Quatermass II
Encyclopedia
Quatermass II is a British
science-fiction
serial
, originally broadcast by BBC Television
in the autumn of 1955. It is the second in the Quatermass
series by writer Nigel Kneale
, and the first of those serials to survive in its entirety in the BBC archives. It is also the earliest surviving complete British science-fiction television production.
The serial sees Professor Bernard Quatermass
of the British Experimental Rocket Group being asked to examine strange meteorite
showers. His investigations lead to his uncovering a conspiracy
involving alien
infiltration at the highest levels of the British Government. As even some of Quatermass's closest colleagues fall victim to the alien influence, he is forced to use his own unsafe rocket prototype, which recently caused a nuclear disaster
at an Australian testing range, to prevent the aliens from taking over mankind.
Although sometimes compared unfavourably to the first and third Quatermass serials, Quatermass II was praised for its allegorical concerns of the damaging effects of industrialisation
and the corruption of governments by big business
. It is described on the British Film Institute
's "Screenonline
" website as "compulsive viewing."
network was launched in the UK, bringing commercial television
to Britain for the first time and ending the BBC
's broadcasting monopoly
in the country. The new network's creation had been established by the Television Act 1954
, and the BBC had known in advance that they would need programmes to combat the new rival for television audiences. Referring to the 1953 science-fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment
in a memo written in 1954, BBC Television's Controller of Programmes, Cecil McGivern
, noted that: "Had competitive television been in existence then, we would have killed it every Saturday night while [The Quatermass Experiment] lasted. We are going to need many more 'Quatermass Experiment' programmes."
Nigel Kneale was commissioned to write a sequel to The Quatermass Experiment in early 1955, having recently signed a two-year extension to his BBC staff writer's contract. The serial was specifically commissioned by the BBC to combat the new ITV network. Kneale was inspired by contemporary fears over secret UK Ministry of Defence research establishments such as Porton Down
, and also by being required, as a BBC staff member, to sign the Official Secrets Act
. As with The Quatermass Experiment, Quatermass II was produced and directed by Rudolph Cartier
; he and Kneale particularly enjoyed working together. Since the first Quatermass serial, the pair had collaborated on the literary adaptations Wuthering Heights
(1953) and Nineteen Eighty-Four
(1954), and on Kneale's abominable snowman
play The Creature (1955).
Quatermass II comprised six half-hour episodes, transmitted live
from Studio G at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios
in London
. The episodes — individually subtitled "The Bolts", "The Mark", "The Food", "The Coming", "The Frenzy" and "The Destroyers" — were shown every Saturday night at 8 p.m. from 22 October to 26 November 1955; due to the live nature of the performances, most of the episodes overran their allotted half-hour slots slightly. Each episode was rehearsed
on the Monday to Friday before transmission at Mansergh Woodall Boys Club in St John's Wood
, London, and then camera rehearsed in studio for most of the day on the Saturday.
Not every scene was performed live; due to the increased budget — £7552 was spent on the serial, nearly double the amount spent on The Quatermass Experiment — Cartier was able to conduct a larger amount of pre-filming on 35 mm film
, with these filmed inserts being broadcast during the live transmissions of each episode as required. Most of the pre-filmed material was shot on location
at the Shell Haven
oil refinery
in Stanford-le-Hope
, doubling for the factory where the alien creature is being grown on Earth. Filming also took place in rural Essex
for material showing the meteorites being discovered in fields, and in the boiler rooms of the under-construction BBC Television Centre
in London for scenes set inside the factory. The location film sequences were the most ambitious that had then been attempted in British television drama, which was usually predominantly studio-bound.
Each episode of Quatermass II was telerecorded onto 35 mm film during its live transmission, for a scheduled repeat
the following Monday night at 10:15 p.m. All six episodes survive intact in the BBC's archives, although the telerecording copies in some cases suffer from poor quality sound and vision. Due to either technical or artistic problems, Cartier had some scenes re-performed by the cast immediately following the live performance on the Saturday evening, and these were telerecorded and used to replace the live versions in the Monday night repeats. Quatermass II was one of the first BBC drama productions to be repeated from a telerecording, rather than having the production re-performed live for any second showing as had been the norm in the past.
Episode three, "The Food", was repeated in a slightly edited form on BBC Two
on 26 August 1991 as part of "The Lime Grove Story". This was a day of programming to commemorate the closure of the studios after forty years of BBC usage.
Strange objects are falling from the sky, one shower of which is observed by a military radar
unit. After a farmer finds one of the objects in a country field, the soldiers become directly involved, and Captain John Dillon decides to unofficially ask the father of his fiancée, Paula, to investigate. Paula's father is Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Experimental Rocket Group — "the rocket man!", as one of Dillon's troops puts it.
Following the events of The Quatermass Experiment, Quatermass is now working on a powerful new rocket named the "Quatermass II". He is also planning a project to establish permanent bases on the moon
. However, as the serial begins Quatermass is recovering from the news that an accident at the Quatermass II project's Australian testing range has caused a devastating nuclear explosion
.
