British Science Fiction Television A Hitchhiker's Guide

by Cook, John R.; Wright, Peter

• ISBN13: 9781845110482
• ISBN10: 184511048X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-01-06
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Summary

This pioneering book argues that British science fiction television - all too often derided for the quality of its special effects - deserves to be taken seriously. From Doctor Who to Red Dwarf, Thunderbirds to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Prisoner, Blake's 7 and Quatermass, the science fiction genre has produced some of the most memorable and cherished of all British television shows. Exported internationally, they have fascinated and delighted audiences with their peculiarly British visions of the future. Many of them - if not most - have taken on iconic status.

Author Biography

John R. Cook is Senior Lecturer in Mass Media at Glasgow Caledonian University and the author of Dennis Potter: A Life on Screen (1995; 1998).

 

Peter Wright is Senior Lecturer in Literature and Film Studies at Edge Hill College of Higher Education and the author of Attending Daedalus: Gene Wolfe, Artifice and the Reader (2003).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
`Futures past': an introduction to and brief survey of British science fiction television	1	(20)
John R. Cook
Peter Wright
Quatermass and the origins of British television sf	21	(31)
James Chapman
Tardis at the OK Corral: Doctor Who and the USA	52	(19)
Nicholas J. Cull
Countering the counterculture: The Prisoner and the 1960s	71	(22)
Sue Short
The age of Aquarius: utopia and anti-utopia in late 1960s' and early 1970s' British science fiction television	93	(23)
John R. Cook
The man who made Thunderbirds: an interview with Gerry Anderson	116	(15)
Nicholas J. Cull
Everyday life in the post-catastrophe future: Terry Nation's Survivors	131	(23)
Andy Sawyer
TV docudrama and the nuclear subject: The War Game, The Day After and Threads	154	(20)
David Seed
Resist the host: Blake's 7 -- a very British future	174	(18)
Una McCormack
Echoes of discontent: Conservative politics and Sapphire and Steel	192	(27)
Peter Wright
Counterpointing the surrealism of the underlying metaphor in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	219	(21)
M.J. Simpson
`OK, homeboys, let's posse!' Masculine anxiety, gender, race and class in Red Dwarf	240	(23)
Elyce Rae Helford
British apocalypses now -- or then? The Uninvited, Invasion: Earth and The Last Train	263	(20)
Catriona Miller
Further reading	283	(4)
Notes on contributors	287	(3)
Index	290