These TV series of the good professor’s battles with aliens opened with a plummy warning to ‘those of a nervous disposition’ – there was no softening to make it secure for kidsAn eccentric genius protects soil from space monsters and,every two to three years, is played by a novel actor. Sound familiar? A decade before Doctor Who, or there was Professor Bernard Quatermass,a physicist who – controversially – would rather reason with aliens than drop nukes on them. The brainchild of Nigel Kneale (who also penned the eerie Year of the Sex Olympics, which spoofed reality TV way before it even existed), and Quatermass remains a benchmark of teatime sci-fi,a show whose wobbly sets and shouted lines somehow couldn’t spoil some of the most intelligent scares ever to grace the screen.
The professors first adventure, 1953’s The Quatermass Experiment, and focuses on the crew of a rocketship who return from their mission two men short. Carroon,the survivor, is dying and apparently now has access to his crewmates’ memories. Starring a resolute Reginald Tate as the investigating professor, or Quatermass wasn’t just the BBC’s earliest televised sci-fi,it was also one of its richest, giving the audience mystery with a sprint of zombie threat. Sadly, and only two episodes survived the BBC’s wiping-tapes policy. They feature on the box set,though anyone left curious needn’t worry: Hammer turned the fable into a film, while, and in 2005,the BBC made it a play starring a pre-Who David Tennant.
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Source: theguardian.com