Quatermass agrees to accompany Dillon on an investigation and the pair end up at the strange factory being built at Winnerden Flats, which seems to be the centre of the meteorite falls. There he finds a huge synthetic food plant which he is shocked to realise is an exact replica of one of his proposed moon bases. When Dillon becomes infected by "the mark" after going too close to a fallen meteorite, he begins opposing Quatermass, who finds that the factory is actually housing a growing alien creature rather than producing food.
As he tries to investigate further, Quatermass finds that figures in the highest levels of power in Britain have been "marked", and are under alien control. With little time left to prevent a catastrophe, he and his assistant Dr Leo Pugh are forced to use Quatermass's experimental rocket and attempt to fight the alien menace in space, despite the known flaws in the rocket's design. When the rocket reaches the aliens' asteroid base, Quatermass finds that Pugh has also been taken over by their influence; however, his colleague is sent floating helplessly off into space by the recoil
from a gun he uses attempting to shoot Quatermass. The Professor is able to destroy the asteroid and take off safely back to Earth in his rocket.
, who had played the title role in The Quatermass Experiment, collapsed and died on 23 August 1955, aged 58. This was less than a month before the shooting of the location filming for Quatermass II began, and necessitated the casting of a replacement lead actor at short notice; John Robinson
was chosen to fill the part. Robinson was an experienced actor from a range of different films and television programmes since the 1930s, but was uncomfortable about taking over from Tate, and had difficulty in learning some of the technical dialogue he was required to deliver. Robinson's delivery of his lines has been criticised by some later reviewers.
Appearing as Quatermass's chief assistant Dr Leo Pugh was Welsh
actor Hugh Griffith
. Griffith had been an actor on stage and screen since the 1930s, but gained his highest profile roles after Quatermass II; he went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
as Sheikh Ilderim in Ben-Hur
(1959). He also appeared in Lucky Jim
(1957) and Oliver!
(1968).
Monica Grey played Paula Quatermass; she was chosen by BBC management rather than the production team, as she was the wife of the BBC's head of radio drama
, Val Gielgud
. As Hugh Griffith also had problems with some of his technical dialogue, Grey learned his lines as well as her own, in case she needed to step in and assist him during the live performance. Dillon was played by John Stone
; Stone too had a long career as a supporting actor in a range of British television series, and in 1956 had a small role in the film X the Unknown
, which Hammer Film Productions
had intended as a sequel to their version of
The Quatermass Experiment, until Kneale denied them the rights to use the character.
Three actors who each became well-known for a particular role on British television had supporting parts in Quatermass II. Roger Delgado
, who found fame in the 1970s as the Master
in Doctor Who
(1971–73), played a journalist who helps Quatermass before falling victim to "the mark" in episode four. Wilfrid Brambell
, later star of the sitcom Steptoe and Son
(1962–74) and The Beatles
' film A Hard Day's Night
(1964), appeared as a tramp
, and Melvyn Hayes
, who played the small role of Frankie, became one of the stars of the popular sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum
(1974–81).
Nigel Kneale not only wrote the serial but, previously an actor, had two speaking parts. He played the voice heard over the factory loudspeaker
system in episode five, and narrated
the recaps at the beginning of episodes two, three, four and six. Kneale went on to write feature film
screenplays such as Look Back in Anger
(1958) and The First Men in the Moon
(1964), as well as continuing to write for television, including two further Quatermass serials, until 1997.
Kneale credited the director Rudolph Cartier with bringing to the screen in Quatermass II, with its ambitious location filming, an expansive style that had not been seen in British television drama beforehand. Cartier worked with Kneale again on the third Quatermass serial, Quatermass and the Pit
, in 1958, and had subsequent successes with plays such as Anna Karenina
(1961), Cross of Iron (1961) and Lee Oswald — Assassin (1966). He continued directing for television until the 1970s.
Quatermass II received positive newspaper reviews in the Daily Mail
and the Daily Express
, although the BBC's Radio Times
listings magazine published letters of both praise and criticism for the serial. The serial was also criticised internally at the BBC by Cecil McGivern, who felt it to be not as good as the original. One letter received by the production team before the transmission of episode five came from a woman in Haverfordwest
who was concerned that she would never find out what happened in the end as the week before the final episode's transmission she was due to move to Ireland to spend the rest of her life in a convent
; she wondered if the BBC could possibly write to her and let her know how the story resolved. After some debate as to whether the letter was a journalistic trick to uncover advance story details, Kneale eventually decided that it was genuine, and allowed Cartier to send a reply outlining the storyline's conclusion. Following episode six, some viewers wrote in to the BBC concerned at Quatermass's survival, as he had not been seen to definitely return to Earth in the experimental rocket ship.
