Obscure cult TV shows don’t get more obscure than Object Z, a six-part sci-fi thriller written by Chris (Freewheelers) McMaster, which aired across October and November 1965. The series – about a rogue meteor hurtling towards Earth and apparently dooming the human race to absolute extinction – was hugely successful, its audience figures peaking at around 9 million, and it earned a sequel serial, Object Z Returns, the following year (which sadly no longer exists). We’re lucky that the original six-parter survives. This is a bleak, clearly Quatermass–inspired story of humanity facing its greatest existential crisis and the efforts of a stoic band of scientists, soldiers, politicians, astronomers and Trevor Bannister’s wry TV presenter Peter Barry to find a way to save the world from destruction. Tough, uncompromising, nihilistic – Object Z is powerful and demanding stuff. Oh, and by the way… it was made as teatime post-school entertainment for kids. Blimey…
McMaster wrote Object Z as an adult drama series, but when it was rejected, director Daphne Shadwell persuaded him to refashion it for Rediffusion (ITV’s pre-Thames TV London-based franchise) into a children’s serial. Refreshingly, no concessions were made for its new audience; there are no young heroic kids leading the charge, and its cast of characters consists of middle-aged boffins, politicians, soldiers and Arthur White’s ranting, fascistic trouble-maker Keeler, who sees the approaching threat as an opportunity to wrest control from the Government. The only remotely kid-friendly character is Barry’s elfin-featured assistant Delia Winters (Celia Bannerman), but she spends most of her time trailing around in his wake as he travels the world (well, the world as realised in Rediffusion’s tiny TV studios in Wembley) like an over-enthusiastic puppy.
As a determinedly studio-bound show, Object Z betrays TV’s origins as a theatre-based medium. The six episodes are wonderfully wordy – scene after scene of intense-looking people talking in offices, laboratories, missile control rooms, and mock-up TV studios. There are a handful of exterior sequences – including one eerie montage of deserted London streets in episode three – and the show makes brave stabs at recreating a rocket mission control in Woomera, a cave in the Highlands of Scotland, and even an Arabian Desert complete with actor Milton Johns in blackface as a Bedouin tribesman.
Object Z, by any reasonable standards, should be creaky and clunky and desperately dated. While there’s no denying that it’s very much ‘of its time’ (there are plenty of fluffed lines due to the fact that the show was recorded ‘as live’ and broadcast a day or so after taping), it’s actually a thrilling and exciting production because everyone’s taking it all terribly seriously, the story is genuinely thrilling, and McMaster’s clever, fast-paced scripts, for all their wordiness, are full of great ideas and rounded, interesting characters as well as a handful of storming cliffhangers. Just when it looks as if the story might be running out of steam, episode four delivers an ending that’s probably as close to jaw-dropping as we might expect from a cheap kids’ sci-fi thriller series from fifty years ago. The show does lose a bit of momentum in its two final episodes (there’s a sense of exhaustion creeping into both the production and some of the performances), with perhaps one unlikely twist too many at the climax, but this is a startlingly good piece of long-forgotten archive cult TV that’s been beautifully restored by the BFI in a set that includes a wonderfully informative booklet, commentaries on every episode, shooting scripts and more. A real unexpected treat for fans of classic cult TV, Object Z deserves an A Plus.
OBJECT Z is available now on Blu-ray/DVD from the BFI.
