Quatermass (TV serial)

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Quatermass (also known as The Quatermass Conclusion or Quatermass IV) is a British television science-fiction serial, the fourth and final instalment in the famous Quatermass series. Written by Nigel Kneale, it was produced by Euston Films for Thames Television and broadcast on the ITV network in the autumn of 1979.

Contents 1 Background 2 Plot 3 Cast & Crew 4 Other media 5 External links

[edit] Background

Professor Bernard Quatermass had been the hero of three science-fiction serials written by Kneale for BBC Television during the 1950s: The Quatermass Experiment (1953), Quatermass II (1955) and Quatermass and the Pit (1958-59). In each of these highly-regarded productions, Quatermass had battled a variety of alien horrors, and the character became a part of the British popular culture of the time.

The success of the serials on television led to Hammer Films buying the rights to make feature film adaptations, and all three of them were re-made for the cinema. After the release of the Hammer version of Quatermass and the Pit in 1967 Kneale, who had written the screenplay for the film himself, proposed to Hammer an idea for a fourth Quatermass film, written directly for the screen. Although they were interested and Kneale wrote up a detailed storyline for the project, the idea went little further before being abandoned, possibly due to the lack of box office success for Quatermass and the Pit.

In the early 1970s, Kneale was once more working regularly in television writing for the BBC, and he took this fourth Quatermass story idea to Ronnie Marsh, who was at that time the BBC's Head of Drama Serials. Marsh was interested, and commissioned Kneale to write the scripts for the serial, which now held the provisional title of Quatermass IV. However, again for a variety of reasons, the project eventually stalled and in 1973 was cancelled by the BBC.

Later in the decade, Kneale was working in commercial television, and it was here that the fourth Quatermass serial finally found an outlet. Even though Kneale had been a BBC staff writer when he had created the character in 1953, it was he individually and not the Corporation who held copyright in Quatermass, so Kneale was free to take him wherever he chose. The serial was picked up by Thames Television to be produced by their subsidiary company Euston Films, taking the Professor across to the BBC's rival, the ITV network, for the first time.

Quatermass, as the serial was finally titled, had far higher production values then any of the previous television serials and even than Hammer's feature film versions. Produced on what was then a very generous budget of £1 million, the serial was made on glossy 35mm film. This was a great contrast to the previous three serials, which although including some pre-filmed inserts, had for the most part been broadcast live, as was standard in the 1950s.

The serial was broadcast on Wednesday nights in four one-hour episodes, from October 24 to November 14, 1979. Each episode was described on-screen and in listings as a 'Chapter'. Chapters one and four (Ringstone Round and An Endangered Species) were scheduled in a 9.00-10.00pm timeslot; two and three (Lovely Lightning and What Lies Beneath) slightly later in a 9.10-10.10pm slot. The first episode received particular attention as it was the centrepiece of ITV's first evening back on air following a strike which had blacked the network out for over seventy days. The strike had delayed the broadcast of the serial, which had been ready for some time and had been meant to be shown much earlier.

For sale and possible theatrical release abroad, an alternative 105-minute movie edit of the serial was prepared, which went under its own title, The Quatermass Conclusion. This was a challenge for Kneale, as he did not like having to write a story that would need to work in two forms of such massively different length. It was released on VHS in the UK in 1986.

The serial was repeated on ITV as a two-part compilation version in the spring of 1984. Chapters one and two were edited together as Chapter One: Ringstone Round, and chapters three and four simply as Chapter Two with no subtitle. These two compilations were broadcast on successive Wednesday nights, May 9 and May 16, 1984, both in 10.30pm-12.25am timeslots. It was later reshown on the digital television channel ITV4 in early 2007.

In 2003 the production was released as a DVD box set in the UK, which included both the original four-part serial version and The Quatermass Conclusion movie edit.

[edit] Plot

• Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

At the beginning of the story, Quatermass has been living in retreat in the Scottish Highlands for some years, since his retirement from the British Experimental Rocket Group, where he worked during his previously-seen adventures. At the start of the opening episode he arrives in London, in search of his missing granddaughter for whom he has been caring since her parents (presumably - though never explicitly - Paula Quatermass and John Dillon from Quatermass II) were killed in a road accident in Germany.

