is there a name or a phrase for or anything much written about that distinctly British CREEPY VIBE prevalent in TV shows and movies of the '60s/'70s? (e.g. The Prisoner, Sapphire and Steel, Baker-era

Cool little BBC feature on Quartermass:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220427-quatermass-the-terrifying-sci-fi-that-changed-tv-forever

oh, i have a question.

what if anything does this have to do with ^ that quatermass? is there a wider meaning of the name?

https://dockstader.bandcamp.com/album/tod-dockstader-quatermass

Kneale got Quatermass from the phone book - one of the researchers at that centenary thing said they'd even tracked down the particular phone book in question, with a Mrs Quatermass listed.

Don't know how Dockstader came by that name tho

Going to do The Edge of Darkness here, even though it doesn't fit for a number of reasons – it doesn't have the CREEPY VIBE and it's from 1985. tho I think it's closer to the type than it looks on first inspection. Apologies, I couldn't be bothered to work round SPOILERS, so all spoilers I guess. You should watch this though. It's incredible.

BOB. PECK.
The line from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy about Jim Prideaux being made 'by the same firm that did Stonehenge' applies perfectly to Bob Peck. He seems bigger even than Joe Don Baker, which if you've seen Charley Varrick sounds like a hell of a statement. Wikipedia tells me he's actually an inch shorter at 6'1". still, Bob Peck looks he doesn't need to move for anyone and this makes his placidity potent and his portrayal of grief feel subterranean, a huge, implacable motive force. He's very still. This is all very important for his symbolic role, I think. The direction and editing show his mild eyes noticing everything. Other people spar off him, weighing him up with uncertain glances, unclear about his meaning and purpose.

The Sources of Information
This is very noticeable watching it now. It's in a middle place between computer databases and everything still being on a hard copy somewhere. Phone calls still needed. Having to go to places to collect information. It made me wonder how modern writers manage to move their characters about at all. What is the motivation to move someone from one place to another when an awful lot of essential information can be garnered online. It becomes more esoteric. Less about necessity.

This is from a time just before that conundrum is posed, so that phone calls and rendezvous and travel are all required. People may not be contactable when you need them. How Craven navigates the world of information is interesting. Detection doesn't happen as such – he is just *driven* (as Jedburgh says of him in the final episode) to acquire whatever he needs to get to the centre of the web. Craven finds recordings, notes, interrogates, interviews, a computer database, he uses psychic contact with his dead daughter, Emma, and talks to himself, he exists in a web of surveillance, data security and information secrecy, odd secret service functions. Colleagues consider him on the edge of sanity – one version of the 'edge of darkness' at play – and he himself wonders what territories he is walking in, especially when he loses the link with his Emma. It is becomes increasingly clear his role as a policeman is becoming entirely absorbed by an emotional quest. Quest? Yes, the motives behind the drive are sexualised, animistic, mythic, arthurian.

Sexualisation
His daughter, the absence of the mother, there's something going on here. You notice it in the car in the first episode - it's not entirely clear whether she's his daughter or his young girlfriend. It's in the notorious and powerful episode where he sniffs his dead daughter's dildo, working his way round her bedroom, trying to find, recover, feel her presence.

then there's his very peculiar interrogation technique, of one of the pair who was involved in her death, in the hospital where the mother died. He whispers tenderly and softly to the unconscious terrorist, near death, comforting and sensuously courting him, in order to get the information he needs.

So much!
It's super super dense, the writing, the direction, the acting - it all contains so much. the politics of energy and post-industrial environment, nature v humankind, a psychological portrait of grief, a nuclear era psychomachia - these themes in particular link this to something like Penda's Fen or Quatermass – all connected with Thatcherism, London, mining, masculinity. High relevant to emusk for example. But also the faces in this are alive with abrasive interaction, power plays, sizing each other up. There's an extremely memorable moment where we cut from Jedburgh (Joe Don Baker) in a combat jacket, running around in crisis mode, to him standing, cheerfully grinng, raising a stetson to a sworn enemy flying in from the States. People are not what they seem and are willing to play parts in the dance that's taking place. ie this programme doesn't take its viewers for fools, thank god.

