Reflecting on the serial, Nigel Kneale said, "Frankly, I was never happy with the whole idea in the first place. The central idea was too ordinary". Although Kneale was pleased with the high production values, he was dissatisfied with the casting, believing that John Mills "didn't have the authority for Quatermass". He was similarly unimpressed with Simon MacCorkindale, noting that "We had him in "Beasts" playing an idiot and he was very good at that". Kneale disliked the depiction of the Planet People, as his inspiration had been angry punks rather than hippies (as evidenced by his portrayal of Kickalong as a gun-toting lunatic who commits multiple motiveless murders). Producer Ted Childs thinks that "the primary problems with it were (a) it was perhaps too depressing a story for a popular television audience and (b) the punters were used to a fairly high standard of technical presentation from American television... And we just couldn't afford that". Executive producer Verity Lambert's opinion is that it "didn't have the staying power of the originals, but then that's almost inevitable when you try to bring something back in a slightly different form".