Mind The Gap, Professor Quatermass! (episode 52)

Discovery of a buried skull turns a London building site into a palaeontological dig. Until, in a geological layer that's five million years old, a bomb is found. Send for Professor Quatermass!

Quatermass and the Pit (1967) - aka Five Million Years to Earth in the US (1968) - is the best and most successful of the British science-fiction horror film series, based in turn on a TV series from a decade before. Colin and Phil examine it from all angles to see what makes it tick.

We also have a fiendish Q-uiz, and our usual round up of past, present and future SF recommendations.

Also in this episode:

•  Learn about the original Quatermass TV series, a classic of early British TV
• Terry Brooks retires from his Shannara series, appointing a new co-author to continue the series
• It's 87 years since the BBC's 1938 live TV broadcast of  Karel Capek's R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
•  Apple TV's announcement of the forthcoming Murderbot TV series
•  Star Trek's Colm Meaney receives a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Film & TV Academy
• Double BAFTA awards for sci-fi legends Wallace & Gromit 
• Flow beats W&G to the animation Oscar win
• Isaac Asimov's short stories get a remix (possibly only in the UK for now)
• New online game Atomfall, partly inspired by Quatermass and other UK SF
  

 

Here's the episode:

 

 

 

 

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