Star Cops

## Behind the scenes

***Star Cops*** is a British science fiction television and audio drama, first broadcast on BBC 2 in 1987. It was devised and co-written by Chris Boucher, who went about writing it as a cop drama set in space. Boucher had previously written for other science fiction shows such as *Doctor Who* and *Blake's 7*. He had also written for other police dramas such as *Juliet Bravo* and *Bergerac*.

Boucher had intended this series to be set "forty years in the future", giving it a setting of 2027. The drama foresees space travel and habitation as nothing out of the ordinary. The series saw orbiting space stations, the Moon and later Mars receiving a neutral police force, outside of politics. This police force was named the International Space Police Force, however most people mockingly called it the Star Cops.

The main character was Nathan Spring, played by David Calder, who was a London Chief Inspector forced into the role of Commander of the Star Cops, much to his frustration. Spring was a man who disliked space, and everything that came with it, especially the weightlessness. The series was known as being a departure from the usual science fiction dramas due to it using coarse language, using adult themes such as murders, sex and human experimentation.

Ten episodes were written and planned for *Star Cops* but due to industrial action at the BBC, only nine made it to air, with the cancelled episode only making it to the rehearsal stage. Despite its cancellation in 1987, it has received a cult following, being hailed as "a pretty good attempt at a moderately realistic "High Frontier" SF series".

This cult following, and also no doubt the sales of the novelisations, VHS and DVD releases, led to the aquisition of the license by audio company Big Finish Productions, and from 2018, *Star Cops* survived through the audio medium, following Boucher's intended plan for the series, such as establishing an ISPF base on Mars, as well as introducing fresh ideas for series arcs. The series is still ongoing. In 2022, the third audio series, entitled *The High Frontier*, was released to mark the series' thirty-fifth anniversary, including returning themes, characters and references from both the television and audio *Star Cops* series.

## History of *Star Cops*

### Origin

Originally a comedy writer, Chris Boucher was a writer known for his work on crime dramas, such as *Juliet Bravo* and *Bergerac*. Among science fiction fans, he was known for his three serials on *Doctor Who*, as well as script editing and writing for *Blake's 7*. Boucher had failed to pitch *Star Cops* as a radio series to the BBC in 1981 due to their science fiction quota being adequately met by *Earthsearch*. This led Boucher to pitch it for BBC television instead.

His first draft for *Star Cops* was sent to the Head of Drama at BBC television, Jonathan Powell, who asked Boucher to write a second script, upon which he could just the strength of the series. This led to the show being commissioned. The first episode, which would later become *An Instinct for Murder*, was originally intended as a two parter, but Powell insisted that it be made as a singular episode. Powell also requested that Boucher choose between working on *Star Cops* or *Bergerac*, but not both. This led Boucher to give up his role on *Bergerac*.

### Production

Evgeny Gridneff, who had previously produced *Tenko* and *Hold the Back Page*, was assigned to produced *Star Cops*. However, Gridneff and Boucher did not see eye-to-eye on their visions for the show. Boucher was told by Gridneff that all of his scripts would have to be rewritten, with Boucher later claiming in an interview that "[their] relationship started at the bottom and worked its way down".

Despite wanting to write all ten episodes by himself, he soon realised that the time between writing and recording made this impossible. He settled with writing five, and personally requested the other episodes to split between John Collee and Philip Martin. Collee had been a journalist for *The Observer* before writing films, his most notable being *Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World*. Martin on the other hand was inexperienced, but has previously written for *Doctor Who*. Two directors were assigned to the show, Christopher Baker, who had previously worked with Gridneff on *Hold Back the Page*, and Graeme Harper, who was well-known in the industry for his work on *Doctor Who*. Harper would later be asked to return to direct the reboot of *Doctor Who*.

Yet again, Gridneff and Boucher clashed when their ideas for how the series would be shot would differ. Boucher wanted to make the space scenes seem more unique, wishing to use film to record location shooting, and video to shoot the studio work. However, Boucher was displeased to discover that Gridneff had recording all scenes on video.

David Calder was cast as Nathan Spring, an experienced actor who had gained a reputation as a hardman from his role as Detective Inspector George Resnick in *Widows*. Nathan, named after Boucher's youngest son, was intended as a much younger man, who had risen quickly through the ranks. Trevor Cooper's casting as Colin Devis was Graeme Harper's suggestion, having worked with him on *Doctor Who* and also in theatre.The rest of the case were relative unknowns and newcomers.

