and be able to say, well, you know, this is what's going on in this page.
There may be interesting tidbits there in terms of getting a through line of the narrative.
The fundamental problem is that they have been scanned in from photocopies from photocopies.
Scanning them from photocopies, you could get a much, much better digital version of it if you scanned them in grayscale.
They have been scanned in black and white, and by doing it in black and white, there's a whole load of information that's just been lost.
If it was perfectly clean, it wouldn't matter that it was scanned in black and white.
but because because it is it it i mean okay for one thing it's it's quite interesting if you get
the dvd it's worth having a look at it's worth having a look at these because they're they're
interesting documents and the bits that you can see are quite interesting but they have been
typed on what looks to me like a manual typewriter so the edges of the lettering for example would
the letters themselves would be black fine but around the edges of the letters it would have been
not quite so black and obviously in the scan that's either had to go to white or black if
it'd been grayscale you'd be able to read it whether it's dirt on the page if there's enough
dirt it's gone to black so you just get some of the pages may be colors some of the pages may be
colors because that's how they do script revisions or at least in the united states it is
oh change page seven and here's here's the yellow page here's the blue page because some of them are
just so black it's ridiculous a scan in color would have been even better but i i i i cannot
understand why why someone went to the trouble of doing this but didn't use grayscale it's well
that would imply that that would imply that the document still exists somewhere in paper form and
could perhaps be scanned again and i kind of think the source material was already shot but but it
does matter you can't really read it if you want to try to enjoy the story but luckily in about i
think it was 59 nigel neal put quater mass experiment in book form it's still a script
but it's in book form and then that was re-released in 1979 um when quater mass came out uh which is
when i got my copy which has been i've had for well since probably about 82 uh and and simon
had to buy one also also also the 79 copy yeah i think i mean i think i'm right in saying because
i i've seen it i've i've seen it before i'm pretty sure i found it on my dad's bookshelves and if i
if i'm right the the three of them were all released in book form the the 50s quatermass
serials i have not been able to find quatermass and the pit but quatermass 2 i have and they also
released a book form of quatermass which is actual a novel by nigel neal i've never seen quatermass
and the pit in that form i i may be wrong about that i i was pretty sure that quatermass experiment
wasn't the only one in book form and it and it's it's interesting definitely as a yeah the the
as a way of experiencing the story again,
because in the 1950s, obviously,
you wouldn't have had the opportunity to buy something on VHS,
or, you know, we were such a long way off that
that repeats would not have been a thing.
And, yeah, Quatermass experiment was such a big deal,
such a big deal.
that it was worth producing it in bound script form like this
for people to have a way of experiencing it.
Yeah.
So let's carry on with the synopses for episodes three through six.
This may be your only way to experience it
if you can't get a hold of the copy of the book.
Part three, special knowledge.
Both Briscoe and Lomax take samples of the goo back to their labs for analysis.
It appears to be harmless, but Patterson, who has been examining the rocket, isn't happy that he's been exposed.
His old grievance that he should have been one of the three astronauts also comes to the fore,
and he voices his displeasure to Quatermass.
Caroon continues to exhibit strange physiological changes.
The texture of his skin is changing, and when they try to give him some tea,
He becomes violent, smashing the tea to the floor and saying,
in German, not to feed it.
Judith gets an idea and begins questioning Karun in German,
which he is able to understand and respond to, albeit without making any sense.
She begins to realize, as Quatermass has, that they're all in there.
All three in one person.
Lomax is being bothered by unnamed security concerns,
and he tries to warn Quatermass,
as well as to stop him from taking Karun back to the rocket.
He fails at both things.
At the rocket site, a bitter and drunk Patterson says some indiscreet things to the gathered international press.
Cratermass has heard the voice recorder data and wants to return Karun to the ship
and play back the recording to see what happens.
In flashback, we witness what happened in space.
A strange noise and nothing else plagued the ship.
But then the sound got into the ship, and then their heads.
First Green, then Ludwig, and finally Karun.
Karun clearly has a reaction to the memories and collapses after the flashback.
He's taken to the remains of the house that the rocket crashed into to rest, awaiting an ambulance.
Here, the press, long delayed on getting a story, are pressing with questions.
Karun becomes fascinated with a cactus, which he grabs in his bare hand.
When a photojournalist locks him in the kitchen and tries to press for a picture,
Karun kills him. Outside the kitchen, shots are heard, and when Quatermass and Lomax burst in,
Karun is missing. The door has been shot open from outside, and a black car speeds away.
