Sea of Souls
Encyclopedia
Sea of Souls is a BBC
paranormal
drama series, based around the fictional activities of a group of investigators into psychic
and other paranormal
events. Produced in-house by BBC Scotland
, initially in association with Sony Pictures Television International, the series debuted on BBC One
in the UK in February 2004. A second series was shown from January 2005, with a third following in 2006 and then a two-part special in April 2007. The programme was created by writer David Kane, who also wrote the entire first series. The two-part special, unlike the previous series, was an independent production for BBC Scotland by Carnival Films
.
, Scotland
. In the first series he is assisted by Megan Sharma (Archie Panjabi) and Dr. Andrew Gemmill (Peter McDonald
), but these characters were replaced – without any on-screen explanation – in the second series by Justine McManus (Dawn Steele
) and Craig Stevenson (Iain Robertson
).
The series has seen the team encounter phenomena such as ghosts, reincarnation
and voodooism. Each series has consisted of six one-hour episodes, initially comprising three two-part story lines. The first series was shown on consecutive Monday and Tuesday nights, but for series two the transmission days switched to Saturday and Sunday. Other changes introduced in the second series included the introduction of sub-plots to help with the pacing of each storyline, and more Scottish-focused story lines, the first series having been criticised for the characters' frequent trips to London
.
The third series was broadcast from 7 January – 11 February 2006, each episode airing in a 9.10pm-10.10pm slot. For this third run the format had been changed — the series now consisted of six individual one-episode stories instead of three two-parters, with the episodes being shown once per week on Saturday nights. Executive producer and BBC Scotland Head of Drama Barbara McKissack explained the change in format as being "a much better, faster paced format for this kind of show."
Prominent guest stars in individual story lines have included Peter Capaldi
, Siobhan Redmond
, James Fleet
, Paul McGann
, John Hannah
, Jeff Rawle
and Colin Salmon
. The first two series have been released on DVD
in the UK. The programme has also been shown overseas, including in Australia on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
, which showed the first series from September 2005, with series two being shown on Sci Fi
in January 2007. It has also been broadcast to South America by HBO Latin America in 2006. In total, the series has been sold to over forty countries as of December 2005.
, but after he left to produce the revival of Doctor Who
, Stephen Garwood took over as producer for the second and third series.
Awards, held on 13 November 2005 at the Radisson SAS Hotel, Sea of Souls won Best Drama, beating Taggart
and Monarch of the Glen.
Is the main character over all and has featured in all series so far, though he featured much more predominantly in series one and two.
He is dependable and compassionate, and has changed throughout the run of the series. At the beginning Douglas was a sceptic, almost refusing to believe and denying anything paranormal. But as of series three he has become more open to the suggestion that not everything can be easily explained by science.
Justine McManus - Dawn Steele
After arriving in series two she struggled to gain the respect of co-workers, but one year on is much more self assured and is enjoying her new found friendship with Craig. She is a single mother of her 10 year old son Billy. We have not been introduced to his father, yet he does often look after Billy. She is empathic and considerate and has a knack with people. Right from the beginning it is clear that Justine has several paranormal abilities, she can apparently see the future (which featured in series three episode Oracle), sense things and see the dead. But none of these have been properly looked into as Justine is unsure of finding out the true nature of them. In series three her abilities are shown to be much more powerful than she could ever have imagined, especially when it seems she has passed them on to her son Billy.
Craig Stevenson - Iain Robertson
Also arrived in series two, Craig is often insensitive and arrogant towards people who seek the department's help, it's clear he's not a people person and he is quick to rush into things. In series three, a new friendship with Justine seems to have done him good. He also loses some of his know-it-all side. Craig's new friendship with Justine also leads to him discover her hidden psychic skills, and it's a revelation that has far-reaching implications for him. In the third series his own beliefs are put to the test, causing him to reconsider his mindset towards the paranormal.
