British television science fiction

The first known piece of television science fiction anywhere in the world was produced by the BBC's fledgling television service, then less than eighteen months old, on February 11 1938. The piece was a thirty-five-minute adaptation of a section of the play "R.U.R.", originally written by the Czech playwright Karel Čapek and performed live from the BBC's Alexandra Palace studios. Concerning a future world in which robots rise up against their human masters, it was the only piece of science fiction to be produced by the BBC before the Corporation closed its television service down for the duration of the Second World War in September 1939. The BBC had no professional facility for recording programmes in those pre-war days, so bar a few on-set publicity photographs and reviews in the press, all records of this production are lost.

After the resumption of the service in 1946, "R.U.R." was produced a second time, this time a full production of the play, adapted for television by the producer Jan Bussell, who had also been responsible for the 1938 effort. Running to ninety minutes and again performed entirely live, the play went out on March 4, 1948, and repeated again live for a second time the following day.

Postwar Productions

Following this, the BBC did begin producing more science fiction, with further literary adaptations such as "The Time Machine" (1949) and children's serials like "Stranger from Space" (1951–1952).

It was not until the summer of 1953 that adult-themed science-fiction drama specially written for television rather than adapted from other sources arrived on British television in the form of the six-part serial "The Quatermass Experiment", by BBC staff writer Nigel Kneale. Taking up the majority of the BBC's drama budget for the year and again produced live from their Alexandra Palace studios, the serial was a huge hit with audiences who had never been treated to anything of its kind before. It led to three further "Quatermass" serials and three feature film adaptations from Hammer, and was very much the basis upon which an entire generation of British television science fiction was established. "The Quatermass Experiment" is also the first piece of British television science fiction to survive in the archives, albeit only in the form of poor-quality telerecordings of its first two episodes, the latter four being lost.

Kneale knew that as his serials were being transmitted live, he could not rely on film style special effects to tell his stories, although "Quatermass II" (1955) and "Quatermass and the Pit" (1958–1959) were both admirably served by the newly formed BBC Visual Effects Department. Instead, he based his stories around characterisation and those characters' reactions to the strange events unfolding around them, using science-fiction themes to tell allegorical stories, most effectively paralleling real life racial tensions with the Martian "infection" of "Quatermass and the Pit".

It is perhaps important to note here a crucial production difference between the manner in which British – in particular BBC – and American television science fiction and indeed television in general was produced during this period. As the BBC was based mainly around live productions right up until the early nineteen sixties (the facility to telerecord programmes onto film did exist before the advent of commercial professional videotape, but was almost always used to repeat a live broadcast rather than pre-film a production) their studios were purely electronic environments, using video cameras to transmit and later record dramas to videotape. This is different from the American system of pre-shooting television dramas and comedies directly onto film, and although the BBC and other British broadcasters did use film for pre-shot inserts into live broadcasts and later for location material that could not be mounted in the studio, the majority of British TV science fiction and almost all of that produced by the BBC was shot on videotape well into the 1980s.

On 12 December 1954 a live adaptation of George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four", produced by the "Quatermass" team of writer Nigel Kneale and director Rudolph Cartier, achieved the highest television ratings since the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. It was so controversial that it was debated in Parliament, and campaigners tried to have the second performance the following Thursday banned. The BBC's Head of Drama Michael Barry refused to concede.

Even though the "Quatermass" serials had helped to popularise science fiction amongst the rapidly increasing mainstream television audience of the 1950s – with "Quatermass and the Pit" famously "emptying the pubs" – science-fiction productions were still few and far between and almost always one-offs. Popular serials such as "A for Andromeda" (1961) (which starred a young Julie Christie) would occasionally be given a sequel serial ("The Andromeda Breakthrough", 1962), but for the most part on the BBC they would remain one-offs.

Enter ITV

Britain's independent television network, ITV, and its constituent local franchise holders first began dipping their toes seriously into the waters of science fiction in the early nineteen sixties. One of the driving forces behind their experimentation was Canadian producer Sydney Newman, who had been tempted over from Canada to become the Head of Drama at the ABC company (ITV franchise holders for the Midlands and the North at weekends and one of the providers of programmes for the entire network). At ABC, Newman produced the science-fiction serials "Pathfinders In Space" (1960) and its sequel "Pathfinders to Venus" (1961), and span the science-fiction anthology series "Out of This World", the first of its kind in the UK, from the mainstream drama anthology "Armchair Theatre".