Part 4. Believed to be suffering. Karun has been kidnapped by professional agents working for a
foreign power. The reporter was one of them, and they even have a decoy car that leads the
coppers a merry chase. Quatermass tries to get ahead of the problem by making a press statement,
letting everyone know that Karun has been abducted in the hopes that public awareness will help find him.
What Quatermas does not say is that he is worried that Karun is dangerous.
The dead reporter seems to have had the life sucked out of him instantly.
Quatermas finally explains to Lomax that he thinks Karun is going through some sort of biochemical change,
and they need to get him under observation immediately.
The kidnappers run afoul of whatever Karun is becoming and die and crash and die in that order.
Karun escapes on foot and hides in a bombed out building.
The postmortem is finished and it's a completely new form of death.
Some form of biological digestion.
Quatermass and Judith speculate that some form of life, possibly made only of energy,
floating in space, encountered the craft and found them edible and also suitable to adapt for life on Earth.
Lomax is having difficulty believing all of this.
Meanwhile, Patterson is trying to give reporter James Fullalove a hard-hitting, full-on hatchet piece
on his perceived grievances with the way Quatermass has run this project,
and most importantly, how he botched the astronaut selection process.
Fullalove sees right through this and has no time for his nonsense.
Bululuf has a nose for news, and he's figured out Karun is somehow dangerous.
And that's the story he's latched onto.
A boy finds Karun, and guessing that he's hiding, takes him to see a movie.
Karun leaves mid-movie, but the boy is caught and tells the authorities that it was the missing astronaut.
The search is back on.
Karun finds his way to a chemist, and when the chemist looks at his arm, it's a monstrosity.
He faints.
Part 5, An Unidentified Species.
In the chemist's shop, Karun assembles a concoction of chemicals and drinks it.
Quatermass is questioning the boy who took Karun to the movies.
He's not much help, but they conclude it was probably Karun.
In the lab, Briscoe is trying to determine if the chemical digestion process
might have led to the substance found in the spaceship.
Patterson comes in. He's quitting.
He's had enough of this fantasy nonsense that Quatermass has fallen into.
He seems genuinely disturbed at entertaining the idea that something in space caused the problems.
Later, when the police have learned of the chemist chop incident,
they learn that Karun may have created a substance in an effort to kill himself.
Briscoe is not so sure.
He thinks it might be a catalyst to complete a biochemical change.
Karun wouldn't have that technical knowledge, but Green would have.
Karun is nowhere to be found at the chemist, and an extensive search for his body is underway.
Full of love is there and he, unlike the other reporters, has figured out a lot of the story.
Quatermass takes him into his confidence over Lomax's objections on the condition that he not publish at this time.
Karun is not dead and we see him further transformed at night on Duck Island, St. James Park.
The next morning, Patterson's article is published and another paper blaming Quatermass for the failure because he picked the wrong astronauts.
This bothers Team Quatermass, but that's quickly forgotten when news of many dead ducks on Duck Island come through.
Yes, they've been digested by the thing that was once Karun.
Living samples are found, and Briscoe takes one for analysis.
Lomax has a lot of crowd control to deal with during the day because of various events in the area,
and he has one report from a drunk about something big and mossy that was climbing walls in the area.
Briscoe and Quatermass are able to make their specimen grow, and it starts to form sporangia.
The creature might be preparing to reproduce via spores.
A tip about some crumbling stonework leads Lomax to Westminster Abbey,
where the BBC is doing a live architectural broadcast.
He tries to stop the broadcast, but nobody stops the BBC
until their cameras discover a huge, growing, moving thing inside the abbey above Poet's Corner.
Part 6, State of Emergency.
Lomax evacuates the BBC crew in the Abbey, but not before live video of The Thing is broadcast to the British public.
As Lomax's people block off the Abbey, the curious public begin to gather in the streets.
In the lab, Briscoe and Quatermass have discovered the worst possible news.
They have brought their specimen to the point where it releases spores.
All organic matter, molds, algae, plants, and animals succumb and are absorbed to it within minutes.
If the thing in the abbey releases spores, indigenous life on Earth will end.
They successfully destroy the specimen by burning it,
and hope to recreate that success with the thing in the abbey.
The crowd is, at first, nothing more than curious,
but eventually people listening to officials overhear the name Quatermass,
whose name is much in the news lately,
and suddenly they begin to realize the thing is a space monster, and panic begins.
Lomax has managed to get the powers that be to send in the military at Quatermass's recommendation,
with lots and lots of flamethrowers.
