British Television Science Fiction - 1980s

1980s

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 imports in the genre which began to re-emerge following the box-office success of contemporary films like the Star Wars franchise. For the television channel controllers, these had the benefit of transmission rights having a lower cost than any domestic productions. Dr Who's place in the Saturday schedule was briefly lost when it was moved to a weekday slot.

Nonetheless, in the early part of the decade there were several serials produced, albeit mainly by the BBC; the bought in series mainly aired on ITV. Adaptations of novels such as The Day of the Triffids (1981), The Invisible Man (1984) and The Nightmare Man (1981, from the novel Child of the Vodyanoi) were produced, and the BBC began an adaptation of The White Mountains novels, under the name The Tripods (1984–85).

The Tripods had run for two of its planned three series when it was cancelled by the Controller of BBC1, Michael Grade. At the same time Grade abandoned a whole season of Doctor Who, the series was rested for eighteen months.

It appeared to be generally felt at the BBC that science fiction was more expensive to produce than other types of programme but did not return any higher audiences for the outlay or particular critical acclaim. Some BBC popular and critical successes such as Edge of Darkness (1985) had science-fiction as a secondary element. The industry's shift in drama productions being entirely mounted on film rather than using the old film/video 'hybrid' form, with increased costs edged out genre's thought marginal.

Perhaps the very last original series of its kind in the multi-camera era of BBC science fiction was Star Cops (1987), which ran for only nine episodes to poor viewing figures on the corporation's second channel, BBC2. It was written by Chris Boucher, who had contributed scripts to Doctor Who and Blake's 7, and was script editor for the later series entire run.

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 (1981) by Douglas Adams which amalgamated aspects of the original radio series with that of the subsequent novel. The second was Red Dwarf (1988–99, 2009-present), 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). Running for more than eight series, the idea was originally developed from the Dave Hollins: Space Cadet sketches introduced on Grant and Naylor's 1984 BBC Radio 4 show Son of Cliché.