The BBC in the 1960s

Two vitally important events for the future of the British television science fiction, the results of which still influence the course of the genre today, occurred in 1962. The first was that the BBC's Head of Light Entertainment, Eric Maschwitz, asked Head of the Script Department Donald Wilson to have some members of his department prepare a report on the viability of producing a new science-fiction series for television. The second was that Sydney Newman was tempted away from the ABC to take up the position of Head of Drama at the BBC, joining the Corporation in December.

These two events led in 1963 to the BBC developing an idea of Newman's into Britain's first long-running science-fiction television series, a programme that would go on for year after year rather than simply being a one-off serial with perhaps a sequel or two as had previously been the pattern. Taking advantage of the research Wilson's department had already done, Newman initiated the creation and along with Wilson and BBC staff writer C.E. Webber oversaw the development of this new series, which Newman named "Doctor Who".

The importance of "Doctor Who" to British television science fiction cannot be overstated. It lasted for twenty-six seasons in its original form, has been revived twice and as a result is now an ongoing concern again, produced most of the writers who would go on to create nearly all the successful British genre shows up until the nineteen eighties and influenced nearly all those working in the genre in British television today. It is the most popular genre series ever to have been screened on British television and one of the few to have become part of the mainstream popular consciousness, and on an international scale is the only series to seriously rival the cult status of the American Star Trek franchise.

After much development work, the series was launched on November 23, 1963 and within the space of a few months had become much more successful than any of its creators ever could have imagined. Its popular success throughout the nineteen sixties perhaps influenced the BBC in the production of other genre efforts, of particular note being its own sci-fi anthology series "Out of the Unknown", which ran for four acclaimed seasons in the late sixties and early seventies.

ITV's Classic, World-Distributed Adventure Shows

During this time the ITV companies had been developing their production techniques and moving over to more American styles of production, shooting on glossy film rather than clunky videotape and producing a variety of action / adventure series such as "The Avengers", "Danger Man" and "The Saint", many of which became international successes but few of which could be really said to be actual science fiction as such. One producer who was keen on making science fiction for the independent companies was Gerry Anderson, who wanted to make live-action series but did not have the money, so used puppetry instead. His science fiction shows such as "Thunderbirds", "Captain Scarlet" and "Stingray" became huge successes and are still well-known to this day.

Anderson's great success in the children-aimed puppet show market eventually led to him being given the money to develop the live-action shows he so desperately wanted to make. The first of these was "UFO", which starred American actor Ed Bishop (Anderson often cast American actors with a view to lucrative US sales) as the head of an undercover military organisation with responsibility for combating aliens who came to Earth in the eponymous space craft. Although the series is today well respected and has impressive production values for the time, poor scheduling meant it was never as popular a hit as it could have been. A planned second season was delayed and eventually reformatted as an entirely new show, entitled "", which ran for two seasons and was a moderate success. Although again impressively and expensively produced, it lacks some of the strong scripting and characterisation that usually underpin the most successful genre programmes.

The Golden Age of British Televised Science Fiction

The 1970s in particular can be said to have been the "Golden Age" of British television science fiction. Across the board there were generally good production values and interesting scripts, and few sci-fi series of any great note were being exported from the US at the time, leaving a concentration on UK product. "Doctor Who" was going through its strongest period with first Jon Pertwee (1970–1974) and later Tom Baker (1974–1981) in the leading role, already firmly entrenched in the public consciousness but still surprising and entertaining.

Various former "Doctor Who" alumni had moved on to produce their own acclaimed genre programmes as well. The series' former scientific adviser Dr Kit Pedler and former script editor Gerry Davis collaborated to create a programme entitled "Doomwatch", which told the story of a governmental scientific group formed to investigate and combat ecological and scientific threats to humankind. Very much in the "Quatermass" tradition of allegorical storytelling (Nigel Kneale was indeed invited, although declined, to contribute scripts to the programme), it used its science-fiction basis to try and convey real warnings about the state of the world, as well as telling tense, dramatic stories and not being afraid of shocking its audience, such as in the killing off of popular lead character Toby Wren (played by Robert Powell).

