Star Cops
Encyclopedia
Star Cops is a British science fiction television series first broadcast on BBC Two
in 1987. It was devised by Chris Boucher
, a writer who had previously worked on the science fiction television series Doctor Who
and Blake's 7
as well as crime dramas such as Juliet Bravo
and Bergerac
. Set in the year 2027, a time where Interplanetary travel
has become commonplace, it starred David Calder
as Nathan Spring, commander of the International Space Police Force—nicknamed the “Star Cops"—who provide law enforcement
for the newly developing colonies of the Solar System
. The series follows Spring and the rest of his multinational team as they work to establish the Star Cops and solve whatever crimes come their way. Operating in a relatively accurately realised hard SF, near-future, space environment, many of the cases that the Star Cops investigate arise from opportunities for new crimes presented by the technologically advanced future society the series depicts and from the hostile frontier nature of the environment that the Star Cops live in.
In total nine episodes of Star Cops were made. A tenth episode, titled "Death on the Moon", was planned but industrial relations difficulties during production led to it being abandoned shortly before recording was to commence. A combination of factors, including conflict between Boucher and producer Evgeny Gridneff and poor scheduling, meant that the series never found a satisfactory audience and the series was cancelled after one season. In recent years, Star Cops has undergone something of a critical re-appraisal and is generally hailed for being "a pretty good attempt at a moderately realistic "High Frontier
" SF series".
s orbiting the Earth and there are bases on the Moon
and Mars
. Approximately 3,000 people are living and working in space. This near future setting was influenced by the potential for greater access to space promised by the burgeoning Space Shuttle
programme and by the militarisation of space
through the US Government's Strategic Defense Initiative
programme (also known as "Star Wars") both of which were underway in the early 1980s. Accordingly, space travel and life in space is portrayed in a realistic manner with depictions of weightlessness
and low gravity environments and lengthy space journeys (months or years in cases of interplanetary travel
) as well as hazards such as spacesuit failures, radiation exposure
and explosive decompression
. This air of realism has led to Star Cops being frequently compared with the 1973 BBC drama series Moonbase 3
. Similarly, the pioneering spirit evoked by the process of colonising the Solar System seen in the series has led to comparisons with the Western
genre among many commentators.
Law and order is provided by the International Space Police Force (ISPF), twenty part-time volunteers disparagingly nicknamed the "Star Cops". The decision has been made to put the ISPF on a permanent full time footing and a new commander, Nathan Spring, has been appointed to accomplish this. Many of the series episodes deal with Spring's efforts to establish the Star Cops—he sets up a base of operations on the Moonbase, recruits new staff, roots out and dismisses corrupt officers and works to extend the Star Cops' reach first into the American space stations and then, at the end of the series, the far-flung reaches of the Mars colonies, all the while investigating whatever crimes occur along the way.
Many of the crimes that the Star Cops investigate have a science fiction "twist" to them arising from the unconventional (for a police show) environment the series is set e.g. a murder in which the two victims are not yet dead, a ransom demand for kidnapped embryos, a hoax discovery of an alien civilisation, etc. It is out of these scenarios that one of the major themes of the series emerges: the conflict between human emotion and morality on the one hand and machine logic and rogue science on the other.
Another major theme of the series is the "sins of the father": Spring’s first assignment as a detective was to arrest his father for industrial espionage, the villain in "Intelligent Listening for Beginners" is motivated by his inability to match his father’s reputation, Spring’s deputy, David Theroux, watched his father die of radiation poisoning, the kidnapper in "A Double Life" is seeking revenge for his father’s murder and Star Cop Anna Shoun betrays the multinational company which employs her (and with whom she has a paternal relationship) when she discovers their unethical behaviour.
Nathan Spring (David Calder
)
David Theroux (Erick Ray Evans
)
Colin Devis (Trevor Cooper
)
Pal Kenzy (Linda Newton)
Anna Shoun (Sayo Inaba)
Alexander Krivenko (Jonathan Adams)
and Romany Jones
, before moving on to write for drama series, including Shoestring, Juliet Bravo and Bergerac. He was no stranger to television science fiction, having written three serials for Doctor Who and having acted as script editor
on the entire four season run of Blake's 7 as well as writing nine episodes for it himself. Boucher originally pitched Star Cops to the BBC in 1981 as a radio series but, with James Follet's epic Earthsearch
serial in production that year, it was felt that science fiction was adequately served in the schedules and so Boucher tried to sell it to television instead. He sent the draft script of the first Star Cops story to Jonathan Powell, the Head of Drama at BBC television. Powell responded asking Boucher to write a second script and on the strength of this the series was commissioned. However, Powell insisted that the first story, which Boucher had intended to run over two episodes, be reworked into a single episode. This would be the first of many difficulties Boucher would have with how Star Cops was eventually realised for the screen. Boucher, who at this time was working as script editor on the crime series Bergerac, was also told by Powell he could work on Star Cops or on Bergerac but not on both and so chose to leave Bergerac.
, Blott on the Landscape
and Hold the Back Page. Gridneff and Boucher clashed over their respective visions for the series from the outset when, on their first meeting, Gridneff told Boucher that all his scripts would have to be rewritten. Boucher later remarked that their "relationship started out at the bottom and worked its way down".
Boucher had intended to write all ten scripts for the series himself but the tight timescale under which the episodes had to be recorded meant he could only contribute five, with the rest written by John Collee (three scripts) and Philip Martin
(two scripts). Having previously qualified and worked as a doctor, Collee was a journalist who wrote for The Observer
newspaper and later moved into films, most notably writing the screenplay for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
. Martin was an experienced scriptwriter, best known for the controversial BBC drama series Gangsters
, with previous experience in television science fiction, having written for Doctor Who. Two directors were assigned to the show: Christopher Baker, who had worked with Gridneff before on Hold the Back Page as well as BBC veterinarian
dramas All Creatures Great and Small and One by One
, and Graeme Harper
who had directed two Doctor Who stories.
At the time, most British television drama was shot on a combination of film
and videotape
. Usually location shooting
would be on film and studio work would be recorded on video. The effect of the change in medium from film to video (or vice-versa) during a scene change in a programme could be jarring for some viewers. Boucher structured his scripts carefully so that all the Earth-based scenes would be shot on film on location and all the space scenes would be recorded on video in the studio hoping that the effect would give the space scenes a unique look. He was disappointed, therefore, to discover that Gridneff had decided to record the entire series on videotape.
Cast as Nathan Spring was David Calder, an experienced character actor with a reputation for "tough-guy" roles and best known at the time for his role as Detective Inspector George Resnick in the Lynda La Plante
television serial Widows
. Naming him Nathan after his youngest son, Boucher had originally written Spring as a much younger character, a high-flyer in his early thirties who had risen rapidly through the ranks of the police. Despite this Boucher was pleased with Calder's performance describing Calder as "a class act" whose "performance was immaculate". Trevor Cooper was cast as Colin Devis at the suggestion of Graeme Harper who had worked with him on Doctor Who and in theatre. The rest of the cast, with the exception of Jonathan Adams (who had a semi-regular role on Bergerac), were relatively unknown.
Given that the series was set in the relatively near future, Gridneff took great pains to ensure that the space scenes were depicted as accurately as possible, seeking advice from NASA
and other space agencies as well as arranging a set visit by astronaut Pete Conrad
, the third man to set foot on the Moon. Conrad's input proved useful in making the scenes set in weightlessness
as convincing as the budget would allow. Assistance was also received from an aerospace manufacturer
, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation
, who provided stock footage of astronauts training in a water tank and received an on-screen credit on the first episode "An Instinct for Murder".