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
paranormal
Paranormal fiction
This article is about fictional books, television programs, radio programs, and films whose storylines revolve around the paranormal.-Paranormal romance novels:Paranormal romance is a literary subgenre of the romance novel...
drama series, based around the fictional activities of a group of investigators into psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
and other paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
events. Produced in-house by BBC Scotland
BBC Scotland
BBC Scotland is a constituent part of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the publicly-funded broadcaster of the United Kingdom. It is, in effect, the national broadcaster for Scotland, having a considerable amount of autonomy from the BBC's London headquarters, and is run by the BBC Trust, who...
, initially in association with Sony Pictures Television International, the series debuted on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
in the UK in February 2004. A second series was shown from January 2005, with a third following in 2006 and then a two-part special in April 2007. The programme was created by writer David Kane, who also wrote the entire first series. The two-part special, unlike the previous series, was an independent production for BBC Scotland by Carnival Films
Carnival Films
Carnival Films is a British television production company, founded by Brian Eastman in 1978 as Picture Partnership Productions Limited and run by Gareth Neame since 2005. The company swiftly built up a strong reputation as an independent production company of theatre, film and television drama...
.
Overview
The central character is Dr. Douglas Monaghan, played by Bill Paterson, who is the head of a parapsychology unit at a fictional university in GlasgowGlasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. In the first series he is assisted by Megan Sharma (Archie Panjabi) and Dr. Andrew Gemmill (Peter McDonald
Peter McDonald (actor)
Peter McDonald is an Irish stage and screen actor. He grew up in Mount Merrion in South County Dublin. His mother, Brenda Costigan is a cookery writer and his father, Richard McDonald sells bailer twine...
), but these characters were replaced – without any on-screen explanation – in the second series by Justine McManus (Dawn Steele
Dawn Steele
Dawn Anne Steele is a Scottish actress best known for her roles in the TV series Monarch of the Glen, Sea of Souls & Wild at Heart.-Career:...
) and Craig Stevenson (Iain Robertson
Iain Robertson
Iain Robertson is a BAFTA winning Scottish actor. He was once described by Barry Norman as "the best thing to come out of Scotland since whisky"....
).
The series has seen the team encounter phenomena such as ghosts, reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
and voodooism. Each series has consisted of six one-hour episodes, initially comprising three two-part story lines. The first series was shown on consecutive Monday and Tuesday nights, but for series two the transmission days switched to Saturday and Sunday. Other changes introduced in the second series included the introduction of sub-plots to help with the pacing of each storyline, and more Scottish-focused story lines, the first series having been criticised for the characters' frequent trips to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
The third series was broadcast from 7 January – 11 February 2006, each episode airing in a 9.10pm-10.10pm slot. For this third run the format had been changed — the series now consisted of six individual one-episode stories instead of three two-parters, with the episodes being shown once per week on Saturday nights. Executive producer and BBC Scotland Head of Drama Barbara McKissack explained the change in format as being "a much better, faster paced format for this kind of show."
Prominent guest stars in individual story lines have included Peter Capaldi
Peter Capaldi
Peter Dougan Capaldi is an Academy Award and BAFTA award winning Scottish actor and film director. In 1995, his short film Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film...
, Siobhan Redmond
Siobhan Redmond
Siobhan Redmond is a Scottish actress.Originally from Tollcross, Glasgow, Redmond's first television appearances were in the early 1980s. Her first TV appearance was in 1982 in a sketch show called "Nothing to worry about!" which then lead to the sketch show Alfresco...
, James Fleet
James Fleet
James Edward Fleet is an English actor. He is most famous for his roles as the bumbling and well-meaning Tom in the 1994 British romantic comedy film Four Weddings and a Funeral, and the dim-witted Hugo Horton in the BBC situation comedy television series The Vicar of Dibley.-Personal life:Fleet...
, Paul McGann
Paul McGann
Paul McGann is an English actor who made his name on the BBC serial The Monocled Mutineer, in which he played the lead role...
, John Hannah
John Hannah (actor)
John David Hannah is a Scottish actor of film and television. He has appeared in Stephen Sommers' Mummy Series, Richard Curtis' Four Weddings and a Funeral and Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow...
, Jeff Rawle
Jeff Rawle
Jeff Rawle is a British actor, perhaps best known for playing the long-suffering George in the news-gathering sitcom Drop the Dead Donkey...
and Colin Salmon
Colin Salmon
Colin Salmon is a British actor best known for playing the character Charles Robinson in three James Bond films.-Personal life:...