They believe they have less than 30 minutes,
and Quatermass's supposition is that they will need to burn the entire thing,
which is growing enormous, all at once,
to prevent parts of it from sporing as soon as it is attacked,
or it may go on the offensive, preventing success.
Quatermass feels the only honest thing to do
is to inform the worldwide public via live TV of what has happened,
and tell them that, should this fail,
they will all die in a matter of days.
His hubris led to this, and he asks for their forgiveness.
Patterson arrives.
He's been denying the possibility all along, but now he's had to come see it for himself.
He's wronged and slandered Quatermass.
When Quatermass and the military realize they didn't have any troops in the crypt underneath the abbey,
Quatermass fears that will be an out allowing the thing to survive.
Patterson, who was trained to use flamethrowers in Burma, volunteers and heads to the crypt.
Over the portable radio, Patterson reports that he can hear the thing in the crypt, just before it kills him.
Quatermass realizes it's already dug its way underground, and the attack cannot succeed.
The end of the world is assured.
Full of Love is there, and laments the story he cannot publish,
and waxes about the three astronauts who were pressed into service against their own world.
This strikes a note with Quatermass, who slips into the abbey and addresses the thing directly.
Or more specifically, he addresses the three men still inside of it.
Now is the time to fight back.
Judith, outside, realizes what Quatermass is trying.
The recording of the flight and the sound it made spurred Karun's memories back in the lab.
Perhaps they can do the same now.
They play back the tape to augment Quatermass's entreaties.
It works.
The thing starts howling out, the same sound, and then it dies.
The world has been saved.
A very weary Quatermass emerges and I'm certain is very relieved that he'll never have to save the world from an alien invasion again.
The end.
All right.
Now we can talk about the story.
Indeed.
And this this is presumably the point where you usually say something rude and unjustified about Mary Shelley.
Yes.
Yes, it is.
Perhaps I wasn't going to save it for the first moment.
But yes, we definitely, towards the end of this, get the, I'm a scientist and my quest for it led to this disaster and I'm so sorry.
Whoops.
But, and this is the part that I was alluding to earlier, this is what we needed to see Reginald Tate doing.
We need to see Reginald Tate going through this episode, increasingly becoming burdened by the knowledge that his actions, justified or not, whether he's taking the blame for this exclusively, have led him to the conclusion that he has brought the world to the brink of destruction and the weight that that carries on him.
And unfortunately, you know, really they haven't reached that point by the end of episode two.
And we don't get to see it.
But it's there in the writing.
But I can see how it would be.
A lot of the time the dialogue doesn't convey that.
Because Quatermass is doing the job.
I mean, there are moments of reflection where you can tell that that's on his mind.
But, you know, you go a few pages where, you know, the only way that would be conveyed would be in the acting or the manner of the actor at the time.
and that we're not getting certainly that line in episode five about about meddling curiosity and
then when he when he gets to the the tv broadcast you know it's all about guilt and i have brought
upon the earth what appears to be the most frightful thing ever known so there's a huge
amount of frankenstein in quatermass at least in this story i think yeah yeah i mean the threat is
obviously much ramped up from frankenstein yeah i mean being a global global threat rather than a
few people being bumped off by a rampaging animal creature that could probably be shot yeah and
killed if somebody got it in the right in the sights of their rifle or something but yeah it's
um you know so here's the question in frankenstein this is the cautionary tale
But in Quatermass, it's less the cautionary tale and more the analysis of Quatermass taking that upon himself.
In other words, he is a post-Frankenstein world.
He is automatically predisposed to, oh yeah, science, I did it again, kind of thing.
So it's more about it's more about conveying to the audience what Quatermass is lamenting than it than it is saying science shouldn't go out and do things like this.
I don't I don't think I get the impression that it's.
I'm not sure I agree.
I mean, I think the difference, as you say, is is a lot of it is to do with the monster itself in, you know, the kind of.
Well, the scale of it, that certainly adds to the drama and the fact that it involves space rockets, which is kind of automatically more exciting.
But Quatermass is the Frankenstein character who brings this about.
What he describes as his meddling curiosity, that gives rise to the question of...
All the way through this, Patterson is saying Quatermatch should not have been the one to do this because he did it wrong.
We should have done this differently.
Yeah, but Patterson's grief, Grouse, his gripe is, I mean, it's not just subtext there.
It's I should have been one of the astronauts.
You picked the wrong astronauts.
He's not.
Yes.
Everything else is, it's all about his sour grapes that he's not being asked to not.
