Quatermass and the Pit

1958 - 1959

The Halfmen

22nd December 1958

Episode 1

Professor Quatermass is resisting the planners of a rocket project known as the Dead Man's Deterrent. Meanwhile excavation is going on at Hobbs Lane, long the site of reported imps and devils.

The Ghosts

29th December 1958

Episode 2

Uncovered, they discover that the interior of the object is empty, and a symbol consisting of five intersecting circles, which Roney identifies as the occult pentagram, is found etched on an interior wall which appears to hide an inner chamber.

Imp & Demons

5th January 1959

Episode 3

The shell of the object is so hard that even a borazon drill makes no impression, and when the attempt is made, strange vibrations cause severe distress in the people around the object. Quatermass interviews the local residents and discovers that sightings of ghosts and other poltergeist activity have been common in the area for decades. Meanwhile, a soldier is carried out of the object in hysterics — he claims to have seen a dwarf-like apparition walk through the wall of the artefact, a description which matches a 1927 newspaper account of a ghost sighting. Following the drilling attempt, a hole has somehow opened up in the wall which allows Quatermass and the others access to the interior chamber.

The Enchanted

12th January 1959

Episode 4

Following the drilling attempt, a hole has somehow opened up in the wall which allows Quatermass and the others access to the interior chamber. There they find the remains of insect-like aliens resembling giant three-legged locusts, with stubby antennae on their heads giving the impression of horns. As Quatermass and Roney examine the remains, they theorise that the aliens might have come from a nearby planet which was habitable five million years ago — Mars.

The Wild Hunt

19th January 1959

Episode 5

Quatermass plans to use an invention of Roney's, an "optic-encephalogram", to see these visions. The device will record impressions from the optical centres of the brain, in effect showing whatever the subject is seeing, hallucinatory or not. He wears the device and goes into the craft, but it is Roney's assistant, Barbara Judd, who is affected most. Placing the device on her, they record what she "sees"—a violent, bloody purge of the Martian hive, to root out unwanted mutations.

Hob

26th January 1959

Episode 6

Despite his warnings, the media event occurs, and the power cables that string into the craft fully activate it for the first time. Glowing and humming like a living thing, it starts drawing upon this energy source and awakening the ancient racial programming. Those people of London in whom the alien admixture remains strong fall under the ship's influence; they merge into a group mind and begin a telekinetic mass murder of those without the alien genes, an 'ethnic cleansing' of those that the alien race mind considers impure and weak.

Top Cast

André Morell•Cec Linder•John Stratton

Writer

Nigel Kneale

Drama Sci-Fi & Fantasy Mystery

A team of scientists search for the origin and purpose of a mysterious capsule found on a building site.

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Full Cast

André Morell Image

André Morell

Professor Bernard Quatermass

Cec Linder Image

Cec Linder

Dr. Matthew Roney

John Stratton Image

John Stratton

Captain Potter

Christine Finn Image

Christine Finn

Barbara Judd

Anthony Bushell Image

Anthony Bushell

Colonel James Breen

Full Crew

Ian Callaway

Editor

Bernard Wilkie

Special Effects

Jack Kine

Special Effects

Rudolph Cartier

Producer

Nigel Kneale Image

Nigel Kneale

Writer

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