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Stephen Gallagher and Colin Brake Interview - BUGS · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

0:00
Hello and welcome to Hamster Extra.
0:03
I am here with two fantastic gentlemen today, Mr. Steven
0:07
Gallagher and Mr. Colin Brake. Hello gentlemen, and we are here
0:14
tonight to talk about a show that is very dear to my heart,
0:18
The Doctor Who that never was in the 90s.
0:25
My first question to you both is that so how did you come to be
0:28
involved with Bugs in the 1st place?
0:30
I'll sort of ask one at a time, so I'll throw that to you,
0:33
Stephen, first. Yeah, I think I was on it before
0:36
you, Colin. I think you joined a little bit
0:38
after me. Yeah, Yeah.
0:40
And. And I wasn't there absolutely
0:43
first, because was it Duncan Gold wrote the pilot?
0:47
They already had a pilot when I joined.
0:50
Yeah, it got rewritten a bit, but yeah, Duncan, the Grit, the
0:54
Hive. Yeah, and I I came along at the
0:57
behest of Stuart Doughty, who I'd worked with at Granada a few
1:00
years before. He'd been the Promotion Scripts
1:03
editor there, and I'd been an assistant transmission
1:06
controller on the other side of the office, so Stuart's
1:09
department generated. All the written material for On
1:12
Air continuity and the department I was in haven't
1:16
fistedly put it all out there so so we didn't know each other
1:20
from way back then. But I hadn't seen him for about
1:23
10 years because I left Granada in 1980 to go freelance, and it
1:30
wasn't until kind of the mid 90s that the bugs got going and in
1:33
1990 a book of mine Chimera got. Well, I was going to say it got
1:39
adapted for TVI, adapted it for TV, and what had happened was
1:45
that Stewart and producer Brian Eastman had got together and
1:50
they'd cooked up the idea for bugs very much based on, as I
1:55
understand it, the the ITC series of the 1960s.
2:01
You know the great Lou Grade stuff, The three handers like
2:03
department S the Champions. New Avengers, not not ITC, but
2:09
you know that genre of of thing and and they wanted to do
2:13
something that was kind of up to date and modern and would
2:16
exploit the the locations that were going up in Canary Wharf as
2:21
a kind of futuristic backdrop. So they came up with this idea
2:25
of a techno thrill. It went to Brian Clemens, not
2:29
the creator of The Avengers, but in my view, the guy who really
2:32
put The Avengers on its feet and made The Avengers what it was.
2:36
Went to him, got ideas from him. I I don't know if Brian had to
2:41
pass it a script or not, but I know that he was more of a
2:44
consultant than than a sort of direct contributor.
2:48
And they got so far as to get the the pilot written, but they
2:53
weren't entirely satisfied with the the kind of tone and the
2:57
shape of the show. But they were doing it for ITV,
3:02
not the behest of. Of the ITV Network Center.
3:07
And while the ITV Network Center were humming and hiring and
3:11
delaying a decision, Caroline Alton at the BBC and Executive
3:15
producer over there got wind of it nipped in and commissioned
3:19
it. So she commissioned a show that
3:23
was not really in its producer's eyes, ready to go.
3:28
So I got a call from Stewart to go in and and have a meeting
3:32
with him and Brian. Never met Brian before, had had
3:35
no dealings with Carnival films. But I always remember Stewart's.
3:40
Stewart's message to me was something along the lines of,
3:42
oh, Steve, you wrote Chi Mary, you can write bollocks about
3:45
science. Come in and talk to us about
3:47
this new show we're doing. Now bear in mind I've been
3:51
completely spoiled by doing Chimera because it was my book,
3:54
my adaptation. I've been all over the show like
3:57
a wet shirt when it was in production.
3:59
I had a fantastic time doing it and was quite pleased with the
4:01
result as well. So I was, you know, the creator.
4:05
And the idea of going in and working on episodic television
4:08
was, was. Not a step down for me, but, you
4:12
know, I did sort of think, oh, this is not the kind of thing
4:14
that I'm cut out for. So I went in for the meeting and
4:17
it was, you know, it was, it was, it was fun, you know, it
4:20
was a fun chat. And out of that, I got a
4:24
Commission. And that Commission was for the
4:27
episode Assassin's Inc, which I think went out as #2 in the
4:31
transmission order. But after I'd handed it in, I
4:34
thought, oh, that's that's it. You know this I'll, it'll be my,
4:37
you know, one and out I'll, I'll hand it in.
4:40
I've thrown in everything but the kitchen sink that I could
4:42
possibly think of. You know, I've got nothing left
4:44
to give. I've made the most of the
4:47
opportunity, you know, let's move on.
4:49
And Stewart's response to that was, we'll take as many of these
4:53
as you can possibly do. Because in the in his and
4:57
Brian's eyes, whatever, whatever I brought to it was what they
5:01
were looking for. You know the tone and the quirk
5:03
and the and the the sort of the sense of fun.
5:07
Because I had great fun writing it.
5:09
And hopefully, you know some of that came off the screen.
5:13
And my response to Stewart after he'd after he'd said that was I
5:17
said, well, Stu, I'd love to do another, I said, But it it all
5:20
depends on whether you can get me a submarine.
5:24
There was this long silence at the other end of the the other
5:27
end of the line. And then Stuart says, well, all
5:30
I can say at this stage is I can't see why not.
5:35
Oh, they got me a submarine and that became the episode Down
5:38
Among the Dead Men, which was my my second one.
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And with that, we were up and running.
5:43
What did you say at the end of series two?
5:44
I need you to find me a fully functioning technological city.
5:51
By that point, by that point, I had no doubt that anything I
5:55
asked for, and if I say within reason, that's not really what I
5:58
mean. Anything I asked for beyond
6:00
reason was fine. Anything mundane that I asked
6:03
for, that was the problem. Because I remember I think it
6:07
was possibly in Down Among the Dead Men.
6:09
I had one scene where. Our people were running through
6:12
an office building and people were emerging from the offices
6:15
and then starting back, you know, there was a they were
6:18
pushing their way through a crowd and Brian Eastman said so
6:21
we can we do without the crowd. And the reason I was cut, you
6:25
can see a crowd on telly anytime.
6:27
You know, you can't see a submarine every day of the week.
6:30
So what it was was it was a case of, you know, drop the ordinary
6:34
things, you know, drop the things that you can see
6:35
anywhere. Very much a a case of a bit like
6:39
in The Avengers where you know the everything took place in a
6:43
world that was cleared out of people apart from the people you
6:46
needed to tell the story. So that that I think was another
6:49
one of of Brian Clemens's Brian Clemens's you know influences
6:54
that came to to to bear on the show.
6:57
But that was that. That was how I got involved
6:59
anyway. And and it was a start of a very
7:01
happy three or four years, certainly the quietest I've ever
7:05
seen. Canary Wharf, that's for sure.
7:08
What about you then, Colin? Well, I got a call sometime in
7:12
the summer of 90, I guess 94. I was script edited in
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EastEnders and I recently gone freelance to write.
7:24
So I was writing some episodes of EastEnders and I got a call
7:28
from my agent going to have a chat with Stuart at Carnival
7:33
Films. On So I went and had a chat and
7:36
they were looking for a script editor to be in house, as it
7:39
were, and a script editor who could write because they thought
7:43
there would be some writing involved.
7:45
And there was, I think just two scripts talking about.
7:47
There was Duncan Gould's Out of the hype and there was Steven's
7:52
episode Assassin's Ink, and you know, you just read, I don't
7:56
want to blow smoke up anybody's watch it, but you read Steven's
7:59
script and it was just fantastic.
8:00
And he went, OK, this is this is the show.
8:03
I got I got I get it wonderful. Is he doing anymore.