And now he's justifying that it's all gone wrong because you picked the wrong.
If you'd gotten the right guy, I'd have handled this and we'd have been hunky dory.
That had been no problem.
And then he goes through that sort of weird, that weird bit about how, you know, Quatermass is just basically off on a fantasy now.
Just don't try to figure out some sort of space alien or some nonsense.
That's just science fiction BS.
This is about you screwing up, buddy, and not putting me on that rocket.
And in a way, it's almost like Patterson is the character who is putting science as a religion.
You know, this is the facts and there are no space aliens and this is nonsense.
And I'm not going to believe what I see.
I'm not going to believe the evidence because it contradicts my preconceived notion of what happens in space.
I think what he's saying is the evidence is insufficient because I think what we get is a character in Quatermass who, as I kind of alluded to, I see as being super intuitive.
It's like he makes deductive leaps that go beyond the information that is available to him, but which happened to be right in the course of the story.
So what we get in Patterson is someone who is both presenting the very rational position of this is not an explanation of what has occurred here because it's just ludicrous.
But we also get that, you know, coming back to the point of the analysis of the problem here being the way in which this was done.
And the Patterson character arc is about him actually being shown to be in the wrong.
So it's not, what Neil is certainly arguing is not actually that what happened here was that the Quatermass experiment was mishandled,
that if it had been the Patterson experiment, it would have gone right.
I think that that is comprehensively rejected in so far as Patterson gets to be the one who goes through the self-sacrifice in order to be redeemed in, you know, taking the flamethrower down into the crypt.
So that brings us back to actually the argument that Quatermass puts, which is meddling curiosity when it comes down to it.
Which is wrong.
Exploring is not meddling curiosity.
I'm sorry.
I will not accept that position.
There is no kind of logical escape within the story
from the fact that Quatermass's actions
have indeed brought this upon the world,
so brought the world to near distraction.
And if Quatermass had not done them,
then they would not be in that predicament.
Well, but the point is that Neil is then using Quatermass as a symbol for mankind's curiosity.
He represents not just the one man who did it, but all of the people who might have done it out of curiosity.
It is not human to deny curiosity.
So we can make the case, and I don't disagree, that it is the actions of the Quatermass experiment or the fact that they conducted the experiment that led to them encountering something that we had absolutely no way of detecting or understanding and that that came back to us.
In the same way that you go to Africa and you bring back malaria or take smallpox with you when you go, those things do happen.
Can Quatermass, and Quatermass can as a human being feel responsibility for that.
But is he to blame for that or is that accidents happen and sometimes you cannot avoid accidents happening and people will always take blame for accidents.
Well, some people will obviously avoid it.
But in other words, it is also in our nature that if you were driving down in a car and a child leapt in front of your car and you killed that child, you would feel guilty about it.
Even if it was 100% that child's fault or even the parent of the child flinging the child out in front of your car, you would take blame for it.
That's part of human nature.
This is one of the things that Neil does so well is that he writes people that behave perhaps not necessarily logically, but he writes people in a way who behave as people do.
But I don't see this as a cautionary tale as a metaphor.
And Neil himself has never said, he's gone out of his way to say this is not science fiction.
And I like science fiction.
Science fiction is not, you know, that's all I care about is writing a drama with people in it.
And he is trying to talk about the people in this more than, I mean, the threat makes it exciting,
but not in the way that Frankenstein is meant to be an anti-science, anti-progress, anti-experimental polemic.
Which I don't think Frankenstein is meant to be those things.
