8 British Sci-Fi Shows You Totally Forgot About

Britain has a difficult relationship with science fiction. We have spawned some of the greatest sci-fi writers, creators and directors, but are seemingly embarrassed by our roots in the genre. We view it as being for children or geeks, while the general populous are too grounded to enjoy these strange and often bizarre shows.

I often recall my parents saying “well this is just silly” when a rubber faced alien would appear. A popular comment in our household was my mum saying “have you ever noticed how all the aliens speak English?” to which my dad would always reply “you aren’t meant to notice that!” followed by a cheeky wink. It shouldn’t be a surprise that a number of shows fall through the cracks and are quickly forgotten even by the most hardened fan. So here’s a few Sci-fi shows from the past couple of decades that may have slipped your memory.

 

Survivors (2008-2010, BBC)

Survivors was based on the Terry Nation book which in turn was adapted from Nations’ own 1975 BBC television series, also called Survivors. Survivors follows the story of a group of individuals who are within the Earths 1% of survivors of the ‘European Flu’. The opening 90-minute pilot episode features a number of high profile British television actors, not giving you a clue to who will live and who will die, and it works to an extent.

At the end of the episode the gang are all in place to continue the show as the main cast and it’s a good show, to a degree. Playing out like The Walking Dead only sans the zombies (so exactly like The Walking Dead, I kid!) the group takes up residence in a large house and each begin their own respective story threads, the only issue being as they’re a little unfocused.

The only character to have an aim is Abby (Julie Graham) who is searching for her son. However she can often be quite annoying given her “everyone must work together”  attitude, despite the fact that the world has gone to hell. That’s the main problem with Survivors, it’s well acted but filled with uninteresting characters. Tom (Max Beesley) seems to be a rather interesting character but it doesn’t last. In the pilot he’s shown to be a ruthless villain but by the end of the show it feels as though he’s become the angry tough guy with a heart of gold, despite the fact he murdered a innocent prison guard and it was alluded to that he planned to rape a vulnerable woman in the first episode. Nice.

Survivors lasted two series in between 2008 and 2010, debuting to audiences of nearly 7 million. But by the mid-run in 2010 it dropped to just over 3 million and was cancelled due to low ratings at the end. Survivors is definitely worth a watch. It has aged fairly well, the problem is that it doesn’t know whether it wants to be a Saturday night mainstream sci-fi show or a gritty post apocalyptic drama series. Also the soundtrack feels rather lightweight for the grim setting of the show, sounding more akin to a darker moment in Doctor Who or Torchwood.

 

Hyperdrive (2006-2007, BBC)

Hyperdrive was a BBC comedy written by Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil. It followed the misadventures of Captain John Henderson (Nick Frost) and his crew aboard the HMS Camden Lock on an intergalactic mission to protect the interests of Great Britain in a changing galaxy. The cancellation of Red Dwarf in 1999 left a massive Sci-fi comedy shaped hole in people’s hearts and Hyperdrive was seen as the show to fill that hole.

Two talented writers who collectively had worked on Black Books, Big Train, Little Britain and The Armstrong and Miller Show amongst others, made people believe the material would be strong. A great cast featured Nick Frost hot off the back of Shaun of the Dead, Miranda Hart about to break into the mainstream by appearing in Not Going Out and starring in Miranda and Dan Antopolski who had been nominated for a number of comedy awards.

Surely Hyperdrive couldn’t fail. It did, and not even the fantastic Kevin Eldon could save it. It’s worth a viewing and the show does still have a small yet loyal following. The main problem is that the show wasn’t funny, the cast do their best with the material but there’s little to go on. The situations the characters are put in are often funny, but the characters themselves aren’t.

 

Jeopardy (2002-2004, CBBC)

You’d be forgiven for not knowing what Jeopardy is – and just to clear one thing up for our American cousins, it’s nothing to do with the game show of the same name. Airing on the BBC as part of their children’s’ BBC brand, Jeopardy was created by Tim O’Mara and it actually won a BAFTA Children’s award for the show, yet is largely unknown and has seldom been repeated.

It followed a group of school children and their teacher who have a UFO group at their school in Falkirk, Scotland and all go on a school trip UFO spotting in the Australian outback (this school sounds awesome!). The first series is very much by the numbers; the group witness lights in the sky, Leon is bitten by a poisonous snake and their anti venom is missing, their guide goes for help but goes missing and their teacher follows suit, leaving the kids to fare for themselves.

The series plods along using a Blair Witch inspired found footage gimmick but at the end of the first series the show finds itself in Scooby Doo territory when the lights in the sky turn out not to be UFOs but the work of jewel thieves. The thieves are caught and the group await rescue.

That’s when things take a turn for the interesting. The last thing that happens in series one is the group being abducted by real UFOs, which makes the following series’ much more interesting. Missing students, bizarre doppelgängers, a ‘red eye’ virus and government conspiracy all make series two and three much more interesting, even if the kids make some huge out of character and simply moronic decisions.

