The control of the rocket has been taken over by the zombies. They are being led by zombified John Dillon (John Stone). Dillon gives Quatermass (John Robinson) a directive signed by the top government official. This is proof that the aliens control the government. Hoping to appeal to his human side, Quatermass tries to convince the essence of Dillon to cast off the alien controller. It appears that his efforts may have worked. When Dr. Pugh (Hugh Griffith) tells him that the rocket needs to launch, Dillon backs off.
The only ones with the knowledge to be able to launch and handle the rocket are Quatermass and Pugh. Despite their age the two men put on pressurized suits and board the rocket. The rocket launches with no interference and heads for the asteroid. Other than a regular meteor shower, the trip is itself is uneventful. Seeds of doubt begin to sow when Paula (Monica Grey) tells her father that Dillon is mumbling “they must reach it”. The assumed reference is that the ammonids want the spaceship to reach the asteroid.
Once the ship reaches the asteroid Quatermass realizes that during the plant explosion, when Pugh was subjected to the gas cloud, he was also exposed to the ammonids. Pugh is now possessed by an ammonid entity. His mission is to land the ship intact, kill Quatermass, and allow the ammonids to use the spaceship to invade Earth all at once.
A couple of the special effects people, Bernard Wilkie and Jack Kine had small parts as technicians helping Quatermass into his spacesuit. The suit that John Robinson wore was so heavy he couldn’t get to his mark for his scenes, so he had to be carried across the studio. The suits themselves are big ugly rubber things that are in two pieces, the torso and the pants. The gap between the two shows that they are in no way pressurized.
A lot of the special effects are not good, especially in the last episode when the two men are “in space”. It’s not surprising for a low budget fifties television show. The movie done in 1957 was better as far as effects are concerned but then they had a much bigger budget.
None of that takes away from how good the serial is. The story is interesting, and each episode has a cliffhanger reminiscent of American movie serials. One of my favorite aspects of the show is how it uses the premise from “The Quatermass Experiment” as a critical aspect of “Quatermass II”. What caused a problem for the previous series is the solution for this one.