and I don't think that it I don't think that whether or not it is science fiction and it is
science fiction I mean I that probably is a hill I'm prepared to die on but that doesn't
I think he's wrong it's science fiction yeah I agree but if I if I conceded that point I don't
think that would necessarily mean that he can't tell a story that is about the ethics of doing
science because that doesn't require the fictional element i mean it obviously it's a fictional
story but it doesn't require the the science itself to be fictional at the point the story
is being told so i i i think there is a there is a sense in i mean that i don't think there's any
denying how closely quatermass's trajectory in this story maps um victor frankenstein's in in
in mary shelley's the only difference that i can see in it is the way in which quatermass gets
to be a more effective part of the the resolution yeah i i want to i want to draw one thing out
quatermass says frankenstein does not manifest in two three and four well but that's partly
because he survives right i mean we wouldn't have had a sequel if if right but in other words in two
he didn't bring the aliens to earth he discovered them in three he didn't bring the aliens to earth
he discovered them in four yes he didn't bring the aliens to earth he discovered yeah yeah yeah
yeah so there's no no i agree guilt of the man there yeah this this hasn't this hasn't come up
before i just and and to be honest i in in previous watchings of the quater mass experiment
i did not i did not spot the similarities but they are strong um once you once you kind of
see them it's hard to it's hard to kind of ignore the parallels that exist but like like i say like
you pointed out the fact that quater mass survives and the the kind of the the more
um effective role he plays in the resolution of the story that's a difference between what what
what happens to frankenstein and what happens to him um and and and i mentioned this before i
haven't seen the 2005 version since 2005 which is 90 minutes long approximately as opposed to this
which is three hours approximately so they they've cut half of it they've cut an awful lot of it and i
a lot of the things like the i think i think like the foreign agents that also i think i was just
going to say that i mean you you met you mentioned the kind of chatting scene with with the the
the characters who are discussing the the it being a bomb site and that being obvious padding and i'm
not necessarily disagreeing with that although sitting through it I wasn't thinking I wasn't
twiddling my thumbs at that whereas reading through and you know I must say I looking back
on the story I kind of I can't quite remember which bits I read and which bits I watched without
thinking quite carefully about it because the words just they do leap off at you and and I did
find reading this quite gripping but one of the less gripping parts of it was the whole the
kidnapping foreign spy part of it which did strike me as being but i mean it's it's padding not in
the sense of it obviously could be quite an exciting plot twist or whatever but if you
if you lost that and lost half an hour out of the story in consequence it wouldn't be a weaker story
i'm really wondering how in the 2005 version or even in the 1955 version how they got karoon out
of their uh hands and how did how did he escape into the wild as it well i mean he could he could
just escape couldn't i mean it's possible yeah ways you could do it i'm just curious how it is
i am going to go watch the quatermass experiment or the creeping unknown as it's known in the
united states after this i may even watch it tomorrow but um you know i want to see that
I want to see that film through and I want to watch the 2005 version again just now to compare.
But what you know, one of the things about the foreign agent story that in they talk it up elsewhere, the press earlier is the notion that these guys, the first men to go up and they're supposed to just circle the earth twice.
And in that time, apparently foreign agents think it's so important.
There's something they might see that we need to kidnap them to get that information.
Because there's a question of whether or not Karun or the Quatermass team were actually working as spies for the British government and looking at things as they flew over.
Well, that's a fair point. Isn't the whole thing about satellites?
Yes, yes. No, I'm not saying that it isn't a thing. It's just I think it's kind of unrealistic to think that if you're sticking your eyes out the porthole as you're going around the earth, oh, yeah, look, there's an army installation.
You know, that's not that's not happening. Not 1953. You would need telephoto lens and cameras and and, you know, a little bit more coordinated tracking.
had telephoto lenses i mean they did but i'm i'm thinking that it's a of all the things they could
be worried about that that guy saw something out the window is pretty slim uh to me i think that's
overblown and and does show a sort of unrealistic thoughts of the time perhaps and which would be a
reason for them to remove it from the story yeah yeah i mean i i'm not i i am not interested in
defending it as being part of the plot i didn't necessarily find the the fact that there were
foreign agents interested in the space mission difficult to believe what i found slightly
difficult to credit was the very kind of amateurish way that it's it seemed to be contracted to a
bunch of you know basically petty thugs to it got the job done right there's kidnapping
i mean not notwithstanding that they captured a monster right i mean that there is the part that
they didn't they didn't clout for what they had the photographer they got him in the crowd they
got him located he sent a signal they kidnapped the guy cleanly and if the guy hadn't been a monster
by no no no because big big by i think i think there's an element of the fact that they got away
with him it was by luck because the the photographer did not survive so that clearly wasn't part of
the plan but that's because he's a monster you could say that's because he's a monster but the
dialogue that the other guys in the car subsequently have about him clearly indicate that they think
he's a complete idiot as well so i'm not sure that i'm not sure that these are the creme de la creme
of foreign espionage i i yeah but i like i say if it had not been for the fact that this is a
monster that can touch you and suck the life out of you they would have found isolated captured
that guy and gotten him away along with their decoy and if they hadn't if they hadn't jostled
the car and he fell forward and touched the driver and killed him instantaneously which then wrecked
the car and then ultimately killed the other agent. That was, they got the job done. They just
did not count it on the fact that this was not a human being that they were kidnapping. I mean,
I'm not saying that they were the best, but they certainly took it right out from under the police
at a highly public place and got the job done with casualties. But anyway, let's see.