. The first two series have been released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in the UK. The programme has also been shown overseas, including in Australia on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
, which showed the first series from September 2005, with series two being shown on Sci Fi
Sci Fi Channel (Australia)
Sci Fi Channel is an Australian subscription channel that airs science fiction, fantasy and related programs. It is available on Foxtel, Austar and Optus Television's subscription platforms. It is currently the only Sci Fi channel worldwide to keep the Saturn logo.-Shows:Sci Fi currently airs...
in January 2007. It has also been broadcast to South America by HBO Latin America in 2006. In total, the series has been sold to over forty countries as of December 2005.
Production
The first series was produced by Phil CollinsonPhil Collinson
Philip "Phil" Collinson is a British television producer. He was initially an actor, before switching to working behind the cameras in the industry as a script editor and writer on programmes such as Springhill and Emmerdale, later becoming the producer of Peak Practice, Doctor Who and Coronation...
, but after he left to produce the revival of Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
, Stephen Garwood took over as producer for the second and third series.
Awards
At the BAFTA ScotlandBAFTA Scotland
BAFTA in Scotland is the Scottish branch of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Formed in 1997, the branch holds an annual awards ceremony, the British Academy Scotland Awards , to recognise achievement by performers and production staff in Scottish film, television and video games...
Awards, held on 13 November 2005 at the Radisson SAS Hotel, Sea of Souls won Best Drama, beating Taggart
Taggart
Taggart is a Scottish detective television programme, created by Glenn Chandler, who has written many of the episodes, and made by STV Productions for the ITV network...
and Monarch of the Glen.
Cast
Dr Douglas Monaghan - Bill PatersonIs the main character over all and has featured in all series so far, though he featured much more predominantly in series one and two.
He is dependable and compassionate, and has changed throughout the run of the series. At the beginning Douglas was a sceptic, almost refusing to believe and denying anything paranormal. But as of series three he has become more open to the suggestion that not everything can be easily explained by science.
Justine McManus - Dawn Steele
Dawn Steele
Dawn Anne Steele is a Scottish actress best known for her roles in the TV series Monarch of the Glen, Sea of Souls & Wild at Heart.-Career:...
After arriving in series two she struggled to gain the respect of co-workers, but one year on is much more self assured and is enjoying her new found friendship with Craig. She is a single mother of her 10 year old son Billy. We have not been introduced to his father, yet he does often look after Billy. She is empathic and considerate and has a knack with people. Right from the beginning it is clear that Justine has several paranormal abilities, she can apparently see the future (which featured in series three episode Oracle), sense things and see the dead. But none of these have been properly looked into as Justine is unsure of finding out the true nature of them. In series three her abilities are shown to be much more powerful than she could ever have imagined, especially when it seems she has passed them on to her son Billy.
Craig Stevenson - Iain Robertson
Iain Robertson
Iain Robertson is a BAFTA winning Scottish actor. He was once described by Barry Norman as "the best thing to come out of Scotland since whisky"....
Also arrived in series two, Craig is often insensitive and arrogant towards people who seek the department's help, it's clear he's not a people person and he is quick to rush into things. In series three, a new friendship with Justine seems to have done him good. He also loses some of his know-it-all side. Craig's new friendship with Justine also leads to him discover her hidden psychic skills, and it's a revelation that has far-reaching implications for him. In the third series his own beliefs are put to the test, causing him to reconsider his mindset towards the paranormal.
Locations
- The fictional "Clyde University" in the series is in real life Glasgow's University of StrathclydeUniversity of StrathclydeThe University of Strathclyde , Glasgow, Scotland, is Glasgow's second university by age, founded in 1796, and receiving its Royal Charter in 1964 as the UK's first technological university...
, whose campusCampusA campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...
is a principal filming location, particularly during the second and third series. - The home of the parapsychology department — the "Murray Thompson Building" — is the real-life James Weir Building, the home of the University of Strathclyde's Mechanical Engineering department, and is used extensively for interior and exterior shots in the series.