The BBC's own website regarded Quatermass II unfavourably when reviewing its DVD
release in 2005. "The script is too often let down by the production's rougher edges. Your heart will break halfway through episode six as it all falls apart. And then there's Monica Gray — less an actress than a finishing school
on legs." Writing in The Times
in 2006, Morgan Falconer claimed to find racist undertones in the serial. "Quatermass, for instance, often seemed to have an unhealthy preoccupation with blackness, a barely veiled commentary on racial change in Britain. In one scene in Quatermass II, the Professor stands outside a pub and watches the sky fill with dark asteroids. 'They’re coming in their thousands,' he says, 'this is it.'" However, this interpretation of the serial is not widespread, and is undermined in episode five where an Irish immigrant helps Quatermass sabotage the aliens' food supply system. In any case, it is in direct contrast with Kneale's deliberate attack on racial intolerance in Quatermass and the Pit.
Speaking in a 2003 television documentary
about Nigel Kneale's career, the writer and critic Kim Newman
praised the underlying themes of Quatermass II, and their particular relevance to the British way of life. "Quatermass II is the British Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing... What Quatermass II does is take that metaphor and apply it to the specific conditions of Britain in the 1950s; not just the Cold War
paranoia, but the traditional British grumbling resentment of bureaucracy as represented by the council
, or in this case big business." The British Film Institute's "Screenonline
" website also offers praise in its analysis of the serial.
Some science-fiction fans
have speculated that the Quatermass serials in general, and Quatermass II in particular — with its elements including a conspiracy of silence in the government concerning extraterrestrial life, secret government facilities for alien use, and the silencing of any critic who opposes the government's plans — influenced the successful American series The X-Files
(1993–2002). Kneale was invited to write for The X-Files during the 1990s, but declined the offer.
Other genre productions that have been compared with the serial include the 1970 Doctor Who
story Spearhead from Space
. This serial features an alien entity falling to Earth in a meteorite shower; a factory taken over for the growth of the alien creature, and governmental institutions being infiltrated by servants of the aliens.
— in this case after they had only read the scripts, before the serial was even made. Titled Quatermass 2
, the film was released in 1957 and once again directed by Val Guest
, with Brian Donlevy
starring; unlike the first film, Kneale wrote the screenplay
himself. In the United States, the film was released under the title Enemy From Space.
Shortly after Quatermass II finished its run, comedian Bob Monkhouse
included a spoof of the serial in an episode of his own BBC television series, which featured Monica Grey reprising her role as Paula Quatermass. Cartier and Kneale were greatly displeased with this, and complained to their superiors at the BBC about it.
Quatermass returned to the BBC in 1958 when Kneale's third serial, Quatermass and the Pit
, began transmission. That was the last television appearance of the character for twenty years, until Kneale brought Quatermass back for a final time in the 1979 serial Quatermass
, this time produced for Thames Television
.
A serialised novelisation of Quatermass II, written by Kneale, ran in the Daily Express newspaper in the UK from 5 December to 20 December 1955, although Kneale was forced to draw the storyline to a premature conclusion as the paper lost interest in the project. The television scripts were released by Penguin Books
in 1960, with a selection of stills from the production also included. The book was re-released in 1979, with a new introduction by Kneale, to coincide with the transmission of the Thames Television serial.
In April 2005 BBC Worldwide
released a DVD box set of all their existing Quatermass material. This included digitally restored
versions of all six episodes of Quatermass II, with the sound and vision of the telerecording copies cleaned up as far as possible, and some of the existing special effect
s inserts that survived on their original film elements being re-inserted into the episodes.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
science-fiction
Science fiction on television
Science fiction first appeared on a television program during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary world not limited by the constraints of reality; this makes television an excellent medium...
serial
Serial (radio and television)
Serials are series of television programs and radio programs that rely on a continuing plot that unfolds in a sequential episode by episode fashion. Serials typically follow main story arcs that span entire television seasons or even the full run of the series, which distinguishes them from...
, originally broadcast by BBC Television
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
in the autumn of 1955. It is the second in the Quatermass
The Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment is a British science-fiction serial broadcast by BBC Television in the summer of 1953 and re-staged by BBC Four in 2005. Set in the near future against the background of a British space programme, it tells the story of the first manned flight into space, overseen by...
series by writer Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale was a British screenwriter from the Isle of Man. Active in television, film, radio drama and prose fiction, he wrote professionally for over fifty years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay...
, and the first of those serials to survive in its entirety in the BBC archives. It is also the earliest surviving complete British science-fiction television production.
The serial sees Professor Bernard Quatermass
Bernard Quatermass
Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist, originally created by the writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading up the British Experimental Rocket Group...
of the British Experimental Rocket Group being asked to examine strange meteorite
Meteorite
A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...
showers. His investigations lead to his uncovering a conspiracy
Conspiracy (political)
In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....
involving alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
infiltration at the highest levels of the British Government. As even some of Quatermass's closest colleagues fall victim to the alien influence, he is forced to use his own unsafe rocket prototype, which recently caused a nuclear disaster
Nuclear and radiation accidents
A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility...
at an Australian testing range, to prevent the aliens from taking over mankind.
Although sometimes compared unfavourably to the first and third Quatermass serials, Quatermass II was praised for its allegorical concerns of the damaging effects of industrialisation
Industrialisation
Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...
and the corruption of governments by big business
Big Business
Big business is a term used to describe large corporations, in either an individual or collective sense. The term first came into use in a symbolic sense subsequent to the American Civil War, particularly after 1880, in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at...