There was actually something in this episode or this story that reminded me of the 1960s Invaders TV series, which I've been reviewing lately.
And that was, why did we have all that with Judith and her divorce?
Because I don't really feel like it paid off in any way.
Well, it's the love interest, isn't it?
Well, but they don't really do anything with it.
She tells Quatermass, hey, I was going to leave him for Dr. Briscoe, but now I can't.
Well, if she had just never done that, you would have watched this and said, well, that's just a wife keeping an eye on her husband.
And she's never really lovey-dovey with Briscoe until right at the end when they hug.
So, I mean, she gives him the, you know, I can't leave him now.
Yeah, I understand.
Okay.
Maybe it's no sex, please, we're British.
kind of and i'm not reading that context but it just really doesn't go anywhere her attitude
towards karoon doesn't seem to be you know there is that moment where she's sort of conflicted and
she says yeah i kind of wish if he was gonna die he wouldn't come back at all it'd be nice and clean
but from that point on it really doesn't doesn't really drive anything there's no
there's no plot complications from it it's just kind of and that's what they do in the invaders
it's the it's the melodrama you know it's just here's some people here's their real life and
oh and there's alien stuff going on in the background that's that's what's kind of going
on here it it it is no no no no because it's not it's not separate from that in a way because
what we took what we're concerned with is the fact that here is someone who appears to be
the man that she was married to and yet he's not and so it's important her her reaction to that is
much more important and the fact that neil then chooses to do something with that that is much
more complicated than simply the the kind of devoted wife i think adds a lot more interest
to that i'll agree the whole the whole briscoe judith thing is less interesting but then i we
didn't get to see most of that play out other than oh yeah we don't get to see a person with
with david tenent so right so i mean it is i'll i'll concede that it's perhaps they act differently
around each other but it's not in the script that i can see i one thing that i will give them this
I think I kind of, in a way, when I read through it and they did the flashback to the spacecraft, in a way, I was kind of disappointed that they did that.
Because I thought by net, we never see in person Victor Caroon.
At the first time we see him, he stumbles off that craft.
He is the alien.
And, you know, within very short time, they're noticing, you know, his face is still not quite right.
But we as the, and this is what I thought was brilliant.
We as the audience don't know that.
We never saw him before.
Therefore, if they say he looks different, okay.
He looks, obviously they know who he is.
He doesn't look that different.
But they didn't have to do anything in special effects.
They didn't have to put a, you know, slightly bulby nose on him or, you know, draw his ears back.
Or, you know, just do something subtly different so that from when you saw him before the ship
and afterwards and they say, you know, he just doesn't look right.
And you kind of go, yeah, he does kind of look different.
We just take it as red and go.
And it might have been undermined by the flashback
because we would have seen Karun.
They show him on the rocket launch, right, when they show the film,
and we actually see that.
But the picture is so blurry and so dark and so distant
that you couldn't tell.
And you could be believable.
But I think if they actually restaged what happened inside the spacecraft, you would have noticed that Karun looked the same.
I don't know.
But I kind of like them leaving it in the imagination.
But or just in the audio.
Yeah, no, I agree.
I thought it was it was unnecessary to flashback because we've got we've got so much of it from the deductions.
And yeah, we've got we've got that little bit of audio, which I did think was very, very effective.
But everything else came then from their discussion around what they thought had happened and their impressions of it.
And I agree to to then go back and do the flashback.
It's at best. It's kind of unnecessary.
Yeah, I guess it might be more interesting than watching Karun sitting in the chair, listening to the tape.
But I don't know. It's hard to pick on something you can't see.
it may have worked beautifully i don't know one thing i i should say uh i mean how quaint
the idea that britain made it to space first
that's that's just kind of cute that's like when your kid said you know your little toddler says
i'm gonna race you to the fence dad and win you're like yeah no it's like you're not but okay
that's cute but but the british space program the official british space program was founded in 1952
so i suspect that that may be partially what got uh neil on this they didn't they didn't do anything
until 1962 but uh they i guess they started developing it does take longer than a year to
a rocket into space yeah they started developing the first satellite in 59 the aerial one and they
launched it on an american rocket in 62 they've never had any ambitions for crude space flights
at all um no no astronaut corps no nothing like that they didn't even start funding manned flight
to the iss until 2011 so you know the the idea not just the idea of britain getting there first
which you know hey they got german scientists too after the war so it's possible but there was never
any really idea of sending men into space so i i do think that was a little even if it had been
the russians instead of the americans it still felt more uh realistic um but hey it's a british
show about british scientists and a british doctor so i'm okay with it i just i did just get a little
chuckle when i realized this was supposed to be the absolute first flight into space not just
not just britain's first flight into space or an early flight is this is this is the first
men in space period like okay well all right they didn't even send a dog or a monkey first
to see if it would be eaten by a space alien that's that's iris that was the irresponsible part
I was going to say, when did the first flight, which was, I always forget the name of the dog.
