We are the Martians now...

I recently bought the BBC box set of the original Quatermass TV serials from the 1950s. For those of you who don't know, which I imagine is practically all of you, Quatermass was really the first science fiction TV show made for an adult audience. It treated the subject seriously with a contemporary setting. It was also incredibly popular. Ask anyone over the ago of 55 and they'll probably remember it.

For a man of bizarre interests like myself it was both fascinating and enjoyable. What staggered me was the jump in production quality from 1952 with the first Quatermass (The Quatermass Experiement) to 1959's Quatermass and The Pit. They looked 20 years apart, not 7.

Though they have slightly dated (well, parts of them have servely dated) I would recommend checking them out. If only for the ridiculously posh accent sported by the woman in the first Quatermass. Her voice is like how I imagine the Queen's telephone voice is, and the Queen speaking to God on the telephone at that.

Course the Queen speaking to God on the telephone might try and put on a working class accent. As a religious lady she must worry about all that stuff in the bible about 'it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person getting into heaven (or something)' while she eats her third swan of the day with her feet up on a butler.