Quatermass ii

Robert Holmes is often considered to be Doctor Who's best scriptwriter, partly responsible for shaping the direction the series took throughout much of the 1970s. But his first two scripts for the show, The Krotons and The Space Pirates, are not exactly typical of Holmes's style, and it is only with his third story that he truly arrives on the scene, helped perhaps by the simultaneous arrival of colour for the first time and Jon Pertwee as the brand new Doctor.

I think Robert Holmes must have been a Quatermass fan. While I would hesitate to call Spearhead From Space a "rip-off" of Quatermass ii, it certainly copied some elements - not just those characteristics shared by many 'alien-invasion-by-stealth' plots (as opposed to 'alien-invasion-by-force', the other main type of alien invasion plot that Doctor Who had done multiple times by this point), but in specific aspects such as the hollow meteorites that carry the aliens to Earth in both stories.

The character of Bernard Quatermass seems more of a manny of action in this story than he did in The Quatermass Experiment, not hesitating to personally investigate dangerous situations. I don't know if it seems this way because we only have the first two parts of the original story to judge it by, or if perhaps the recasting of Quatermass prompted a shift in the characterisation, but the end result is that he feels a lot like Jon Pertwee's portrayal of the Doctor during the UNIT years. Maybe it was this that Nigel Kneale objected to, rather than the occasional lifting of story devices?

Speaking of Jon Pertwee's Doctor Who, the most noteworthy guest actor to appear in this is Roger Delgado, playing a journalist in part four. Maybe this is what gave the Master the idea of teaming up with the Nestenes in Terror of the Autons?

"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

All comparisons to Doctor Who aside, Quatermass ii is a surprisingly fast-paced six part serial. It shows fewer signs than its predecessor of having been made in the 1950s, with many improvements in the technical competence of the production, and it is difficult to believe that almost all of it was broadcast live. It is also a great story that still stands up well today, with many twists and turns that, while they may have been imitated, have scarcely been bettered. The scenes in part five with Quatermass and the workers sabotaging the alien life support, and the aliens' subsequent retaliation, are particularly strong.

It was also particularly pleasing to be able to watch a famous television series made all the way back in 1955 without having any knowledge of what would happen in it or how it would end, especially in this age of the internets when it seems I can't go a single week after a new Star Wars film comes out without being spoilered on it.