The show also had multiple endings and during its original run on CBBC viewers were asked to vote for which ending they wanted, giving them the choice ‘spooky’, ‘happy’ or ‘surprising’. In its original run the show the UK viewers voted for the spooky ending, which sees two of the students cause a paradox and come face to face with their past selves, before succumbing to the red eye virus and leaving their fates uncertain. The Australian run saw the Aussies vote for the happy ending and during a repeat on the CBBC channel saw the happy ending once again broadcast. The ‘surprising’ ending has never been broadcast.

It’s worth a look, but do bare in mind that this is essentially a children’s show and it hasn’t aged particularly well. Some nice performances from the kids themselves, the plot meanders a bit and characters have an annoying fashion of acting stupidly or behaving incredibly out of character, just to keep the plot moving it would seem. Worth a viewing.

 

Strange (2002,2003, BBC)

Strange was an unusual show for the BBC to produce. Back in 2002 it was still under the grip of Director-General Greg Dyke, a man famous amongst Sci-fi fans for cancelling Doctor Who. Dyke was, according to people who knew him at the time, not a fan of science fiction. He saw it as looking cheap and poorly made, viewing it as niche programming and to be honest, he was kinda right.

That’s what makes Strange so strange, it was produced toward the end of Dyke’s run as Director-General and created by 2point4children creator Andrew Marshall. 2point4children had been a huge success for the BBC and picked up 14 million viewers at its peak, so it seems that the BBC had given him free reign to create his next production. That could be a possible reason for the show being commissioned along with the fact it wasn’t a straight sci-fi show, but more of a light horror.

Strange follows John Strange, a former priest who has dedicated himself to hunting demons and to clear his name for a series of gruesome murders he is implicated in. The show is very much a ‘monster of the week’ type affair, each hour long episode being an entirely single story which makes it easy to dip in and out of. The cast are pretty good, Richard Coyle as usual makes a likeable lead, Samantha Janus is a solid supporting actress and Ian Richardson always makes a solid villain. He’s not the antagonist here but he still eats up every scene he appears in.

While I’ve stated that it was unusual for the BBC to take a chance on such a show back in the early 2000s, that could be why it took so long to get from pilot to full series. The pilot aired in early 2002 and a full series wasn’t aired until mid 2003. Perhaps Strange was commissioned as an afterthought? It seems the BBC didn’t think too much of it either, broadcast in infrequent time slots on Saturday night. It also had the same issue as the aforementioned Survivors: did it want to be a gritty tale of a demon hunter or a Saturday night light horror romp?

The end product falls somewhere between the two. Strange is worth a watch. I was initially going to say it was worth a look for curiosity only, and that it is an interesting precursor to the Doctor Who reboot which would come some years after, but I actually enjoyed the episodes of Strange I reviewed for this article. It’s a nice little show. Not all of its episodes are equal in terms of quality, but Strange is a good show which gives you a glimpse into the BBC dipping their toe back into the world of monsters and weirdness.

 

The Strangerers (2000, Sky)

Following series six of Red Dwarf, co-creator Rob Grant decided to leave the show. The reasons for this have been never clear, rumours of an argument about creative differences have never been proven and so the truth has never come out. Grant later stated that he left the show so he would have more on his gravestone than just Red Dwarf and so he went on to create two new shows, a medieval sitcom called Dark Ages which has also been forgotten (and rightly so!) and The Strangerers for Sky One.

Starring Mark Williams and Jack Doherty, it follows two cadets on their first information gathering mission to planet earth on behalf of a vegetable planet. The inexperienced vegetable aliens are left alone when their supervisor (Milton Jones) is accidentally decapitated and killed by a distracted lorry driver. Believing this to be a test, they attempt to reattach the supervisors head and take him along with them.

Much of the humour from this show comes from the cadets, Flynn and Niven, attempting to act ‘normal’ as they go about carrying out all the rituals that normal humans carry out on a day to day basis like ‘the sleeping ritual’ and ‘the eating ritual’ in an attempt to pass as human beings. Naturally, it never goes according to plan, from always tipping your hat to a lady no matter the circumstances to eating a cup of tea with a fork, they wind up looking anything but human.

Unfortunately the show was very slow moving and felt more like a six episode series stretched to nine. Sky have lot of financial capital behind them, so it’s odd that The Strangerers looks so low budget. Sky’s programming was mainly American imports and rumour had it that they were under pressure by the Independent Broadcasting Authority to produce more native content. Perhaps The Strangerers was one of the shows created to appease the IBA, while Sky still put most of its budget into imports.

The show ended on a cliffhanger, but due to low ratings no second series was commissioned. It’s hard to recommend watching The Strangerers. Mark Williams and Jack Doherty are both charming as Flynn and Niven respectively, but Mark Heap, Sarah Alexander and a number of other talented cast members are wasted. The direction was basic and poorly shot. The humour, aside from the early attempts to walk and eat and a few minor gags here and there is simply non-existent. Red Dwarf fans might get something from this and there are a few dedicated fans out there, but the show has never been repeated or released in any way. That speaks volumes.

