Object Z
Entry updated 20 March 2024. Tagged: TV.
UK tv series (1965). Associated-Rediffusion Television. Produced and directed by Daphne Shadwell. Written by Chris McMaster. Cast includes William Abney, Celia Bannerman, Trevor Bannister, Brandon Brady, Margaret Neale, Ralph Nossek, Denys Peek and Julian Somers. Six 24-minute episodes. Black and white.
Professor Ramsay (Nossek) and other Scientists report that a meteoroid with a diameter of six or more miles is on collision course with Earth, threatening Disaster; the bad news is duly announced by the UK Prime Minister (Somers). The UK, USA and USSR co-operate on the design and construction of a Rocket with a 400-megaton nuclear warhead, intended to destroy or divert the approaching "Object Z". Tension builds until, in the final episode, the menace is revealed as a Scientific Hoax devised by Ramsay's international cabal of scientists, intended to unite the world against a common threat and put an end to the Cold War. The deception is reminiscent of that perpetrated in The Big Eye (1949) by Max Ehrlich. As a closing twist, a real approaching object is detected ...
Despite its low budget and use of stock footage, Object Z is remembered as an effective Children's SF production; Chris McMaster had originally written it as adult drama but was persuaded to adapt it as Television for children.
In the six-episode sequel series Object Z Returns (1966), the approach of the new intruders – it turns out there are three of them – causes widespread Climate Change problems, with Earth freezing and a new Ice Age threatened. The incoming artefacts prove to be under Alien control, and there is a race (led by Ramsay, who had been consigned to Prison but is now released) to establish First Contact and persuade the aliens to change course. This is eventually achieved. [DRL]
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