8:06
Oh yes good. And and so I, I, I I was
8:11
employed to script edit that first series and I rocked up and
8:17
I think probably just two or three weeks before Assassins Inc
8:21
went into production it was that close but it was in a good stay
8:28
fine and and by that point Steve would be would have been right
8:32
in. The Dead Men, because that was
8:34
the next one. And so my first job was just
8:38
sort of fixing up the other two episodes that were going to be
8:42
in those first two blocks. So I think, I think we did.
8:48
I don't know how. I think we did out of the hive
8:52
first, which was that required quite a bit of of fiddling
8:57
around with and we wrote a new opening sequence and bits and
9:00
pieces. And then all under control, we
9:04
started to get into the what would become the pattern for
9:08
most scripts on bugs, which was the we'd get 2 drafts from our
9:13
freelancer and then it would come in house and Stuart and I
9:18
would do all the rest of the of the drafts.
9:21
It's really the American system for using freelancers on a on a
9:25
staff show if the freelancer would do 2 drafts.
9:28
And then it's it's done dealt with the the team inside.
9:31
So that's what we did. We never used to have to do very
9:34
much with Steven's work of course, because that was all
9:37
fantastic. We just we just gave him notes
9:39
and he came back with multiple drafts as required and we'd
9:44
always have notes from from Brian Clements.
9:48
I never get to got to meet him. I think I spoke to him on the
9:52
phone once or twice, but you just get these glorious faxes.
9:57
He was living. I don't know what was it, Malte,
9:59
he was living or somewhere, somewhere like that.
10:02
And you get these faxes which were typed on a good old
10:07
fashioned typewriter and then faxed across to us in in London
10:13
with his notes, Sometimes my detailed notes on on particular
10:17
scenes and bits of dialogue and some of his stuff was really
10:22
useful. Some of it was a little bit
10:24
dated. You go.
10:25
Yeah, OK. That would have worked in the
10:26
60s but maybe not these days. But he was very good on
10:32
structure and very good on suspense and and and action and
10:38
I think we benefited from that. I said an awful lot from getting
10:43
notes from Brian on on on those things.
10:47
But yeah, so then we're off and running and and that first
10:49
series was was great fun. We had a, a a couple of.
10:55
So I had four scripts from Steven in the end I think, and I
11:00
got to write 1 towards the end, which is great.
11:03
That was my first non EastEnders credit on telly, so that was
11:07
that was good fun. And then we're off and running.
11:10
And one of the weird things about Bugs was, as Steven was
11:16
saying, Brian Easton had this feel about the style of the
11:20
show. You wouldn't feel like it was
11:23
the real London. You never saw a police.
11:26
I think there was a police car in out of the high, but after
11:29
that I don't we ever saw a police car again or a police.
11:32
But any sense of the normal process of law and order, We
11:37
just had our guys and the department and and that was it.
11:45
Was it Sporting life? That's fourteen chance.
11:49
That's it. Because I remember, I can still
11:51
remember I watched this when I was in my teens and I mean this
11:56
was my Saturday night, Bugs, you know, I was waiting the week for
12:01
the episode every single week and at the end of a Sporting
12:04
chance there was a bomb, wasn't there, using one of the, you
12:10
know, lift. I really loved how it would.
12:14
It kind of had a bit of grit to it, but it could be a little bit
12:17
silly as well that that's sort of the blend of the two and I
12:21
thought that felt very avengeously to me.
12:23
That I think that was, I think that was Brian Eastman.
12:26
He said can we have a really interesting timer And so they
12:30
found this sort of Marbley effect clock thing, didn't they?
12:35
And that was the that was the thing that was gonna set off the
12:38
bomb. But yeah, no, that was, that was
12:40
definitely the start. It was we were.
12:44
Sort of high tech and then sort of fantasy at the same time.
12:47
So yeah, Steven, how did you see then the core characters of
12:53
Beckett, Rose and Ed? Were you given like a brief on
12:58
who they were and how that worked?
13:00
Given Duncan Gould's script to read and that was basically it,
13:07
and the conversation that I had with Stewart and Brian.
13:11
But they were, I mean they were a classic triangle.
13:15
I've always referred to them and this is again going back to the
13:18
ITC days as the father, the lad and the desirable tomboy.
13:22
And Beckett was the father because he is the one who brings
13:27
in the the he's the one who brings in the cases and kind of
13:32
allocates the work and and is the is the mainstay of the of
13:39
the three. And the lab?
13:40
That was Craig, who is out there a bit daring.
13:44
He's the Jason King. He's the Stewart, whatever his
13:49
name was in the Champions. He's the William Gaunt character
13:53
in the Champions. Sorry, not the.
13:57
Not the Stewart, Damon, because he was the dad, right.
14:00
But you know, you know what I mean.
14:01
You see where I'm going though with the with the three and the
14:05
the desirable tomboy, which is like you know your Purdy of the
14:08
group. She's always got something of a
14:11
quiet crush on the father and the lad has always got something
14:14
of a quiet crush on her. But nothing ever is going to
14:17
happen between the three of them, because that would kind of
14:20
break the that would break the triangle and and all hell will
14:23
be let loose. And as long as you stay in that
14:27
configuration, then you can, you can run your series forever
14:30
because your characters will just go on and on and on and on,
14:33
and everybody will know where they are with them, and the
14:36
characters will know exactly where they are in the story and
14:38
what their function is in the story.
14:40
And we can all just get on with having a good time.
14:43
And that's that I think was, you know, one of the keys to its
14:45
success. It was not a new formula, but it
14:49
was a formula that worked. And we were channeling the
14:52
spirit of Lou grade I think for for four years there or three
14:56
years that I was associated with it and then the other year that
14:59
Colin and the other guys went. We sticked away from it a bit.
15:02
We went a little bit more serial in the in the final series and
15:06
and with more characters and it was it was different and it was
15:11
all sorts of reasons that last series we did we lost Craig.
15:13
Of course, we wouldn't have had the same cliffhanger to the
15:16
Series 3 if we'd known that we weren't going to have Craig.
15:19
But yeah, I mean, I always thought they was.
15:22
For me, it was the closest I was going to get to write to Doctor
15:24
Who. And Ross was a Doctor, and the
15:26
other two were companions. You know, sort of.
15:29
I saw it as well. Ingested in the Nadrick, really,
15:32
I suppose. Yeah, I suppose it doesn't
15:35
matter how any of us saw it, as long as it worked.
15:39
Were you? Was it an immediate success?
15:42
Like, were you aware that? Because I know that first series
15:45
rated extremely well. I never had a sense of it being
15:51
a great success. I always had a sense of it was
15:54
it was doing OK, but it was never, never felt as if it was
16:00
completely safe for another another year.
16:03
It was. I didn't.
16:05
I didn't get a sense. Did you Steven?
16:08
Well, I mean, not safe is very much the BBC way, isn't it?
16:11
I mean, a lot of the feedback I was getting was, was that people
16:16
loved it. And I TV were spitting feathers
16:20
that they'd they lost it you know that it has slipped through
16:22
their fingers and they were desperately looking for a show
16:26
that they because we owned Saturday night, they didn't have
16:28
anything up against us that that really worked as well And and
16:32
all this talk of it being another Avengers, which I never
16:35
saw and all you know talk of it being like you know an answer to
16:38
Doctor Who which I never saw. I just thought it was its own
16:41
thing and I thought it was just a really good Saturday night
16:44
show of the kind that we don't really have much of these days.
16:48
You know, you want something like that and you have to go to
16:50
a Netflix special or, you know, one of the one of the few
16:54
remaining big American network TV shows.
16:59
But we, you know, like I say, we own Saturday night and I TV were
17:03
pretty jealous of us. And then of course, what happens
17:07
after, after, after we went off the air?
17:09
It kind of went quiet. It's like, you know, we we never
17:13
made the huge cultural impact that that some shows make.
17:16
You know, we weren't the prisoner, You know, we did our
17:18
job. We did it efficiently.
17:21
I suppose you know, you could say we were a successful
17:25
journeyman show. I always felt that we were
17:29
slightly ahead of our time. If you looked at what happened
17:33
to Saturday night television, you know, 10 years later when
17:36
the Doctor Who came back. And then you had Merlin and
17:39
Robin Hood and all those early evening Saturday shows, we would
17:42
have fit well in at that time in that sort of space.