 

The Vanishing Man (1997-1998, ITV)

Now now, The Vanishing Man. I had vague memories of this show from the late 90s. I had hoped to watch some episodes to remind me more of the show, but it seems nearly impossible to dig up much on this series. Created by Anthony Horowitz, The Vanishing Man was a comedy-drama which had a pilot in 1997 and a six part series in 1998 starring Neil Morrissey as Nick Cameron, who while in prison is experimented on and is accidentally (if I remember correctly) given the ability to turn invisible, but only after he gets wet.

That does seem rather a precise way to make yourself go invisible so it would’ve been nice to see how this played out in the series. I do recall one instance where he was riding a motorbike and it began to rain, leading the bike to appear as if it was riding on its own. It’s funny laugh, you dog!

From what I recall the pilot was pretty solid and the series was pretty poor. The general reaction was that the show had great special effects but a bland story. However I seem to remember the effects being pretty substandard even for the time it was shot. Should you watch this? I’m not totally sure anymore, I haven’t seen it recently myself. Give it a go if you can find it, because I certainly couldn’t!

 

Scavengers (1994-1995, ITV)

Scavengers is a rather unique addition to this list as it is a Science fiction game show shown on ITV in the mid-nineties. Channel 4 had been having huge success with The Crystal Maze since 1990 and everyone wanted a piece of the action. ITV finally got in the act with Scavengers in 1994.

One problem that plagues ITV even to this very day is the channel usually contract a finite amount of presenting talent and these presenters usually host multiple shows. However it sometimes becomes apparent that simply crowbarring someone onto a show doesn’t work and this is very apparent with Scavengers. Scavengers premise was rather good, two teams of Scavengers ventured on-board the dilapidated cargo ship Cyclops to scavenge salvage led by their commander. The first problem was the commander was Commander John Leslie. Yes, John ‘Wheel of Fortune‘ Leslie. And it does look as weird as it sounds.

The teams competed in various physical challenges, usually things like ‘recover 10 fuel rods from the waste compactor’ or ‘recover 2 transmitters from the airlock’. While an interesting idea, it didn’t have the fun of The Crystal Maze, nor did its presenter have the charisma of Richard O’Brien or Edward Tudor-Pole. Scavengers did look impressive and a fair bit of cash looks as though it had been spent on the production. At the same time it looks terribly ‘nineties’.

What Scavengers lacks is fun, and Commander John Leslie is not at all convincing as the kind of person who scavenges space derelicts. Also, having John Leslie as host ties the show to reality and makes it difficult to take the show seriously. The show should’ve been hosted by someone who wasn’t a household name. Scavengers is worth a watch for sick curiosity. Watch it if you want to see why Sci-fi game show isn’t a genre. But if you want to watch this to enjoy it, you probably wont.

 

Space Precinct (1994-1995, BBC/Sky)

As a child, Gerry Anderson was a sort of puppet based god to me. I had been a massive fan of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Stingray and Terrahawks. Gerry Anderson had a wonderful way of portraying adult story-lines within a children’s show. Seriously, I recall gun fights, murder and people having bombs attached to their necks in Gerry Anderson shows. So when the BBC announced they would be producing a brand new Gerry Anderson live action television series, I was hyped.

Space Precinct‘s pilot was actually aired in 1987 under the name Space Police, and for an 80’s TV pilot the model effects looked awesome. When Space Precinct debuted in 1994 it was already one of the most expensive shows Anderson ever produced. The show followed the exploits of Patrick Brogan (Ted Shackelford) who had served for years as an NYPD detective before transferring to the Demeter City Police Department on the planet Altor, where Brogan must adjust to life on an alien world and solving crimes committed by aliens (as well as humans).

While the show looks nice, the model effects don’t look as good as they did in the pilot which was made a good eight years earlier, although I have not seen the pilot in its entirety. The direction is average at best, British television standard. The performances aren’t the greatest. Ted Shackelford, who during the build up to this show the BBC kept banging on about being in Knots Landing, seems like a man who is on the verge of sacking his agent for this gig. The rest of the cast seem a bit middle of the road.

The animatronics, which I recall being pretty good, now don’t look great and they’ve basically built rubber animatronic heads which sit over the actors head.But with no padding to the actors body the head looks too large for the body, and overall just looks a bit strange. Also the model work for the city and crafts isn’t the best considering how good they look on shows like Red Dwarf. The explosions when ships crash look ridiculously silly due to their sheer size – they look comically large.

As mentioned earlier, Gerry Anderson shows were rather adult for the children’s audience they were aimed at. It seems obvious that Anderson wanted to produce serious, adult sci-fi, but the audience simply wasn’t there. People were willing to overlook violence in a show starring marionettes but when they started making live action shows, the adult stories twinned with childish robots and characters really rubbed against each other badly.

This affected Space Precinct‘s American syndication where network executives didn’t know where to schedule the show. Much like Space: 1999, which suffered from the same strange children/adult tones, it ended up in a graveyard slot and while it was popular in Europe, it killed any chance of a second series. Space Precinct is worth a look if you’re a fan of Gerry Anderson. But remember it’s a children’s show, despite the show wanting to make you think its something more than it is.