Writer Terry Nation had been one of the formative influences on "Doctor Who"'s popularity, creating the legendary Dalek race for the show's second serial in 1963, and thus assuring much of its early popularity and later longevity. For the rest of the 1960s Nation had concentrated on writing for ITV film series such as "The Baron" and "The Avengers", but in the early 1970s he returned to science fiction, contributing Dalek stories to "Doctor Who" again from 1973 to 1975 and in 1975 creating his own science-fiction show, "Survivors".

"Survivors" was a post-apocalyptic tale of a small group of people who were the only ones left over after a plague caused by biological warfare lab accident has wiped out most of humanity. Although it ran for three seasons and was generally interesting and well-received, its impact was minimal compared to the second series that Nation conceived on his own, a space opera entitled "Blake's 7".

Pitched by Nation as "The Dirty Dozen" in space", "Blake's 7" told the story of righteous freedom fighter Roj Blake, his battle with a corrupt Galactic Federation and the rag-tag group of pirates, criminals and smugglers who are reluctantly forced to work with him after an escape from a prison ship together. Running for four seasons from 1978 to 1981, "Blake's 7" is one of the few British television science-fiction series to have really engrained itself into the popular consciousness, and along with the likes of "Doctor Who" and "Quatermass" has certainly been one of the most influential. Although its production values were never as glossy as they could have been, the storytelling was nearly always impressive and the crucial point about the series was its hard edge. The moral ambiguity of the leading characters made them more appealing, and as with "Doomwatch" it was not afraid of shocking the audience by killing off the leading characters, most famously wiping out the entire regular cast in its iconic final episode.

ITV was producing other science fiction in the 1970s as well as the aforementioned Gerry Anderson film series. Keen to garner some of the young audience who eagerly followed "Doctor Who", many of the ITV companies sought to create their own youth-oriented genre programmes, such as "Timeslip" (1970) and "The Tomorrow People". The latter ran for six years from 1973 to 1979, but although it presented some intriguing (if bizarre) storylines, it never attained the status of "Doctor Who", possibly because unlike the BBC programme it attempted to identify with children by starring children, thus making the crossover appeal to an adult audience much more difficult. It is still very fondly remembered by those who watched it at the time, however.

A much more respected show, produced by midlands ITV franchise holders ATV in a similar production style to "Doctor Who" (i.e. on videotape with various serials made up of between four and eight episodes of twenty-five minutes each) was "Sapphire & Steel". The tale of two "time detectives" played by David McCallum and Joanna Lumley, "Sapphire & Steel" was a superbly atmospheric piece of television, although its production run was often hampered by the unavailability of its two leads and it was brought to a premature – if memorable – end in 1982 when ATV were forced to transform into Central Independent Television.

Into the 1980s

During the 1980s, television production in general in the UK was beginning to change, and longer-running science-fiction series became few and far between. Although "Doctor Who" was still running, in terms of audience it was struggling to compete with US genre shows such as "Battlestar Galactica", which could be bought in by broadcasters for much less cost than producing their own programmes. Its audience figures began to crumble and it began to lose its place at the heart of British television viewing.

Nonetheless, in the early part of the decade there were several one-off serials produced, albeit mainly for the BBC, ITV concentrating mostly on buying in American series if it wanted science fiction. Adaptations of novels such as "The Day of the Triffids", "The Invisible Man" and "Child of the Vodyanoi" (as "The Nightmare Man") were produced to great acclaim, and the BBC began an adaptation of "The White Mountains" novels, under the name "The Tripods".

"The Tripods" had run for two of its planned three series in 1985 when it was cancelled by the Controller of BBC1, Michael Grade. At the same time Grade attempted to cancel "Doctor Who", although the public still had immense affection for the series even if they no longer watched it, and the resulting outcry made him turn the cancellation into an eighteen month suspension.

