Doctor Who Vs. The Quatermass Experiment, Part 1: 1953

"An experiment is an operation designed to uncover some 
unknown truth" - BBC Announcer, Saturday July 18 1953

Tate (left) died just a month before
he was to embark on filming
Quatermass II

The seminal television 

adventures of Professor
 Bernard Quatermass began

in the summer of 1953,

with the broadcast of The

Quatermass Experiment.

Seventy years on, this
 science-fiction classic is 
seen as the precursor to 
much of the BBC's adult 
drama output as well as 
greatly influencing a 
fledgling TV genre that 
would introduce Doctor 
Who a decade later.

Set in the near future, the

serial tells the story of the first manned flight into space. Supervised

by Quatermass, the British Experimental Rocket Group (BERG)

attempt to return it's three-man crew safely to Earth, but their ship

crash lands in Wimbledon. Two astronauts are missing, and the sole

survivor, Victor Caroon behaves erratically - he has been infected by

an alien parasite. The Professor must prevent the entity from

destroying life on Earth, resulting in a climatic showdown at

Westminster Abbey (scene of the Queen's recent Coronation).

The Quatermass Experiment was penned by staff writer, Nigel Kneale
(1922-2006), and directed by Austrian Rudolph Cartier (1904-1994)

-  they next collaborated on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four

the following year. Kneale's hero, portrayed here by Reginald Tate

(after original choice Andre Morell declined the lead), was named in

honour of astronomer Bernard Lovell (1913-2012) and his surname

came from a London phone directory.

The thriller was transmitted live from Alexandra Palace over six
consecutive Saturday nights, in July and August 1953, and only the

first two episodes now exist in the archives. Two sequels, Quatermass

II and Quatermass and the Pit, followed in 1955 and 1958, whilst all

three stories were later adapted for the cinema by Hammer. Kneale
finally wrote the conclusion to his saga for Thames TV in 1979. BBC

Four re-staged the drama (again live) in 2005, and Hermatic Arts

will stage a live reading of the original scripts back at the Palace in

September, with a cast led by Mark Gatiss.

The Quatermass Experiment (described by the BFI as "one of the
most influential series" ever) featured twelve future Doctor Who
cast and crew connections:

• Duncan [William Ferguson] Lamont (Caroon) was Dan Galloway in Death to the Daleks
• Paul Whitsun Jones (Fullalove) was Squire Edwards in The Smugglers, and the Marshal in The Mutants
• Moray [Robin Philip Adrian] Watson (Marsh) was Sir Robert Muir in Black Orchid
• Peter Bathurst (Greene) was Hensell in The Power of the Daleks, and Chinn in The Claws of Axos
• Neil [Kingsley] Wilson (Constable) was Seeley in Spearhead from Space
• Keith [Malcolm Rule] Pyott (Minister) was Autloc in The Aztecs
• Alan [Stewart] Casley (Crowd) was Miro in Planet of the Daleks
• Paddy Russell (Passenger/On-looker) was stage manager here before becoming a director in 1962, and was later assigned to The Massacre, Invasion of the Dinosaurs, Pyramids of Mars and Horror of Fang Rock
• Malcolm Watson (the only actor to appear in all three of the Corp- oration's Quatermass serials) and Aubrey [Charles] Danvers Walker (both Photographers here) were Council Members in The Dominators 
• Jack Kine (1921-2005) and Bernard Wilkie (1920-2002) co-founded the BBC Visual Effects Department in 1954 - together they provided special effects on The Mind Robber, Kine was seen as the Big Brother type leader (albeit on posters) of the parallel Earth in Inferno, whilst Wilkie worked on An Unearthly Child, The Ice Warriors, Colony in Space, The Curse of Peladon, Frontier in Space and Planet of the Spiders
• Michael Leeston Smith (lighting engineer here, production assistant on Quatermass II) also became a director and was assigned to The Myth Makers