Recording of the series began on 12 August 1986 with the first block of episodes—"An Instinct for Murder", "Conversations with the Dead" and "Intelligent Listening for Beginners"—directed by Christopher Baker. This was followed by a block directed by Graeme Harper comprising "Trivial Games and Paranoid Pursuits", "This Case to be Opened in a Million Years" and "In Warm Blood". Christopher Baker then returned to the director's chair for "A Double Life" and "Other People's Secrets". Both directors had differing visions for the overall look and feel of the series, with the initial block directed by Baker favouring a pristine, brightly-lit approach. This contrasted with the look preferred by Graeme Harper who drastically reduced the light levels (leaving many scenes illuminated only by computer monitor screens) and whose designer, Malcolm Thornton, dressed the sets in a messier and dingier fashion. When Baker returned for his second block of episodes, he sought to return to the brighter, cleaner look which led to some continuity problems. Meanwhile, Evgeny Gridneff and Chris Boucher's professional relationship continued to be stormy with Gridneff deciding to introduce a new Star Cop, Anna Shoun, without consulting Boucher. The cast and crew were well aware of the behind the scenes conflicts and David Calder later recalled that there was "uncertainty as to which direction this series should go in". Chris Boucher has been frequently critical of the way in which the series was realised and has since stated that, in retrospect, he wishes he had volunteered to produce the series himself. In response to Boucher's criticisms, Gridneff has said, "I respect him as a writer and he's professional and, you know, it's his series and if it didn't quite go the way he thought, you know, that's unfortunate when you're dealing, you know, you're losing your baby".
The final block was to be directed by Graeme Harper and would comprise the final two episodes "Death on the Moon", written by Philip Martin, and "Information Received", written by Chris Boucher. However industrial action
at the BBC affected Star Cops and many other BBC programmes leaving a backlog of programmes once the strike had ended. Forced to prioritise and despite the fact that the episode had been cast, costumes made and sets constructed, the decision was taken to drop "Death on the Moon" and bring "Information Received", now titled "Little Green Men and Other Martians", forward. The three-day recording block for this episode began on 16 February 1987 just two days after recording of episode 8 had finished. Recording was further complicated when Erick Ray Evans fell ill and his lines had to split amongst the rest of the cast at the last minute with most of Theroux's dialogue going to Pal Kenzy. Production on Star Cops finally wrapped on 18 February 1987.
The theme song for the series, titled "It Won't be Easy", was written and performed by Justin Hayward
, the lead vocalist with the Moody Blues. The theme was produced by record producer Tony Visconti
who also composed, with Hayward, the incidental music
for every episode. Gridneff hoped that the theme would act as a gentle method of enticing casual viewers into the series. Reaction to the music, and Hayward's song in particular, has generally been negative. SFX
magazine, in particular, has been highly critical of the theme tune: in one issue it was placed twenty-ninth in a list article titled "The 50 Worst Things About SF Ever!" while in another it was placed sixth in a list article titled "The 10 Worst Things About UK Telefantasy". Writer and critic Kim Newman
has described the theme as the "worst single theme tune of any TV show ever". Chris Boucher has said that he "hated the music. The incidental music wasn't appropriate and it didn't have the style and feeling it should have had".
by sitcom Terry and June
and The Nine O'Clock News
. The fifth episode, "This Case to be Opened in a Million Years", was broadcast at the later time of 9.55pm. The BBC listings magazine Radio Times
promoted the series, giving it the front cover of the 4–10 July 1987 edition accompanied by a four page article by Johnny Black inside. Star Cops performed poorly in the ratings with an average audience across the series of only 2.2 million viewers. Chris Boucher has blamed the poor ratings on the timeslot the show was given, stating: "There is nothing that has ever gone out on BBC 2 at half-past eight until twenty-past nine; it's a grotesque period. It doesn't synch with anything on BBC 1; it just doesn't work in relation to anything. You had to badly want to see Star Cops in order to watch it because you had to sacrifice at least two hours of viewing to see it. I can see why people didn't want to have that problem.". He has also commented that the poor timeslot and the decision to air the series in July and August (a time when viewing figures are traditionally lower due to the summer) reflected the fact that Star Cops didn't have the confidence of the BBC management. This view is echoed by star David Calder who has described the timeslot as "an act of sabotage and absurdity".
Critical reaction to the show was generally negative: writing in The Times
following the broadcast of "Conversations with the Dead", Andrew Hislop wrote that "Star Cops has neither the campiness of Star Trek
nor the imagination of Dr. Who to overcome its technological limitations". Also in The Times, reviewing "Intelligent Listening for Beginners", Martin Cropper found that "some of the individual plot-lines show invention of a sort, but the script is uniformly feeble". Meanwhile, in The Sunday Times
, Patrick Stoddart was confused by the plot of "This Case to be Opened in a Million Years" asking readers "if you are following any of this, please write to me and explain". Letter writers to the Radio Times were split on the merits of the show: some such as P. Tricker of Alpheton
, Suffolk
praising it for having "brilliant special effects, well-written scripts and actors who were convincing" while others like Martin Bower of Allendale
, Northumberland
slated the "dated designs, poor music [and] cheap sets" and P. Curwen of Balloch
, Dunbartonshire
described it as "boring – too much talk and not enough action". Science fiction fandom
at the time was more positive with Anthony McKay in Time Screen describing the series as "one of the most refreshing telefantasy series for years" while the British Science Fiction Association
gave the show their Media Award
in 1987. However, the low ratings doomed the show to a single season and, although admired, it has never developed a significant following among science fiction aficionados. Boucher has stated that, in retrospect, he feels that the series was too outlandish for crime drama fans and not outlandish enough for science fiction fans and that ultimately it appealed to neither.
under construction. He intended to achieve this either by transferring one of the existing regular characters to the Mars colony or by introducing a new regular who would be based there. The second season was never developed beyond these few basic notions as it was clear to Boucher from an early stage that there was little prospect of the series being renewed. Following Star Cops, Boucher went on to work as script editor on the long-running ITV
police drama The Bill
before returning to freelance writing while Gridneff moved on to work on the BBC drama series The House of Eliott
.
began in 1995. However, Star Cops has undergone something of a reappraisal – in science fiction circles at least – since it went off the air in 1987. Reviewing the VHS releases for TV Zone
in 1991, Gary Russell
stated that "Star Cops represents excellent science fiction" and recanted his original impression of the series upon broadcast that it was "Bergerac in spacesuits, complete with rather cruddy visual effects and boring performances". A retrospective article penned by Keith Topping
for Dreamwatch
to mark the series' 10th anniversary in 1997 described Star Cops as "a series that could (and should) have been one of the BBC's most popular, influential and entertaining products of the era. On at least one of these points the series failed miserably, but, certainly when it came to entertainment, it succeeded magnificently". In 1999, when science fiction magazine SFX asked an expert panel from the SF field, including Terry Pratchett
and Stephen Baxter
, to compile a list of the top 50 SF shows of all time, Star Cops came thirteenth on the list, with SFX describing it as "the SF TV show SF writers love. It wasn't perfect but it's as close as TV will ever get to producing proper written SF". Later, in 2005, SFX went on to poll its readers for their list of the top 50 British telefantasy shows and Star Cops was voted into twenty-seventh position on the list. The BBC themselves revisited Star Cops in a thirty minute retrospective documentary about the show, recorded as part of a series titled The Cult of..., first broadcast on BBC Four
on 28 November 2006 as part of that channel's Science Fiction Britannia season. Reflecting on the show in the programme, the author and critic Kim Newman said that "the strength of Star Cops is the writing. I don't think any of the episodes are realised as well on screen as they are on the page. [...] If it had come back for another couple of seasons it might well have been the BBC's best science fiction show". The documentary concluded that Star Cops was an "overlooked gem".
released Justin Hayward's theme song "It Won't Be Easy" as a 7-inch and 12-inch single
. The 7-inch included the track "Outer Space" by Hayward and Tony Visconti, which was one of the incidental music tracks written for "An Instinct for Murder", on the B-side
. The 12-inch had an extended version of "It Won't Be Easy" on the A-Side
and the 7-inch version of "It Won't Be Easy" and "Outer Space" on the B-Side. "It Won't Be Easy" was later released on compact disc as part of the compilation The Best of BBC TV's Themes.
