Friday, 29 June 2018

PODCAST 9 – STAR COPS


My indistinguishable mutterings may be heard at https://soundcloud.com/user-868590968/rta026-episode-26 - this is the hopefully more distinguishable text version...

PODCAST 9 – STAR COPS

Occasionally you find that there’s something that you really quite fancy watching, and find that you never bothered picking it up on DVD because you already owned it on VHS. Then, rather typically, you discover that the DVD release that you once so brutally shunned has now been deleted and can only be got hold of second-hand and at vastly inflated prices.

Granted, that’s market forces for you and, whilst you can’t buy everything, sometimes it is better to strike while the iron is at least lukewarm, and so on and so on. Sometimes, you just have to accept that you have, unfortunately, missed out.

So it was with “STAR COPS” – a show that I suddenly fancied having another look at when it was announced that the Audio Production Company “Big Finish” were planning on giving it a revisit thirty odd years down the line.

Anyway, after having a bit of an old rummage in the boxes, it turned out that I hadn’t chucked out those old tapes and, with a little bit of further rummaging, and a certain amount of jiggery-pokery with the TV set - knowing from the outset that “it won’t be easy” - I was able to dust off the old video recorder, plumb it in, and have a quick shufti at the opening episode – “An Instinct For Murder”.

Justin Heywood’s opening theme is a piece of music that’s come in for a lot of criticism down those three decades, but, strangely, I found it rather appealing in a nostalgic way when it kicked in straight away from those pre-pre-credit sequence times.

Episode one divides its time about fifty-fifty between earth and space in order to provide our hero, one Chief Superintendent Nathan Spring – as played by that very fine actor David Calder who, as a balding middle-aged man is not exactly your usual leading man in an action series – with a backstory grounded very securely on earth, reduce the need for potentially shonky special effects, show off what a damn fine copper he is to audiences more used to, for example, the “Bergerac” style of policing.

This also means that the same potential audience who might find any sci-fi trappings in their telly series a big turn off might – potentially – get drawn into the story before they realize that that’s what it is.

This was, after all, the late 1980s and viewers in the late 1980s really REALLY hated science-fiction, donchaknow? Cinema box office receipts at the time might have proved otherwise, but who were we to argue with massively paid TV Executives who probably barely watched any telly themselves.

Anyway, this splitting of the storyline also means that, apart from Nathan and his soon to be sidekick David Theroux, as played by Erick Ray Evans, you get to see very little of the other Star Cops in this particular episode.

Linda Newton’s character Pal Kensy does get a cough and a spit via a video monitor, but, perhaps rather cleverly, we are being slowly introduced to our gang in much the same way as Nathan is.

And so, the episode tells the story of two crimes. A deliberate drowning of a man in a lake on earth by two frogmen is paralleled by the murder of a space-suited man by two space-suited assassins. The cross-cutting between the murders emphasizes the link still further – these two crimes, in two different worlds are very similar.

Get it? Got it? Good. We know where we are.

Mind you, any programme that starts with some filming of some ducks gets my vote right off the bat.

It loses them immediately, however, thanks to the mustard bathrobe and – Yike! – a terrifying pair of swimming trunks.

And so, on earth, a body is found in a duck pond and whilst this might be a job for the fashion police, it is handed over to one Nathan Spring in his non unsurprisingly temporary looking office which is dominated by one vast voice-controlled television screen, which you can shout at to make it rewind and play.

Which makes it handy for those boring crimeless afternoons down at the station, I suppose.

We immediately find out just what kind of detective Nathan Spring is when he demands of his subordinate Brian Lincoln (played by Andrew Secombe – WhatwhatwhatwhatWHAT?) that instead of trusting to the probabilities of the machines – which have already decided that this was an accident – he should investigate it properly by asking important questions like “Where did he drown?”

Meanwhile, up in space we discover that David Theroux is a similarly awkward kind of a copper, too. He’s an American, because they’re a pretty international bunch floating up out there in their simple one-piece blue space overalls, making for a cheap – and yet surprisingly authentic looking – uniform and saving hugely on the costuming budget.

Despite the boredom of his job meaning that David’s floating around and playing far too many quiz question games with his friendly neighbourhood traffic controller, he’s decided that the accidental deaths put down to suit failure are happening far too often and, via a comms link cynical chat with the notorious gambler – and Australian - Officer “Pal” Kensy, we find out about the death rates being down, but constant, and within acceptable safety margins, which, in this cold, calculating, computerized society, means that he has to remind them all that they still lose people.

