The Quatermass Experiment - Reception and Influence

Reception and Influence

The Quatermass Experiment achieved favourable viewing figures in 1953, opening with an estimated audience of 3.4 million for the first episode, building to 5 million for the sixth and final episode, and averaging 3.9 million for the entire serial. The Times estimated that one year before The Quatermass Experiment was broadcast, in August 1952, the total television audience consisted of about 4 million people. In March of that year, the BBC estimated that an average of 2.25 million people watched BBC programmes each evening.

In 1954 Cecil McGivern, the Controller of Programmes at BBC Television, referred to the success of the serial in a memo discussing the impending launch of a new commercial television channel, ending the BBC's monopoly. "Had competitive television been in existence then, we would have killed it every Saturday night while The Quatermass Experiment lasted. We are going to need many more 'Quatermass Experiment' programmes." Following Kneale's death in 2006, film historian Robert Simpson said that the serial had been "event television, emptying the streets and pubs for the six weeks of its duration." When the digital television channel BBC Four remade the serial in 2005, the channel's controller, Janice Hadlow, described the original as "one the first 'must-watch' TV experiences that inspired the water cooler chat of its day".

Viewers' responses were positive. Letters praising the production were sent to the BBC's listings magazine, the Radio Times, while the writer and producer were also applauded by readers of TV News magazine, which nominated them for one of the publication's "TV Bouquet" awards. Looking back at The Quatermass Experiment in a 1981 article for The Times, journalist Geoffrey Wansell highlighted the finale:

"Westminster Abbey undoubtedly dominated television during the summer of 1953 but it was not just the Coronation of the Queen that sticks in my mind now. It is also the memory of Professor Bernard Quatermass grappling with the pulsating giant plant that threatened to destroy the world from its rooting place in the Abbey's nave… The Quatermass Experiment frightened the life out of a vast new generation of television viewers whose sets had been acquired in order to watch the Coronation… Quatermass was one of the first series on British television to make life seem potentially terrifying."

Subsequent audience research showed that technical problems interrupting the final episode's broadcast had a negative impact on audiences' views of the serial; the audience felt that the climax had been spoiled.

Despite such problems — and the existence of only the first two episodes in the archives — The Quatermass Experiment continued to earn critical praise in the decades following its transmission. The British Film Institute's "Screenonline" website describes the serial as "one of the most influential series of the 1950s", adding that "with its originality, mass appeal and dynamism, The Quatermass Experiment became a landmark of science fiction and the cornerstone of the genre on British television." The website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications praises the serial's underlying themes as its most effective feature. "The Quatermass Experiment's depiction of an Englishman's transformation into an alienated monster dramatized a new range of gendered fears about Britain's postwar and post-colonial security. As a result, or perhaps simply because of Kneale and Cartier's effective combination of science fiction and poignant melodrama, audiences were captivated." The website also points to the programme's influence on the British science-fiction television productions that followed, claiming that "with began a British tradition of science fiction television which runs in various forms from Quatermass to A for Andromeda to Blake's 7, and from Doctor Who to Red Dwarf."

Kneale disliked Doctor Who — the most successful of the British science-fiction programmes — saying that it had stolen his ideas. An article for The Daily Telegraph in 2005 described Doctor Who as the "spiritual successor" to the Quatermass serials, and Mark Gatiss, a scriptwriter on Doctor Who, wrote of his admiration of Kneale in an article for The Guardian in 2006. "Kneale wrote that was 'an over-confident year' and he piloted his hugely influential tale like a rocket into the drab schedules of Austerity Britain… What sci-fi piece of the past 50 years doesn't owe Kneale a huge debt?"

In 2007, Gatiss appeared as the character Professor Lazarus in the Doctor Who episode "The Lazarus Experiment". The Radio Times noted in its preview of the episode that "Tonight's story is an enjoyable synthesis of She, The Fly and The Quatermass Experiment—even down to the final battle in a London cathedral."