Friday 26 February 2016

First Star Cops

New series, Star Cops! I think this is a great series, although there are few things people complain about. For example, the theme song. People think it is rubbish. But it makes sense... however, it makes sense after the second episode, so we'll come back to that. We are treated to the long version as we start the story...

Which is a man in a lake being killed by two divers, as at the same time a spaceman above is killed by two other spacemen. Interested in the first murder is Inspector Nathan Spring, and he pushes hard on finding out what it is. However, his boss is more interested in the latter, and gets Spring involved in going up to the space station, mainly because he's the only British copper around they can haul in.

The space station is a mixture of cultures, with British, American, and even Australian. The killers are dealt with a bit too easily by Spring, but the one response isn't caught by Spring but Theroux, the second in command. With that, Spring is put in charge of the Star Cops, whether he wants it or not.

This is created and written by Chris Boucher, of Doctor Who fame, and the characters are really well done. We have Spring and Theroux, with a hint of Kenzy, although she hasn't really joined yet, and no sign of Davis yet. They will be the initial core, but for now we get the slow start with just the two. And this is a good introduction. We get the reluctance of Spring and the competence of Theroux and they are well crafted.

Also well crafted is the production, which is aiming for realism. This means people on wires for no gravity (they'll bring in a way around this later), and even now I can't spot the strings (although it is clear where the strings would be).

I was really impressed by the first episode. Even though it's slow, it brings you in and I'm looking forward to the rest of them (there are only nine in total).

[END]

2 comments:

evildicemonkey said...

Well if you're going to repeat things, so will I!

"When you said announced your One Season Wonders retrospective this was the first show I thought of and hoped that you would do this one (not least of all because I knew you would find a youtube of them).

I thought it was an awesome series and loved the theme song. It proved to me that not all science fiction had to be all fiction-y, this was far more grounded than anything else I had come across at the time, no aliens, no phasers, no outlandish tech.

Simple and elegant, very disappointed it went nowhere."

Jamas Enright said...

There may be a non-zero amount of repeats in the future...