Please help identify another childhood TV memory from U.K. late 70s / early 80s. Horror/drama elements.
January 12, 2011 10:30 AM   Subscribe

Weird alien living-desk-lamp or exotic flower in some suburban British home. Another super-vague childhood TV memory question. U.K. late 70s/early 80s.

I have a memory of watching an early evening TV drama aimed at adults. Possibly on ITV, on a weekday, at a time that could have been no more than a couple of years either side of 1980.

In it, an alien or monster was present in someone's home, and it had an appearance similar to a desk lamp or perhaps a large exotic flower. It may even have been thought to be just that by the people who lived there, but as viewers we knew it was something alive and that could move. I vaguely remember people hanging around in the same room as it, possibly a party of some kind, and being completely oblivious to it. Then once they'd left, the thing moved around, though without leaving the spot (on a side table?) it was placed on, and perhaps glowed and pulsed bit in a sort of Cronenbergian body horror way.

I don't remember any more than that, as I recall having to stop watching due to going somewhere or perhaps parents overruling what we were watching on TV. So I have no idea what happened next: whether people discovered it, whether it was friendly or pulled out a ray gun, etc.

It definitely had a tense tone to it. Not a comedy type of situation like Little Shop of Horrors. That said, it may have been intended that we took a sympathetic view of this thing; perhaps it was trying to blend in and hide for its own safety. I think it was before E.T. came out, but maybe it was inspired by it.

These are the things I don't think it is from:

Sapphire and Steel (pretty sure)
Hammer House of Horror (though I wouldn't rule it out)
Tales of the Unexpected
Beasts
Day of the Triffids (definitely not a triffid)
Dr. Who (definitely not)
The Tomorrow People (definitely not)

That's not because I have rewatched every episode of those programmes, but because I've recently watched some of each of them and don't think my memory fits with their style.

Thanks if anyone has any clue!
posted by galaksit to Grab Bag (4 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Response by poster: Oops, missed a detail: I think it was a one-off story, perhaps half an hour to an hour in length, but may have been part of a series.
posted by galaksit at 10:32 AM on January 12, 2011


Not British - but the alien as an un-noticed flower concept did appear in Invasion of the Body Snatchers - 1978.
posted by rongorongo at 11:10 AM on January 12, 2011


Maybe a rerun of The Quartermass Experiment?

Was it in black and white or colour?
posted by fight or flight at 11:14 AM on January 12, 2011


Response by poster: Thanks!

In colour and I think it was roughly contemporary. I am a Quatermass buff so I'm confident it was not that.

Good point about Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It was definitely a British setting, though.
posted by galaksit at 11:18 AM on January 12, 2011


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