Scenes of Nathan Spring's astronaut training, aided by the McDonnell Douglas Corporation, were included, as Gridneff wanted to make space travel as realistic as possible, seeing as the series was only forty years in the future. She, therefore, sought advice from space agencies such as NASA, who would aid them to depict accurate space scenes and set designs. Pete Conrad, the third man on the Moon, helped the team immensely in their depiction of weightlessness.

The first block of episodes included *An Instinct for Murder*, *Conversations with the Dead* and *Intelligent Listening for Beginners*, and recording started on 12 August 1986. All three episodes were directed by Christopher Baker. The second block, containing *Trivial Games and Paranoid Pursuits*, *This Case to be Opened in a Million Years* and *In Warm Blood* was recording, this time directed by Graeme Harper. Baker returned to direct *A Double Life* and *Other People's Secrets*. The differing visions for the series between the two directors was notable, with Baker wanting the sets brightly lit, whereas Harper wanted to turn the lights right down to create tension, and add more feeling to the story. With Baker's return to direction for the third set, his returning to his lighting style added confusion to the continuity.

In the episode *In Warm Blood*, a new character was introduced by Gridneff, Anna Shoun. Due to her not having consulted Boucher when making this decision, it was noted by the cast and crew that their relationship was getting worse, with David Calder himself later admitted that he was "[uncertain] as to which direction this series should go in".  Boucher had later admitted that, had he known how the relationship between them would have gone, he'd have offered to produce the series himself. Gridneff later responded to his criticism with understanding, stating that, "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 fourth and final block had originally been planned to include the two final episodes, *Death on the Moon* and *Information Received*. This was disrupted by industrial action at the BBC, which had caused *Star Cops* to cancel *Death on the Moon* during its rehearsal stage, leaving the show to broadcast only nine episodes. *Information Received* would be renamed to *Little Green Men and Other Martians*, and due to illness, Erick Ray Evans had to pull out of filming, and David Theroux's lines had to be hastily rewritten for Pal Kenzy. The show finally wrapped on 18 February 1987.

The last thing to do was to decide on a theme tune. "It Won't Be Easy" was written and performed by Justin Hayward, the lead vocalist of the bad the Moody Blues. The theme was produced by record producer Tony Visconti, who joined Hayward in creating the incidental music for every episode. Reaction to theme was not overly positive, with *SFX* magazine placing it twenty-ninth on their list of "The 50 Worst Things About SF Ever!" Chris Boucher furthered this reaction by stating that he felt the music was "inappropriate" and that he "hated it", stating that it didn't have the feeling he had in mind.

### Viewer reaction

*Star Cops* was given the 8:30pm time slot on Monday nights on BBC 2, and was broadcast on the 6 July 1987. *Star Cops* received poor ratings, obtaining a mere 2.2 million viewer average per episode, which Boucher later attributed to the timeslot, claiming that it was a "grotesque period", claiming that in order to watch *Star Cops*, you'd have to sacrifice two hours of other viewing to watch it, which he understood people were not prepared to do. Calder made a similar remark, calling the timeslot "an act of sabotage and absurdity".

*The Times* was very critical of the show claiming it had "neither the campiness of *Star Trek*, nor the imagination of *Doctor Who* to overcome its technological limitations." After the airing of *Intelligent Listening for Beginners*, Martin Cropper of the *The Times* claimed the script was "uniformly feeble". Despite its negative reviews in the papers, readers of the *Radio Times* were divided in their opinions with some praising its "brilliant special effects, well-written scripts and actors who were convincing", while others slated it, stating the designs were "dated" and the sets were "cheap", and echoing Boucher's own ideas that the music was "poor". It did, however, gain the Media Award from the British Science Fiction Association in 1987. Boucher later attributed the cancellation of the show to it being too outlandish for crime drama fans, yet not outlandish enough for sci-fi fans, leaving it somewhere in the middle.

### A potential second series

When Gridneff approached Boucher, upon the wrapping of the first series, in regards to ideas for a second series, Boucher stated he would like the *Star Cops* to venture out further into the Solar System, visiting the Martian colonies and other Big Ring space colonies that were currently under construction. Despite the second series never having been developed, these themes would later be picked up by Big Finish Productions in their continuation of *Star Cops*, specifically in their *Mars* series.

### Audio continuation

In 2018, Big Finish Productions released its first official *Star Cops* series, *Star Cops: Mother Earth*. The continuation followed Boucher's original intention, seeing the crew visiting the Martian colonies, but also included its own ideas, such as having the team fight terrorist organisations, and Nathan facing off against a Jack the Ripper style murderer.