There’s also some chat – Plot seeding alert! – about the vacant commander’s position, and about how Kensy - Plot seeding alert! – really needs the extra money they’d pay, before we return to the mundane ritual of communicating with Euroshuttle Seven just in case we’ve forgotten that we’re up in space.

On earth, Nathan’s commander is played by one very class act, Moray Watson, more than thirty years on from his appearance in the original version of “The Quatermass Experiment”. The Commander – strangely unnamed on the final credits – tells Nathan that there’s “No evidence” of a murder and that the computers have predictably ruled the incident to be an accident.

Nathan signs off with a cheery mutter of “Bastard!” – just to show us what kind of copper he is - and we get our first glimpse of “Box”, Nathan’s far-too-expensive and state-of-the-art version of Siri, or Lexa, or whatever, which is also voiced by David Calder in a strangely narcissistic twist, and is able to do clever ORAC-y things like book dreadful restaurants for Nathan and his girlfriend Lee to eat in.

Lee, when we meet her, seems rather nice, in a “being a bit like 1980s Barbara Flynn but probably slightly cheaper” way, but, I ought to warn you that – because Nathan needs to have no ties to earth later on in the series - she’s someone who we won’t want to be getting too fond of.

It won’t be easy without her (No, no).

Anyway, Nathan’s persistence leads to a personal telling off by Commander Moray who claims not to back hunches and has a video mood wall tuned to his brainwaves so that people can tell he really means it when he’s telling them off.

Much future-times policework, it seems, is subject to assessment by the Accounts Committee who still think that the murder was an accident and Nathan is told to go on leave, and it is strongly suggested that he ought to try very, very hard to get the ISPF job that he reluctantly applied for to get out of the niche he’s settled himself into.

Plot seeding alert!

It turns out that, despite really not wanting the job, he’s made the shortlist and, as the only Brit left in the race, Moray won’t let him withdraw his name, making suggestions that he might not get a similar rank if he stays on earth, and it’s during this conversation that Nathan realizes that he’s being got rid of and we hear the first mention of the term “Star Cops” which is definitely meant as a jibe and not a compliment.

It is also stressed that the term for life in orbit is “Out there” and not “Up there” – a term that pops up a lot later in the episode, so wee’d better be paying attention at the back there.

Anyway, despite the Commander making himself very clear on the matter, Nathan decides to investigate anyway – showing just the type of maverick copper he is – and his walk by the murder pond makes him late for dinner despite “Box…”

Up in space there are a few more shonky effects shots as Stephenson, the traffic controller (played by Keith Varnier) makes a few allegedly “witty” racist jibes as his “comrades” and David carries on checking spacesuits. That’s right. Please note: David is checking spacesuits.

On earth, because Nathan insisted, and very much against his own better judgement, Brian makes a very surprising house call to interview the widow and we discover that the victim collected clocks and that all of the pocket watch cases in the collection were empty.

Well done, Brian.

Nathan, meanwhile, has a very tense dinner with Lee, which at least fills in a lot of his backstory; his dad used to sell computers which made him aware that machines can’t resist deliberate sacrifices but less aware that Lee really doesn’t like this restaurant. There’s a lot of chat about assigning Brian against orders, Nathan’s “instinct for murder” – episode title alert! – minds being made up, bad jokes, and the fact that Lee, at least, wants them to settle down to a life of domestic bliss.

Meanwhile, in space, as a food pack floats dodgily by, more spacesuits are checked. Yes, more spacesuit checking. Keep up. This might become really important later on.

Nathan then fails to fail his interview which is an international multi-person video conference call which must have seemed excitingly possible in 1987 but nowadays just reminds you of all the tedious mundane management nonsense so many of us sit through on a daily basis.

How times change. Cutting edge technology to mundane everyday drudgery in the turn of a tape spool.

Still we like Nathan, even as he’s being interviewed and we find out more about him. He prefers Sherlock Holmes to Dan Dare in anticipation of tomorrow’s newspaper reviews, which makes him a good egg, and so his training begins in anticipation of an acclimatization visit to high earth orbit.

Next time we see him he’s in a slightly unconvincing centrifuge thingy of the sort that nearly did for Roger Moore in Moonraker, and he seems more interested in getting Brian to investigate the widow’s finances and making grumpy jokes than in anything else in the training montage.

It won’t be easy… (No, no)

Meanwhile, at the pond, we see a dog walker who obviously noticed something dodgy afoot to help with Brian’s investigations…

And so Nathan finally makes it into space via a shuttle and some upside down revolving camera floating clipboard jiggery-pokery to convince us of the fact. Despite being horribly space sick, he sees through the suggestion that Russia’s Service Contract is at fault – not enough to stop the execution of some poor unfortunate, sadly (well, perestroika was yet to happen in the real world) – and that there’s more to it. He suspects a professional “hit” designed to fool the computer whereas his own technique it is to start from murder and get persuaded otherwise.