The entire series was released by BBC Video in three volumes, each containing three episodes, on VHS video tape in 1991. Some purchasers of the VHS tapes also received embroidered ISPF and Moonbase patches made by Stewart Aviation.
Chris Boucher's five Star Cops scripts have been semi-professionally published in two volumes by Judith Proctor. The first volume An Instinct for Murder was adapted from the first Star Cops episode of the same name. The second volume Little Green Men and Other Stories included the four remaining Boucher scripts. There are some changes from the broadcast episodes – neither the characters of Alexander Krivenko nor Anna Shoun appear in these books. Krivenko is replaced by a Chinese character, Jiang Li Ho, as an attempt to update the Star Cops universe to reflect the ending of the Cold War
in 1989. Shoun is replaced by an Irish character, Dana Cogill – Boucher didn't own the rights to use the Shoun character who had been created by John Collee.
The complete series was released on DVD by Network Video in a single, three-disc volume in 2004. This release contained a number of extras including commentaries by Chris Boucher on "An Instinct for Murder" and "Little Green Men and Other Martians" and by Philip Martin on "This Case to be Opened in a Million Years" as well as a making of documentary, interviews with Chris Boucher, Philip Martin and Trevor Cooper and behind the scenes footage.
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 1987. It was devised by Chris Boucher
Chris Boucher
Chris Boucher is a British television writer, best known for his frequent contributions to two genres, science fiction and crime dramas.-Biography:...
, a writer who had previously worked on the science fiction television series 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...
and Blake's 7
Blake's 7
Blake's 7 is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC for its BBC1 channel. The series was created by Terry Nation, a prolific television writer and creator of the Daleks for the television series Doctor Who. Four series of Blake's 7 were produced and broadcast between 1978...
as well as crime dramas such as Juliet Bravo
Juliet Bravo
Juliet Bravo is a British television series, which ran on BBC1 between 1980 and 1985. The theme of the series concerned a female police inspector who took over control of a police station in the fictional town of Hartley in Lancashire.-Programme name:...
and Bergerac
Bergerac (TV series)
Bergerac was a British television show set on Jersey. Produced by the BBC in association with the Seven Network, and screened on BBC1, it starred John Nettles as the title character Detective Sergeant Jim Bergerac, a detective in "Le Bureau des Étrangers" Bergerac was a British television show...
. Set in the year 2027, a time where Interplanetary travel
Interplanetary travel
Interplanetary spaceflight or interplanetary travel is travel between planets within a single planetary system. In practice, spaceflights of this type are confined to travel between the planets of the Solar System....
has become commonplace, it starred David Calder
David Calder (actor)
David Calder is a British actor.Calder was born in Portsmouth, England, and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. His most high profile TV roles include Det. Insp...
as Nathan Spring, commander of the International Space Police Force—nicknamed the “Star Cops"—who provide law enforcement
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
for the newly developing colonies of the Solar System
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
. The series follows Spring and the rest of his multinational team as they work to establish the Star Cops and solve whatever crimes come their way. Operating in a relatively accurately realised hard SF, near-future, space environment, many of the cases that the Star Cops investigate arise from opportunities for new crimes presented by the technologically advanced future society the series depicts and from the hostile frontier nature of the environment that the Star Cops live in.
In total nine episodes of Star Cops were made. A tenth episode, titled "Death on the Moon", was planned but industrial relations difficulties during production led to it being abandoned shortly before recording was to commence. A combination of factors, including conflict between Boucher and producer Evgeny Gridneff and poor scheduling, meant that the series never found a satisfactory audience and the series was cancelled after one season. In recent years, Star Cops has undergone something of a critical re-appraisal and is generally hailed for being "a pretty good attempt at a moderately realistic "High Frontier
The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space
The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space is a 1976 book by Gerard K. O'Neill, a road map for what the United States might do in outer space after the Apollo program, the drive to place a man on the Moon. It envisions large manned habitats in the Earth-Moon system, especially near stable...
" SF series".
Concept and setting
Star Cops is set in the year 2027—some 40 years into the future at time of broadcast—a time in which space travel has become common and mankind is in the process of exploiting and colonising the Solar System. There are five permanently manned space stationSpace station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...
s orbiting the Earth and there are bases on the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
and Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
. Approximately 3,000 people are living and working in space. This near future setting was influenced by the potential for greater access to space promised by the burgeoning Space Shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
programme and by the militarisation of space
Militarisation of space
The militarisation of space is the placement and development of weaponry and military technology in outer space.-History:Acquisition of high grounds for military advantage has been a perennial feature of military campaigns. For thousands of years, military tacticians have exploited the concept of...
through the US Government's Strategic Defense Initiative
Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic...
programme (also known as "Star Wars") both of which were underway in the early 1980s. Accordingly, space travel and life in space is portrayed in a realistic manner with depictions of weightlessness
Weightlessness
Weightlessness is the condition that exists for an object or person when they experience little or no acceleration except the acceleration that defines their inertial trajectory, or the trajectory of pure free-fall...
and low gravity environments and lengthy space journeys (months or years in cases of interplanetary travel
Interplanetary travel
Interplanetary spaceflight or interplanetary travel is travel between planets within a single planetary system. In practice, spaceflights of this type are confined to travel between the planets of the Solar System....
) as well as hazards such as spacesuit failures, radiation exposure
Radioactive contamination
Radioactive contamination, also called radiological contamination, is radioactive substances on surfaces, or within solids, liquids or gases , where their presence is unintended or undesirable, or the process giving rise to their presence in such places...
and explosive decompression
Explosive decompression
Uncontrolled decompression refers to an unplanned drop in the pressure of a sealed system, such as an aircraft cabin and typically results from human error, material fatigue, engineering failure or impact causing a pressure vessel to vent into its lower-pressure surroundings or fail to pressurize...
. This air of realism has led to Star Cops being frequently compared with the 1973 BBC drama series Moonbase 3
Moonbase 3
Moonbase 3 is a British science fiction television programme that ran for six episodes in 1973. It was a co-production between the BBC, 20th Century Fox and the American ABC network...
. Similarly, the pioneering spirit evoked by the process of colonising the Solar System seen in the series has led to comparisons with the Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
genre among many commentators.
Law and order is provided by the International Space Police Force (ISPF), twenty part-time volunteers disparagingly nicknamed the "Star Cops". The decision has been made to put the ISPF on a permanent full time footing and a new commander, Nathan Spring, has been appointed to accomplish this. Many of the series episodes deal with Spring's efforts to establish the Star Cops—he sets up a base of operations on the Moonbase, recruits new staff, roots out and dismisses corrupt officers and works to extend the Star Cops' reach first into the American space stations and then, at the end of the series, the far-flung reaches of the Mars colonies, all the while investigating whatever crimes occur along the way.
Many of the crimes that the Star Cops investigate have a science fiction "twist" to them arising from the unconventional (for a police show) environment the series is set e.g. a murder in which the two victims are not yet dead, a ransom demand for kidnapped embryos, a hoax discovery of an alien civilisation, etc. It is out of these scenarios that one of the major themes of the series emerges: the conflict between human emotion and morality on the one hand and machine logic and rogue science on the other.