. It is described on the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
's "Screenonline
Screenonline
Screenonline is a Web site devoted to the history of British film and television, and to social history as revealed by film and television. The project has been developed by the British Film Institute and funded by a £1.2 million grant from the National Lottery New Opportunities Fund.Reviews...
" website as "compulsive viewing."
Production
On 22 September 1955 the ITVITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
network was launched in the UK, bringing commercial television
Commercial broadcasting
Commercial broadcasting is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship...
to Britain for the first time and ending the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's broadcasting monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
in the country. The new network's creation had been established by the Television Act 1954
Television Act 1954
The Television Act 1954 was a British law which permitted the creation of the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom, ITV....
, and the BBC had known in advance that they would need programmes to combat the new rival for television audiences. Referring to the 1953 science-fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment is a British science-fiction serial broadcast by BBC Television in the summer of 1953 and re-staged by BBC Four in 2005. Set in the near future against the background of a British space programme, it tells the story of the first manned flight into space, overseen by...
in a memo written in 1954, BBC Television's Controller of Programmes, Cecil McGivern
Cecil McGivern
Cecil McGivern CBE was a British broadcasting executive, who initially worked for BBC Radio before transferring to BBC Television in the late 1940s....
, noted that: "Had competitive television been in existence then, we would have killed it every Saturday night while [The Quatermass Experiment] lasted. We are going to need many more 'Quatermass Experiment' programmes."
Nigel Kneale was commissioned to write a sequel to The Quatermass Experiment in early 1955, having recently signed a two-year extension to his BBC staff writer's contract. The serial was specifically commissioned by the BBC to combat the new ITV network. Kneale was inspired by contemporary fears over secret UK Ministry of Defence research establishments such as Porton Down
Porton Down
Porton Down is a United Kingdom government and military science park. It is situated slightly northeast of Porton near Salisbury in Wiltshire, England. To the northwest lies the MoD Boscombe Down test range facility which is operated by QinetiQ...
, and also by being required, as a BBC staff member, to sign the Official Secrets Act
Official Secrets Act
The Official Secrets Act is a stock short title used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, India and Malaysia and formerly in New Zealand for legislation that provides for the protection of state secrets and official information, mainly related to national security.-United Kingdom:*The Official Secrets...
. As with The Quatermass Experiment, Quatermass II was produced and directed by Rudolph Cartier
Rudolph Cartier
Rudolph Cartier was an Austrian television director, filmmaker, screenwriter and producer who worked predominantly in British television, exclusively for the BBC...
; he and Kneale particularly enjoyed working together. Since the first Quatermass serial, the pair had collaborated on the literary adaptations Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
(1953) and Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four (TV programme)
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a British television adaptation of the novel of the same name by George Orwell, originally broadcast on BBC Television in December 1954. The production proved to be hugely controversial, with questions asked in Parliament and many viewer complaints over its supposed...
(1954), and on Kneale's abominable snowman
Yeti
The Yeti or Abominable Snowman is an ape-like cryptid said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal, and Tibet. The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the people indigenous to the region, and are part of their history and mythology...
play The Creature (1955).
Quatermass II comprised six half-hour episodes, transmitted live
Live television
Live television refers to a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. From the early days of television until about 1958, live television was used heavily, except for filmed shows such as I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke. Video tape did not exist until 1957...
from Studio G at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios
Lime Grove Studios
Lime Grove Studios was a film studio complex built by the Gaumont Film Company in 1915 situated in a street named Lime Grove, inShepherd's Bush, west London, north of Hammersmith and described by Gaumont as "the finest studio in Great Britain and the first building ever put up in this country...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. The episodes — individually subtitled "The Bolts", "The Mark", "The Food", "The Coming", "The Frenzy" and "The Destroyers" — were shown every Saturday night at 8 p.m. from 22 October to 26 November 1955; due to the live nature of the performances, most of the episodes overran their allotted half-hour slots slightly. Each episode was rehearsed
Rehearsal
For other uses, see Rehearsal or Dress rehearsal A rehearsal is a preparatory event in music and theatre that is performed before the official public performance, as a form of practice, and to ensure that all details of the performance are adequately prepared and coordinated for professional...
on the Monday to Friday before transmission at Mansergh Woodall Boys Club in St John's Wood
St John's Wood
St John's Wood is a district of north-west London, England, in the City of Westminster, and at the north-west end of Regent's Park. It is approximately 2.5 miles north-west of Charing Cross. Once part of the Great Middlesex Forest, it was later owned by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem...
, London, and then camera rehearsed in studio for most of the day on the Saturday.
Not every scene was performed live; due to the increased budget — £7552 was spent on the serial, nearly double the amount spent on The Quatermass Experiment — Cartier was able to conduct a larger amount of pre-filming on 35 mm film
35 mm film
35 mm film is the film gauge most commonly used for chemical still photography and motion pictures. The name of the gauge refers to the width of the photographic film, which consists of strips 35 millimeters in width...