As a by the bye – there's nothing like this era tv ('70s, '80s) for better conveying a grey London in the rain.

psycho psycho machia

so yeah about that. Jedburgh is basically Christianity; that's fairly heavily trailed. He is of course an extraordinary character – Chestertonian in his Christian exuberance to do good, a rather militant good, and to live life and kill enemy. He is clearly co-opted by state authority in the beginning, but recognises this and breaks from it into a sort of Manichean entity, driven to bring about Armageddon. Holding up the plutonium in his extended hands in the form of a cross at the conference. Craven is, as Jedburgh himself says, 'freeze-dried from some earlier epoch'. His an animistic world, variously portrayed as a tree and a stag. He represents the earth, and the Gaia theory, and survival beyond nuclear war. Pastoral v Nuclear makes it very much of that period of drama. And It's interesting to see this conversation – of nature being part of and surviving within the ambit of human's capitalistic behaviour – worked through by The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing.

How the show contains all this in an integrated way is something else that adds to its density, makes it potent like v good whisky.

i haven't seen the hollywood remake, though i'd like to, once i've rewatched this a couple of times.

Thanks Fizzles, a perceptive and insightful post as always! No it doesn't have the creepy vibe that this thread is all about but I think it's adjacent. The creepiness of the shows in this thread is obviously supernatural, whereas edge of darkness is trading on the very real idea of nuclear terror, which it does it subtly and creepily (the occasional shots of trains of nuclear waste rattling through the night) as well as much more explicitly (sluicing the tunnels with radioactive water, the dead body in the radiation suit at the hot cell). And not to throw the net of creepiness too wide but there's the idea of higher powers (governmental or extra governmental) always watching even when you don't know it - AZURE!

I have to say Jedburgh = Christianity passed me by on my previous viewings, if I rewatch I'll look out for it. I guess I would have characterised him as chaotic neutral.

I have no interest in seeing mel gibson's remake.

i do think there's an explicitly supernatural element, but yes, this is firmly in the nuclear space. there's a few things that cause me to locate it perhaps more closely to the vibe that might seem appropriate, but they're all fairly subliminal.

- the spring magically appearing where his daughter dies (Jedburgh quotes Hamlet when he sees it: 'Oh Jepthah, Judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou' which suggests biblical allusion on his part, but it can also be read as a sacred grove).
- the figuring of craven out of policeman into an avatar of nature, and his final mystical transformation into a stag (it's how he's last seen, and we only hear how he just disappears at the same time as a distant cry)
- the daughter as just on the edge of psychic projection and autonomous ghost
- christianity v nature worship allegory (if you do watch it again i'm interested in your thoughts – there are various key moments throughout, the co-opting and working with the state in the first place, but becoming a radical millenarian by an end seems to me deliberately allegorical)

i guess you could see it as a reverse of penda's fen, where nuclear and military appropriation and potential destruction of the land are a meaningful backdrop to the supernatural events. in this it's the reverse, the supernatural is a deep, unemphasised background to the nuclear and energy political thriller.

TKM should overruled Peck and turned him into a tree, as intended.

I've never seen The Edge of Darkness

Genuinely one of the greatest TV series ever, real justification-of-the-form stuff. I cannot imagine the circumstances which would lead to me watching an American remake.

There is something both supernaturally and actually-in-reality terrifying about dying of radiation poisoning (it’s invisible! but it kills you grotesquely). Proper horror

And obvs the Clapton/Kamen score is an incredible bullseye use of their limited ranges

Okay watching Mike Hodges' The Tyrant King on youtube (thanks Soref for the recommendation) and it has a distinctly creepy UK vibe - I think this would have disturbed me as a kid, especially with the Pink Floyd freakout jams.. it's not very supernatural (so far) but has sinister adults chasing children all over London

https://www.quartzcity.net/ilx/edgeofdarkness1.jpg
https://www.quartzcity.net/ilx/edgeofdarkness2.jpg

(I recently rewatched EoD and discovered a rich vein of screencaps)

Fizzles' analysis above deserves more space. I didn't pick up on Jedburgh = Christianity either, but admittedly I'm biased by the American style of Atomic Christianity/apocalyptic which would have told the story from Joe Don Baker's p.o.v. or something.