Another major theme of the series is the "sins of the father": Spring’s first assignment as a detective was to arrest his father for industrial espionage, the villain in "Intelligent Listening for Beginners" is motivated by his inability to match his father’s reputation, Spring’s deputy, David Theroux, watched his father die of radiation poisoning, the kidnapper in "A Double Life" is seeking revenge for his father’s murder and Star Cop Anna Shoun betrays the multinational company which employs her (and with whom she has a paternal relationship) when she discovers their unethical behaviour.
Principal characters
David Calder (actor)
David Calder is a British actor.Calder was born in Portsmouth, England, and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. His most high profile TV roles include Det. Insp...
)
- Nathan Spring is a 41-year-old Detective Chief InspectorChief inspectorChief inspector is a rank used in police forces which follow the British model. In countries outside Britain, it is sometimes referred to as chief inspector of police .-Australia:...
in the British police force who reluctantly accepts promotion to Commander of the International Space Police Force with the brief of turning them into a full-time professional police force. Spring is a career policeman who has become disenchanted with the prevailing methods of policing which, he feels, are too dependent on computer logic and not on human instinct. His first job as a young detective was to arrest his own father, a computer salesman, for industrial espionage. Spring is man who is driven but lonely, a man who doesn't make friends easily and whose ability to do so is not easy on account of his choice of career and work environment. His constant companion is Box, a prototype handheld computer (also voiced by Calder), bequeathed to him by his father. The conversations between Box and Spring provide insight into Spring's emotional state and thought processes as Spring engages in "almost Jacobean-style soliloquies" with the device.
David Theroux (Erick Ray Evans
Erick Ray Evans
Erick Ray Evans was an American actor best known for his part as David Theroux in the BBC science-fiction drama Star Cops....
)
- Spring's second in command is Chief SuperintendentChief SuperintendentChief superintendent is a senior rank in police forces organised on the British model.- United Kingdom :In the British police, a chief superintendent is senior to a superintendent and junior to an assistant chief constable .The highest rank below Chief Officer level, chief...
David Theroux, an American. Theroux, an engineer, started out in the US space program but quit and joined the European space effort instead. When he is introduced in the opening episode, "An Instinct for Murder", he is working as a traffic controller and part-time Star Cop on the European space station Charles de GaulleCharles de GaulleCharles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
. Movie buff Theroux generally tries to maintain an air of wise-cracking, cool detachment which breaks down only when he is forced in "This Case to be Opened in a Million Years" to face his morbid fear of radioactivity.
Colin Devis (Trevor Cooper
Trevor Cooper
Trevor "Trev" Cooper is an English actor.-Background:Cooper studied law at Kingston Polytechnic and graduated with a masters degree in law from the University of Warwick...
)
- When Spring's girlfriend, Lee Jones, is killed in "Conversations with the Dead", the task of investigating the murder is handed to Chief Inspector Colin Devis of the London Metropolitan Police, "one of the Department's all-time cretins". Devis' pursuit of the killer, an agent of the British Secret ServiceMI5The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
, costs him his job but Spring compensates him by hiring him, at the rank of InspectorInspectorInspector is both a police rank and an administrative position, both used in a number of contexts. However, it is not an equivalent rank in each police force.- Australia :...
, for the ISPF. Although Devis is not the sharpest investigator, is heart is in the right place and he is fiercely loyal to Spring. Overweight, sexist and bigoted, five times married Devis is the series' main comedy element and frequently gets the best lines.
Pal Kenzy (Linda Newton)
- Australian Pal Kenzy is briefly glimpsed in "An Instinct for Murder" and then introduced properly in "Intelligent Listening for Beginners" where she is fired by Spring for taking kickbacks. Determined not to go quietly, Spring is forced to reinstate her when she foils an attempted hijacking on the Earth-Moon shuttle. She has a stormy relationship with Spring who mistrusts her but over the course of the series they develop a close bond. By the end of the series it is apparent that Spring has saved her from falling into a pit of corruption whereas she has restored his faith in humanity.
Anna Shoun (Sayo Inaba)
- Rounding off the team is Dr Anna Shoun, a 29 year old general physicianPhysicianA physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
from Japan. Spring takes her on when she is fired for betraying her employers, the multinational Hanimed corporation, to the Star Cops in the episode "In Warm Blood". The Shoun character has been criticised as a racial stereotypeEthnic stereotypeAn ethnic stereotype is a generalized representation of an ethnic group, composed of what are thought to be typical characteristics of members of the group.Ethnic stereotypes are commonly portrayed in ethnic jokes.-Ethnic stereotypes:*African Americans...
, a charge that has also been levelled at other aspects of the series such as depicting Italians as members of the MafiaMafiaThe Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
, Arabs as IslamistsIslamismIslamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
and Americans as jingoistic warmongers.
Alexander Krivenko (Jonathan Adams)
- Finally, introduced in Trivial Games and Paranoid Pursuits, is Russian Alexander Krivenko, the commander of the Moonbase where the ISPF have their headquarters. A winner of the Nobel Prize for MedicineNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
, it is Krivenko's research into bone damage that has contributed to enabling humanity to access space easily. Although the Star Cops are independent, Spring's relationship with Krivenko is often deferential and he frequently seems to capitulate to Krivenko's wishes.
Origins
Chris Boucher began his television writing career in comedy, working on such programmes as Dave Allen at LargeDave Allen (comedian)
David Tynan O'Mahoney , better known as Dave Allen, was an Irish comedian, very popular in Great Britain, Australia, and Canada in the 1960s and 1970s. He also became known in the United States through repeats of his shows on public television. His career had a major resurgence during the late...
and Romany Jones
Romany Jones
Romany Jones is a British sitcom made by LWT, It starred Arthur Mullard and Queenie Watts as Wally and Lily Briggs and was broadcast between 1973 and 1975, The show was originally designed as a vehicle for James Beck , involving the comic misadventures of two layabout families living on a caravan...
, before moving on to write for drama series, including Shoestring, Juliet Bravo and Bergerac. He was no stranger to television science fiction, having written three serials for Doctor Who and having acted as script editor
Script editor
A script editor is a member of the production team of scripted television programmes, usually dramas and comedies. The script editor has many responsibilities including finding new script writers, developing storyline and series ideas with writers, ensuring that scripts are suitable for production...
on the entire four season run of Blake's 7 as well as writing nine episodes for it himself. Boucher originally pitched Star Cops to the BBC in 1981 as a radio series but, with James Follet's epic Earthsearch
Earthsearch
Earthsearch: A Ten-Part Adventure Serial in Time and Space science fiction radio series written by James Follett. It consists of ten half-hour episodes broadcast. It was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between January and March 1981. There is also a novelisation by Follett of the same name...
serial in production that year, it was felt that science fiction was adequately served in the schedules and so Boucher tried to sell it to television instead. He sent the draft script of the first Star Cops story to Jonathan Powell, the Head of Drama at BBC television. Powell responded asking Boucher to write a second script and on the strength of this the series was commissioned. However, Powell insisted that the first story, which Boucher had intended to run over two episodes, be reworked into a single episode. This would be the first of many difficulties Boucher would have with how Star Cops was eventually realised for the screen. Boucher, who at this time was working as script editor on the crime series Bergerac, was also told by Powell he could work on Star Cops or on Bergerac but not on both and so chose to leave Bergerac.
Production
Assigned to produce Star Cops was Evgeny Gridneff, who had previously worked for the BBC on TenkoTenko (TV series)
Tenko is a television drama, co-produced by the BBC and the ABC. A total of thirty episodes were produced between 1981 and 1984 for women, followed by a one-off special , Tenko Reunion, in 1985 - also for women in mind.The series dealt with the experiences of British, Australian and Dutch women...
