TV: Quatermass and the Pit

Quatermass and the Pit

The best of the television Quatermass was water-cooler TV before water-coolers even existed.

Recently ranked number 75 in a British Film Institute poll of the 100 Greatest British TV Programmes of the Century, Quatermass and the Pit was the series that arguably brought science fiction to the masses on TV for the first time.

The third instalment of Kneale's stories featuring Professor Bernard Quatermass, it weaved a tense plot involving the discovery of an alien capsule with weighty themes about the possible causes of Man's innate violence and hostility. Broadcast in six Monday night instalments, it was mainly performed live, generating such interest that it was famously said that the pubs emptied when 'Quatermass and the Pit' came on. The final episode attracted 11 million viewers, one of the highest viewing figures of the decade.

Despite its phenomenal success, the character did not appear on TV again for another two decades, by which time he's swapped sides - in TV terms at least - for the final 'official' instalment he 'went over' to ITV. Nigel Kneale would go on to pen many more classic science fiction and horror tales for television, and is regarded by many critics as the most important TV science fiction writer of the 20th century.