 In 1965 Kneale had been approached by the producer of the BBC2 science @-@ fiction anthology series Out of the Unknown to write a new one @-@ off 75 @-@ minute Quatermass story for the programme . Nothing came of this , but seven years later he was commissioned by the BBC to write a new four @-@ part Quatermass serial , based in a dystopian near future world overrun with crime , apathy , martial law and youth cults . The serial was announced as a forthcoming production by the BBC in November 1972 , and some model filming was even begun in June 1973 , but eventually budgetary problems and the unavailability of Stonehenge — a central location in the scripts — led to the project 's cancellation . " It lingered through the summer and slowly died as a project , " he later commented . 