, with these filmed inserts being broadcast during the live transmissions of each episode as required. Most of the pre-filmed material was shot on location
Filming location
A filming location is a place where some or all of a film or television series is produced, in addition to or instead of using sets constructed on a movie studio backlot or soundstage...
at the Shell Haven
Shell Haven
Shell Haven was a port on the north bank of the Thames Estuary at the eastern end of Thurrock, Essex, England and then an oil refinery. The refinery closed in 1999 and the site was purchased by DP World who received planning consent in May 2007 for the new London Gateway deep water container port...
oil refinery
Oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...
in Stanford-le-Hope
Stanford-le-Hope
Stanford-le-Hope is a town and Church of England parish situated in the county of Essex, England. The town is within the unitary authority of Thurrock and located 23.8 miles east of Charing Cross in London...
, doubling for the factory where the alien creature is being grown on Earth. Filming also took place in rural Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
for material showing the meteorites being discovered in fields, and in the boiler rooms of the under-construction BBC Television Centre
BBC Television Centre
BBC Television Centre at White City in West London is the headquarters of BBC Television. Officially opened on 29 June 1960, it remains one of the largest to this day; having featured over the years as backdrop to many BBC programmes, it is one of the most readily recognisable such facilities...
in London for scenes set inside the factory. The location film sequences were the most ambitious that had then been attempted in British television drama, which was usually predominantly studio-bound.
Each episode of Quatermass II was telerecorded onto 35 mm film during its live transmission, for a scheduled repeat
Rerun
A rerun or repeat is a re-airing of an episode of a radio or television broadcast. The invention of the rerun is generally credited to Desi Arnaz. There are two types of reruns—those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Reruns can also be, as the...
the following Monday night at 10:15 p.m. All six episodes survive intact in the BBC's archives, although the telerecording copies in some cases suffer from poor quality sound and vision. Due to either technical or artistic problems, Cartier had some scenes re-performed by the cast immediately following the live performance on the Saturday evening, and these were telerecorded and used to replace the live versions in the Monday night repeats. Quatermass II was one of the first BBC drama productions to be repeated from a telerecording, rather than having the production re-performed live for any second showing as had been the norm in the past.
Episode three, "The Food", was repeated in a slightly edited form on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
on 26 August 1991 as part of "The Lime Grove Story". This was a day of programming to commemorate the closure of the studios after forty years of BBC usage.
Plot
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
unit. After a farmer finds one of the objects in a country field, the soldiers become directly involved, and Captain John Dillon decides to unofficially ask the father of his fiancée, Paula, to investigate. Paula's father is Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Experimental Rocket Group — "the rocket man!", as one of Dillon's troops puts it.
Following the events of The Quatermass Experiment, Quatermass is now working on a powerful new rocket named the "Quatermass II". He is also planning a project to establish permanent bases on the moon
Colonization of the Moon
The colonization of the Moon is the proposed establishment of permanent human communities on the Moon. Advocates of space exploration have seen settlement of the Moon as a logical step in the expansion of humanity beyond the Earth. Recent indication that water might be present in noteworthy...
. However, as the serial begins Quatermass is recovering from the news that an accident at the Quatermass II project's Australian testing range has caused a devastating nuclear explosion
Nuclear explosion
A nuclear explosion occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from an intentionally high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission, nuclear fusion or a multistage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion based weapons have used a fission device...
.
Quatermass agrees to accompany Dillon on an investigation and the pair end up at the strange factory being built at Winnerden Flats, which seems to be the centre of the meteorite falls. There he finds a huge synthetic food plant which he is shocked to realise is an exact replica of one of his proposed moon bases. When Dillon becomes infected by "the mark" after going too close to a fallen meteorite, he begins opposing Quatermass, who finds that the factory is actually housing a growing alien creature rather than producing food.
As he tries to investigate further, Quatermass finds that figures in the highest levels of power in Britain have been "marked", and are under alien control. With little time left to prevent a catastrophe, he and his assistant Dr Leo Pugh are forced to use Quatermass's experimental rocket and attempt to fight the alien menace in space, despite the known flaws in the rocket's design. When the rocket reaches the aliens' asteroid base, Quatermass finds that Pugh has also been taken over by their influence; however, his colleague is sent floating helplessly off into space by the recoil
Recoil
Recoil is the backward momentum of a gun when it is discharged. In technical terms, the recoil caused by the gun exactly balances the forward momentum of the projectile and exhaust gasses, according to Newton's third law...
from a gun he uses attempting to shoot Quatermass. The Professor is able to destroy the asteroid and take off safely back to Earth in his rocket.
Cast and crew
Reginald TateReginald Tate
Reginald Tate was an English actor, veteran of many roles on stage, in film and on television. He is best remembered as the first actor to play the television science-fiction character Professor Bernard Quatermass, in the 1953 BBC Television serial The Quatermass Experiment.-Early life:Reginald...
