1990 (TV series)
Encyclopedia
1990 is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 then-futuristic political drama television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 series produced by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 and shown in 1977 and 1978.

Plot

The series is set in a dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...

n future in which Britain is under the grip of the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...

's Department of Public Control (PCD), a tyrannically oppressive bureaucracy riding roughshod over the population's civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...

.

Edward Woodward
Edward Woodward
Edward Albert Arthur Woodward, OBE was an English stage and screen actor and singer. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , Woodward began his career on stage, and throughout his career he appeared in productions in both the West End in London and on Broadway in New York...

 plays Jim Kyle, a journalist on the last independent newspaper called The Star, who turns renegade and begins to fight the PCD covertly. The officials of the PCD, in turn, try to provide proof of Kyle's subversive activities.

Background

Exposition in this series was mainly performed by facts occasionally dropped into dialogue requiring the viewer to piece together the basic scenario.

This state of affairs was precipitated by a critical financial collapse (possibly an irrecoverable national bankruptcy) in the early 1980s, triggering a de facto state of emergency, cancelling the General Election and causing the economy (and imports) to drastically contract forcing stringent rationing of housing, goods and services. These are distributed according to a person's status in society as determined (and constantly reviewed) by the PCD on behalf of the government, which is union-dominated and socialistic in nature. As a consequence, the higher-status individuals appear to be civil servants and union leaders. An exception to this is import/export agents, which appear to be immune to state control due to their importance to the remnants of the economy. The House of Lords has been abolished and turned into an exclusive dining club. State ownership of businesses appears to be near-total and taxation of wealth and income appears to be very high. The ruling monarch is male, but his identity is never made clear. The currency is the Anglodollar which appears to have little value overseas due to the poor quality of British exports. The armed forces have been run down to the extent that they are little more than an internal security force. This is made clear in one episode where the RAF is described as consisting of little more than a few dozen counter-insurgency helicopters.

Although running the bureaucratic dictatorship, the state appears to shy away from explicit political violence, preferring to set up psychiatric pseudo-hospitals called 'Adult Rehabilitation Centres' which employ electro-convulsive treatments to 'cure' dissidents. Ordinary criminals found guilty of traditional and new economic and social crimes are prevented from clogging up the prison system by having short sentences during which they are force-fed 'misery pills', which induce severe depression during their incarceration. Despite this, fatalities and injuries do occur due to the PCD's lack of democratic accountability but these are misreported or ignored by the state-controlled press and television or are suppressed by the print unions on the last independent newspaper in the UK. The state can also declare a person to be a 'non-citizen' which denies them any entitlement whatsoever to consumer goods, accommodation or food. Labour is controlled by a mandatory closed shop in every workplace. For at least part of the series, the country is on a three-day working week, presumably to conserve energy or to promote full employment through job sharing
Job sharing
Job sharing is an employment arrangement where typically two people are retained on a part-time or reduced-time basis to perform a job normally fulfilled by one person working full-time. Compensation is apportioned between the workers, thus leading to a net reduction in per-employee income...

. Taking a second job is illegal as is 'parasitism', defined as claiming state benefits while fit for work.

Emigration is a key problem with a steady 'Brain Drain' countered by PCD Emigration officers who try to watch every port and airfield. Despite this, professional and skilled labour is fast disappearing from the country in a similar manner to East Germany before the Berlin Wall. This is a neat reversal of the immigration controversies of the mid-to late 1970s in the UK.

Dubbed "Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...

plus six" by its creator, Wilfred Greatorex
Wilfred Greatorex
Wilfred Greatorex was an English television and film writer, script editor and producer. He was creator of such series as Secret Army, 1990, Plane Makers and its sequel The Power Game, Hine, Brett, Man At The Top, Man From Haven and The Inheritors. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1969 film...

, 1990 also stars Robert Lang
Robert Lang (actor)
Robert Lang was an English actor of stage and television. Laurence Olivier invited him to join the new National Theatre Company, at the Old Vic, Robert Lang was already earning high praise as an actor. From 1971 until his death he was married to Ann Bell, best known for her portrayal of Marion...

, Barbara Kellerman
Barbara Kellerman
Barbara R. Kellerman is an English actress, noted for her film and television roles. She trained at Rose Bruford College. Kellerman's Jewish parents had fled Nazi Germany and settled in Leeds, briefly living in Manchester before returning to Leeds by 1952...

, John Savident
John Savident
John Savident is a British actor, best known for playing the part of Fred Elliott in the soap opera Coronation Street from 1994 to 2006. And also was a frequent guest on Soccer AM alongside fellow actor Jack 'The Rigger' Spooner....

, Yvonne Mitchell
Yvonne Mitchell
Yvonne Mitchell was an English stage, television and film actor. She was born Yvonne Frances Joseph, but in 1946 changed her name by deed poll to Yvonne Mitchell . Her mother's maiden name was Mitchell. After beginning her acting career in theatre, Mitchell progressed to films in the late 1940s...

 (in her last role), Lisa Harrow
Lisa Harrow
Lisa Harrow is an actress, noted for her roles in British theatre, films and television.- Early life :Harrow was born in Auckland and attended Auckland University...

, Tony Doyle and Clive Swift
Clive Swift
Clive Walter Swift is an English character comedy actor and songwriter. He is best known for his role as character Richard Bucket in the British television series Keeping Up Appearances. He is less known for his role as character Roy in the British television series The Old Guys...

.

Two series, of eight episodes each, were produced and broadcast on BBC2
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

in 1977 and 1978. The series has never been repeated, nor received any official DVD or video release.

Two novelizations based on the scripts were released in paperback by the publisher Sphere; Wilfred Greatorex's 1990, and Wilfred Greatorex's 1990 Book Two.

External links

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