Thomas Nigel Kneale, one of the most influential writers / screenwriters of science fiction and horror narratives and tele- / screenplays, passed away on October 29th at the age of 84. Kneale was responsible for a genuine treasure trove of fantastic materials, starting with his writing The Quartermass Xperiment in the early 1950s and continuing on with a slew of highly imaginative and thought-provoking scripts for projects as diverse as the BBC's 1984, The Road, The Year of the Sex Olympics, and The Stone Tape. Kneale continued working well into the 1990s, his most notable contribution later in life likely the teleplay for Herbert Wise's terrifying adaptation of Susan Hill's The Woman in Black.
Nigel Kneale's wonderfully skewed vision of life (and afterlife) on our planet and beyond will be missed.
More on Kneale at Hammer Films and IMDb.
Wasn't Kneale to TV what HP Lovecraft was to literature? Namely, the guy that melded sci-fi and horror so brilliantly, everyone just had to emulate to some degree. I still think "Quatermass and the Pit" is jaw-dropping in its intellect and ideas. It's a shame that the original TV series of "The Quatermass Experiment" is lost (I am sure I'm right on this, but would love to be told I'm wrong), because if it improved one dot on the great Hammer version, which i am sure it would have, it must have been truly brilliant.
kneale was important to TV sci-fi, sci-fi in general - and yes, so impressive was his work you'd be hard pushed to not appear to reference it if you take an intellectual / substantial approach to the genre.
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