Quatermass has also come to the city to appear as an invited guest on a television programme covering a meeting in space between Russian and American spacecraft. He is shocked to find the anarchy into which the city has descended, and the whole of the UK appears to have degenerated into a dystopic state overrun by armed, warring youth gangs.

During the television programme on which he appears, Quatermass speaks out against the state of the space programmes, and is then shocked to see the two spacecraft destroyed by some unknown alien force. The astronomer Joe Kapp, a guest on the programme alongside Quatermass, takes him to his observatory in the country, away from the malice he is receiving for his comments on the programme.

Quatermass is intrigued by the behaviour of a group of hippie-like youngsters known as the 'Planet People', who are gathering from across the country at various Neolithic sites, led by the taciturn 'Kickalong'. Quatermass and Kapp observe a huge gathering of Planet People at a local stone circle, Ringstone Round. The scientists observe the crowd being destroyed by an enormous beam from the sky that resembles a huge lightning bolt. Kickalong and the other Planet People believe them to have been 'transported' to a better place. Although the blackened and burned stones remain, hundreds of people's bodies seem to have been reduced to a thin, dusty white residue on the ground.

Slowly, as more and more people are killed and the alien influence increases the nihilistic, bleak outlook of the country and the world, Quatermass theorises that an alien force placed devices underground many thousands of years ago capable of influencing suitably primed humans. During a long period of harvesting, the alien force created or used religious tendencies within humans to encourage them to gather at "harvest sites" for processing. Eventually, for some unexplained reason, this alien force left or ceased harvesting and the surviving humans commemorated the many sites of their destruction by erecting huge stone megaliths and creating nursery rhymes and legends to warn of hungry gods willing to take people up into the sky. Such legends have survived into the modern day as, for example, a Christian belief in Rapture. Although some of the stone monuments still survive, many have since been moved or destroyed, the ground has remained "sacred" and in many cases later cultures have built temples and places of worship or gathering above the alien devices.

During recent decades, as the alien force has again been approaching the earth, it has been subtly and progressively influencing the psychological development of humans during their most developmentally vulnerable stages of life: childhood and early adolescence. This has led to an increasing tendency for young humans to gather together into huge, emotional masses during the modern era, such as Nazi rallies or rock concerts. Only elderly humans appear to relatively free of the influence, probably because their brains developed during an earlier time and remained relatively free from the alien force's influence.

Quatermass posits that the alien force is a type of probe or automaton and exists as a virtually undetectable diffuse cloud of energy spread out between the earth and the moon's orbit. Only during active harvesting does it coalesce into a tightly focussed energy beam capable of harvesting what it requires from the gathered humans. Quatermass suspects that what is being transported is a minute fraction or glandular secretion of the human body, such as a pheromone or musk, and the vast bulk of the human bodies are simply being discarded into the atmosphere as burned waste or pollution that is becoming visible as a haze in the sky.

Although Soviet and American scientists persist in an attempt to communicate with the alien force using radio-transmitted mathematical formulas, Quatermass rejects this idea as futile. Alluding to a verse from the Christian Bible (Matthew, 13: 37-43 King James Version) where "angels" are described as reapers and harvesters of mankind, Quatermass explains his position: "Forget about trying to get through to it. The ripe crop can't appeal to the reaper. I think this is the gathering time. The human race is being harvested". During one communication attempt, a space shuttle is destroyed, but not before the crew describe seeing a beam terminating on the earth's surface and stretching out in space, dwindling into infinity among the stars.

During the prelude to a harvest, the alien force seems to be capable of virtually hypnotising young humans into mindlessly gathering together and behaving wildly so as to attract the alien beam. Because of the alien influence, many younger humans are incapable of understanding that they are being killed and "eaten" by aliens, instead seeing their bodily disintegration as part of a supernatural process of transformation or transport to "The Planet". During these gathering times, they dance, sing, and act impulsively and hedonistically. Any attempts to persuade them to cease or disperse are simply ignored or rejected as nonsense. They are incapable of comprehending that they are in danger.

