Jeopardy (BBC TV series)

Infobox_Television
show_name = Jeopardy


caption = "Jeopardy"'s intertitle
format = Science fiction drama
runtime = approx. 24 minutes
creator =
starring = "see below"
country = UK
network = BBC One
first_aired = 26 April 2002
last_aired = 2 September 2004
num_episodes = 40
list_episodes = List of Jeopardy episodes
imdb_id = 0296693
tv_com_id = 17387

"Jeopardy" is a BAFTA award-winning British television series which ran for three series, from 2002 to 2004, on BBC One. The series was produced for CBBC Scotland and filmed on location in both Scotland and Australia. In 2002 the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awarded the first series Best Children's Drama.

The show is about a group of eight high-school students and their teacher who go from Falkirk, Scotland, to the Australian bush to look for UFOs. They are given camcorders to record any sightings, and the series (much like the "Blair Witch Project") makes extensive use of jerky footage supposedly from those handheld cameras.

As of yet, the series has not been released on either VHS or DVD.

Cast and Characters

*Steven Vidler as Gerry Simmons : a middle aged teacher who runs the school Ufology club. Gerry has believed in UFOs ever since he saw one fly overhead in Scotland.
*Gordon McCorkell as David : a stereotypical geek and firm believer in extraterrestrials.
*Kari Corbett as Sarah : a hippy-like girl who enters into a relationship with David.
*Craig Moncur as Harry Hastings : who suffers from epilepsy. He is David's best friend. He enters into a relationship with Lucy Jeffers in series two and three.
*Samantha Bowie as Lucy Jeffers : the best friend of Sarah. She later enters into a relationship with Harry Hastings in series two and three.
*Shelley O'Neill as Shona Campbell : Short, dumpy and ginger, she has been brought up by traditionalist parents who would never have allowed her to have gone on a Ufology trip, so she had told them that it was a trip for Geography lesson.
*Stanley Smith as Leon : The only black member of the group. He enters into a relationship with Shona in series two and three.
*James Pearson as Simon Tudor :
*Charli Wilson as Chrissie MacAteer :
*Tammy McIntosh as Melissa : The park ranger who aids the group in series one.
*Caroline Dunphy as Helen Stanich : an agent of a men in black style government agency.
*Peta Sergeant as Professor Sam Sharpe : who works for the Australian government but disagrees with their policy of denying extratterestrial existance.

Plot

"Jeopardy" is about a group of eight senior school kids from Falkirk, Scotland, and their teacher, who go to Australia in search of aliens and UFOs. The school Ufology club has organised a trip to the outback to search for extraterrestrial activity.

Series 1 (2002)

The group go to the Australian outback to look for extraterrestrial activity. The eight teenagers, their teacher, and a park ranger, Melissa, stay in tents, with monitoring equipment set up around the area. Soon after arrival Leon is bitten by a deadly snake, and the antivenom is missing from the medical supplies. Melissa goes in search of medicine, but something stops her on the way. The teenagers find themselves alone, their teacher's control thwarted by rasher members of the group. The group see lights in the sky and radio signals fail. As the series ends they discover that the alien activity was faked by smugglers who were trying to recover a stash of stolen diamonds. However, as they leave to return to Falkirk, they are abducted by aliens...

Series 2 (2003)

The second series starts with the group on Paramundi ridge, where they are picked up by several helicopters. They are taken to a military complex where they realise that their camcorder tapes have been altered. Gerry, the teacher, has been taken to a mental institution due to him raving that they were abducted by aliens before being replaced and picked up by the military. The group also realise that their friends David and Sarah are missing. They escape from the facility and are pursued by an agent called Stanich. Later on they find out Simon has been betraying them and Harry tells the group he is suspicious, Chrissy soon finds out and tells the group. They plan to lock him in a wagon for one night to teach him a lesson but when they pick him up the next morning, soon realise that the wagon has gone. They travel around Australia in an old Kombi looking for David and Sarah. Their search leads them around Australia, meeting with weird UFO buffs and bizarre twin girls, as well as encountering Aboriginal prophecies and supernatural phenomena. At the end of the series, they arrive at the Glass Mountains where they link arms to bring the aliens down to return David and Sarah...

Series 3 (2004)

...however, this fails, and the group, minus Gerry, David and Sarah, find themselves in back home in Falkirk, Scotland. They quickly discover that they are only visible to two people - David and Sarah. David and Sarah were returned to Earth to witness the apparent suicide of the rest of the group. While David and Sarah stay in Scotland, the rest of the group return to Australia via a time travel portal. Back in Australia, they are visible again, and are continually pursued by Stanich. They realise that they must try to contact the aliens so that everything can be returned to normal. But things go terribly wrong when they discover that all their portal travel has given them a condition called "red-eye". Under this condition, when an individual gets stressed, their iris turns red and they "split", looking as if there are two separate people for a number of seconds, and then promptly disappearing. As more and more of them disappear, the remaining members must team up with Stanich. Eventually their search leads them to a top-secret base on Astrid Island. At this island, they find their friends who had disappeared - however, they now have the mentality of an eight year old, and the unusual symptom of appearing black on an infra-red camera. At the end of series 3, Harry and Lucy meet with two twin boys, who reveal themselves as aliens. The aliens inform them that they were the original inhabitants of Earth, and all of their species are twins. The aliens inform the pair that there is no way to repair the "red-eye" disease, but that they can transport Harry and Lucy back in time and space to Falkirk before the group set off, in order to stop it from ever happening. The duo then return in time where they use their recorded videotapes to convince the team to never go ahead.

Ending

At the end of series three, CBBC viewers were asked to vote for a way to end the series. The choices were a "spooky", "happy", or "surprising" ending. On the premiere of the final episode, the "spooky" ending won the vote.

The "spooky" ending left the series on a cliffhanger, as a past Harry and Lucy encountered the future incarnations of themselves, who have returned from the future. At the shock of seeing her past self, and realising that two separate versions of herself now exist in one timeline, the red-eye virus kicks in, and the series ends with the future of Lucy being uncertain.

In a future repeat of the episode, the vote was run again, however the "happy" ending was chosen. The only difference was that the episode ended before the alternate versions of Harry and Lucy entered the room. Ending on January 25, 2007, the series was run again, but this time the viewers were not asked to vote on an ending. The original, "spooky" ending was played again. The "surpising" ending has never been aired.

External links

*Tv.com show|id=17387|title=Jeopardy
*imdb title|id=0296693|title=Jeopardy
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/games/play/play_js.shtml#/ "Jeopardy", "The Game".]