Laika?
Laika, thank you.
Was that 54?
Died November 3rd, 1957.
I'm guessing that's probably very shortly after they launched.
Yes.
Probably, you know, that's not one of those ones where a dog lived for three years up there in orbit and then died.
Yeah, it's probably within a very, very quick time.
Yeah.
So, I mean, even then we hadn't put, we hadn't even tried putting a dog in space at that point.
So I, let's face it.
I mean, science fiction of the era was all about sending people.
They would not actually be thinking of the logical thing, which would be to send a lab rat first and find out if it was going to die.
At least writers wouldn't necessarily.
Hopefully the scientists.
and presumably the the effect would have been the same if they'd sent a dog the dog would have come
back and started merging itself with cacti so yeah the the main issue would have been that they
would have had to have you know when they when they first of all it wouldn't necessarily have
quite the same emotional impact their concern over the dog but then when the dog emerged from
the rocket ship they would have to go oh fido looks a bit different yeah actually well also
dogs you'd have to have two dogs in there three dogs in there wouldn't you and change their spots
yeah no i i uh the worst part would be in part six when quatermass has to go into the abbey and
start barking it's like good i know let's try to talk to this dog in the language it understands
yeah so i mean it is the human piece of it is is key but uh i mean i don't know that i have
anything else about this it's obviously very good and i am just it's a crime against humanity that
they didn't record the whole thing i i can't i can't understand that it would be one thing if
you difficult to understand you you drew the analogy of you know they didn't use to record
theater well you know they can now and they often do not every performance but you know and at some
point they're doing tv and they've never thought of recording it and at some point then they've
or they don't well first they're doing it they don't have the technology to do it then they've
got the technology and they haven't thought of it and then they've thought of it and they've got the
technology and in this case i think i think they didn't do it misunderstood the order in which that
that goes i think it's more that they thought of doing it and then they had to develop the
technology. This is very early experimental technology. It didn't work very well. But it
wasn't bad. I didn't think it was that bad. I'm still absolutely astonished by how good
quatermass in the pit looks. Yeah. And I guess that's kind of what they were aiming for. That's
the standard that they expected. Well, this is a long way off that. I mean, to progress that far
in four years is really quite astonishing.
But, you know, in the end, I think what you've got to...
Although it's hard not to feel a sense of entitlement
as a fan in 2021,
you're not someone who they were ever thinking about.
The creative impetus behind this whole project
was to broadcast a live story to an audience
on uh on you know six particular nights in 1953 and in that respect it was a hundred percent
successful the recording was 33 successful but i don't think that's a black mark against
any anyone involved in the in the program on the creative side or even you know in terms of the
doing the technical experiment the fact that they've done it i you know i'm just i'm grateful
that we have those two episodes indeed I'm grateful that we have the script because as I've
mentioned before Avengers fans don't have even the script for a load of episodes that were junked
let alone the the audio like a lot of the Doctor Who so it I I deeply regret the stories are
missing but I don't I don't think that you can attach any kind of bad intention to anyone involved
in anything at the time
because it was a different world.
I don't have to attach a bad attention to him.
I mean, obviously Quatermass was doing
a perfectly fine thing and he nearly destroyed
the world and yet, you know, that makes
him a monster. These people
were trying to...
Well, if you think it's a crime against humanity...
They had
the intent
to sell this
overseas. That is why
they started recording it.
And somehow,
somehow somebody sitting somewhere in a conference room after episode two said,
eh, never mind.
That is the decision.
They didn't think it was good enough to sell.
But they were going to sell it to Canadians.
They'd have watched it.
There's a fly lands on the camera in episode two.
I mean, I don't think you can argue that this is great quality reproduction.
I think you can definitely make the case that this is extraordinary quality television.
And also they already knew it was doing really well.
It's compelling however badly it is technically presented.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that that would have been understood at the time.
It's very easy to look at this with the benefit of hindsight.
Oh, I'd love to be a fly on the wall or on the camera when they made that decision.