, who had played the title role in The Quatermass Experiment, collapsed and died on 23 August 1955, aged 58. This was less than a month before the shooting of the location filming for Quatermass II began, and necessitated the casting of a replacement lead actor at short notice; John Robinson
John Robinson (actor)
John Robinson was an English actor, who was particularly active in the theatre. Mostly cast in minor and supporting roles in film and television, he is best remembered for being the second actor to play the famous television science-fiction role of Professor Bernard Quatermass, in the 1955 BBC...
was chosen to fill the part. Robinson was an experienced actor from a range of different films and television programmes since the 1930s, but was uncomfortable about taking over from Tate, and had difficulty in learning some of the technical dialogue he was required to deliver. Robinson's delivery of his lines has been criticised by some later reviewers.
Appearing as Quatermass's chief assistant Dr Leo Pugh was Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
actor Hugh Griffith
Hugh Griffith
Hugh Emrys Griffith was a Welsh film, stage and television actor.-Early life:Griffith was born in Marianglas, Anglesey, Wales, the son of Mary and William Griffith. He was educated at Llangefni County School and attempted to gain entrance to university, but failed the English examination...
. Griffith had been an actor on stage and screen since the 1930s, but gained his highest profile roles after Quatermass II; he went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
as Sheikh Ilderim in Ben-Hur
Ben-Hur (1959 film)
Ben-Hur is a 1959 American epic film directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston in the title role, the third film adaptation of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay was written by Karl Tunberg, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry. The score was composed by...
(1959). He also appeared in Lucky Jim
Lucky Jim
Lucky Jim is an academic satire written by Kingsley Amis, first published in 1954 by Victor Gollancz. It was Amis's first novel, and won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction...
(1957) and Oliver!
Oliver! (film)
Oliver! is a 1968 British musical film directed by Carol Reed. The film is based on the stage musical Oliver!, with book, music and lyrics written by Lionel Bart. The screenplay was written by Vernon Harris....
(1968).
Monica Grey played Paula Quatermass; she was chosen by BBC management rather than the production team, as she was the wife of the BBC's head of radio drama
Radio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
, Val Gielgud
Val Gielgud
Val Henry Gielgud was an English actor, writer, director and broadcaster. He was a pioneer of radio drama for the BBC, and also directed the first ever drama to be produced in the newer medium of television....
. As Hugh Griffith also had problems with some of his technical dialogue, Grey learned his lines as well as her own, in case she needed to step in and assist him during the live performance. Dillon was played by John Stone
John Stone (actor)
-Career:Born in Cardiff, Wales as John Hailstone, Stone was educated at Brighton College. He made his first West End appearance in One Wild Oat by Vernon Sylvaine, 1948...
; Stone too had a long career as a supporting actor in a range of British television series, and in 1956 had a small role in the film X the Unknown
X the Unknown
X the Unknown is a British science-fiction / horror film made by the Hammer Films company and released in 1956.-Production:The film was originally intended by Hammer to be a sequel to the previous year's successful The Quatermass Xperiment, but writer Nigel Kneale refused permission for the...
, which Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
had intended as a sequel to their version of
The Quatermass Xperiment
The Quatermass Xperiment is a 1955 British science fiction horror film. Made by Hammer Film Productions, it was based on the 1953 BBC Television serial The Quatermass Experiment written by Nigel Kneale. It was directed by Val Guest and stars Brian Donlevy as the eponymous Professor Bernard...
The Quatermass Experiment, until Kneale denied them the rights to use the character.
Three actors who each became well-known for a particular role on British television had supporting parts in Quatermass II. Roger Delgado
Roger Delgado
Roger Caesar Marius Bernard de Delgado Torres Castillo Roberto was an English actor, best known for his role as the first Master in Doctor Who....
, who found fame in the 1970s as the Master
Master (Doctor Who)
The Master is a recurring character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. He is a renegade Time Lord and the archenemy of the Doctor....
in Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
(1971–73), played a journalist who helps Quatermass before falling victim to "the mark" in episode four. Wilfrid Brambell
Wilfrid Brambell
Henry Wilfrid Brambell was an Irish film and television actor best known for his role in the British television series Steptoe and Son. He also performed alongside The Beatles in their film A Hard Day's Night, playing Paul McCartney's fictional grandfather.- Early life :Brambell was born in Dublin...
, later star of the sitcom Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...
(1962–74) and The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' film A Hard Day's Night
A Hard Day's Night (film)
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...
(1964), appeared as a tramp
Vagrancy (people)
A vagrant is a person in poverty, who wanders from place to place without a home or regular employment or income.-Definition:A vagrant is "a person without a settled home or regular work who wanders from place to place and lives by begging;" vagrancy is the condition of such persons.-History:In...
, and Melvyn Hayes
Melvyn Hayes
Melvyn Hayes is an English actor probably best known for playing the effeminate Gunner "Gloria" Beaumont in the 1970s BBC sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum,-Early life and career:...
, who played the small role of Frankie, became one of the stars of the popular sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum
It Ain't Half Hot Mum
It Ain't Half Hot Mum was a British sitcom about the adventures of a Royal Artillery Concert Party, broadcast on the BBC between 1974 and 1981, and written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, the creators of Dad's Army...
