BUGS

First transmitted on BBC1 in 1995, BUGS was the first mainstream telefantasy drama to have been broadcast in an adult slot for a number of years.

The series revolved around the exploits of Ros Henderson (Jaye Griffiths), Ed (Craig McLachlan) and Nick Beckett (Jessie Birdsall), who investigated various high-tech crimes whilst working for Ros's company, Gizmo's.

All three of the three actors were departees from high profile soap operas or dramas: Jaye Griffiths had recently left The Bill, where she had played CID's DI Sally Johnson; Craig McLachlan had starred in both Neighbours and Home & Away (as well as troubling the music charts earlier in the decade); and Jesse Birdsall had played Marcus Tandy in the appalling BBC1 soap Eldorado between 1992 and 1993.

After some heavy promotion, the first episode would be watched by an astonishing 12.5m viewers. Something which sufficiently impressed the BBC for them to commit to a further two seasons of ten episodes each.

Season 2, however, saw a noticeable dip in ratings, when the winning formula was tinkered with by bringing back Jean Daniel from the previous season's Pulse as a recurring villain and upping the sci-fi content of the programme — something which obviously wasn't to the taste of the viewing audience. The programme also encountered what would be the first of its annual scheduling problems, as the season finale, A Cage for Satan, was pulled at short notice due to the IRA blowing up Manchester city centre...

Season 3 saw further changes to the format, with our three heroes joining up with the secret Bureau 2, a government organisation that dealt with the same sort of crimes as before, but which enabled the producers to introduce two new characters. Ex-Howard's Way actress Jan Harvey played the mysterious Jan, who was in charge of the Bureau, and Paula Hunt was introduced as Alex Jordan a young recruit who had previously been confined to the paperwork.

Rather surprisingly, the season was to end on a cliffhanger, with Ros missing and her apartment smashed up. Even more surprising was the news that BUGS was to be recommisioned for a fourth season — again of ten episodes. Season 3's scheduling calamity, meanwhile, had occurred at the start of September when Buried Treasure was delayed by a week in order to make way for the extensive coverage of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.

The major change in Season 4 would be the departure of Craig McLachlan, although the part was to be re-cast, with Steven Houghton, fresh out of the ITV firefighting drama London's Burning, stepping into the breach to play a now anglicised Ed.

Yet again, external events were to conspire against the series. Firstly, the series was moved to an earlier timeslot, thus losing the advantage of a lead-in from the National Lottery draw. More annoying for telefantasy starved viewers in the UK was the fact that ITV decided to schedule The Vanishing Man, their updating of The Invisible Man starring Neil Morrissey, in opposition to the series for three of the episodes. The next blow for the show was when Pandora's Box was hurriedly removed from the schedules due to the Real IRA bombing in Omagh.

The final indignity for fans was when the season was cut short after the broadcast of the seventh episode, Jewel Control. It was to be a further twelve months before the final three were transmitted, but even the inclusion of yet another cliffhanger failed to save the series on this occasion. Series writer Colin Brake has since confirmed online that the mysterious driver who kidnaps Ros and Beckett would have been revealed in Season 5 to be Jean Daniel...

Behind the scenes, the show had a notable pedigree, with ex-Avengers writer Brian Clemens acting as adviser to the series in the early days, as well as providing story ideas, while the main writer across the four seasons would be Stephen Gallagher, best known at the time for his science fiction novels such as Chimera and Oktober. Writers Miles Millar and Alfred Gough, who contributed Bugged Wheat to Season 2 and Hollow Man to Season 3, would go on to develop and produce Smallville in the United States

But despite it's many shortcomings, the series was never as bad as its more vociferous critics liked to claim, and, for a few short years at least, showed that British TV could still make an action show when it put its mind to it. Parking your brain in neutral for the duration was a must, however!

All four seasons of BUGS have been released on DVD, and the series has received a number of repeats in the UK on satellite and cable. On the BBC, however, nothing has been seen of the show since the broadcast of The Enemy Within in August 1999.