John Stratton

Quatermass and the Pit is a British television science-fiction serial, originally transmitted live by BBC Television in December 1958 and January 1959. It was the third and last of the BBC’s Quatermass serials, although the character would reappear in a 1979 ITV production simply entitled Quatermass. Like its predecessors, Quatermass and the Pit was written by Nigel Kneale.

The series continues the loose chronology of the Quatermass adventures, and begins with Professor Bernard Quatermass being forced out of his role at the British Experimental Rocket Group, with the organisation being passed into military control by the British Government. Quatermass and his new colleague Colonel Breen become involved in the discovery of a bizarre object at an archaeological dig in Knightsbridge, London. As the serial progresses, Quatermass and his associates find that the contents of the object have a horrific influence over many of those who come into contact with it. As this influence increases, affecting Quatermass himself, darker implications are revealed about the entire nature and origins of mankind.

The serial has been cited as an influence on the writer Stephen King and the film director John Carpenter. It featured in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes compiled by the British Film Institute in 2000, where it was described as “completely gripping”, and in 2005 the BBC’s own website declared it “simply the first finest thing the BBC ever made. It justifies licence fees to this day.”