, Blott on the Landscape
Blott on the Landscape
Blott on the Landscape is a novel written in 1975 by Tom Sharpe. It was adapted into a 6-part television series for the BBC in 1985.-Plot:The story revolves around the proposed construction of a motorway through Cleene Gorge in rural South Worfordshire...
and Hold the Back Page. Gridneff and Boucher clashed over their respective visions for the series from the outset when, on their first meeting, Gridneff told Boucher that all his scripts would have to be rewritten. Boucher later remarked that their "relationship started out at the bottom and worked its way down".
Boucher had intended to write all ten scripts for the series himself but the tight timescale under which the episodes had to be recorded meant he could only contribute five, with the rest written by John Collee (three scripts) and Philip Martin
Philip Martin (screenwriter)
Philip Martin is an English television screenwriter.His early work included regular series such as Z-Cars in the late 1960s/early 70s, but his most famous work is the postmodern television series Gangsters. This was an examination of race seen through an increasingly surreal vision of...
(two scripts). Having previously qualified and worked as a doctor, Collee was a journalist who wrote for The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
newspaper and later moved into films, most notably writing the screenplay for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a 2003 film directed by Peter Weir, starring Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey, with Paul Bettany as Stephen Maturin and released by 20th Century Fox, Miramax Films and Universal Studios...
. Martin was an experienced scriptwriter, best known for the controversial BBC drama series Gangsters
Gangsters (TV series)
Gangsters is a British television series made by the BBC and shown from 1975 to 1978.Created by Philip Martin, and produced at the BBC's Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham by David Rose, Gangsters began televisual life as an edition of Play for Today in 1975, followed by two series transmitted in...
, with previous experience in television science fiction, having written for Doctor Who. Two directors were assigned to the show: Christopher Baker, who had worked with Gridneff before on Hold the Back Page as well as BBC veterinarian
Veterinarian
A veterinary physician, colloquially called a vet, shortened from veterinarian or veterinary surgeon , is a professional who treats disease, disorder and injury in animals....
dramas All Creatures Great and Small and One by One
One By One (TV series)
One By One is a British television series made by the BBC between 1984 and 1987.The series, created by Anthony Read, followed the career of international veterinarian David Taylor and his work caring for exotic animals at zoos in Britain, from the 1950s to the 1970s...
, and Graeme Harper
Graeme Harper
Graeme Harper is a British television director. He is best known for his work on the science-fiction series Doctor Who, for which he is the only person to have directed episodes of both the original run and revived run of the programme...
who had directed two Doctor Who stories.
At the time, most British television drama was shot on a combination of film
Film format
A film format is a technical definition of a set of standard characteristics regarding image capture on photographic film, for either stills or movies. It can also apply to projected film, either slides or movies. The primary characteristic of a film format is its size and shape.In the case of...
and videotape
Videotape
A videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...
. Usually location shooting
Location shooting
Location shooting is the practice of filming in an actual setting rather than on a sound stage or back lot. In filmmaking a location is any place where a film crew will be filming actors and recording their dialog. A location where dialog is not recorded may be considered as a second unit...
would be on film and studio work would be recorded on video. The effect of the change in medium from film to video (or vice-versa) during a scene change in a programme could be jarring for some viewers. Boucher structured his scripts carefully so that all the Earth-based scenes would be shot on film on location and all the space scenes would be recorded on video in the studio hoping that the effect would give the space scenes a unique look. He was disappointed, therefore, to discover that Gridneff had decided to record the entire series on videotape.
Cast as Nathan Spring was David Calder, an experienced character actor with a reputation for "tough-guy" roles and best known at the time for his role as Detective Inspector George Resnick in the Lynda La Plante
Lynda La Plante
Lynda La Plante, CBE is an English author, screenwriter and former actress, best known for writing the Prime Suspect television crime series....
television serial Widows
Widows (TV series)
Widows was a British primetime television serial aired in 1983, produced by Euston Films for Thames Television and aired on the ITV network....
. Naming him Nathan after his youngest son, Boucher had originally written Spring as a much younger character, a high-flyer in his early thirties who had risen rapidly through the ranks of the police. Despite this Boucher was pleased with Calder's performance describing Calder as "a class act" whose "performance was immaculate". Trevor Cooper was cast as Colin Devis at the suggestion of Graeme Harper who had worked with him on Doctor Who and in theatre. The rest of the cast, with the exception of Jonathan Adams (who had a semi-regular role on Bergerac), were relatively unknown.
Given that the series was set in the relatively near future, Gridneff took great pains to ensure that the space scenes were depicted as accurately as possible, seeking advice from NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
and other space agencies as well as arranging a set visit by astronaut Pete Conrad
Pete Conrad
Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr. was an American naval officer, astronaut and engineer, and the third person to walk on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission. He set an eight-day space endurance record along with command pilot Gordon Cooper on the Gemini 5 mission, and commanded the Gemini 11 mission...
, the third man to set foot on the Moon. Conrad's input proved useful in making the scenes set in weightlessness
Weightlessness
Weightlessness is the condition that exists for an object or person when they experience little or no acceleration except the acceleration that defines their inertial trajectory, or the trajectory of pure free-fall...
as convincing as the budget would allow. Assistance was also received from an aerospace manufacturer
Aerospace manufacturer
An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, and/or spacecraft....
, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation
McDonnell Douglas
McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturer and defense contractor, producing a number of famous commercial and military aircraft. It formed from a merger of McDonnell Aircraft and Douglas Aircraft in 1967. McDonnell Douglas was based at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport...
, who provided stock footage of astronauts training in a water tank and received an on-screen credit on the first episode "An Instinct for Murder".
Recording of the series began on 12 August 1986 with the first block of episodes—"An Instinct for Murder", "Conversations with the Dead" and "Intelligent Listening for Beginners"—directed by Christopher Baker. This was followed by a block directed by Graeme Harper comprising "Trivial Games and Paranoid Pursuits", "This Case to be Opened in a Million Years" and "In Warm Blood". Christopher Baker then returned to the director's chair for "A Double Life" and "Other People's Secrets". Both directors had differing visions for the overall look and feel of the series, with the initial block directed by Baker favouring a pristine, brightly-lit approach. This contrasted with the look preferred by Graeme Harper who drastically reduced the light levels (leaving many scenes illuminated only by computer monitor screens) and whose designer, Malcolm Thornton, dressed the sets in a messier and dingier fashion. When Baker returned for his second block of episodes, he sought to return to the brighter, cleaner look which led to some continuity problems. Meanwhile, Evgeny Gridneff and Chris Boucher's professional relationship continued to be stormy with Gridneff deciding to introduce a new Star Cop, Anna Shoun, without consulting Boucher. The cast and crew were well aware of the behind the scenes conflicts and David Calder later recalled that there was "uncertainty as to which direction this series should go in". Chris Boucher has been frequently critical of the way in which the series was realised and has since stated that, in retrospect, he wishes he had volunteered to produce the series himself. In response to Boucher's criticisms, Gridneff has said, "I respect him as a writer and he's professional and, you know, it's his series and if it didn't quite go the way he thought, you know, that's unfortunate when you're dealing, you know, you're losing your baby".
