From: "Una McCormack" una@qresearch.org.uk
'Cops in Space' is a fairly simple premise, I think <g> (and shorter than
'Robin
Hood in Space'!).
Perhaps, thinking it over, it's not so much a question of a simple premise as a straightforward, or even archetypical, one. For instance, B7 is Robin Hood in Space, Star Trek is Wagon Train in Space, Lost in Space is The Swiss Family Robinson in Space-- but Star Cops is less easy to define. It's Cops in Space, but it's not Magnum PI in Space, or Inspector Morse in Space, or The Bill in Space. I think maybe some of Star Cops' viewer-alienating factor may be people who tune in expecting "Cops in Space" to be "The Bill in Space" and getting thrown.
The reason 'Star Cops' failed was that it was bunged out in a death slot on BBC2, and that by 1987 we weren't watching TV drama series in
the
same way anymore. 'Star Cops' would have sat quite happily at 8:10pm on
BBC1 on
a Tuesday night in 1978. It has all the ingredients of those dramas: simple premise, and a small set of characters whom you stick in various situations
week
by week.
Perhaps true, but there's a bit more to it I think in that it's still hard to get people to watch it today. When I lived in Canada, I remember the local public station (which usually gave anything British and 1970s pride of place on the viewing schedule) put it out at 11 PM and seemed rather embarrassed about showing it at all--I'm not sure they understood it. Similarly, I know a lot of fans who say that they find it hard to get into, and/or the characters hard to identify with, or, in one case, "it just leaves me cold," even after I've sat them down and forced them to watch it.
I agree that Boucher is at his best when he's writing within an established format, and that Nation was above all a consummate professional who knew
how to
get programmes commissioned.
Definitely. But I also think they're both more than that...
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane The Incomparable Atuk in Space at http://nyder.r67.net
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