There's no doubt in my mind the most influential dramatist in the history of British television is Nigel Kneale . He was the script writer who defined that television drama should be as ambitious as cinema while remaining as intimate as theater . He will always be synonymous with his QUATERMASS serials but has also contributed other great pieces of drama over the decades . One of them THE YEAR OF THE SEXUAL OLYMPICS has steadily become something of a legend in itself in that it predicts a future obsession with what is now described as " reality TV " , so does the teleplay live up to its legendary status ?
In my opinion not really . OLYMPICS does have some very clever concepts but somewhere along the line the ideas seem somewhat badly executed . The story itself seems to owe a lot to Orwell's 1984 telescreens aren't used to spy on people but to rather control them . People are natural voyeurs and if you give them what they want via the telescreen they'll eventually become desensitized to their desires . You can understand the point behind Kneale's logic but you're also left with the feeling that Kneale has failed to bring a bigger subtext to his subject . Certainly in his 1979 QUATERMASS serial you recognise a wonderful subtext of science vs faith with science at its most dangerous and destructive eventually saving the human race but there's a spark of genius missing from this 1968 drama
The production values do not help either . I for one am grateful that it's preserved on monochrome . Can you imagine how garish and gaudy everything would have looked in colour ? It's a constant problem of late60s/early 70s film and television where the future tends to look too futuristic to remain credible . Kneale doesn't help his cause either by having everyone talk in a trans-Atlantic " Newspeak " . Again you can understand the thinking behind this - the World has become assimilated by American pop culture - but combined with Michael Elliot's rather weak direction it's like listening to a parody of American film moguls and makes for a rather ridiculous acting style not helped by deliberately written idiosyncratic speech patterns where
" Does he know what he's saying ? " becoming
" He know what he say ? which soon becomes irritating . It's not helped either by the casting of Leonard Rossiter and Brian Cox whose future well known roles become more of a hindrance than an advantage
All told THE YEAR OF THE SEX OLYMPICS is a massive disappointment . As many people here have said it shows sign of prophecy but this is heavily negated by rather poor production values , weak directing but most of all a lack of streamlined storytelling on the part of the writer . One can't help thinking how well this drama would have been remembered if it wasn't for the birth of reality TV at the turn of the century