17:45
It was almost we were almost a little bit early popping up when
17:48
we did and and then getting moved around the shelters a
17:52
little bit. And of course our last series
17:54
was played because we lost our slot.
17:58
We there was that bomb in in London that meant that we were
18:04
pulled for episode eight was pulled.
18:06
And then they held back 8-9 and ten and show them a year later,
18:10
which rather negated the kind of trajectory of the whole series.
18:16
And I think that didn't help us. Without that, we may want to run
18:20
for a few more years and maybe, maybe established ourselves.
18:26
I do like to think that we may be prepared the ground for all
18:28
those shows and they couldn't have done it without us.
18:30
And I think that's true even if Spooks.
18:33
Which came along as as a kind of, you know, but a slight that
18:36
was the Waitrose version of bugs.
18:40
How was those Spooks respond to that without the fun?
18:42
Yeah, yeah, it was very serious. But I mean, you know, you could
18:47
see the not necessarily the influence but certainly ground
18:51
that we had broken first being broken by others now is remember
18:54
with Goldeneye, you know the the first of the Pierce Brosnan
18:57
Bonds. I looked at that and I thought,
18:59
yeah, we did that. We did that plot in Pulse.
19:05
Yeah, we got four of the episodes.
19:07
We did a lot of blocks, lots of places.
19:10
In fact, I mean no time to die. We did that one in Assassin's
19:14
Inc, the targeted DNA program bug we'll run for all the James
19:21
Bond movie. I feel like nothing dates worse
19:25
than technology, but I I've watched this recently.
19:29
I don't know how recently the pair of you have gone back and
19:32
watched bugs. Aside from, you know, the
19:35
computers and things like that, and obviously that dates, It's
19:39
still like it feels broadcastable today.
19:43
It feels like there's a fair bit of money in the show.
19:48
From your lips to the drama channel's ears.
19:50
Absolutely, please. It had a timeless quality.
19:54
You see it because not having those things, those you know
19:57
the. Police or police cars or, you
19:59
know, law courts, anything like that.
20:01
It lives in its own little world.
20:03
And that world, you know, could be broadcast now and it wouldn't
20:08
look that odd. You know, some of the, like, you
20:10
say, the clunky television, computer screens and the like.
20:13
But generally, no, it would work.
20:16
I mean, we weren't trying to do authentic technology.
20:19
What we were trying to do was take an imaginative leap from
20:23
plausible technology and I don't know how how you went about it,
20:27
Colin, but I I was a member of the Preston science fiction well
20:31
still am a member of the Preston science fiction Group.
20:34
We were all kind of young and and eager then we're all Gray
20:38
haired or hairless now but but we used to meet every week in
20:42
the pub and they knew that I was doing bugs and and we used to
20:46
talk about it And the great thing about any science fiction
20:49
or fanish society is the cross section of people that you get
20:52
there. So I had access on a weekly
20:55
basis to to a solicitor, a rocket scientist, a physicist, A
21:00
psychiatric nurse, an artist and a computer programmer.
21:05
And also you know the daughter of one of them was the future
21:08
Dean of a psychology department in the university.
21:11
So I could run ideas around or I could pick the brains of all of
21:15
them and and I do remember you know the the episode I wrote
21:20
called Stealth about it was like I took speed and and did the
21:24
opposite. You know it was it was a car
21:26
that had to be kept going but it couldn't go above a certain
21:29
speed. So you have to and the and the
21:32
the motor that that we put into that the engine that we put into
21:37
that car was basic based on a principle that our physicist in
21:42
the pub had told me about. And when I when I showed him the
21:47
the episode and he he said well I can see what you're getting.
21:51
He said it wouldn't work like that though I said no I said but
21:54
you gave me the idea and and we ran with it and so it'll never
21:59
date because it wasn't right in the 1st place.
22:01
But on the other hand, it wasn't wrong either.
22:04
Yeah, it was. It was vaguely scientifically
22:07
plausible is what we went for. The one that annoyed me was when
22:11
I did, I did my two-part of season 2 with the space shuttle.
22:15
And and I was, you know, really excited to do that.
22:18
And then Brian comes along and says can we can we have some
22:22
kind of, you know, not having to deal with no gravity.
22:26
And I'm like, well, they're, they're in space.
22:28
So it's can we just cheat it? OK, we did.
22:35
You got you got an enormous laser shooting down on the Earth
22:38
and things like that, didn't you?
22:39
So you had a lot of fun there as well.
22:42
I wanted to talk about the end of series one, which introduced
22:48
Jean Danielle. Who's.
22:50
My favorite villains of all time was that was supposed to be a
22:54
one shot character or was there always the intention of him
22:58
being recurring villain in series two It was a one shot
23:02
character and Gareth Marks was so good we had to have him back.
23:06
So, so you know the conversation we had at the end of series one
23:10
was you know can we use him again?
23:12
I think I asked if I could use him again.
23:13
Because you know, when you when you see your stuff done so well,
23:18
then you don't let go of that. Yeah, I remember pressing for
23:22
having him as as a behind the scenes.
23:24
A number of other represents to tease him along until we
23:27
actually saw him again on screen.
23:29
Because again, everybody was just blown away by the
23:32
performance. Yeah, beautifully that you just
23:36
wanted to, yeah, find a way to do that.
23:38
So we did. In Series 2, then where?
23:43
And I feel like that's the most science fiction heavy of The
23:47
Four Seasons. The the Cyber X season was was
23:52
there a deliberate sort of push in that direction?
23:58
Was that mainly me? I think because because Cyber
24:01
Acts was me and I, I got a little bit of a push back
24:03
afterwards. But on the other hand, I also
24:05
got a lot of feedback saying it was, you know, the people's
24:09
favorite thing is mine. The last two at the end I'm not
24:14
I'm not gonna keep pampering it but the last two at the end of
24:17
two at some of the best of bugs, I think the Bureau of Weapons
24:20
and and the last episode. Yeah, yeah, they were.
24:25
They were great. It was the that series where
24:30
after the first series, with the exception of of of Stephen of
24:34
course Brian and and Stewart decided that that they just
24:37
weren't writers in the UK that could do this sort of stuff and
24:41
so they shut off to Americans trying to find American writers.
24:44
So a lot of our writers on series two and three were
24:46
Americans. And again, as I said earlier,
24:50
that they they were used to doing a couple of drafts and
24:52
then handing it over. So we did have.
24:54
We had Mars Miller and Alfred Goff.
24:57
We've gone on to great things. We had Bruno Heller, who's gone
25:02
on to great things, and we had Calvin Clements Junior who did
25:07
Newton's run, and I guess they were, they were told it was a
25:11
science fiction show. One of the people they spoke to
25:13
when they went to America was. Now my memory's going to let me
25:18
down here. No DC Fontana.
25:22
The script writer and editor, they spoke to her.
25:29
She didn't come on board, but that was just, that's what they
25:32
went. They went to America looking for
25:34
SF TV writers. I saw DC Fontana at a recording
25:40
of The Big Bang Theory when I was working over there.
25:44
My wife came over to stay and it was her birthday and I wangled
25:47
tickets for the recording and it was the best birthday present
25:51
I've ever come up with and the cheapest.
25:55
But it's at one point the the warm up guy said I want to have
25:58
some some VIP guests with us tonight.
26:01
And he introduced David Gerald the the, the writer of The
26:04
Trouble with Tribbles and DC Fontana who were there in the
26:07
audience and who were apparently quite quite regular attendees at
26:11
Big Bang Theory tapings. But that's as close as I got.
26:14
I mean, obviously Brian got closer.
26:17
Yeah. Brian Stewart met her in his
26:18
hotel somewhere for a meeting. Of course.