Anyway, back to pining away for the lost recordings of the original A For Andromeda

one of my friends recommended me two books called "Scarred For Life" by Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence, i've found them to be genuinely excellent considerations of all aspects of this kind of thing

Thread revival made me look up Sapphire and Steel and damn, is it as great as it sounds?

There was a vibe so many of these programs had which tripped me out when I’d catch them as a kid. For some reason my local PBS station (iirc) would air Blake’s 7 late at night and the atmosphere and style of it just felt very creepy and odd to me. I don’t know how creepy it actually is, this was something I was watching as a 9 or 10 yr old in the mid eighties.

sapphire and steel is a very slow by 2023 standards. it's also made all the weirder when you consider it went out at prime time early evening back when there were only 3 TV channels available.

and the various cases are wildly different

Sapphire and Steel is slow and of its time, yes, but it's wonderfully weird and entertaining. If you don't like the first episode, you can safely bail on the rest.

I would actually say that if you don't like the first episode, try going straight to the second season. The first season is good fun but a bit shonky, the second season is amazing imo. I can't remember quite how much you need to watch to get the 'lore' of the show, but I think you can do it this way without missing too much.

Just finished EoD. Extraordinary - thanks for highlighting it!

on reflection I think emil.y is right ... S1 of S&S is scary but has two cute kids getting lots of screen time; many would prefer the child-free horror of S2

Lots of quibbles about stuff but I would simply like to say I watched the first 2 stories at time of broadcast and the second one was the one that stuck

second one is extraordinary i think. it’s worth watching the first just to experience how deep and hard the second one goes. it’s pretty long.

I often wonder if this is why Space: 1999 failed to catch on. Lew Grade's business model involved selling UK shows to the US audience, which worked with The Saint and Danger Man because despite starring British actors and being written by British people everybody knew the brief. Meanwhile Gerry Anderson wanted to get into live action.

So his first show was UFO, which was a weird mixture of dayglow wigs and downbeat plots where the heroes always lost. And the Space: 1999, which had some awesome spaceships but every episode consisted of Martin Landau looking worried and Barry Morse looking worried and at the end of Landau would look at the camera and say "there's no hope for any of us, or for the people watching at home, because it's 1975 and there's just no hope, no hope at all".

Every single episode. They just couldn't suppress their Britishness. The Britishness leaked through. To this day I haven't seen Moonbase 3 but from what I've read it was much the same but without even aliens. Like Star Cops but ultra-70s.

I remember reading about a show called The Nightmare Man, which had Celia Imrie, and was one of those six-part one-offs made by the BBC. But with four parts. Adapted by Robert Holmes from a novel and shot on location with murky, creepy videotape:
https://www.thisishorror.co.uk/a-halloween-blast-from-the-past-the-nightmare-man/

I would have been five when it was on TV so my parents would not have let me watch it. I wasn't allowed to watch The Day of the Triffids either, although it was apparently marketed as action-packed fun for the family (with a Radio Times cover). Apart from the shot-on-video-in-the-rain look I think the complete lack of irony, the utter seriousness of it all, was the key thing that made shows like that work. The portentousness. And in the case of Sapphire and Steel, the measured pace.

Taggart. I remember that being unusually grim as well. It wasn't sci-fi or fantasy, or even set in an alternative world, but it was nastier than other detective shows.