Whilst dangling from wires on his dodgy-looking blue-screen space station tour, it becomes apparent that they must expect an accident soon.

Later episodes would avoid the worst aspects of trying to simulate zero gravity by shifting the Star Cops Headquarters to a moon-base, which meant that it could be, to a certain extent, ignored for dramatic purposes. Overall, this benefits the series greatly as it knows its limitations and does its best to avoid the problem of shoddy effects hiding the damn good stories that they were trying to tell.

Meanwhile, in communication with earth, Nathan discovers that Brian has found an anomaly, but before anyone has any time to think, there’s a blue alert and a political bigwig named Henderson is killed via some shonky SFX, and the whole future of the space project lies on a knife-edge.

A metaphorical knife-edge, obviously - not a bloody, dripping, Jack-the-Ripper-y literal one.

That would be far too easy.

Anyway, Nathan finds out that he’s heading up the investigation via the news and has another shouty meeting with Moray, before we find David Theroux has been brought down to earth and Nathan’s apartment, for what he thinks is a telling off of his own, especially as Nathan is busily inspecting a spacesuit that he has on the floor.

David, you see, sees Nathan checking a spacesuit and, with all of the spacesuit checking he’s been doiung himself, his – and perhaps our – minds immediately go to the fact that someone’s going to take the blame for all this and that someone is very probably going to be David Theroux.

However, they seem to bond over old movie quotes and - just to show what sort of a copper he is – it is Nathan that mentions that the acceptable failure statistics of spacesuits represent actual people actually dying.

There’s a lot of investigative discussion asking exactly the sort of questions that the viewer might have been asking at home in those less passive times; About whether the quality control is at fault, and whether the failure rate is constant, or if it’s currently slightly worse. In fact it’s actually better than normal which is why the computers aren’t being alerted to anything suspicious.

Having not quite ruled out the possibility of corrupt officials – just to show the kind of cynical copper he is – he suggests that they start looking for payoffs and clues, and the upshot of all this is that, whilst David thinks he’s being blamed (Ho! Ho!), all of the suit checking is really just part of Nathan’s astronaut training  programme.

Via “Box” we learn a little more about the background to the Russians having the service contract and the so-called “acceptable” 2% error rate, which makes it possible to stage an accident without alarming the computers, all of which might be a motive if someone else manages to get the contract.

We cut back to another meal with Lee in the same dreadful restaurant that she’s already told him she loathes, but, because Nathan’s been too distracted by his work – because that’s the kind of dogged, single-minded, see-it-through-to-the-bitter-end copper he is – he forgot to tell “Box” that Lee doesn’t like the place.

In that relationship, it seems that he’s forgetting rather a lot – because he’s also forgotten to mention that he’s made the shortlist for the outer space job - which leads to a bit of a row which is interrupted by “Box” telling him that he really ought to switch on the news and, with the exciting thrust of new technology, the waiter rolls over portable TV set on a sort of sweet trolley so that he can see it (Ha! Ha!).

What’s less amusing is that a Russian maintenance operative has been accused of murder by negligence, which does serve to remind Lee of the real-world consequences of Nathan doing his job.

Resigned to the fact that her future plans might be about to suddenly change – but probably not aware of just how drastically yet – she starts to refer to Nathan as a “Star Cop” to which he replies with exasperated bonhomie “I am not a star cop – I am a fully trained spaceman” which does mean that, with an enigmatic “I have to go” – they part on reasonably friendly terms at least, and Lee’s melancholy farewell words of “Don’t look down, love” are a surprisingly touching moment amongst all the Sci-Fi antics.

Back in space the news is all that the beastly Russians “Will execute” their space engineer, and Nathan and David find out that “Nothing’s private from your friendly neighbourhood traffic controller” from Stephenson, who is listening in on their radio transmissions and sees and hears all.

It might be worth remembering that, and a very prescient glimpse of the future.

One of the downsides of resurrecting the old VHS player is that the playing heads started protesting at having to reuse their gears after all this time, and so, for the rest of the episode, the soundtrack started to get a little screamy and I thought that the precious tape was going to snap. Happily we were both able to stagger on to the end of the programme but it was touch and go there for a while, I can tell you. When lives start to depend upon technology, it’s wise to remember that when technology goes wrong, it can go very wrong indeed, and situations can escalate dramatically

Nathan suggests that they ought to look into connections, however tenuous they might be, across the whole of the “out there” community, and find out – where everyone was at time of deaths and run a computer cross check. He also wants it displayed on all consoles so that it’s no secret and – just to show the kind of psychologically understanding sort of copper he is – allow people to find it for themselves.