26:21
Miller and Goff went on to create Smallville and Wednesday
26:25
the Wednesday Adams. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:29
So with those three episodes in at the end of two Stephen, do
26:35
you have the episode where Jean Daniel is well, in a spectacular
26:39
sequence, may I say, where the governor of the prison realizes
26:43
that Jean Danielle has bought the prison?
26:49
That's actually great. This is what happens when you
26:52
let him have his computer in his cell.
26:54
And the way that was done as well in the first half of the
26:57
series, we're here saying I bought you a gymnasium and our
27:00
swimming pool and all of this blissful.
27:04
And then you had the two episodes at the.
27:06
So were you involved in the conversations there about the
27:09
structure of that season? Because that's that's basically
27:12
the core of it, isn't it? It was a little bit tricky
27:15
around that time because I had a book contract which I had to
27:18
fulfill and I know it made Brian a bit anxious, which was a huge
27:24
source of pleasure to me because, you know, it's so nice
27:26
to be wanted. But, but he actually offered to
27:30
buy out the book contract and I said, well, no, because that
27:33
would actually kind of sync my publishing career.
27:35
You know, books ain't going to last forever.
27:37
You know, nothing lasts forever. But yeah, so we it was arranged
27:42
in such a way that I could finish the book and then switch
27:45
to scripts. And that's why my stuff came at
27:47
the end of Season 2, rather than than early on or rather than
27:52
than spread out. But of course from from that
27:54
point of view, it meant I could have a really good run at it.
27:57
And whether we talked about, whether we talked about seeding
28:02
Jean Danielle through it, we must have.
28:04
I mean, you know, these things don't happen by accident.
28:07
We don't actually remember the conversation.
28:09
Yeah. And I'm not sure that we we you
28:11
were came in and often at the start of season 2, we obviously
28:15
we're talking to you because you were going to be writing those
28:18
episodes. But I think certainly Stuart and
28:23
I would have been plotting out where we could, where we could
28:26
see him. Because I think Brian Brian
28:29
wasn't sure about it because it was Brian had this this old
28:32
notion I think he'd been told by Brian Clemens The thing is no
28:36
continuity then you then you can sell them in syndication and
28:39
they can be put out in any order.
28:41
So don't have any don't have any continuity but we were like no
28:46
it doesn't work these days you've got to have you know you
28:48
pick up the bits bit by bit like most serious do these days.
28:53
So we would have, we would have been talking to to.
28:57
Steven about what was gonna happen at those last when we got
29:00
there, but we definitely were sort of working as we went along
29:03
with those episodes. We would have had some sort of
29:07
plan for the 10 for the start. I think the great thing about
29:13
just having a little bit of continuity in there is that
29:15
you're not starting every story with a cold engine.
29:19
And it can be a strain to to have to keep doing that.
29:21
You know, reinvent the show every single time.
29:24
The notion that you can have some momentum from one to
29:27
another is it's a great aid to the imagination if nothing else.
29:31
At some point I became a consultant on the show and I'm.
29:37
I'm not quite sure how that happened and I'm not quite sure
29:39
when that happened. But I know it was one of the
29:41
proudest things of my life when when me and Brian Clemens
29:45
appeared on the screen together as.
29:48
My thing. Yeah, Brian of course had been
29:51
my writing hero growing up, you know, and I got to know him
29:54
quite well later on and and that was, that was just a great time.
29:58
That was not I had a similar experience.
30:00
I wrote an episode for C I5 The New Professionals.
30:04
Which for various reasons ended up being rewritten by Brian for
30:08
all sorts of things reasons. So I got a Co credit with Brian
30:12
on an episode of that which is like as you say your name's
30:15
together. He's like, yeah, that's that's
30:16
what's having on screen. It's on your IMDb page forever.
30:21
With the continuity as well, you guys got to bring back sort of
30:26
science fiction cliffhangers to Saturday night.
30:29
And they just meant the world to be so.
30:31
Colin, you gave us the space shuttle, dead in space at the
30:34
beginning of the season. Steven, you gave us Rose with
30:38
the Cyber Ax virus in her head and suddenly catching wind that
30:42
something's not quite right. I could wait for the next
30:45
episode. I was so excited.
30:48
I was quite proud of that one. I must admit the the idea of the
30:51
first computer virus to jump the species barrier.
30:56
Yeah, I think doing 2 cliffhangers that mean for me
30:59
that was definitely that's that's Doctor Who and that's me.
31:03
We we getting to do some of that.
31:05
So I was so, so happy to have a two party to play with.
31:09
But yeah, cliffhangers are great.
31:12
That first two of series two, it almost feels like a mission
31:15
statement that you're going up into space, you know, bigger and
31:19
better than ever. I know.
31:21
I can't believe they let me do it, but there you go.
31:24
You had to go one up on my submarine, didn't you?
31:29
You got your techno city, remember?
31:32
I did. I did, Yeah.
31:33
I don't drink the champagne. It's not pink by accident.
31:37
Everything made from beetroot. Yes, I love.
31:42
That so Then after Series 2, With Series three, it feels like
31:46
another retooling again. Bringing in Jam, bringing in
31:50
Alex, bringing in the Hive. What was what?
31:54
How? How did that come about?
31:58
I can't. Remember, I'll be honest with
32:00
you, I mean we, I think you you, you kind of you couldn't just do
32:04
another one exactly like the last one.
32:07
So you're looking to think about where we might go and we've got,
32:10
we've got the some of those things that have been seeded in
32:13
the first two series. They've got the Bureau of
32:15
Weapons and and the like. So it was just kind of just.
32:19
Developing a little further and and adding some new people into
32:23
it. I think there was always a
32:25
slight concern about, you know, who pays for everything that's
32:29
being done and how is it organized.
32:31
So there's just a little bit of trying to give a sense of of
32:36
some reality to set up. My main memory from around that
32:41
point is that Craig at the at the end of season 2 announced
32:45
that he wanted to leave. So I was given the job of
32:49
writing him out. So I I think it was Blaze of
32:53
Glory was the episode that I was going to write him out in and
32:57
it's the title. You know, he was going to leave
32:59
in a blaze of glory. He was going to be killed in a
33:02
huge explosion at the end and then he decided he was going to
33:05
stay. So I had to.
33:07
I had to turn it round and so. So we actually started with
33:13
season three's opening episode was kind of like what would have
33:17
been the final episode of any big season.
33:21
So we did start with a Big Bang there, but Craig did stay and
33:25
and I'm glad he did because you know.
33:27
Yeah, yeah, he was. He was.
33:30
I thought he was fundamental to the to the the sort of tone of
33:34
the show. I did.
33:36
I mean he absolutely. And and when he went, he went
33:41
for real at the end of series three.
33:42
Was there a problem? Partly because.
33:45
We didn't know. I mean, I know we'd had the 4th
33:47
one the year before, but it it would have, it would have helped
33:51
us an awful lot to have known because we would have.
33:54
We wouldn't have planned it quite the same way because we
33:57
ended up having to recast and and Steven did its best.
34:01
But it it wasn't the same and you wouldn't have wanted to
34:04
recast unless you really were boxed in and the way we've left
34:08
the series, we we really were, I think.
34:11
So that was a real shame. I mean, not having been involved
34:15
with any of that process because I'd I'd gone off to do October.
34:18
By then I was kind of maybe you can enlighten me on this
34:23
calling, you know why? Why was the same role recast
34:26
instead of a new and parallel character?
34:29
Because. That's exactly what I was going
34:31
to do. I think the way we'd ended the
34:33
series, and I cannot remember it exactly, it was there, a
34:38
cliffhanger. They go, they go out to Ross's
34:41
apartment and she's been kidnapped.
34:44
Yeah I think there's Rosa disappeared and and it was we've
34:49
everybody felt that you couldn't suddenly have Ed not there too
34:55
and so they recast. I mean I would I do it that way
35:00
again if it was a down to me? No, I would not.
35:03
I'm not that keen on recasting some.
35:08
It was. It was the decision that was
35:10
made. And so we went with it.
