Quatermass - the shows, not the member

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I only recently got around to watching Quatermass...

I'd seen snippets but never the whole thing but the BBC DVD set got reduced from $40 to $15 so I grabbed it.

Wow...

Unfortunately only two episodes of the first show remain but I downloaded and watched the Hammer Movie (which was also quite good) before moving onto QM II. The second was good too but the third.... Quatermass and the Pit WOW....

I was interested in this as a forerunner for Doctor Who (and arguably the grand-daddy of British Science Fiction). I didn't expect much but it was much better than I expected.

Have other people seen this? Do they like it too.

I've also been lucky enough to get a hold of the DVD of the 2005 remake of The Quatermass Experiment while I was in the UK. I need to play it on my computer, but there you go. It's alright (Jason Flemyng, Indira Varma, David Tennant and Mark Gatiss are great), but I'm a little honked off that, compared to the original, you don't see the monster. In fact, while I was over in the UK, I found, quite by coincidence, a copy of the original scriptbook published by Penguin, something which I had been looking for for ages. I got it for six pounds, a veritable bargain.

I also have the DVD set for the TV serials. I actually love Quatermass and the Pit, but the titles and concept for Quatermass II was good, even if John Robinson wasn't quite the right person for the job.

Wow... I'll have to get hold of the 2005 version.

I didn't see the monster in the original anyway (because the BBC threw the tapes out with most of the early Doctor Who's and the Goodies...).

It's on one of the docos on the DVD set, in an interview with Nigel Kneale (he even shows the props with which they were made...gloves with weeds and plants stuck all over them), but there's also a good picture in the scriptbook. In fact, there's a small, colour-tinted picture, second from the bottom, on this website here:

http://www.bbctv-ap.co.uk/quater.htm

The 2005 version is a little hard to get, unless you go to the UK. I got it from the local HMV (from the one in Oxford Circus, from memory), and in fact, here's an interesting fact. Most DVDs over there appear to be region 2 and 4. And of the two region 2 only DVDs I got (Doctor Who: Lost in Time and The Quatermass Experiment remake), the Lost in Time set was actually region 4 as well! Unfortunately, The Quatermass Experiment is region 2 only, so I have to watch it on the computer (whose DVD playing software can be set to play region 2 DVDs, as long as I don't shift to another region, for as long as I wish. The upshot is, if I want, is that I can still, if I wish, play a lot of my normal Aussie DVDs on the computer, because they're dual region too).

The hammer version was hard to get too.

I looked locally but since nobody had it, I got it via torrent.

I would have been willing to pay for it but they never gave me a chance.

I guess I'll have to get the 2005 version that way too...

It's a shame, instead of all those re-releases of existing films in collectors sets, ultimate editions, special editions etc.. they should just release more films.