Quatermass II

Nigel Kneale's follow-up imagined what would happen if aliens were to invade Earth by stealth, via meteorite bombardments. The falling pods excrete alien matter which infects anyone within touching distance. Victims fall under the influence of the alien source, but they are easy to detect: they develop scars on their faces. Quatermass discovers that an Essex village has been destroyed and a heavily-guarded government refinery project built in its place. Supposedly a factory for synthetic food, it turns out to be a breeding colony for alien monsters, nurtured on poison gas and processed human blood. (BBC TV, 22/10/1955 – 26/11/1955). Reginald Tate had been due to reprise the leading rôle, but the workaholic actor/director suffered a heart attack just over two weeks before shooting was due to begin. John Robinson took over at short notice and makes a worthy successor, backed up by Hugh Griffith, Rupert Davies, Wilfrid Brambell, Roger Delgado and child actor Melvyn Hayes.It is a shame that only the first two episodes of The Quatermass Experiment are preserved. Unusually, it's not that the others were wiped or burned. The method of preserving television programmes on film was still in its infancy in 1953, and based on the quality of episodes one and two, the results were not deemed to be of high enough quality to justify the expense of recording the following four episodes. The shows were performed live, broadcast from the BBC's original TV studios at Alexandra Palace in North London, whence they subsequently vanished into the ether, and into the memories of impressionable viewers…