35:13
And yeah, I mean, I think it was, it was tough on the actor
35:18
because I think it's very hard to to come and replace somebody
35:21
who's done something for three years like that.
35:24
And it it, yeah, it didn't really work.
35:28
Simple as that. But yeah, placing someone like
35:31
Craig who you know, was a bit of a force of force of nature.
35:34
He was, he was, and we could have come up with an
35:37
alternative. We would have been possible, but
35:40
I think the the way that we we set up that cliffhanger made it
35:44
really difficult. So that's why we went.
35:50
He's there at the apartment as well, isn't he?
35:52
And then exactly it picks up from that point so.
35:55
It's a direct pick up and it's like you know.
35:59
Yeah, I mean, given given a little more time and some
36:03
brainstorming, I'm sure a clever way could have been found.
36:07
But you know, dates were approaching, directors drawing
36:12
in, scripts had to be there. So you made the decision and
36:16
away you go and if he was homesick or what but I know I
36:19
know we missed him and and I know you and I called him we had
36:23
a bit of a a bit of contact with Craig two or three years ago or
36:27
maybe a little bit longer before he had that that that little I'm
36:32
not diminishing it's all but you know the his legal problems down
36:36
under which at the end of the day he was cleared off but
36:41
certainly kind of you know put his career back a bit down there
36:44
and I think he looked back on the on the bugs days with some
36:46
nostalgia and would have been quite keen to see it revived
36:48
again and been and would have been involved if yeah if it had
36:51
been. Yeah.
36:52
And that would have been great. I mean it would have been we did
36:56
talk, didn't we, a few years back about about how we could do
36:59
bugs too and but nobody at carnival but we know who's there
37:04
anymore. No, no.
37:06
What had happened is that Brian had sold the company to to
37:11
Gareth, Gareth Neem who subsequently I think sold it on
37:17
to NBC Universal and stayed on as was managing director, stroke
37:22
CEO, whatever whatever that position was.
37:25
And and I did go back and I had I have worked for Carnival since
37:29
and I worked with Gareth and and you know enjoyed the experience
37:33
but it was different different company and bugs doesn't seem to
37:37
be you know very high in their in their priorities in in the
37:42
back catalog and it's a shame because okay we were we we were
37:48
shot in four by three you know we weren't widescreen which I
37:51
think is is a problem these days but we were shot on film and you
37:56
know we could we could easily remaster and reframe for
38:00
widescreen and and have a really good presence on one of the the
38:06
digital channels whether you know whether whether a BBC
38:10
channel BBC3 or or drama or or wherever.
38:15
The the technology and the special effects are available
38:18
now and fertile imaginations. It could be amazing popping back
38:26
to series 3 for a second. Steven, you came in to write the
38:30
last episode of that and that was the last episode that you
38:33
wrote, and that was a return to that Cyberax storyline.
38:38
So did you feel like there was some unfinished business there?
38:40
Was that Renegades? It was, wasn't it?
38:42
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. It's, it's kind of the, the most
38:47
kind of straight and serious story I wrote for Bugs, I think.
38:51
But I was quite invested in it. And I did want to round
38:55
everything off. And I did think that of all the
39:00
ones I did, it's the one that I feel kind of not most affection
39:04
for, but that I'm, I'm kind of most satisfied with.
39:08
You know, with most of them it was a case of, oh, I aimed for
39:10
that and it didn't quite get there, but it was fine anyway.
39:13
Whereas with Renegades I kind of felt the tone was right all the
39:17
way through and and and also you know it, it had a little bit of
39:22
a serious edge to it, which we didn't always, we didn't always
39:26
go for, but I was quite happy with the way it went.
39:31
Yeah, it was nicely directed. It wasn't.
39:32
It was Matthew Evans I think directed it and yeah, a nice job
39:36
on it. I mean we had some great
39:37
directors on Bugs. I mean they did wonders with the
39:41
with some very odd locations and you know, small resources really
39:46
we wasn't, we didn't have that much money thrown in there, but
39:49
they did. We had some very nice work, nice
39:52
to put together. I talked to somebody on on
39:55
another production. So you worked on bugs, He said,
39:58
yeah, I was working on and he named some other show that was
40:00
shooting at the same time. He said all we were hearing
40:03
about was, you know, various stuntmen being stretchered off
40:05
the set. Some of the things I had to do.
40:13
Yeah, Was this is more to towards you Colin.
40:19
Was the Series 5 ever in the works?
40:23
No, we we we we wrote ourselves a cliffhanger in the hope that
40:27
that would persuade people that that that we really had to to
40:31
see another one some more. But like I said the the real
40:34
problem was that we had the the the interruption and
40:38
transmission in that last series.
40:39
I mean there was it was a bit difficult because I think the
40:44
BBC only wanted eight episodes anyway and Brian insisted on
40:48
having 10. So he had the package for
40:50
overseas sales and. And then like I said, there was
40:54
the the the bomb went off. So the episode eight was pulled
40:58
anyway. And then they were, they only
41:01
emerged a year later, a whole year later and was sort of
41:05
burned off on three Saturday nights in in August.
41:11
So that there wasn't any kind of, there wasn't any great kind
41:14
of clamor for for what would happen next and everybody had
41:18
gone on to other things. I mean I was, I was still
41:22
working the car. We were, we were busy on.
41:25
We had a a couple of things we were developing.
41:29
There was a really big austerian thing.
41:31
The BBC very were very interested in that, that
41:35
actually we'd actually got four or five scripts and a lovely set
41:40
was design and a flashy brochure and all sorts of things.
41:46
And then the control of BBC1 changed and it it went up in a
41:50
puff of. As often happens, we had another
41:52
thing we were developing called the Paradise Squad.
41:56
Stop me if you've heard this before, British policeman goes
41:59
to a Caribbean island to solve crimes and Stuart and I wrote,
42:04
wrote the pilot for that and it never went anywhere.
42:09
And then it does and somewhere else did something similar very.
42:14
Similar Do you guys have any particular favorites of the
42:20
episodes that you wrote? That's an obvious question to
42:24
ask, but I want to ask it anyway, Steven.
42:28
I've got some, I've got some reason to like each of them.
42:32
You know, I invested the names of, you know, those friends in
42:37
the pub. You know that their names are
42:39
sprinkled throughout them. So everybody that I know has got
42:42
a stake in in bugs in in one way or another.
42:45
And I made myself a little crib sheet of titles and the names of
42:50
people that, you know, we worked with on the show.
42:53
And I'm just looking at it now and there's not a single one of
42:55
them that I'm not proud of or have joyous memories of.
42:59
Renegades as I say I think was the was the you know the the
43:05
most heavyweight of them I think Cage for Satan was that the one
43:09
with Leslie Ash it. Might have been, yeah.
43:12
Yeah, I've got fond memories of that because I was on set for
43:15
the filming and and Leslie Ash was was hung from from the
43:19
ceiling in the in a corset and needed someone to come in and
43:23
put their finger on the on the lace when they tied the bow and
43:27
that was me so. That's all.
43:30
She was getting an opportunity there because she came in.
43:34
She owned that role in that episode.
43:36
It would. It would have been good to, to
43:38
see more of her, yeah. Yeah, I remember the one of one
43:43
of the lines in that that I was quite proud of was was about the
43:47
vats of Frankenstein juice, which were the bubbling green
43:51
radioactive liquid, That line to Craig.
43:58
Most a lot of the episodes in three and four that I get the
44:01
credit for were were a number of us working on.
44:06
We we we had a bit of a we had to go on the last year as of
44:10
having a writing team. Didn't quite work out.
44:13
But so there's a lot of stuff that.
44:15
I mean a lot of those episodes across the series were had a lot
44:20
of stuff I wrote and Stuart wrote and we wrote together.
44:24
But for me, I guess the one I'm really proudest of is the 2.