The final block was to be directed by Graeme Harper and would comprise the final two episodes "Death on the Moon", written by Philip Martin, and "Information Received", written by Chris Boucher. However industrial action
Industrial action
Industrial action or job action refers collectively to any measure taken by trade unions or other organised labour meant to reduce productivity in a workplace. Quite often it is used and interpreted as a euphemism for strike, but the scope is much wider...
at the BBC affected Star Cops and many other BBC programmes leaving a backlog of programmes once the strike had ended. Forced to prioritise and despite the fact that the episode had been cast, costumes made and sets constructed, the decision was taken to drop "Death on the Moon" and bring "Information Received", now titled "Little Green Men and Other Martians", forward. The three-day recording block for this episode began on 16 February 1987 just two days after recording of episode 8 had finished. Recording was further complicated when Erick Ray Evans fell ill and his lines had to split amongst the rest of the cast at the last minute with most of Theroux's dialogue going to Pal Kenzy. Production on Star Cops finally wrapped on 18 February 1987.
The theme song for the series, titled "It Won't be Easy", was written and performed by Justin Hayward
Justin Hayward
Justin Hayward is an English musician, best known as singer, songwriter and guitarist in the rock band The Moody Blues.Hayward was born in Dean Street, Swindon, Wiltshire, England...
, the lead vocalist with the Moody Blues. The theme was produced by record producer Tony Visconti
Tony Visconti
Anthony Edward Visconti is an American record producer and sometimes a musician or singer.Since the late 1960s, he has worked with an array of performers; his lengthiest involvement with any artist is with David Bowie: intermittently from Bowie's 1969 album Space Oddity to 2003's Reality, Visconti...
who also composed, with Hayward, the incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for every episode. Gridneff hoped that the theme would act as a gentle method of enticing casual viewers into the series. Reaction to the music, and Hayward's song in particular, has generally been negative. SFX
SFX magazine
SFX is a British magazine covering the topics of science fiction and fantasy.-Description:SFX magazine is published every four weeks by Future Publishing and was founded in 1995. The magazine covers topics in the genres of popular science fiction, fantasy and horror, within the media of films,...
magazine, in particular, has been highly critical of the theme tune: in one issue it was placed twenty-ninth in a list article titled "The 50 Worst Things About SF Ever!" while in another it was placed sixth in a list article titled "The 10 Worst Things About UK Telefantasy". Writer and critic Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...
has described the theme as the "worst single theme tune of any TV show ever". Chris Boucher has said that he "hated the music. The incidental music wasn't appropriate and it didn't have the style and feeling it should have had".
Transmission and viewer reaction
Star Cops was broadcast on Monday nights at around 8:30pm starting on 7 July 1987 on BBC Two. Competition was provided on BBC OneBBC 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...
by sitcom Terry and June
Terry and June
Terry and June is a British sitcom that was broadcast on BBC1 from 1979 to 1987. The programme is largely a continuation of Happy Ever After, and stars Terry Scott and June Whitfield as a middle-class suburban couple, Terry and June Medford...
and The Nine O'Clock News
BBC Nine O'Clock News
The BBC Nine O'Clock News was the flagship BBC News programme launched on 14 September 1970, which ran until 15 October 2000, when it was controversially moved to BBC News at Ten....
. The fifth episode, "This Case to be Opened in a Million Years", was broadcast at the later time of 9.55pm. The BBC listings magazine Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
promoted the series, giving it the front cover of the 4–10 July 1987 edition accompanied by a four page article by Johnny Black inside. Star Cops performed poorly in the ratings with an average audience across the series of only 2.2 million viewers. Chris Boucher has blamed the poor ratings on the timeslot the show was given, stating: "There is nothing that has ever gone out on BBC 2 at half-past eight until twenty-past nine; it's a grotesque period. It doesn't synch with anything on BBC 1; it just doesn't work in relation to anything. You had to badly want to see Star Cops in order to watch it because you had to sacrifice at least two hours of viewing to see it. I can see why people didn't want to have that problem.". He has also commented that the poor timeslot and the decision to air the series in July and August (a time when viewing figures are traditionally lower due to the summer) reflected the fact that Star Cops didn't have the confidence of the BBC management. This view is echoed by star David Calder who has described the timeslot as "an act of sabotage and absurdity".
Critical reaction to the show was generally negative: writing in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
following the broadcast of "Conversations with the Dead", Andrew Hislop wrote that "Star Cops has neither the campiness of Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
nor the imagination of Dr. Who to overcome its technological limitations". Also in The Times, reviewing "Intelligent Listening for Beginners", Martin Cropper found that "some of the individual plot-lines show invention of a sort, but the script is uniformly feeble". Meanwhile, in The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
, Patrick Stoddart was confused by the plot of "This Case to be Opened in a Million Years" asking readers "if you are following any of this, please write to me and explain". Letter writers to the Radio Times were split on the merits of the show: some such as P. Tricker of Alpheton
Alpheton
Alpheton is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district of Suffolk, England. Located on the A134 road about six miles north of Sudbury, in 2005 it had a population of 260. According to Eilert Ekwall the meaning of the village name is the homestead of Aelfled.-History:-Background:Alpheton is...
, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
praising it for having "brilliant special effects, well-written scripts and actors who were convincing" while others like Martin Bower of Allendale
Allendale, Northumberland
Allendale is a large village in south west Northumberland, England. Allendale is within the - the second largest of the 40 AONBs in England and Wales...
, Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
slated the "dated designs, poor music [and] cheap sets" and P. Curwen of Balloch
Balloch, West Dunbartonshire
Balloch is a small town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, at the foot of Loch Lomond. The name comes from the Gaelic for "the pass".Balloch is at the north end of the Vale of Leven, straddling the River Leven itself. It connects to the larger town of Alexandria and to the smaller village of...
, Dunbartonshire
Dunbartonshire
Dunbartonshire or the County of Dumbarton is a lieutenancy area and registration county in the west central Lowlands of Scotland lying to the north of the River Clyde. Until 1975 it was a county used as a primary unit of local government with its county town and administrative centre at the town...
described it as "boring – too much talk and not enough action". Science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or "fandom" of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest...
at the time was more positive with Anthony McKay in Time Screen describing the series as "one of the most refreshing telefantasy series for years" while the British Science Fiction Association
British Science Fiction Association
The British Science Fiction Association was founded in 1958 by a group of British science fiction fans, authors, publishers and booksellers, in order to encourage science fiction in every form. It is an open membership organisation costing £26 per year for UK residents and £18 for the unwaged. The...
gave the show their Media Award
BSFA award
The BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association to honor works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members...
in 1987. However, the low ratings doomed the show to a single season and, although admired, it has never developed a significant following among science fiction aficionados. Boucher has stated that, in retrospect, he feels that the series was too outlandish for crime drama fans and not outlandish enough for science fiction fans and that ultimately it appealed to neither.
Proposals for a second season
When recording was completed, Gridneff asked Boucher if he had any ideas for a further season of Star Cops. Boucher felt that were the series to continue he would like to extend the setting further out into the Solar System, visiting the Mars colonies and the Big Ring space coloniesSpace habitat
A space habitat is a space station intended as a permanent settlement rather than as a simple waystation or other specialized facility...
under construction. He intended to achieve this either by transferring one of the existing regular characters to the Mars colony or by introducing a new regular who would be based there. The second season was never developed beyond these few basic notions as it was clear to Boucher from an early stage that there was little prospect of the series being renewed. Following Star Cops, Boucher went on to work as script editor on the long-running ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
police drama The Bill
The Bill
The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
before returning to freelance writing while Gridneff moved on to work on the BBC drama series The House of Eliott
The House of Eliott
The House of Eliott is a British television series produced and broadcast by the BBC in three series between 1991 and 1994. The series starred Stella Gonet and Louise Lombard as two sisters in 1920s London who establish a dressmaking business and eventually their own haute couture fashion house...
.