(1974–81).
Nigel Kneale not only wrote the serial but, previously an actor, had two speaking parts. He played the voice heard over the factory loudspeaker
Loudspeaker
A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer that produces sound in response to an electrical audio signal input. Non-electrical loudspeakers were developed as accessories to telephone systems, but electronic amplification by vacuum tube made loudspeakers more generally useful...
system in episode five, and narrated
Narrator
A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...
the recaps at the beginning of episodes two, three, four and six. Kneale went on to write feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
screenplays such as Look Back in Anger
Look Back in Anger (film)
Look Back in Anger is a 1959 British film starring Richard Burton, Claire Bloom and Mary Ure and directed by Tony Richardson.It is based on John Osborne's play of the same name about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man , his upper-middle-class, impassive wife , and...
(1958) and The First Men in the Moon
The First Men in the Moon
The First Men in the Moon is a 1901 scientific romance novel by the English author H. G. Wells. The novel tells the story of a journey to the moon undertaken by the two protagonists, the impoverished businessman Mr Bedford and the brilliant but eccentric scientist Dr. Cavor...
(1964), as well as continuing to write for television, including two further Quatermass serials, until 1997.
Kneale credited the director Rudolph Cartier with bringing to the screen in Quatermass II, with its ambitious location filming, an expansive style that had not been seen in British television drama beforehand. Cartier worked with Kneale again on the third Quatermass serial, Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit is a British television science-fiction serial, originally transmitted live by BBC Television in December 1958 and January 1959. It was the third and last of the BBC's Quatermass serials, although the character would reappear in a 1979 ITV production simply entitled Quatermass...
, in 1958, and had subsequent successes with plays such as Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger...
(1961), Cross of Iron (1961) and Lee Oswald — Assassin (1966). He continued directing for television until the 1970s.
Reception and influence
The available British television audience had doubled since The Quatermass Experiment had been shown in 1953, and the viewing figures for Quatermass II were accordingly higher. The serial gained an audience of 7.9 million viewers for its first three episodes, rising to 8.3 million for the fourth and fifth and concluding with 9 million. A BBC audience research report commissioned after Quatermass II had finished found that 90% of those questioned in the sample had watched at least five episodes of the production.Quatermass II received positive newspaper reviews in the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
and the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
, although the BBC's Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
listings magazine published letters of both praise and criticism for the serial. The serial was also criticised internally at the BBC by Cecil McGivern, who felt it to be not as good as the original. One letter received by the production team before the transmission of episode five came from a woman in Haverfordwest
Haverfordwest
Haverfordwest is the county town of Pembrokeshire, Wales and serves as the County's principal commercial and administrative centre. Haverfordwest is the most populous urban area in Pembrokeshire, with a population of 13,367 in 2001; though its community boundaries make it the second most populous...
who was concerned that she would never find out what happened in the end as the week before the final episode's transmission she was due to move to Ireland to spend the rest of her life in a convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
; she wondered if the BBC could possibly write to her and let her know how the story resolved. After some debate as to whether the letter was a journalistic trick to uncover advance story details, Kneale eventually decided that it was genuine, and allowed Cartier to send a reply outlining the storyline's conclusion. Following episode six, some viewers wrote in to the BBC concerned at Quatermass's survival, as he had not been seen to definitely return to Earth in the experimental rocket ship.
The BBC's own website regarded Quatermass II unfavourably when reviewing its DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
release in 2005. "The script is too often let down by the production's rougher edges. Your heart will break halfway through episode six as it all falls apart. And then there's Monica Gray — less an actress than a finishing school
Finishing school
A finishing school is "a private school for girls that emphasises training in cultural and social activities." The name reflects that it follows on from ordinary school and is intended to complete the educational experience, with classes primarily on etiquette...
on legs." Writing in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
in 2006, Morgan Falconer claimed to find racist undertones in the serial. "Quatermass, for instance, often seemed to have an unhealthy preoccupation with blackness, a barely veiled commentary on racial change in Britain. In one scene in Quatermass II, the Professor stands outside a pub and watches the sky fill with dark asteroids. 'They’re coming in their thousands,' he says, 'this is it.'" However, this interpretation of the serial is not widespread, and is undermined in episode five where an Irish immigrant helps Quatermass sabotage the aliens' food supply system. In any case, it is in direct contrast with Kneale's deliberate attack on racial intolerance in Quatermass and the Pit.
Speaking in a 2003 television documentary
Television documentary
Documentary television is a genre of television programming that broadcasts documentaries.* Documentary television series, a television series which is made up of documentary episodes....
about Nigel Kneale's career, the writer and critic Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...
praised the underlying themes of Quatermass II, and their particular relevance to the British way of life. "Quatermass II is the British Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing... What Quatermass II does is take that metaphor and apply it to the specific conditions of Britain in the 1950s; not just the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
paranoia, but the traditional British grumbling resentment of bureaucracy as represented by the council
Local government in the United Kingdom
The pattern of local government in England is complex, with the distribution of functions varying according to the local arrangements. Legislation concerning local government in England is decided by the Parliament and Government of the United Kingdom, because England does not have a devolved...