It appeared to be generally felt, at the BBC at least, that science fiction was more expensive to produce than other types of programme but did not return any higher audiences for that outlay, so it seemed uneconomical to make. Although there were some big popular hits around this time such as "Edge of Darkness", these were more mainstream dramas and thrillers with science-fiction elements than out-and-out genre shows. "Edge of Darkness" is important however as it was one of an increasing number of BBC shows to be mounted entirely on film rather than using any VT, a production method to which the BBC was increasingly switching over for everything bar soap operas and sitcoms as it was becoming apparent how cheap videotape made productions looked, in comparison to both commercial television productions and US imports.

Perhaps the very last original series of its kind in the videotape era of BBC science fiction was "Star Cops", which ran for only nine episodes in the summer of 1987 to poor viewing figures on the corporation's second channel, BBC Two. Written by Chris Boucher, who had contributed three popular scripts to "Doctor Who" in the late 1970s and then script edited all four seasons of "Blake's 7"and written some of that show's greatest episodes, it was a well thought-out programme, but poor ratings and being at the end of a tradition had doomed it from the start.

The 1980s also saw the arrival on the BBC of two science fiction comedy series both of which had their origins on radio. The first was "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams which amalgamated aspects of the original radio series with that of the subsequent novel and aired in 1981. The second was "Red Dwarf", created and originally written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. It parodies most (if not all) of the subgenres of science fiction but is first and foremost an 'odd couple' type comedy (the couple in question being the characters of Rimmer and Lister). The first series aired on BBC2 in 1988. Seven further series have so far been produced, and a film is currently in production. The idea was originally developed from the sketches introduced on Grant and Naylor's 1984 BBC Radio 4 show "Son of Cliché".

After the Golden Age

"Doctor Who" survived until 1989, although at a much reduced episode count and with dwindling viewing figures in a poor slot, before the BBC decided to farm the series out to independent production. This process took seven long years and resulted in only one television movie in 1996, before another seven years passed and the BBC announced that it was returning as an expensive, high-profile in-house production. This has much to do with the fact that many of those in a position to write and produce the series now were fans of the show when they were younger and had a keen desire to see it resurrected, a sign of how strong the influence of the programme has been.

Perhaps the most high-profile of those behind the movement to return Doctor Who to the screens is writer Russell T. Davies, who initially worked in the BBC children's department earlier in his career, and it was here that he first contributed to British TV sci-fi. With very few adult sci-fi programmes being made, in the early 1990s children's television was one of the few places you would find British TV sci-fi, with other slots being filled with US imports such as "".

Davies' first sci-fi serial was the 1991 six-parter "Dark Season", which co-starred a young Kate Winslet as well as former "Blake's 7" star Jacqueline Pearce. This was very well-received by even adult genre fans, and two years later Davies wrote a second, much more complex serial called "Century Falls". On ITV, children could see an updated version of "The Tomorrow People" (1992–94) made as an international co-production with companies in the US and Australia, and there were various other child-oriented sci-fi type series such as ITV's "Mike & Angelo" and the BBC's "Watt on Earth", although these lacked the crossover adult appeal that Davies' shows had possessed.

The interest in making British TV science fiction seemed to return to broadcasters towards the middle of the 1990s, perhaps fuelled by the success of the US imports that had helped persuade them to cut back on the genre in the first place, in that companies began to see the possibility of lucrative overseas sales and tie-in products that other genres couldn't match. In the mid-1990s the BBC screened four seasons of the glossy sci-fi action adventure series "Bugs" made by independent company Carnival. In 1998 they co-produced the six-part serial "Invasion: Earth" with the US Sci-Fi Channel, and even ITV began attempting to market British sci-fi again with serials such as "The Uninvited" (1997) and "The Last Train" (1999).

As of 2005, there seems to be some degree of optimism for the future of the genre in the UK, and with good reason. Most of the highest-profile US shows have gently wound down and production of science fiction has become much cheaper with the rise of computer effects technology.

"Doctor Who" returned to television screens on March 26, 2005 to enormous critical acclaim, becoming once again one of the highest rated programmes on British television, and a "live" remake of "The Quatermass Experiment" was broadcast on BBC Four on April 2. Such productions appeared to have begun a new interest in science-fiction amongst British producers, with various series in production as of 2005. These included a further season of "Doctor Who", a spin-off entitled "Torchwood", new time travel drama "Life on Mars" for the BBC and "Eleventh Hour" and "Primeval" in preparation for ITV.