The Return of Quatermass

One of my favourite horror/sci-fi films of all time is Quatermass and The Pit, written by Nigel Kneale.

Last week BBC4 broadcast a live re-make of the programme that kicked it all off, The Quatermass Experiment. Unfortunately IMHO the remake was a disaster comparable to the crashed spaceship programme it tries to re-create. Firstly, TQE (2005) was abridged into a two-hour drama, which I felt was a bit long to take in one go. One of the difficulties in re-making a programme, or a book set in the Cold War period is do you leave in the reference to the Cold War or strip them out? In this case I don't think that removing the Cold War had any adverse impact.

One of the major gripes I had was that some of the settings in the programme looked totally unimaginative. The final scene of TQE was shot in Westminster Abbey. In TQE (2005) it was shot in a warehouse, totally devoid of character. Having little budget is no excuse, and no it did not make the confrontation bleaker or give it more impact.

Also the scenes of the astronauts training were almost comically in their paucity of set (another warehouse). The press scene where the media interview Quatermass, just a stones throw away from the warehouse-looking medical centre where the surviving astronaut is being held. Se a them running here? They just love making the sets look like warehouses!

Most of the cast seemed content to whisper their lines.

The original TQE was shot live, due to the constraints of broadcasting at the time. So WHY? did the producer think it would be a great idea to do it live again for the re-make? I'm stumped! Flabbergasted! Doing a re-make allows you to use up-to-date technology to bring "something else" to the production that was unavailable to the original. For some god-awful reason known only to the producers they decided not to do this. Thanks. We might have had better special effects on the "monster", who seemed as threatening as a hobo on a Saturday night.

The BBC have just wasted an opportunity to show what could have been done with a great script. Shame on them.

Oh and while I'm at it, WHAT was the point of showing the Nigel Kneale interview BEFORE the re-make, as it contained spoilers as to what was to happen? Fricken idiots, really.

!SR

Links: Cult Quatermass

Pope Vote

Well he gets my vote:

"Father Dougal" long-shot to be new Pope

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The race is on to succeed John Paul II as pope and bookmakers are already getting in on the act. But not all the candidates are quite what they seem.

According to The Washington Post on Tuesday, gamblers can back Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Italy at odds of 11 to 4. "Or they can take their chances on Father Dougal Maguire of Craggy Island, Ireland, a long shot at 1,000 to 1."

from Yahoo news

Links: encyclopedia

Ardal O'Hanlon site

and the superbly named Feck.net


!SR