, or in this case big business." The British Film Institute's "Screenonline
Screenonline
Screenonline is a Web site devoted to the history of British film and television, and to social history as revealed by film and television. The project has been developed by the British Film Institute and funded by a £1.2 million grant from the National Lottery New Opportunities Fund.Reviews...
" website also offers praise in its analysis of the serial.
"With its tale of an invasion by an invisible enemy indistinguishable from ourselves, Kneale's story tapped into contemporary fears about the 'red' (i.e. communist) threat, although in a less direct way than the American science fiction films of the 1950s, including Invasion of the Body Snatchers. At the same time, it reflected the widespread anxiety of the nuclear age — the story begins with a failed test of a nuclear-powered rocket in Australia (at a time when the country was in reality a site for a series of British nuclear weapons tests). In short, Quatermass II was the perfect cold-war drama."
Some science-fiction fans
Science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or "fandom" of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest...
have speculated that the Quatermass serials in general, and Quatermass II in particular — with its elements including a conspiracy of silence in the government concerning extraterrestrial life, secret government facilities for alien use, and the silencing of any critic who opposes the government's plans — influenced the successful American series The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
(1993–2002). Kneale was invited to write for The X-Files during the 1990s, but declined the offer.
Other genre productions that have been compared with the serial include the 1970 Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
story Spearhead from Space
Spearhead from Space
Spearhead from Space is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 3 January to 24 January 1970. The serial opened Series 7 of the show and was the first to be produced in colour. The serial introduced Jon Pertwee as the...
. This serial features an alien entity falling to Earth in a meteorite shower; a factory taken over for the growth of the alien creature, and governmental institutions being infiltrated by servants of the aliens.
Other media
As with The Quatermass Experiment, the film rights to the serial were purchased by Hammer Film ProductionsHammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
— in this case after they had only read the scripts, before the serial was even made. Titled Quatermass 2
Quatermass 2
Quatermass 2 is a 1957 British science fiction horror film. Made by Hammer Film Productions, it is a sequel to an earlier Hammer film The Quatermass Xperiment. Like its predecessor, it is based on a BBC Television serial – Quatermass II – written by Nigel Kneale...
, the film was released in 1957 and once again directed by Val Guest
Val Guest
Val Guest was a British film director, best known for his science-fiction films for Hammer Film Productions in the 1950s, but who also enjoyed a long, varied and active career in the film industry from the early 1930s up until the early 1980s.-Early life and career:He was born Valmond Maurice...
, with Brian Donlevy
Brian Donlevy
Brian Donlevy was an Irish-born American film actor, noted for playing tough guys from the 1930s to the 1960s. He usually appeared in supporting roles. Among his best known films are Beau Geste and The Great McGinty...
starring; unlike the first film, Kneale wrote the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
himself. In the United States, the film was released under the title Enemy From Space.
Shortly after Quatermass II finished its run, comedian Bob Monkhouse
Bob Monkhouse
Robert Alan "Bob" Monkhouse, OBE was an English entertainer. He was a successful comedy writer, comedian and actor and was also well known on British television as a presenter and game show host...
included a spoof of the serial in an episode of his own BBC television series, which featured Monica Grey reprising her role as Paula Quatermass. Cartier and Kneale were greatly displeased with this, and complained to their superiors at the BBC about it.
Quatermass returned to the BBC in 1958 when Kneale's third serial, Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit is a British television science-fiction serial, originally transmitted live by BBC Television in December 1958 and January 1959. It was the third and last of the BBC's Quatermass serials, although the character would reappear in a 1979 ITV production simply entitled Quatermass...
, began transmission. That was the last television appearance of the character for twenty years, until Kneale brought Quatermass back for a final time in the 1979 serial Quatermass
Quatermass (TV serial)
Quatermass is a British television science fiction serial produced by Euston Films for Thames Television and broadcast on the ITV network in October and November 1979. Like its three predecessors, Quatermass was written by Nigel Kneale...
, this time produced for Thames Television
Thames Television
Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....
.
A serialised novelisation of Quatermass II, written by Kneale, ran in the Daily Express newspaper in the UK from 5 December to 20 December 1955, although Kneale was forced to draw the storyline to a premature conclusion as the paper lost interest in the project. The television scripts were released by Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
in 1960, with a selection of stills from the production also included. The book was re-released in 1979, with a new introduction by Kneale, to coincide with the transmission of the Thames Television serial.
In April 2005 BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...
released a DVD box set of all their existing Quatermass material. This included digitally restored
Remaster
Remaster is a word marketed mostly in the digital audio age, although the remastering process has existed since recording began...
versions of all six episodes of Quatermass II, with the sound and vision of the telerecording copies cleaned up as far as possible, and some of the existing special effect
Special effect
The illusions used in the film, television, theatre, or entertainment industries to simulate the imagined events in a story are traditionally called special effects ....
s inserts that survived on their original film elements being re-inserted into the episodes.