Space Force (BBC radio serial)
Space Force is a BBC Radio science fiction serial, broadcast from 4 April 1984 to 17 June 1985.
Written by Charles Chilton, it was originally intended to be a sequel to his Journey into Space series (broadcast in the 1950s), using the cast which had just made a one-off revival of that series ("The Return From Mars"); while this idea was dropped late in the development of the serial, the four characters are nevertheless essentially the same as those from the earlier series, albeit with different names.
A second series, known as Space Force 2, featured the same main characters, once again played by Barry Foster, Nigel Stock, Nicky Henson and Tony Osoba.
First series
[edit]The episodes of the first series, broadcast in 1984, were:
- "The Voice from Nowhere" (4 April 1984)
- "Towards the Unknown" (11 April 1984)
- "The Silver Strangers" (18 April 1984)
- "The Time Ship" (25 April 1984)
- "Threshold of the Stars" (2 May 1984)
- "Marooned in Space" (9 May 1984)
Second series
[edit]The episodes of the second series, broadcast in 1985, were:
- "The Return of the Sun God" (13 May 1985)
- "The Red Planet" (20 May 1985)
- "The Great Martian Pyramid" (27 May 1985)
- "A Test of Endurance" (3 June 1985)
- "Living with Death" (10 June 1985)
- "Unto Death – And Beyond" (17 June 1985)
Characters
[edit]The main characters in Space Force were:
Character | Actor | Equivalent character from Journey into Space | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Captain Saxon Berry | Barry Foster | Jet Morgan | Captain of the Space Force and leader of the team. Also captained the Lunar 9 freighter for the first episode of the first series before being transferred to the Space Force. |
Lodderick Sincere | Tony Osoba | Steven Mitchell | The flight engineer for Space Force, a keen astronomer who sometimes is hot-headed enough to get himself and the team into trouble. |
Lemuel "Chipper" Barnet | Nicky Henson | Lemmy Barnet | The radio operator for Space Force. The joker of the group who also struggles with the terrifying situations the team face. In a direct link to Journey into Space, Chipper refers once to his grandfather, Lemmy Barnett. |
Professor Magnus Carter | Nigel Stock | Doc Matthews | Added to the Lunar 9 crew under somewhat mysterious circumstances, Magnus is part of a secret organisation searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. |
Music
[edit]Both the first and second series reused commercially available incidental music by Jerry Goldsmith. Cues from Logan's Run, Outland, Twilight Zone: The Movie and Capricorn One can be heard in series one, while music from The Wind and the Lion, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Poltergeist, Gremlins, Coma, and Alien can be heard in series two.