44:28
There's two parts of the Open series too, just because that's
44:32
that's a really, you know a nice chunk of work and I was really
44:35
pleased with the Cliff I hear and yeah, that was, that was
44:39
great fun. And yeah, that would be my
44:43
favorite, but my favorite episode of all I think is still
44:48
Assassin's Inc. I just remember the joy of
44:50
reading that script. I mean, Steven has a wonderful
44:55
way with writing his scripts that makes them direct to proof,
45:02
which I've. Try to learn.
45:08
Very clever. I've I've watched the series
45:11
through recently with my partner and he watched the first
45:15
episode. This is good.
45:16
And then he watched the second episode.
45:18
He watched the second episode and he went this is great let's
45:22
watch the more and that and that's somebody who almost
45:26
exclusively watches modern television as well.
45:29
So that's that's through those eyes.
45:33
Yeah, I was tough when my, my, my son watched them all on DVD
45:38
when about 15 years whatever and said, well this is quite good,
45:42
dad. It's a hell of an endorsement.
45:49
I mean I think what you've got with what goes up must come down
45:53
and then the two parts are at the end of two is 2 mini movies
45:57
going out on Saturday night. Big bold stories.
46:01
Well, gentlemen, if you will indulge me, I've got some
46:05
members of the podcast audience that frame some questions at me,
46:09
which I would like to ask. One of these feels particularly
46:12
appropriate given what we were talking about earlier.
46:16
So Fraser Gregory asks, did bugs fill a Doctor Who shape gap in
46:20
the schedules, or did Doctor Who fill a bug shape gap?
46:27
A very leading question. I mean, I've worked.
46:30
On both so, so I don't know, I to me they were very, very
46:34
distinctly different programs with maybe the same audience and
46:39
Bugs was very much a kind of mid Saturday night, you know, after
46:44
tea time show. Whereas to me, Doctor Who has
46:46
always been the quintessential Saturday night tea time show.
46:50
I know it isn't anymore. But bear in mind I was around
46:53
for the for the first season of Doctor Who.
46:56
I came in halfway through the 1st Dalek story and and it is
47:01
forever kind of engraved on my heart with that timestamp on it.
47:05
So for me, Bugs and Doctor Who 2 completely separate but
47:09
coexisting things. You know, 2 animals in in
47:11
adjacent cages. I think with when bugs came
47:15
along because the BBC had kind of lost faith in Doctor Who, I
47:19
think it showed that there was still an audience there for
47:22
genre television in the 90s. Well, it was all through.
47:27
That period where? Science fiction was like, and
47:30
you know, continues to be the biggest thing in cinema and why
47:35
television thinks that. That world is a completely
47:38
separate world from the world that they're work.
47:41
You know, the entertainment world that they're working in.
47:43
I don't know. There is a there is some
47:45
distinction between home entertainment and you know stuff
47:49
that you go out to see. But that's become blurred so
47:52
much in the in the past few years and all the great shows
47:56
that that really take off. You know your stranger things
47:59
and and your silos and and you know all the stuff on the stream
48:04
is that really takes hold is. Work of the imagination.
48:08
And yet what our commissioners preoccupy themselves with is
48:13
cozy crime and naturalism is it. You can't.
48:19
You can't. You just can't get a proper
48:21
space show on the normal networks.
48:25
The regular networks, when they do try, they do things like what
48:28
is it called, Outland or out. Outcast Outlands.
48:32
You're thinking of the thing that Q Dust did.
48:34
Yeah, and they. It was so kind of half assed,
48:39
wasn't it? A shot in South Africa meant to
48:41
be a Neptune or somewhere? I don't know.
48:44
It just they've got for. Some reason it doesn't.
48:48
I mean, the nearest we ever got was Blake Seven, which, you
48:52
know, had its own problems and we came along in the 90s with
48:56
something. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't
48:59
apart from my episode came into space.
49:01
It wasn't a space show. But those sort of things just
49:03
don't seem to fly. Whereas you can get on on
49:05
Netflix or on the streamers, as you say, that they can be the
49:08
most popular things. It's very peculiar.
49:12
But then, you know the state of television today is a whole
49:15
different discussion which we could have and.
49:19
But yeah, for me. Bugs was the nearest I was ever
49:22
gonna get to writing Doctor Who. Subsequently I've written Doctor
49:25
Who novels and I've written Doctor Who audio, so I have
49:28
managed to do that, but at the time, in my head it was the
49:32
closest I was gonna get. Darren Litt Roundels asks How
49:38
involved was Brian Clements overall?
49:44
You'd know more, wouldn't you? Call it, yeah.
49:48
For most of the run, I'm not so much sure.
49:50
In the last series he would comment on scripts.
49:54
He'd get a copy at some point near to production and he would
49:58
send out one of his faxes. In the first series, I think he
50:02
did comment on some storylines and things, but he was, he was
50:10
sort of as a distance consultant he was.
50:13
He was involved, but barely, you know, And like I said, when we
50:20
were, when we were both. Consulting I was told by Brian
50:24
Eastman that when the when the notes came in from both of us,
50:29
it was one of two things. Either we'd both written exactly
50:32
the same thing, or we'd written diametrically opposed notes and
50:36
there was nothing in between. I have got a lot of them
50:42
somewhere. I've got boxes of stuff from
50:45
that period. They're in my sister's loft and
50:47
I haven't seen them for years, but I do.
50:49
I'm I'm sure I've got some of Brian's faxes.
50:52
I must dig them out sometime. It's called evidence.
50:58
They're on fax paper. It's probably just blank sheets
51:01
by now, yeah. I'd love to see them.
51:04
Do you know where'd you live? No, sorry.
51:08
Darren also asked. Do you think the show could have
51:11
continued? I mean, I do because there are
51:13
always stories to tell, but it could.
51:17
Have, had there been the? Will for the BBC?
51:19
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
51:21
A show will continue as long. As there is money to make it,
51:24
you know? And even if, even if the people
51:26
who make it lose interest, if the money's there to make it,
51:29
they'll get new people. I mean I would have, I would
51:32
have quite happily carried on. You know, I went away to do
51:34
October. I would happily have come back
51:36
afterwards. I did come back to Carnival to
51:40
do Rosemary and Thyme, which was a kind of unexpected it
51:44
surprised me more than it surprised anybody else.
51:47
But but now it was, it was a good company to work for.
51:51
Brian was was, you know, tight with the budget and I always
51:55
remember you know his his notes could be infuriating on 2
51:59
levels. One when you got them, and again
52:02
when you realized that he was right.
52:07
Yeah. And he and he had this thing
52:09
about. He he loved to, he loved to
52:10
actually make the film in the in the editor room.
52:14
And so you work work really hard on a on a script and with a
52:19
lovely piece of it cut in of scenes that you've really worked
52:22
on and then you get the footage in the in the editor room and
52:25
turn into something completely different.
52:28
So it was very, very good. As a as a producer overseeing
52:32
edits and Stuart Doughty shouldn't be ignored either.
52:35
He was a really important part of of Bugs.
52:39
I don't know if it one of the part of the original idea was
52:41
what was his, but he was he was definitely an important part and
52:47
as a as a producer writer was was really involved throughout.
52:54
He runs a hotel now. He does in his wife, yeah, yeah.
52:58
I was in contact last year. Yeah, it's a more lucrative.
53:02
I hear Joseph Blister asked a slightly facetious question.
53:07
I want to throw this to you Steven, because you wrote this
53:09
script. So.
53:13
Is Jan Harvey only ever allowed to play characters called Jan?
53:18
Well, I. Wrote the script but I didn't
53:19
name the character, so I'm completely and I'll throw that
53:23
to you Colin, I think. I think we.
53:25
Were just having a laugh, probably.
53:32
It was allowed. I've got a I've got a Well,
53:37
there's no name. His name is Secret Army Weekly,
53:39
apparently, but he says no questions from me.
53:43
But please pass on the message that I love Bugs so much.
53:46
It was my childhood. I love Jay Griffith as Roz.
53:50
Intelligent, competent women. Back when TV was all
53:53
footballers, wives and other rubbish.
