British Television Science Fiction - Early Years

Early Years

The first known science fiction television programme was produced by the BBC's pre-war television service. On February 11, 1938 a thirty-five-minute adapted extract of the play R.U.R., written by the Czech playwright Karel Čapek, was broadcast live from the BBC's Alexandra Palace studios. Concerning a future world in which robots rise up against their human masters, it was the only piece of science fiction to be produced until the BBC television service resumed after the war. Only a few on-set publicity photographs survive. R.U.R. was produced a second time on 4 March 1948, this time in a full ninety-minute live production, adapted for television by the producer Jan Bussell, who had also been responsible for the screening in 1938. The BBC did begin producing more science fiction, with further literary adaptations such as The Time Machine (1949) and children's serials like Stranger from Space (1951–1952).

In the summer of 1953 the six-part serial The Quatermass Experiment was broadcast live. An adult-themed science-fiction drama specially written for television by BBC staff writer Nigel Kneale, its budget consumed the majority of the finances reserved for drama that year. This successful serial ultimately led to three further Quatermass serials and three feature film adaptations from Hammer Film Productions. The Quatermass Experiment is also the first piece of British television science fiction to partially survive, albeit only in the form of poor-quality telerecordings of its first two episodes.

Kneale could not rely on sophisticated special effects to convey his narratives. Instead, he based his stories around characterisation and characters' reactions to the strange events unfolding around them, using science-fiction themes to tell allegorical stories, most effectively paralleling real life racial tensions with the Martian "infection" of Quatermass and the Pit (1958–59).

On 12 December 1954, a live adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, produced by the Quatermass team of writer Nigel Kneale and director Rudolph Cartier, achieved the highest television ratings since the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. It was so controversial that it was debated in Parliament, and campaigners tried to have the second performance the following Thursday banned; 'repeats' were second performances in this era. The BBC's Head of Drama Michael Barry refused to concede.

Science-fiction productions were rare and almost always one-offs. A for Andromeda (1961) (which starred a young Julie Christie) and its sequel (The Andromeda Breakthrough, 1962) were exceptions