Homemade Sci-fi
	Since the BBC will only cater for those of us who like Jane Austen, television Science Fiction has been virtually dormant in this country since DOCTOR WHO was unfairly axed over a decade ago. True, RED DWARF has been pretty frequent, but that's really a comedy. For the genuine article, We Brits have had no choice but to go for American Sci-fi or else give up on the genre entirely. Well, that's not entirely true. In recent years a whole new medium has evolved, the curious form of straight-to-video TV. It was really started by Bill Baggs, a young BBC employee who banded together with a group of enthusiasts to make SUMMONED BY SHADOWS. This was essentially a Colin Baker DOCTOR WHO story in all but name, with Baker as "The Stranger" and Nichola Bryant "Miss Brown" (i.e.Peri).It was hilariously cheap, amateurish and silly. But also brilliant. The enterprising Mr. Baggs followed this with two more Colin Baker Doctor-Strangers, MORE THAN A MESSIAH (with Sophie Aldred and Barbara Shelley) and the wonderful IN MEMORY ALONE, written by Nicholas Briggs, which managed to be the equal of any mainstream TV in terms of productions values, but was so creatively superior it was embarrassing.
	Sadly the magic touch didn't last. Baggs and Briggs lost their nerve and dropped the DOCTOR WHO line, producing two Earth-set episodes, THE TERROR GAME and BREACH OF THE PEACE that were supposedly intended to shore up the future of the series but didn't because they were awful. A sub-BLAKE'S 7 twist in the former gave way to some close parallels with THE BILL in the latter. There is further entry in the series, EYE OF THE BEHOLDER but there's not much on Earth that could actually make me watch it. Thankfully, THE STRANGER then plunged into Audio adventures and finally petered out. But the idea of Home-made Brit Sci-Fi had taken hold. the Magic was well and truly back and no Yankee co-financing was going to ruin this little enterprise. The trick was to relate the stories as closely as possible to DOCTOR WHO. Baggs had assembled Colin Baker, Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy for THE AIRZONE SOLUTION, an environmental thriller, then got them back together for Lovecraft-inspired horror in THE ZERO IMPERATIVE, into which he also threw Liz Shaw and UNIT for good measure. This one was actually written by THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN'S Mark Gatiss, as were it's three Liz Shaw sequels, DEVILS OF WINTERBOURNE, UNNATURAL SELECTION and GHOSTS OF WINTERBOURNE. These were packaged as "PROBE" adventures and released on video under the hilariously optimistic catchline "The British X-Files".
	Old DOCTOR WHO baddies started to resurface. Not the Daleks or any of the really famous ones obviously, due to cost, but the Yeti in DOWNTIME, Sontarans in SHAKEDOWN and Autons in ehm, AUTON. The latter of these actually starred another from the LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN, Reece Shearsmith! He didn't come back for the follow-up, AUTON SENTINEL, which was a shame because it wasn't half bad. A further series entry AUTON 3 (aka AUTON AWAKENING) completed the successful cycle. There are other, lesser spin-offs too, such as WARZONE, A UNIT/Sgt Benton story and a whole series of daft stories with Sophie Aldred. There are documentries too, such as WHO ON EARTH IS TOM BAKER?, BIDDING ADIEU (Sylvester McCoy in American WHO), not to mention countless interminable "making of" films. Usually, these are included as bonuses (i.e. on SHAKEDOWN you get THE MAKING OF SHAKEDOWN at no extra charge) but there not really that interesting and you come away after a while thinking that the producers of these films couldn't make a cup of tea without also commisioning a little featurette showing them doing it. As to the future of this homemade stuff, well Bill Baggs latest venture is a Video film featuring the "Cyberons", a (presumably cut-price) variant of Cybermen that should be winging it way to the dark corners of your local video shop soon. I think that, regardless of the actual quality, this gives us all cause for hope. Brit Sci-Fi may be dead on terrestrial TV, but it's still out there and one day, one glorious day it might rise to prominence again... Chris Denton NOTE: Obviously, Bill Baggs is pretty central to this whole movement, and his website http:www.bbv1.demon.co.uk is highly informative and professional. It's the place to start any odyssey into this strange, cut-price new world.
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