• Classic TV Theme: Star Cops

• The Cult of Star Cops

There are devoted fans who believe 'Star Cops' could have been the BBC's best-ever science fiction series. The notion of combining two popular TV genres - police drama and science fiction - and thereby appealing to fans of both, seems a good one. Certainly, a series about a fledgling International Space Police Force, created by a man who had worked on 'Blake's 7' and 'Bergerac', had the right sort of pedigree. Combining that know-how with an ambitious approach aiming for a robustness and realism that's unusual in science fiction, it seems surprising that the show didn't survive beyond its first series.

So why didn't STAR COPS fulfill its considerable promise?

Interviews with the cast and crew allow 'The Cult Of...' to give us an insight into how hard the actors and even the hairdressers , worked to create authentic-looking weightless scenes; detail how NASA's Pete Conrad - a man who'd set foot on the moon - complimented the authenticity of the show when he visited the set; outline the way the actors became writers when one of the show's stars was laid low by chickenpox just before the last episode was filmed; and expose how disagreements about the title and the theme tune were indicative of the ongoing and unresolved tensions between the show's creator and producer.

• STAR COPS: A Visual Effects Tribute

I believe Star Cops was one of the most underappreciated science fiction shows in history. It ran for only one season in 1987 in a time where sci-fi was considered dead on television the world around. While the BBC is renowned for its low-budget approach to TV production (and Star Cops was no different), the show managed to pull off a surprising level of visual effects.

This video is a tribute to those visuals and how the filmmakers attempted to create an authentic and realistic vision of a still possible future.

Note: This show’s last episode was one month before the premiere of the much more expensive Star Trek: The Next Generation, which heralded a new era of science fiction storytelling on television.

• Starcops videoclip 1

• Starcops videoclip 2