What was I mean, they already knew that it was doing really well.
Three million viewers.
Well, OK, if you if you know, if you want to argue that someone is if you think someone is culpable for making a decision that has deprived us, then the interesting question to ask is morally, is there any difference between that decision not to go ahead and record when they felt that the actual recording quality wasn't up to it?
Or the decision when they considered remounting the last two thirds of the story, possibly in a slightly condensed form and filming that so that they would be able to combine it with the two episodes that they had in order to do a repeat.
And they decided not to. But should you know, should they have was there a moral obligation on them to do that?
I think it's interesting that they would consider doing the last four episodes remounting instead of remounting all four.
Or six, you mean.
Or six, yeah. Sorry.
And, you know, the other question to me is, did they, had they recorded any other shows prior to this?
So in other words, they should have known what the technical quality was going to look like.
because unless they quite literally never ever had recorded a show before and then they put they
did these and they go oh hey that didn't look as good as we thought it would look it's like
how how do you not know what it was going to look like how did you not do experiments with that
how did you not do experiments before actual the live day and and go you know maybe if we put some
put some shading over this so we don't get glare off of the lights or you know whatever i i i find
it i would love to know about that if anybody knows listening to this podcast if anybody has
a more detailed analysis of that particular piece please let me know what the heck was going on
so no i do and and you you know your answer is there in the question yes yes yes they hadn't
yes this was a new experimental process and the the further information that you can find is in
the steve roberts article um on the doctor who restoration site which is primarily about the
filming of or the restoration of quatermass and the pit but it does refer to it does refer to
this process in connection with greater mass experiment and they had not used it on anything
else before this that that it was a it was a brand it was a brand new experimental process
i'm curious as to when they started doing it in the united states because i i know a lot of the
shows but i'm not sure what the dates are jack benny i love lucy things like that where they
were recorded through this what do they call it kinetograph or something like that don't quote me
that one but basically recording a camera a camera recording a camera of the of the show
but anyway it doesn't really matter equator mass experiment i don't have anything else on it i i
um i was interested in the fact there was a 3d cinema in it uh again i suspect it's something
that's probably cut out of the 2005 oh yeah but very much um of its of its time well although
actually i guess you know there has been a recent revival of spectacles for watching 3d television
but this you you get a sense from the script that this was actually quite a big deal and you're you
you see the screen as it's shown what it looks like without glasses and what it looks like
with glasses and that would have been really interesting do you think we actually got to see
that yeah it's described in the script yeah yeah so you you get old alternate shots between
what you would see wearing the glasses and what you would see i thought they were describing how
the woman was reacting to seeing it would but yeah maybe maybe that would be interesting to
find out um i i i more interested in the fact that that bit of script is of course neil making
uh making his point about how he doesn't write science fiction and that's the kind of
crap he doesn't write
you know i mean it's it's satirical yeah yeah what's what's the episode of beasts where it's
about the the rubber suit monster guy oh yeah yeah uh dummy dummy yeah exactly that he it's
that kind of dialogue again when they put it up there it's like oh yeah that's dad yeah that's
interesting because yeah yeah he's he's showing all the kind of special effects i i was wondering
if there yeah there was some kind of metaphor going on about um be you know about seeing it
through the glasses and not seeing it through the glasses and making sense of it and not making sense
of it but I haven't quite fully managed to unpack that in my in my brain as yet the the other the
I mean the other thing was how much I mean it's one of the things when you watch Neil you're
always thinking about how the how the stuff he writes has just echoed down through all of these
other things that we've watched over the years and the way in which he's telling this story about a
a space alien but he's telling it without actually having a little green man or anything you know
the space alien comes in the in the form of a a biped a very much human looking biped and then
kind of progresses in the story through all this kind of really rather effective body horror stuff
and you know there's just there's just such a lot since then that uses those same tropes although
oddly enough the thing i was sitting there watching it going you know what it's megloss
that owes the most to this one isn't it that's probably an homage because it was that scene
it was the scene with the cactus where he grabs the cactus and i was thinking aha that's where
they got it from it's quite possible it's quite possible that that was in their mind i mean i've
heard that a lot of writers for doctor who have seen quatermass uh been influenced by it over the
years so oh yeah sure yeah well maybe this was a maybe that was a conscious a conscious thing
because yeah it's uh it's a cactus and it can possess people so why a cactus well maybe this
It's a thorny problem
On that
I'm going to leave it there
Simon, thank you for joining me
It's a pleasure as always
And listeners, I hope you'll join us all again next time
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