I'm not old enough to have seen the original transmissions of the Quatermass series on TV, but have since seen them on DVD. There is really no comparison, this version (caught online through Britbox) of the Quatermass Experiment is below the production levels and engagement I would expect at a high school play.The basic idea of a live version I think has merit. The problem is this feels like a production using the first draft of a screenplay that's undergone absolutely no development. I really feel sorry for the actors, none of them comes over well, a few fare worse than others. Jason Flemyng as the central character, is quite simply miscast - that this wasn't evident to either the director or producers during preproduction is inexplicable. The sets are ho-hum and the dialog trudging. For fans of Quatermass (or any decent teleplay), one to be avoided.

I really liked the old Quatermass films and even though I discovered them belatedly, being from the US, I got some enjoyment out of the TV series. But this remake was simply dreadful. The writing and direction were horrendous. Most of the time it was simply dull, but occasionally the poor actors had to deliver lines that made no sense, or go from quiet discussion to drastic scenery chewing in a heartbeat. I'm a huge science fiction fan and will watch (and enjoy) almost anything with a hint of science fiction to it. I can find great pleasure in a good B film and put up with almost anything to enjoy a bit of space travel, alien contact, or futuristic speculation of any kind. But I had to give up after about 36 minutes of this. I skipped forward, dropping in once in a while if anything looked remotely interesting. It never was. Partly because it was live, partly because it was cheap, and partly because the people who created this were completely lacking in intelligence or imagination, it was utterly without even a pretense of supporting special effects (e.g., monitors with important data the actors are all discussing are tilted away from the camera so you only see the back of the monitor), the sets were plain and very few, the audio was terrible, the whole show was dark and dreary looking, and the ending was as uneventful and lame as any movie or television program I've ever seen. Do not waste your time. It's not even interesting as a curiosity. There is absolutely nothing to recommend it.

While it may be slow, overly-intellectual, and deficient in CGI for younger, ADD-prone viewers, this remake is all the more admirable for sticking to its roots. This is live TV modernized but not homogenized... assembled using the best of current technology, but with the emphasis still very firmly on script and performance. Could it have had a big green CGI monster at the end? Yeah, yeah, sure. But thankfully it avoids such tired clichés.While the original Quatermass is lost, this version goes a long way toward recapturing its impact, and the unique vitality of the live format. The story has been parceled out differently, but quite reasonably; the two new episodes offer an adequate running time, considering all the recaps and redundant credits that are omitted compared to the original shorter episodes. So the careful pacing remains largely intact. Scientific revelations accumulate at an accelerating pace, leading up to the same unnerving climax.The performances are all superb. The younger take on Prof Quatermass is perhaps the biggest shock, but it works. This new Quatermass is very much the kind of scientist you see in all those direct-from-NASA broadcasts. He effectively combines the quick wit and moral sensitivity of the original character with the reality of modern life.I'd love to see more of this kind of thing - not just the rediscovery of lost masterpieces like Quatermass, but the immediacy of TV as a live medium, a direct link between performers and audience. TV just doesn't get any better than this. More, more, more!

I haven't seen such a mess as this on the BBC in a long time.The script is straight from the pioneering 1953 TV series, when spying on earth from a satellite was a futuristic idea, and travelling in a spacecraft 500,000 miles from Earth was a step into the unknown.But crazily, it is updated to the 21st century, where all this is massively anachronistic.The production is also 1950s-style. It is shot in live action (much was made of this at the time, but what does it add?), hand-held cameras are artlessly handled, the sets and cast are both dreadfully impoverished, e.g. Mission Control consists of three people in a bunker with a couple of laptop PCs! The woman in Mission Control takes over as the sole nurse in the hospital room, etc, etc.In a genuine 1950s production you could live with all this, of course - or perhaps if it was a spoof on the 1950s. But this is apparently intended as a serious drama! It didn't work for me.