53:55
She was such a great role model. Yeah, Jay would sometimes kick
54:00
off. If if a story required her to be
54:04
like, you know, the one at the desk with the computer
54:06
instructing the lads over a video monitor as to you know who
54:10
was around the next corner, she really hated that.
54:12
And and I did say to her on I think it was the episode Pulse.
54:18
I said, so is there anything you know that you really want to do?
54:21
You know anything on screen that you you've ever really fancied
54:24
doing that I could work in? I said I've always wanted to
54:27
drive a big truck. So I deliberately put a scene in
54:31
where where Roz gets into an 18 Wheeler and smashes the foyer
54:36
off a building and they they built the foyer on front of the
54:39
on the front of the building and she got behind the wheel and
54:43
whether she actually drove it through the through the prop.
54:47
On I suspect. There's probably a stunt driver
54:49
for that. But, but Jay got to, yeah, Jay
54:52
got to do the do the big rig. On that one.
54:56
And and I've made it a point ever since if I've had, if I've
54:59
ever had the opportunity, you know if I'm working on a on a
55:02
show where there is enough lead time for that kind of thing.
55:05
I will say to the actors, you know, is there any anything you
55:08
any skill you want to show off, any anything you've ever really
55:10
wanted to do on screen And if so, you know, I'll try and work
55:14
it in because. It raises.
55:17
Everybody's game it. Gives the actor, you know, a
55:20
greater sense of involvement and it's just nice to be able to do
55:24
it absolutely. And this was like pre Buffy the
55:29
Vampire Slayer, wasn't it? In the 90s.
55:31
So to have such a strong, competent woman, it's it's Jay
55:36
Griffith's rose that I always remember first when I'm thinking
55:39
back to Bugs. That's such an impressive
55:42
character and she got to go win appeal.
55:44
Sometimes she just karate, and she had a.
55:48
Catch phrase cool bananas question.
55:52
Is that there's a quick question I need to throw into both of
55:55
you, which I'm curious about. Did every single episode have to
55:58
end on a joke? Kind of, yeah.
56:02
Because we were. Following.
56:04
I mean, Colleen may disagree, but, you know, my understanding
56:07
was that we were following the kind of teaser and three acts
56:11
and an epilogue format of of. Of the I.
56:16
TC shows which. Again were reflecting the
56:18
American shows of the of the 60s because that was the way that
56:22
they were structured for commercials.
56:25
You'd have a teaser commercial first, that commercial second,
56:28
that commercial 3rd, that commercial epilogue to to end on
56:31
and then nobody watched the end credits.
56:34
So we were following that pattern and yeah, we we kind of,
56:39
yeah, it was, it was, it was part of the design.
56:42
It was, I mean, I think, I think the scripts.
56:44
Were actually written in that with that teaser 3 act epilogue
56:48
structure, even though it was for the BBC and it was going to
56:50
be continuous. We wrote the scripts that way.
56:52
And those those end sequences, those epilogues were some of the
56:58
funny fun, most fun things to write.
57:00
I I wrote a loss of those bad puns, Michael particularly.
57:06
Pleased with two heads are better than one almost, I think
57:12
we. Came up with the entire episode
57:14
to have that pardon, but there you go.
57:15
Do you remember the one where they deliver Beckett's car and
57:18
it's just a cube of metal? It's always good to go out on
57:24
the joke. So I've got a question here from
57:27
Asphalt Frontier. These are Twitter names.
57:30
These aren't real names, I think.
57:32
I hope we got that. Yeah.
57:34
How would you revive reboot bugs in 2023, Steven?
57:41
Well, we did have this conversation.
57:42
Didn't. We call in two or three years
57:44
ago and ran it past Gareth at Carnival and that's where we we
57:50
kind of stopped because Carnival weren't interested, but I don't
57:55
know we would have. To upgrade it in some.
57:58
Way into a more credible world? I think so, yeah.
58:07
Yeah, it'd have to be next generation.
58:09
We're going to be. I think we did.
58:11
Did we not talk about Ross having gone off of the grid and
58:15
being a sort of sort of figure in the in the dark web that
58:20
people were knew of but didn't know she really existed or
58:23
whether she was a legend and there was some sense of people
58:27
actually looking for her? I can't remember.
58:29
Yeah, this is mainly you and Alex.
58:31
Alex Stewart, wasn't it? Who was?
58:34
Who was in on it at that point? And I think you you'd hammered
58:38
that out. I was.
58:40
I was sort of showing enthusiasm but trying to do as little work
58:42
to all of it as possible, which is always the best way until
58:46
there's money. On the table.
58:52
Right. So I've got a question here from
58:53
James H who asks when are you going to approach a big finish
58:57
to reboot the series that's that's the audio series that
59:01
what kind of you know this that make Doctor Who and many other
59:07
yeah I I I'm not sure. Whether it I don't know if it's
59:10
a blank spot for Nick Briggs or or Jason, or that they they just
59:15
aren't, aren't aware of bugs or interested in bugs, or perhaps
59:18
didn't like bugs, or perhaps they've they've asked, they've
59:22
gone to Carnival and asked about it and been being knocked back.
59:24
I don't know. I mean, I know that if they if
59:27
they did it and didn't come to me, I'd be very, very annoyed.
59:31
You know, it's something that's never occurred.
59:32
To me as as a possibility, I suppose, because you know, so
59:38
much of of my memory of bugs is visual.
59:41
Yeah. The of the, you know, the stuff
59:43
that we did then, I suppose, yeah, it would.
59:46
I'm sure it would work. Well, yeah, yeah.
59:48
I mean, we could we also. If we did it on audio, we'd be
59:51
able to do a continuation of it as it was.
59:54
You wouldn't necessarily have to bring it forward 30 odd years.
1:00:00
And I know Jay's working with with Big Finish now, isn't she?
1:00:03
She's just been made a a a companion for one of the ranges,
1:00:08
one of the many ranges. So Jesse up to these days.
1:00:12
I haven't. Seen Jesse for ages.
1:00:14
I mean Craig's obviously still in Australia.
1:00:19
I don't know if he's, he's beginning to get working and I
1:00:21
hope he is. But yeah, I mean it would be, it
1:00:27
would work on audio. It would be great fun.
1:00:31
Yeah, Jesse. Jesse was.
1:00:34
Kind of. He had a business, a vinyl
1:00:37
dealing business, and yeah, the word was that that was the real
1:00:41
sort of passion of his life and the acting was just something he
1:00:44
did in order to to pay the bills and support it.
1:00:47
Now, whether he's he's actually gone off and become a vinyl
1:00:51
dealer and that's what he does now, I don't know.
1:00:53
I've not, I've not heard anything about that.
1:00:55
But I mean, Craig could always do his stuff down the line.
1:00:58
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
1:00:59
It's not impossible. So yeah, basically everybody
1:01:04
who's interested needs to write to Jason and Nick at a big
1:01:06
finish. Start the campaign here, yeah.
1:01:11
Just remind them that Stephen and I are here, We've got the
1:01:14
rights. To the theme tune, Cuz I know as
1:01:16
soon as I hear that music I'll be in the mid 90s again.
1:01:18
Straight away. Who else?
1:01:20
It was it Gavin Greenaway. Did that.
1:01:22
I think it was, wasn't it? Yeah, I know Gavin Greenaway did
1:01:26
a lot of the. Incidental music.
1:01:28
And every every time his His name comes up on Classic FM of,
1:01:31
you know, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra or whatever,
1:01:34
I go to one of mine. Well then to sort of round.
1:01:42
This off, can I ask you both sort of what your biggest take
1:01:46
away of working with bugs has been?
1:01:50
Let's start with you, Steven. I came.
1:01:53
Away from that. Thinking I'm a proper
1:01:55
professional telly writer. Now you know I've I've worked on
1:01:57
it because everything else I've done has has only ever lasted
1:02:01
one season but now bugs around for three seasons and it showed
1:02:06
that I could go back and I could go back to the coalface and do
1:02:09
the work. So, any suspicion?
