MISBEGOTTEN HOTCH-POTCH of 70s production values and 50s plotlines which was both bizarre and dull, often simultaneously. Long sequences of greenhouse construction in slo-mo on the Martian surface (the 70s) mixed poorly with smoking rockets, retro aliens and minimalist Martian cities (the 50s, and how!) ROCK HUDSON was head explorer, RODDY MacDOWELL head alien, and GAYLE HUNNICUT was… Gayle Hunnicut.
Mike Smith
August 17, 2012 at 7:59 pm
Have to correct a minor error here. Roddy MacDowell was not the head alien but the rather ineffectual cleric, Father Stone (not to be confused with the priest of the same name in Father Ted).
I agree that it ended up as a mess, but an interesting one, despite the laughable special effects.
THX 1139
August 28, 2019 at 1:24 pm
This was shown on Saturday nights where it failed to impress the viewing several, but I thought it was really scary, especially the bit where the old couple think their dead son has returned and is standing outside their house in the dark. Plus (controversial opinion) the music is excellent and the whole concept of the Earth being wiped out so the human settlers on Mars can never go home is very haunting.
Glenn Aylett
August 31, 2019 at 10:32 am
I can remember one of the episodes where Earth is in ruins and some woman who was probably a stripper doing some weird dance in the ruins before the planet explodes. Rather surreal and a different BBC One offering for Saturday nights in the Bill Cotton era, and also the BBC was criticised for wasting money on The Martian Chronicles, which didn’t rate that well and was expensive. I thought it was OK, though.
George White
May 25, 2024 at 1:17 pm
At the time, it was the BBC’s most expensive drama series, even though the Beeb only put only 500,000 of the 6 million dollar budget. But this meant that the series had to be shot in Britain and the Commonwealth i.e. Malta, however, it was not made at BBC studios or with crew, being an independent production for the BBC, but instead in one of the big film studios with British film crewmen, causing some minor union ructions. I believe the BBC funding came through the acquisitions department, and when a similar deal happened with the 1981 A Town Like Alice, unlike Martian Chronicles, the BBC were uncredited.
Glenn Aylett
May 25, 2024 at 6:15 pm
The BBC was struggling financially at the start of the eighties, with inflation running at 20% and the licence fee struggling to keep up, and The Martian Chronicles was blasted for its cost and its poor ratings even if it was quite good and had star names like Rock Hudson and Roddy Mc Dowall. Similarly four years later, another BBC voyage into science fiction( although a BBC production), The Tripods, was criticised for costing £ 5 million to produce and delivering low ratings and not being exciting enough.
Richardpd
May 26, 2024 at 11:41 pm
Another interesting transatlantic co-production with the casting & behind the scenes goings on almost as interesting as what appeared on the screen.
Granada contributed some episodes of a Ray Bradbury anthology series later in the 1980s.
Glenn Aylett
May 27, 2024 at 12:48 pm
I think the BBC was better at making its own British based fantasy dramas in the eighties, especially if they had a bigger budget and done on location.( One reason Doctor Who started to look very cheap and dated by the mid eighties was the reliance on studio sets). I’m sure The Day Of The Triffids and The Mad Death looked far more convincing as they were made on location in London and in the Highlands, where you could just imagine one of the plants or a rabid dog attacking you in a London street or a shopping centre, rather than a cheap looking set of a supermarket.
Richardpd
May 28, 2024 at 10:30 pm
The Tripods probably suffered from being made on videotape, even though some of the effects were good for the time.