Hyperdrive - BBC's new sci-fi/comedy
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http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1570031,00.html
some good stuff about it in this article here!
some good stuff about it in this article here!
Nick Frost, best known for playing Simon Pegg's sidekick in Spaced and Shaun of the Dead, has landed his first lead role in a TV comedy, playing a spaceship commander in new BBC2 show Hyperdrive.
Frost's character in Hyperdrive, space commander Henderson, is in charge of a 22nd century British spaceship tasked with trying to encourage aliens to relocate their businesses to Peterborough and take holidays in the Lake District.
The comedy, set in 2151, has been described by executive producer Jon Plowman as a "hilarious version of Das Boot in space".
"Hyperdrive is partly about the crew of the HMS Camden Lock trying to persuade aliens to relocate to Britain while the Americans offer Florida, and partly about a group of people being stuck together in a confined space for a long time," he said.
During their space travels, commander Henderson and his crew have to deal with anti-gravity failures, annoying talking doors and wars with aliens.
Commander Henderson is an optimistic but deluded man, who always thinks his orders are open to interpretation.
Hyperdrive, which formerly had a working title Full Power, also stars Kevin Eldon - whose credits include Nighty Night and Big Train - as first officer York, a brilliant scientist and polymath.
Other cast members include Miranda Hart as diplomatic officer Teal, who is in love with Henderson; Stephen Evans as manic-depressive navigator Vine; and Dan Antopolski as insubordinate technical officer Jeffers.
The BBC2 comedy also features Petra Massey as pilot Sandstrom, an "enhanced human", and Paterson Joseph, as the ambitious space marshal Clarke.
Hyperdrive is being filmed in Manchester and is due to go out on BBC2 next year.
The comedy has been written by Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley, who scripted the third series of Black Books. Alex Walsh-Taylor is producing, with John Henderson directing.
What did you think of 'Hyperdrive'? 319 votes
Excellent
5%
18 votes
Not Bad
22%
73 votes
Average
15%
51 votes
Poor
47%
151 votes
Undecided
8%
26 votes
0
Comments
that being said given teh last adversting scheme it launched (the Peterboroug logo on taxis in London) this one is better.
I'm encouraged to see Nick Frost and the writers of Black Books involved.
Well, not me. I liked it. There, I've said it. It made me laugh-out-loud at least 3 times in the first episode. That will do me. Should they have put it up against Lost on C4 though? Eek!
One bit had me splitting my sides though, when the ships computer needed a custom fix and Nick Frost just keeps going on about the qwuick fix button and screws the whole ship up.
Working with pc's you see this kind of thing all the time!
And now everythings set back to the factory defaults.
Think this needs a bit more of a chance to get in to it. I don't think it was all that much like Red Dwarf either.
With sci-fi itself, a lot has already been done with the genre and it's difficult to use a concept or device which isn't already derived from Star Trek/Star Wars/2001/countless others (take Warp Drive and Zap guns for example).
I can't say that I found the first episode of Hyperdrive as good as I would have like but it's early days yet. There were some funny moments in there. It's similar to Red Dwarf, where the patheticness of the crew is the focus for the humour.
I'll give it a few weeks.
I liked some of the crew characters, but thought that the alien creature running round the ship was a bit of a cliche. The long trailer last week showed some interesting clips.
It's only 30mins long, and I can't form a proper opinion of it in that short a time.
It's definitely worth a series link on the sky+ I reckon.
Any chance of a poll as to how people found this ?
I thought it looked great, but wasn't impressed with the level of comedy in the slightest. That said, it was only the first episode and I'm not willing to form a proper opinion on that basis alone.
Kris
This prog was nowhere near as funny as it thought it was. I thought we'd gotten away from this sort of silly "comedy" stuff. Can we not make comedy programs with some wit ?? I'm not a fan of Futurama but it oozes humour compared to this twee dross. It was painful to watch,
The people who give the go ahead for progs like this must be so out of touch, to think this would be well received.
A waste of license payers money.
Who knows it may get better. It certainly can't get worse.
That's EXACTLY it! No matter what the situation, the primary thing is to make people laugh. Comedy and characters first, sci-fi second. This is why Red Dwarf was great. Also, Dwarf contained actual sci-fi, not stupid space jokes.
The interesting thing about "The Office" is that you squirm at Brent's inept activities. Frost's character (forgotten his name) is utterly inept at playing the inept with added pathos.
Perhaps it may improve in the coming weeks, but if it's more of the same then I'd prefer to see this show put to rest.
My Mum & Dad just summed it up perfectly: The Office in Space.
I couldn't stand the office.
My DVD-Recording of this is being wiped - as although it was enjoyable it's not watch again material.
I won't care whether I miss the rest of this: - Life On Mars was so much better.
I was born and lived in peterborough till 3 years ago! I watched it, and thought it was ok, although it mirrors Red Dwarf, Saw Rimmer, Lister, Cat and Kryten in characters, and the ship looks similar.