Then he chooses to deliberately let out the most secure of secrets – not that he throws up a lot in space – just to show what sort of vulnerable copper he is - but that he’s planning on going outside on a spacewalk fairly soon, if any anonymous space assassins might wish to take a pop at him.

And so, as the rag-tag band of Star Cops – still seen as one step down from nightclub bouncers on the crime-solving spectrum remember – attempt to get their suspect list down to a more manageable length, whilst indulging in more fuzzy-edged Kirby-wire dangling corridor fun – David has twigged that Nathan has decided to make himself a target – just to show the kind of brave yet reckless copper he is – and there’s more bonding over old movie quotes.

With Nathan having left on his fishing trip, David, realising that his pal Stephenson sees all and knows all, finally twigs that “Nothing gets past your friendly neighbourhood traffic controller” and mentions this to his pal - who  suddenly becomes a rather less friendly traffic controller with an “evil voice” – and someone who, not unreasonably, and by now, maybe not unexpectedly, pulls a gun on him.

With Nathan alone and outside in space, with his backup now out of the game, the space-suited assassins move in to a funky electropop beat.

With David held at gunpoint, it’s time for some real science to explain that the percussion weapon has reduced muzzle velocity because firing off guns in such a dangerous environment is basically a very stupid thing to do. During yet another round of dangling corridor antics, David seems more concerned that Stephenson and he “were friends” rather than the whole imminent death thing and, as he is taken to the spacesuit store to be dressed for his own sudden and unexplained accidental death, one of the spacesuits that has drifted up to the ceiling in the zero gravity of the space station springs into life and pounces on the gunman.

Huzzah! Nathan was not killed by the unidentified space-suited assassins after all – in fact, having drawn them out into the open, he used a medical laser to zap them both and they are now floating around outside, hoist by their own Kirby wires.

So Nathan has saved David and there’s only a little bit more backstory to fill in as we learn that “Box” was a gift from Nathan’s father as an uncomfortably floaty Nathan hears a news report stating – as no surprise to any of us really - that he is tipped to be new commander of the International Space Police Force.

With the case resolved, back down on Earth, Nathan has taken to wearing a trench-coat, and standing moodily on location, just to show what kind of a film-noir copper he is.

In a final meeting with Commander Moray, Nathan states emphatically that he doesn’t want the job, and Moray - rather unhelpfully - suggests that he could of course retire. The job he “has” has suddenly become the job he “had” as Brian Lincoln has been far too impressive in solving the drowning case – it was the wife wotdunnit – and has been given Nathan’s job.

Moray is impressed that Lincoln went on with case despite being told not to even though, irony of ironies, we all know it was down to Nathan’s insisting in carrying on long after Brian wanted to close the book on the whole thing. (Ha! Ha!)

Grumpily, and resigned to his new fate, Nathan nvites his former boss to visit him in space, and it look as if he’s not going to have an easy time of it as Moray gleefully informs him that there are rumours that the poor Russian has already been executed so they are not happy and that, because a Brit has been chosen over their guy, the Americans are not happy with his appointment either.

And so, an impressive first episode ends with Nathan suggesting that he may be the wrong man for the job.

It won’t be easy…

With it’s unique selling point and its rather clever and philosophical style of storytelling, Star Cops really deserved to get a longer run. Sadly, this was not to be. Several production problems and a ridiculously stupid timeslot pretty much doomed the entire project to low ratings, and convinced more than one bigwig at the BBC that Science-Fiction for television was – ironically - dead in the water.

After nine episodes - with a planned tenth cancelled due to strike action - the plug was pulled, and Nathan and his team were never seen on our televisions again, which is rather a pity. Some of the episodes – most notably “Intelligent Listening For Beginners” and “This Case To Be Opened In A Million Years” were almost astonishingly good - despite everything suggesting that they really ought not to be, given that it was a studio-bound production and made by the BBC in those pre-CGI days that occasionally caused things to slip dangerously towards parody or embarrassment.

Rewatching that first episode again now, even with the screaming limitations of my own viewing equipment, I also rather enjoyed the downbeat – perhaps deliberately Philip Marlowe-esque - mood to the episode. This was Film – well Telly - Noir in a Science Fiction setting, and that really is not a bad thing.

So Hurrah for Star Cops – quite possibly the smartest, cleverest and most “out there” Science-Fiction Detective series that too few people remember.

Now… Anyone for Mars…? 


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