Legacy
The demise of Star Cops after just nine episodes has been seen as indicative of the decline of British television science fiction in the 1980s and, after Doctor Who followed Star Cops into cancellation in 1989, there would be no British regular science fiction drama series on British television until BugsBugs (TV series)
Bugs was a British television drama series which ran for four series from April 1995 to August 1999. The programme, a mixture of action/adventure and science-fiction, involved a team of specialist independent crime-fighting technology experts, who faced a variety of threats based around computers...
began in 1995. However, Star Cops has undergone something of a reappraisal – in science fiction circles at least – since it went off the air in 1987. Reviewing the VHS releases for TV Zone
TV Zone
TV Zone was a British magazine published every four weeks by Visual Imagination that covered cult television. Initially, it mostly covered science fiction, but branched out to cover other drama and comedy series.-History:...
in 1991, Gary Russell
Gary Russell
Gary James Russell is a freelance writer and former child actor. As a writer, he is best known for his work in connection with the television series Doctor Who and its spin-offs in other media...
stated that "Star Cops represents excellent science fiction" and recanted his original impression of the series upon broadcast that it was "Bergerac in spacesuits, complete with rather cruddy visual effects and boring performances". A retrospective article penned by Keith Topping
Keith Topping
Keith Andrew Topping , is an author, journalist and broadcaster most closely associated with his work relating to the BBC Television series Doctor Who and for writing numerous official and unofficial guide books to a wide variety of television and film series, specifically Buffy the Vampire...
for Dreamwatch
Dreamwatch
Dreamwatch was a British magazine covering science fiction and fantasy films, books and television programmes.Published monthly by Gary Leigh and then Titan Magazines , it was a leading genre entertainment magazine, competing with SFX and Cinescape in the genre magazine market.-Overview:The...
to mark the series' 10th anniversary in 1997 described Star Cops as "a series that could (and should) have been one of the BBC's most popular, influential and entertaining products of the era. On at least one of these points the series failed miserably, but, certainly when it came to entertainment, it succeeded magnificently". In 1999, when science fiction magazine SFX asked an expert panel from the SF field, including Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
and Stephen Baxter
Stephen Baxter
Stephen Baxter is a prolific British hard science fiction author. He has degrees in mathematics and engineering.- Writing style :...
, to compile a list of the top 50 SF shows of all time, Star Cops came thirteenth on the list, with SFX describing it as "the SF TV show SF writers love. It wasn't perfect but it's as close as TV will ever get to producing proper written SF". Later, in 2005, SFX went on to poll its readers for their list of the top 50 British telefantasy shows and Star Cops was voted into twenty-seventh position on the list. The BBC themselves revisited Star Cops in a thirty minute retrospective documentary about the show, recorded as part of a series titled The Cult of..., first broadcast on BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
on 28 November 2006 as part of that channel's Science Fiction Britannia season. Reflecting on the show in the programme, the author and critic Kim Newman said that "the strength of Star Cops is the writing. I don't think any of the episodes are realised as well on screen as they are on the page. [...] If it had come back for another couple of seasons it might well have been the BBC's best science fiction show". The documentary concluded that Star Cops was an "overlooked gem".
Episode guide
Star Cops comprised nine episodes and was first broadcast on Monday nights on BBC Two between 6 July 1987 and 31 August 1987. A tenth episode "Death on the Moon" was planned but abandoned following industrial action at the BBC.| Ep. No. | Title | Writer | Director | Airdate | Airtime | Duration | Audience (millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "An Instinct for Murder" | Chris Boucher | Christopher Baker | 6 July 1987 | 8.30pm | 51'26 | 2.8m |
| Plot: Reluctantly reassigned from a case involving a mysterious drowning, Chief Inspector Nathan Spring, shortlisted for the post of Commander of the International Space Police Force, the "Star Cops", becomes embroiled in the investigation of a series of unexplained spacesuit failures on the space station Charles de Gaulle. Notes: This episode introduces Nathan Spring, David Theroux, Pal Kenzy and Box. Guest Stars: Moray Watson Moray Watson Moray Watson is an English actor.Watson's father was killed in Belgium in World War II. He was educated at Eton College and made his first appearance on stage whilst still a student at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art at a matinee performance in memory of Ellen Terry at Hythe, Kent... (as The Commander), Keith Varneier (as Stephenson, Controller), Gennie Nevinson (as Lee Jones), Andy Secombe Andy Secombe Andrew Secombe , better known as Andy Secombe, is a Welsh actor, voice actor, and author.He played Rover the Dog in the Channel 4 children's series Chips Comic.... (as Brian Lincoln). |
|||||||
| 2 | "Conversations with the Dead" | Chris Boucher | Christopher Baker | 13 July 1987 | 8.35pm | 51'26 | 3.2m |
| Plot: Spring's life is thrown into turmoil when his girlfriend, Lee Jones, is brutally murdered. Warned off the case by investigating officer Colin Devis, Spring becomes entangled in the murky world of international espionage. Elsewhere, charged with setting up the Star Cops headquarters on the Moon, Theroux investigates an explosion on a distant space freighter that has knocked the craft off course and condemned its two pilots to death. Notes: This episode introduces Colin Devis. Guest Stars: Gennie Nevinson (as Lee Jones), Sian Webber Sian Webber Sian Webber is a British actress, best known for playing Emma Neesome in the 1980s BBC drama series Howards' Way.She has also appeared in Star Cops, Pie in the Sky, Dangerfield, Highlander: The Series, The Bill, Bad Girls, Peak Practice, Holby City, Waterloo Road and EastEnders, playing Ritchie... (as Corman), Alan Downer (as Paton), Sean Scanlan (as Fox), Carmen Gómez (as Gina Succini), Richard Ireson (as voice of Mike). |
|||||||
| 3 | "Intelligent Listening for Beginners" | Chris Boucher | Christopher Baker | 20 July 1987 | 8.30pm | 48'19 | 2.6m |
| Plot: Spring fires two Star Cops, Pal Kenzy and Kirk Hubble, for corruption. A terrorist organisation, the Black Hand Gang, has attacked a chemical plant and the Channel Tunnel Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel is a undersea rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent in the United Kingdom with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais near Calais in northern France beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. At its lowest point, it is deep... using a computer worm Computer worm A computer worm is a self-replicating malware computer program, which uses a computer network to send copies of itself to other nodes and it may do so without any user intervention. This is due to security shortcomings on the target computer. Unlike a computer virus, it does not need to attach... . The Star Cops are warned of further attacks by a communications expert engaged in secret research on an outpost on the Moon. Guest Stars: Trevor Butler (as Leo), David John Pope (as Michael Chandri), Tara Ward (as Shuttle Hostess). |
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| 4 | "Trivial Games and Paranoid Pursuits" | Chris Boucher | Graeme Harper | 27 July 1987 | 8.30pm | 51'45 | 2.5m |
| Plot: As Spring attempts to persuade the sceptical Americans to allow him to open a Star Cops office on their space station, the Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor.... , he is asked to investigate the disappearance of a scientist Dr Harvey Goodman from the Ronald Reagan station. The station personnel deny that Goodman or the section of the station he worked in – OMZ13 – ever existed. Out near the Sun, a salvage ship finds an abandoned capsule, designated OMZ13, floating in space... Notes: This episode introduces Alexander Krivenko. Guest Stars: Daniel Benzali Daniel Benzali Daniel Benzali is a Brazilian-American stage, television and film actor.-Biography:Benzali was born in Rio de Janeiro to Brazilian Jewish parents... (as Commander Griffin), Marlena Mackey (as Dilly Goodman), Robert Jezek Robert Jezek Robert Jezek is a Canadian film and television actor based in the United Kingdom.-Career:He is known for playing companion Frobisher in a range of Doctor Who audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions and based on the BBC television series Doctor Who... (as Pete Lennox), Morgan Deare (as Harvey Goodman). |
