British Television Science Fiction - Television Science Fiction in The '70s

Television Science Fiction in The '70s

The 1970s is viewed by fans of the genre as a 'golden age'. 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.

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 Doomwatch (1970–72), a series which recounted the story of a governmental scientific group formed to investigate and combat ecological and scientific threats to humankind. In the Quatermass tradition of allegorical storytelling (Nigel Kneale was invited, but declined to contribute scripts to the programme), it used its science-fiction basis to try to 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 created the Dalek race for Doctor Who in 1963, and thus assuring much of its early popularity. For the rest of the 1960s Nation had concentrated on writing for ITV film series, 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 (1975–77).

Survivors was a post-apocalyptic tale of a small group of people who were the only humans left after a plague caused by biological warfare lab accident has wiped out most of humanity. It ran for three seasons and was generally well received. Nation followed it by creating Blake's 7 (1978–81).

Pitched by Nation as "the Dirty Dozen in space", Blake's 7 was originally centred around 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. Running for four seasons, the early evening series had a hard edge. The moral ambiguity of the leading characters made them interesting, and as with Doomwatch it was not afraid of shocking the audience by killing off leading characters, climaxing by wiping out the entire crew in its final episode.

ITV was continuing to produce science fiction in this era. Keen to catch some of the young audience who followed Doctor Who, some of the ITV companies sought to create their own youth-oriented genre programmes, such as Timeslip (1970) and The Tomorrow People (1973–79). Although it presented some intriguing (if bizarre) storylines, it never rivalled Doctor Who, possibly because unlike the BBC programme it attempted to identify with children by featuring children, thus making the crossover appeal to an adult audience much more difficult.

A much more respected show, produced by ATV in a similar production manner to Doctor Who (i.e. on videotape using a serial form) was Sapphire & Steel (1979–82). 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.