Big Finish also set about removing some of the troublesome aspects of the original series, such as the racial stereotyping of Americans as warmongers, and the over-exaggerated Japanese characters. Furthermore, the theme tune was changed to something that better resembled a space theme, rather than a ballad.

## Episodes

*List of Star Cops episodes*
The original 1987 run of *Star Cops* had ten scripts, however due to industrial action at the BBC, only nine were filmed and broadcast. Due to an overall negative reaction from the media, and a mixed reaction from the cast and crew, the series was not recommissioned.

In 2017, the licence was obtained by audio company Big Finish Productions, best known for their ongoing *Doctor Who*, *Blake's 7* and *Sherlock Holmes* audio series. By 2018, they had started to release their new *Star Cops* range, which was a continuation, not a reboot.

Between 2022 and 2023, for the thirty-fifth anniversary of *Star Cops*, Big Finish released *The High Frontier*, a series which celebrated the history of *Star Cops*.

2024 saw the release of *Big Finish*'s first event, entitled *Star Cops: Blood Moon*, which comprised six episodes released monthly over six months.

## Other media

As well as the VHS and DVD releases, *Star Cops* has had three novelisations. Originally, show creator and co-writer, Chris Boucher had released two novelisations. One of them was an adaptation of *An Instinct for Murder*, with all four of his other scripts being combined in *Little Green Men and Other Stories*. The latter book saw to replace Anna Shoun, a character that had been dubbed a "racial stereotype", with an Irish officer called Dana Cogill. The character of Shoun was also not Boucher's copyright, with her having been created by Evgeny Gridneff.

On 23 May 2013, Boucher released a new book, simply called *Star Cops*, which is a compendium of both of the previous novelisations.

## External links

* **Star Cops** at the Internet Movie Database
* **Star Cops** at Big Finish Productions

## Footnotes

1. ↑ Golder, Dave, ed. (April 1999). "The Top 50 SF TV Shows of All Time". SFX. No. supplement to issue 50. p. 17.
2. ↑ Chris Boucher at the Internet Movie Database.
3. ↑ Chris Boucher's interview with Cult for the BBC.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "It Won't Be Easy - The Making of Star Cops", on the *Star Cops* complete series DVD, produced by Gavin Collinson.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 "Chris Boucher, Arresting Star Cops". *TV Zone* interview
6. ↑ "Written to the Core". *Doctor Who Magazine*. No. 261
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Extraordinary Coppers". *Dreamwatch* (36)
8. ↑ John Collee at the Internet Movie Database.
9. ↑ "PM's Question Time – Philip Martin Discusses His Career" on the *Star Cops* complete collection DVD.
10. ↑ Christopher Baker at the Internet Movie Database.
11. ↑ Graeme Harper at the Internet Movie Database.
12. ↑ Chris Boucher's DVD commentary for *An Instinct for Murder*.
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 "Reach Across the Stars". *Time Screen. the Magazine of British Telefantasy*. No. 20
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Introduction by Trevor Cooper" on the *Star Cops* complete collection DVD.
15. ↑ "High Noon". *Radio Times*. No. 4–10 July 1987
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Fantasy Flashback: Star Cops – An Instinct for Murder". *TV Zone*. No. 135
17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Star Cops Episode Guide". *Time Screen. the Magazine of British Telefantasy*. No. 20
18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 *The Cult of... Star Cops*, United Kingdom: BBC Scotland
19. ↑ Fantasy Flashback: Star Cops – Little Green Men and Other Martians". *TV Zone*. No. 18
20. ↑ "The 50 Worst Things About SF Ever!". *SFX* (43)
21. ↑ "Continuity and Miscellanea" on the *Star Cops* complete collection DVD.
22. ↑ "Arts (Television): Longing for lift-off". *The Times*
23. ↑ "Arts (Television): Floppy future". *The Times*
24. ↑ "You Write: sci-fi makes a comeback". *Radio Times*.
25. ↑ "BSFA: Previous winners of the BSFA awards". *Official Website of the British Science Fiction Association*
26. ↑ The Anorak. "Star Cops Articles". *The Anorak's Guide to Star Cops*.
27. ↑ Star Cops: Mars Part 1 by Big Finish Productions
28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/star-cops-mother-earth-1
29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Star Cops: Mother Earth Part 1
30. ↑ Star Cops: Sins of the Father
31. ↑ https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/open-the-high-frontier
32. ↑ Star Cops: The High Frontier 1
33. ↑ Star Cops: Blood Moon announcement
34. ↑ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0957523904?psc=1&ref=ppx\_yo2ov\_dt\_b\_product\_details