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| 5 | "This Case to be Opened in a Million Years" | Philip Martin | Graeme Harper | 3 August 1987 | 9.55pm | 51'19 | 1.4m |
| Plot: While Theroux is left to investigate the crash of a rocket carrying nuclear waste, Spring, on an enforced vacation, is lured to Rome where he is framed for drug-trafficking. Notes: Philip Martin's original script envisaged that Spring would visit a sunken Venice Venice Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region... by submarine for his holiday. Budgetary limitations meant that this was changed to Rome. However, the script retains a brief reference to Venice as having sunk beneath the waves. Guest Stars: Vikki Chambers (as Lina Margello), Andre Winterton (as Pordenne), Carl Forgione Carl Forgione Carl Forgione was a British actor, best known for his television appearances.He appeared in two Doctor Who serials - Planet of the Spiders in 1974 and Ghost Light in 1989.... (as Tour Guide). |
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| 6 | "In Warm Blood" | John Collee | Graeme Harper | 10 August 1987 | 8.35pm | 51'46 | 2.2m |
| Plot: The returning crew of the survey ship Pluto 5 are discovered dead, appearing almost freeze-dried. All with a connection to a large Japanese corporation and the suicide of a scientist close to the Moonbase commander. Notes: This episode introduces Anna Shoun to the team. The working title for the story was "Trial by Murder". Guest Stars: Dawn Keeler (as Christina Janssen), Richard Rees (as Richard Ho), Susan Tan (as Receptionist). |
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| 7 | "A Double Life" | John Collee | Christopher Baker | 17 August 1987 | 8.35pm | 51'41 | 2.1m |
| Plot: Mystery surrounds a world-famous pianist accused of kidnapping and ransoming embryos from Moonbase. Anna Shoun and Colin Devis investigate and ultimately confront what turns out to be the clone of the accused pianist. Guest Stars: Brian Gwaspari Brian Gwaspari Brian Gwaspari is a British actor who made frequent guest star roles throughout the 1970s and 1980s.He also starred in two police drama series, Specials and The Gentle Touch and appeared in The Professionals and starred in the two-part series Trial And Retribution.- References :... (as James Bannerman / Albi), Nitza Shaul (as Chamsya Assadi). |
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| 8 | "Other People's Secrets" | John Collee | Christopher Baker | 24 August 1987 | 8.35pm | 51'43 | 1.8m |
| Plot: Ever increasing glitches and equipment failures around the Moonbase coincide with a safety inspection and lead eventually to a decompression emergency for the base. During the emergency Nathan Spring and Pal Kenzy are forced to spend time together, as does Colin Devis with his psychologist ex-wife. Guest Stars: Geoffrey Bayldon Geoffrey Bayldon Geoffrey Bayldon is a British actor. After playing roles in many dramas including Shakespeare, he became known for portraying the title role of the children's series Catweazle , after turning down the opportunity to play both the First and Second Doctors in the long-running BBC science fiction... (as Ernest Wolfhartt), Leigh Funnell (as Beverley Anderson), Maggie Ollerenshaw (as Dr. Angela Parr), Barrie Rutter Barrie Rutter Barrie Rutter is an English actor and the founder and Artistic Director of the Northern Broadsides theatre company based in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England.... (as Hooper). |
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| 9 | "Little Green Men and Other Martians" | Chris Boucher | Graeme Harper | 31 August 1987 | 8.35pm | 51'11 | 1.2m |
| Plot: Rumours swell of alien artefacts discovered on Mars. An attempt is made to kill Nathan Spring as he investigates drug smuggling and the deaths of two pilots. The episode and the series ends with the question "Anyone for Mars?". Notes: The working title for this story was "Information Received". Due to illness, Erick Ray Evans was unable to appear as David Theroux. Guest Stars: Lachele Carl (as Susan Caxton), Roy Holder Roy Holder Roy Holder is an English television actor who has appeared in various programmes including Ace of Wands, Z-Cars, Spearhead, the Doctor Who serial The Caves of Androzani and Sorry! His first notable appearance on the screen was in the 1961 film Whistle Down the Wind... (as Daniel Larwood), Bridget Lynch-Blosse (as Co-pilot). |
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| Unmade Episode | |||||||
| Ep. No. | Title | Writer | Director | Airdate | Airtime | Duration | Audience (millions) |
| n/a | "Death on the Moon" | Philip Martin | Graeme Harper | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Plot: This episode would have been a country house murder mystery – of the sort popularised by the fiction of Agatha Christie Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to... and the board game Cluedo Cluedo Cluedo is a popular murder/mystery-themed deduction board game originally published by Waddingtons in Leeds, England in 1949. It was devised by Anthony E. Pratt, a solicitor's clerk from Birmingham, England. It is now published by the United States game and toy company Hasbro, which acquired its U.S... – set on the Moon. It would have centred around a plan by a Chinese corporation – Chinex – to launch raw materials from the Moon to the Lagrangian point Lagrangian point The Lagrangian points are the five positions in an orbital configuration where a small object affected only by gravity can theoretically be stationary relative to two larger objects... between the Moon and the Earth where they would be used to construct a space city. The Star Cops are called in to investigate when one of the engineers is found dead during the opening of the project. Spring assigns one Star Cop to each of the five possible suspects. As each suspect is killed off, Spring realises that the project is a con and exposes the killer – a flamboyant Swiss industrialist – via a satellite link during a shareholder's meeting. Notes: Cancelled due to industrial action at the BBC, this episode was intended as the penultimate Star Cops story set between Other People's Secrets and Little Green Men and Other Martians. Although it had reached rehearsal stage by the time it was cancelled, the cast list for this episode remains unknown. |
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Merchandising
A very small amount of merchandising has been produced for Star Cops. To coincide with the broadcast of the series in 1987, BBC EnterprisesBBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...
released Justin Hayward's theme song "It Won't Be Easy" as a 7-inch and 12-inch single
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
. The 7-inch included the track "Outer Space" by Hayward and Tony Visconti, which was one of the incidental music tracks written for "An Instinct for Murder", on the B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
. The 12-inch had an extended version of "It Won't Be Easy" on the A-Side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
and the 7-inch version of "It Won't Be Easy" and "Outer Space" on the B-Side. "It Won't Be Easy" was later released on compact disc as part of the compilation The Best of BBC TV's Themes.
The entire series was released by BBC Video in three volumes, each containing three episodes, on VHS video tape in 1991. Some purchasers of the VHS tapes also received embroidered ISPF and Moonbase patches made by Stewart Aviation.
Chris Boucher's five Star Cops scripts have been semi-professionally published in two volumes by Judith Proctor. The first volume An Instinct for Murder was adapted from the first Star Cops episode of the same name. The second volume Little Green Men and Other Stories included the four remaining Boucher scripts. There are some changes from the broadcast episodes – neither the characters of Alexander Krivenko nor Anna Shoun appear in these books. Krivenko is replaced by a Chinese character, Jiang Li Ho, as an attempt to update the Star Cops universe to reflect the ending of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
in 1989. Shoun is replaced by an Irish character, Dana Cogill – Boucher didn't own the rights to use the Shoun character who had been created by John Collee.
The complete series was released on DVD by Network Video in a single, three-disc volume in 2004. This release contained a number of extras including commentaries by Chris Boucher on "An Instinct for Murder" and "Little Green Men and Other Martians" and by Philip Martin on "This Case to be Opened in a Million Years" as well as a making of documentary, interviews with Chris Boucher, Philip Martin and Trevor Cooper and behind the scenes footage.