Bugs (TV series)

Bugs
Bugs intertitle
Format	Action drama
Created by	Brian Eastman Stuart Doughty
Starring	Jaye Griffiths Craig McLachlan Jesse Birdsall Jan Harvey Paula Hunt Steven Houghton
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	40 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	48 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC One
Original run	1 April 1995 – 28 August 1999

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 and other modern technology. It was originally broadcast on Saturday evenings on BBC One, and was produced for the BBC by the independent production company Carnival Films.

Overview

Main article: List of Bugs episodes

The series was devised by Carnival boss Brian Eastman and producer Stuart Doughty with input from veteran writer-producer Brian Clemens, who had previously worked on The Avengers. Clemens described Bugs as "an Avengers for the 1990s". Other notable series writers included Colin Brake and Stephen Gallagher. Two episodes ("Bugged Wheat" and "Hollow Man"), were written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who went on to create the series Smallville. The theme tune was written by Gavin Greenaway. The programme was a mixture of action/adventure and science-fiction, with a reliance on fast-paced plots, technical gadgetry, stunts and explosions. Much of the programme's filming took place around the London Docklands area, which had recently been redeveloped with projects such as Canary Wharf. This was intended to give a modern, and perhaps even slightly futuristic, feel to locations of the episodes. The production was originally based at two warehouses of Blackwall Basin, on the Isle of Dogs in London. After the IRA bombing of the South Park Plaza, the crew had to travel further to find intact buildings for exterior locations.^[1]

DVD Release

The plot of the programme involved a team of specialist independent crime-fighting technology experts, who faced a variety of threats based around computers and other modern technology. The main trio of regulars were Nick Beckett (Jesse Birdsall), Ros Henderson (Jaye Griffiths) and Ed (Craig McLachlan in series one to three, Steven Houghton in series four). Initially an independent team, they began working alongside the government agency 'Bureau of Weapons Technology' in series two and from series three, with the original Bureau decimated, they came under the authority of the newly-created Bureau 2, whose head was codenamed Jan (Jan Harvey) (her real first name was revealed to be Barbara, but her surname was never given) and her secretary, Alex Jordan (Paula Hunt).

The series evolved, as a result, from a series of relatively unconnected one-off episodes to an over-arching 'soap opera' complete with office romances. There has been controversy over Ed's surname - because he was never called anything other than "Ed", some people have taken his surname to be Russell, simply because he was addressed as "Dr Russell" in one episode. However, that was more likely a pseudonym, as both Ros and Beckett used plenty of false names throughout the series.

The programme came close to cancellation at the conclusion of its third series, but due to an exciting cliffhanger ending deliberately included by the production team, and strong foreign sales, a fourth was commissioned. The final series suffered from being moved to an earlier timeslot on Saturday evenings, and for only having the first eight of its produced ten episodes scheduled for broadcast.^[2] Coupled with the Omagh Bombing forcing the BBC to postpone the series for a week, this meant that the concluding three episodes would not be broadcast until a year later. Another attempt to save the show by giving the series a cliffhanger ending was not successful, and the ending of the final episode — where Alex has just married boyfriend Adam, only to have him killed at the wedding and Ros and Beckett are abducted by an attacker unseen by the audience but recognised by Beckett — was never resolved.

The series has something of a minor cult following in the UK, not least for glaring production faults - for example in the first episode the cast are quite clearly stepping onto pre-chalked outlines to aid what was presumably a necessarily short external shot.^{[citation needed]} Overall 40 episodes were produced, ten in each of the four series. Virgin Publishing produced novelizations of the episodes of the first series, but these were not successful and subsequent episodes were not novelised. As of 2005, the series is available on DVD in series-by-series box set form, released by Revelation Films. A complete box set collection of all four series is also available.

References to The Avengers

Bugs contains several references to 1960s cult series and Brian Clemens' masterpiece, The Avengers. Here are some examples :

• The colour of Beckett's Jeep Cherokee^{[disambiguation needed ]} is British racing green, the same green as the various Bentleys John Steed used to drive in The Avengers.
• In "Down Among the Dead Men" (series 1, Episode 4), Beckett keeps correcting Ed who speaks of boats instead of ships. John Steed also explained the difference between boats and ships to Tara King in The Avengers episode "Game".
• In "Shotgun Wedding" (series 1, Episode 5), Ros is seen rather badly sewing a fake button on Ed's leather jacket, while at the end of the episode Ed resews the button with remarkable skill. Back in the 1960s, John Steed marvelled on Emma Peel's ability to sew in The Avengers episode "Escape In Time". This is a sign of social change : in the 1960s, Emma was a modern woman who was not expected to sew, but in the 1990s, things have become more complicated: Ros is the modern woman who is not expected to sew - and can't, and Ed is the modern man who is not expected to sew, but can anyway.
• In "Bugged Wheat" (series 2, Episode 3), the Bugs team encounters Nathan Pym, a villain with a pronunciation problem who wants to decimate wheat with a pest. In the Avengers episode "The Rotters", John Steed chatted with another Mr. Pym, who kept using meaningless words in his sentences; the episode was about villains wanting to destroy the country with dry rot.

References

1. ^ SFX Magazine, May 1996, p. 51.
2. ^ Original announcement of BUGs series four's eight episode run on the Official BUGs website [1]

External links

• Bugs at the Internet Movie Database
• Bugs at TV.com