1:02:13
I had that. Any success I'd had outside of
1:02:15
that was a one off and a fluke, you know, and.
1:02:20
And up to that point, you know, I kind of had the the
1:02:23
inferiority complex thing of feeling that my career was a
1:02:26
series of flukes, this show that I could.
1:02:29
Show up and I could do. The work and I could deliver and
1:02:32
from that point onwards I had a new level of confidence that so
1:02:36
that I'd never had before. I'd had, you know, kind of.
1:02:41
I'd had a certain amount of bravado.
1:02:44
And and self belief before that, but after bugs I knew I could do
1:02:48
it. On the.
1:02:50
Phone what you call it. For me, it was probably the
1:02:56
happiest 4 years of my professional life.
1:03:00
I just absolutely loved it. It was great.
1:03:02
It was the first time I wrote anything that wasn't the soap
1:03:04
opera. And so that again, that sense of
1:03:08
of yeah, I can do this, this is this is something I can do.
1:03:12
Being involved in that, that production was the best behind
1:03:16
the scenes stuff I've I've been involved with.
1:03:18
It was just a nice setup. Brian and Stewart were great to
1:03:21
work for and despite the fact that during the time of bugs we
1:03:28
moved to to Belgium, to Brussels and both my children were born
1:03:33
during that that period of time as well.
1:03:35
So it was quite a weird time in my life anyway.
1:03:39
But yeah, it was just fantastic and I I wouldn't want to go off
1:03:44
and do it again now in that way. You know, I think stuck in a in
1:03:50
a Porter cabin for 6-7 months, cranking it out would be would
1:03:55
be hard these days. It was a wonderful wonderful
1:03:58
time and I'm really grateful for it.
1:04:01
And yeah, it also meant meant I've I'm I'm able to say I have
1:04:06
been novelized and I have novelized.
1:04:10
I did a Merlin novelization and I've had my small chance episode
1:04:15
was novelized by Andy Lane. So I think that's quite a nice
1:04:18
thing to do as well. That's another writer's rite of
1:04:21
passage. Does that mean your kids can
1:04:24
have EU? No cuz we we we were we were
1:04:29
there working for. Well my wife was working for the
1:04:31
Commission so we were there as as UK citizens.
1:04:36
So they can't cuz we didn't live there long enough.
1:04:39
They can cuz my wife's father was Irish they can all get an
1:04:42
Irish passport. My wife's got an Irish passport,
1:04:45
which is great for her. Doesn't do really good.
1:04:50
And can I ask you both? You may not be able to tell.
1:04:55
But I'm gonna. Ask the question what you're
1:04:57
working on at the moment and what we can expect to see from
1:05:00
you in the future. I've got a novella coming out
1:05:06
next. Year and I had two projects that
1:05:10
I was working on when lockdown hit back in 2020 and both of
1:05:16
them, you know, didn't survive lockdown also I thought.
1:05:20
And one of them has kind of raised its head.
1:05:23
Literally in the last few weeks. So yeah I have a zoom call later
1:05:29
this evening in fact on on that because it's to New Zealand and
1:05:33
and it's first thing in the morning down there.
1:05:35
So that's why I'm I'm zooming so late in the evening here.
1:05:39
But that I can't really say much about other than that it is a
1:05:43
very big historical thing and it's something that I've been.
1:05:47
I've been working with producers on since I think it's 2014 when
1:05:52
we first started talking about it and it's gone through various
1:05:55
stages of mutations and it's been up and it's been down and
1:05:59
at the moment it's slightly on the rise again, but who knows,
1:06:03
it keeps me. Busy is the.
1:06:05
Is the the good thing about it? I've only just.
1:06:09
Bought, and I think it came out very recently, The novelization
1:06:13
of Warriors, Gates and other stories.
1:06:16
Was that written recently or was that a while back?
1:06:19
Now Warriors gate the novelization.
1:06:22
Was written at the time of the show.
1:06:24
In fact, it was written just before the show started taping
1:06:28
and John Nathan Turner saw my My Novel version.
1:06:34
Of the script I had. Written and blocked it.
1:06:37
He vetoed it and said no. We've made too many changes in
1:06:41
the shooting script, so. I had to go away and do a quick
1:06:45
rewrite to make it conform to the broadcast version, but I
1:06:49
kept all the bits in an envelope.
1:06:52
So the new version of Warriors Gate is actually the version
1:06:56
that existed before the scissors were taken to it.
1:07:00
You know, it was the vetoed version.
1:07:02
So that has come out. As you know it's the lost
1:07:06
version has now finally made it into print.
1:07:09
In addition to that, within the same volume is a 10,000 word
1:07:12
novella that I did for BBC Audio three or four years ago now,
1:07:17
which picks up Romana from the end of Warriors gate and takes
1:07:21
her on into adventures with Laslo, the Farrell who she is
1:07:26
last seen walking through the gateway hand in hand with.
1:07:30
And in order to add some new content to make the book a
1:07:34
little bit more sellable, they asked me to do a 5000 word short
1:07:38
story. To round the whole thing off so
1:07:40
you get 3 pieces for the price of 1, one of which you may have
1:07:44
seen before but not in the form that it is, one of which you may
1:07:46
have heard before but never read, and the other of which is
1:07:49
completely new. I have a very quick.
1:07:52
Story to tell you about my friend Simon, who read all of
1:07:55
those Target books when he was younger.
1:07:58
He was very young when they came out and that he loved, loved
1:08:02
your books. He got so frustrated because his
1:08:06
mother would let him read. Two or three chapters and there
1:08:10
were no chapters and we'd be scaring your books.
1:08:14
Trying to find a point where that's a good point, I'll still.
1:08:20
Maybe I should have had him as an editor then.
1:08:22
Cuz I could not quite look out where to put the chapter, so I
1:08:25
just didn't. And how about you, Colin?
1:08:29
Well, I've. I thought I'd done would tell
1:08:32
you have done with me, but I've started back in the into the
1:08:35
area of Doctors the BBC afternoon soap and I have an
1:08:38
episode going out Monday the 11th of this month and two more
1:08:44
following that and hopefully some water follow that.
1:08:47
And I do have some a couple of Doctor Who Big Finish projects
1:08:52
which are unannounced, so I can't talk about them apart from
1:08:55
there eventually will be some more Doctor Who stuff at some
1:08:59
point there has been sort of. There's been a number of Doctor
1:09:03
Who books that you've published, isn't there?
1:09:05
There's some new series of ventures and a number of big
1:09:08
finishes as well. Sort of yes, which has been,
1:09:12
which has been really nice. The the, the my finally did get
1:09:16
to Doctor Who even though, as you may or may not know, I was
1:09:20
that close to being the script editor on what would have been
1:09:24
season 27. But they didn't make season 27.
1:09:29
That's just when I started watching as well.
1:09:30
Can you believe Season 20 go? Away what I want.
1:09:34
To say from the pair of you are, I want to say bugs.
1:09:38
That's what I want. Oh, but if anybody wants to
1:09:41
wants to pay us to write BUGS novels, I'm up for it.
1:09:47
We're writers for hire. Absolutely.
1:09:51
That just leaves me to say thank.
1:09:52
You very much now somebody said during the course of this call
1:09:55
that like bugs might not have caught on.
1:09:59
As you hoped it might. But for me, like I said at the
1:10:03
beginning, it was by appointment television.
1:10:05
It's still one of my favorite shows.
1:10:08
So I wanted to say to both of you, thank you so much because
1:10:11
me and my mother used to sit down every Saturday night and it
1:10:14
was the highlight of our week that we'd have Becky, Ed and
1:10:18
Ross to entertainers at the end of the week.
1:10:20
So thank you so much. It's it's a terrific show.
1:10:24
And thank you for coming to talk to me today.
1:10:26
Our Fanta. That's what we.
1:10:27
Live for. Absolutely.
1:10:29
That exactly what you do it for. Thank you.