I remember being aware of Edge of Darkness. It was apparently repeated on BBC1 almost immediately after it was broadcast on BBC2, which didn't happen often. I would have caught a repeat in the 1990s, by which time it was famous. I remember that beyond the subtext it also worked as a pacy action thriller - it felt cinematic in a way that stood out. I still remember the cliffhanger where Craven tries to find a working telephone. Wasn't the evil corporation's goal a space station?

The Nightmare Man is v good tho i recall being slightly underwhelmed. Got it on dvd somewhere, years since i watched it. Will dig it out and have another watch.

otm about the seriousness of it all. that isn’t a mode or tone you get so much These Days.

And! While I'm hyperactive I remember that Whoops Apocalypse - the TV show - was utterly unfunny but had a grim, almost joyless air to it. And given the casual racism and toplessness it now feels like an artefact from an alien planet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mwWhWtvJAw

Off the top of my head the ending was played completely straight as well, with Barry Morse - again - doing some acting. There was a film but it was basically slapstick.

second series of space 1999 was rejigged for an American audience - swapping out grumpy Barry Morse for the shape-shifting woman, slightly lighter, more romance.

first season is better imo

(did they ever explain where Barry Morse went?)

Back to Canada I assume.

So his first show was UFO, which was a weird mixture of dayglow wigs and downbeat plots where the heroes always lost. And the Space: 1999, which had some awesome spaceships but every episode consisted of Martin Landau looking worried and Barry Morse looking worried and at the end of Landau would look at the camera and say "there's no hope for any of us, or for the people watching at home, because it's 1975 and there's just no hope, no hope at all".

Ok, I've never had any desire to watch this before but now I'm sold!

Barbara Bain looks worried too.

'Black Sun' is my Space 1999 Series One go-to, absolutely batshit and bleak, until this brilliant 2001-style third act.

Really nice spooky feel to several season 1 eps in Space: 1999; there's the episode where Big Jim Sullivan is playing a coral sitar recital for the team, and that music underpins the rest of the show. Lots of ultra-wide angles, shadows and voids, and age-inappropriate scares. In season 2, the ambient lighting and colour palette get brighter, Maya solves everything by turning into an insect or whatever, and they all have a good laugh in the epilogue at Tony Anholt's homebrew. Not good!

xp

I'd have sold a kidney to own this. pic.twitter.com/NxmJUHQKWh

— Scarred for Life (@ScarredForLife2) March 20, 2023

^ all three of them looking worried

lol yes I love how despite all the attempts at HEY KIDS TOYS advertising that clip still feels bleak a f

Space 1999 is a good call, I can't think of too many contemporaneous U.S. shows that had something of that sinister vibe but that one did.

I watched the movie The Wonder (currently on Netflix) the other night on a giant TV with motion smoothing turned on, and the digital made it look very much like a low budget 70s or 80s BBC production. I thought it really added something, so if you're thinking about watching the movie, I recommend seeing it that way if possible.

Any good cultural studies type writing on the British archetype of the guy who knows more than everyone else and is a total asshole about it? Sherlock Holmes, old school Who, Saphire & Steel...

Henry Higgins …

finally trudging through The Omega Factor after being unimpressed with the first couple of eps when i first bought the DVDs years ago - it is pretty thin gruel, really terrible writing and blah characters - Louise Jameson's presence and outfits probably the high point - there SHOULD be an excellent show here, secret govt department investigating paranormal goings-on in 1979 ought to be a fuckin cracker but it just doesn't work, what a shame

Jonathan Miller's Alice in Wonderland? was on bbc4 yesterday

I love this! I always associate in my mind with Spike Milligan's The Bed Sitting Room (I think Peter Cook is the only person who's in both?)

it's reminding me of Valerie and her Week of Wonders a bit

the Ravi Shankar soundtrack reminded me of this thing in some of Milligan's work where he was raised in India, and there was this idea of India as this exotic, foreign place with strange customs, and the UK as being 'home' and normality, but ofc from his point of view it was India that was home and the UK that was was the strange exotic place - this perspective of the UK as a weird alien civilisation with odd customs