Quatermass conceives a plan to discourage the alien presence from harvesting humans. He realises that the alien presence is attracted to specific types of large gatherings of humans, and that such a gathering with its particular behaviour and "scent" could be simulated to lead the force into a trap. Together with a group of elderly scientists who are immune from the destructive aura of the alien presence, with assistance from the army Quatermass constructs a lure for the alien menace at Kapp's laboratory. Using signals transmitted by his radio telescopes, they plan to simulate the presence of a large crowd and then detonate a 35-kilotonne nuclear device as the alien beam activates, hoping to injure it, or at least dissuade it from continuing its harvest.

Quatermass volunteers to stay at the central point and detonate the bomb himself, and Kapp - whose wife and children were killed in one of the previous gatherings - stays with him. However, just as the alien presence is arriving, Kickalong and a group of Planet People arrive, attracted by the small stone circle near Kapp's house. Kapp tries to warn them off but is shot dead by Kickalong. The alien force arrives but, just when the nuclear device must be detonated, Quatermass sees his granddaughter amongst the Planet People. He is stricken by a heart attack and finds himself unable to reach for the button. However, his granddaughter rushes to his side and guides his hand to it. The device successfully detonated, the alien presence is apparently discouraged. The serial ends on an ambiguous coda, with the suggestion that life will gradually return to normal but that the aliens may return several millennia later for another harvest.

[edit] Cast & Crew

The role of Professor Bernard Quatermass was, as with all the previous television serials featuring him, taken by a new actor. In this case, it was the highly distinguished British film actor John Mills, making what was at the time only his second ever television series, following 1974's The Zoo Gang. He would, however, later go on to take other occasional television roles, such as Dr. Watson opposite Peter Cushing's Sherlock Holmes in the 1984 Channel 4 one-off The Masks of Death.

Joe Kapp was played by Simon MacCorkindale, and various other familiar British television faces of the era appeared, including Brian Croucher and Kevin Stoney, who became two of the very few actors ever to have appeared in all three of the most important British television science-fiction programmes: Doctor Who, Blake's 7 and Quatermass. One of the Planet People was played by popular actress and singer Toyah Willcox.

Nigel Kneale went on to continue his television career well into his seventies, working on various ITV series until the late 1990s. In the early 1980s he created his own sitcom, Kinvig, although this was not a particular success. Other work, such as an adaptation of Susan Hill's novel The Woman in Black (1989) and episodes of series such as Kavanagh QC and Sharpe (1995-96) proved more successful.

Quatermass was directed by Piers Haggard, who the previous year had helmed Dennis Potter's landmark drama serial Pennies From Heaven for the BBC. It was produced by Ted Childs, and the Executive Producer for Euston Films was Verity Lambert, an immensely experienced television producer who had begun her career as the first producer of the BBC's science-fiction classic Doctor Who in 1963. It was in that position that she had been invited to appear as a guest on the BBC 2 discussion programme Late Night Line-Up in 1965, to discuss television science-fiction. One of her fellow guests that night had been Nigel Kneale, who had let her know on air in no uncertain terms what he felt about the poor quality of her programme, although it seems they were able to work amicably enough on Quatermass fourteen years later.

[edit] Other media

For the first time, a novelisation of a Quatermass story was produced, written by Kneale himself, who had been an award-winning prose writer in the 1940s before turning to scriptwriting. Published by Arrow Books to coincide with the transmission of the serial, the novelisation contains several additional scenes and plot deviations, with Kneale telling the story more in the manner he would have liked to have told it but for the necessities of the television production.

Although Quatermass had been killed off at the end of the serial, the character did return one last time on BBC radio in 1996. This was in a serial entitled The Quatermass Memoirs, a drama-documentary which mixed the telling of the real-life story of the Quatermass serials with the fictional strand of Quatermass writing his memoirs in the Scottish Highlands, set at a time slightly before this final televised story. Broadcast on BBC Radio 3, the role of Quatermass was voiced by Andrew Keir, who had previously played the part in Hammer's 1967 film version of Quatermass and the Pit.

In 2005 the character returned to BBC Television as digital station BBC Four recreated the original 1953 serial The Quatermass Experiment in a live broadcast. The re-staging starred Jason Flemyng as Quatermass.

[edit] External links

• The Quatermass Home Page - Fan Site
• Quatermass (1979) at the Internet Movie Database