BBC announces new sci-fi show

A NEW BBC Wales series set in space hopes to boldly follow in the successes of its recent sci-fi hits Doctor Who and Torchwood.
The broadcaster yesterday announced it had commissioned Outcasts from Kudos, the makers of critically-acclaimed series Life on Mars.
The new series will follow the race to find an alternative home in the Universe, with life on Earth looking increasingly precarious.
Insiders at the BBC say the programme will focus on a group of social misfits and criminals who are set to become pioneers on a nearby planet in return for their “liberty”.
Chris Longridge, Heat magazine’s television critic, was yesterday not surprised by the announcement or the growing interest in the sci-fi genre.
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He said, “Doctor Who is the reason this is happening. People realise that Doctor Who has a large adult following, and I imagine this will be a sci-fi show placed on after the watershed for adult viewers.”
In the US there has been a long tradition of serious sci-fi, including the recent well-received series of Battlestar Galactica. The show has been seen as an allegory of US foreign policy and the war in Iraq, with current storylines featuring wars and suicide bombers.
Mr Longridge said this is the chance for British television to do something in a similarly serious vein.
He added, “When we think of sci-fi in the UK we think of Star Trek, but if the BBC produces a really intelligent show along the lines of Doctor Who then it might change people’s minds.”
The high-concept series comes from Kudos Film and Television, and Ben Richards – who was behind hit programmes such as Spooks and Party Animals.
According to a BBC spokesman the show promises to be a tense, fast-paced series about co-operation and conflict, idealism and power, sexual competition and love.
Internet websites and forums were already talking about the announcement yesterday, saying it is a good but “brave” move for the BBC to set an entire show in space.
This is something that even Doctor Who and Torchwood has shied away from since their arrival on our screens in the past few years.
In the past, Russell T Davies has said he has kept has kept Doctor Who’s trips to other planets to a bare minimum, because of cost and in order not to alienate non-sci-fi fans too much.
But as the appetite continues for sci-fi and series such as Lost or Heroes – which feature a large section of magic realism or suspension of disbelief to be successful – it seems the BBC believes the time is right to embrace the genre fully in the UK.
Most recently the channel won the bidding war for a second series of US import Heroes, despite the fact that the first series has not been set for screening until later this year.
The corporation beat off competition from ITV, Sky, Channel 4 and Virgin Media for the rights to the show.
At the same time, it is also turning its attentions to developing home grown sci-fi. Doctor Who is now a fixture on the channel and Torchwood is set for a high-profile return with its second series later this year, premiering on BBC Two, and it is also putting its faith in Outcasts.
Jane Tranter, controller of BBC Fiction, said, “Following the unique success of time travel in Life On Mars, I’m naturally extremely excited about the dynamic duo of Kudos and Ben Richards joining forces to create a further dimension in BBC Drama.”
This sentiment is echoed by Jane Featherstone, joint managing director of Kudos Film and Television, who thinks the programme is a “brilliant vision of what life will be like” when humans go hunting in space for new homes.
She said, “It will offer audiences a dramatic, original and entertaining new drama arena.”