What could fill the Atlantis slot on BBC One? Let’s have a look at a frankly mad wish-list of possibilities…
Revivals & reboots
With the exception of 85 minutes of Paul McGann one Saturday night in 1996, there was no Doctor Who in the Nineties. It’s like we’d all been naughty and had it confiscated from us. But filling that vacuum was BUGS, BBC One’s 1995–1998 action-adventure series about a high-tech team of crime fighters. It was top telly, especially if you had a crush on Jaye Griffiths or/and Craig McLachlan.
Technology-wise, watching it now is like observing someone trying to hack a Casio calculator, but the drama is still excellent, the theme tune is one of the best ever, and if anything we’re more anxious about technological terrorism and cyber-crime than we were in the age when the floppy disk ruled supreme.
When we asked you, dear readers, what shows you’d like to see fill the Atlantis slot, many of you were quick to support Merlin, which suggests that the BBC shouldn’t have been so ready to expel it from our screens. It’s never too late to return to it, or to explore that world, perhaps with a Knights of the Round Table spin-off?
Blake’s 7 was also mentioned by a handful of you. It’s been kicked down the food-chain since B7 Productions bought the rights in 2000, first mooted to be on Sky1, then SyFy and then Xbox Live. The best thing for it would be for the BBC to pony up some cash, take control, and give old fans and new viewers a sci-fi hit that wouldn’t feel like a second-class stop-gap until Doctor Who next rolled round.
Or how about something really daring? How about bringing back The Avengers?
If you’re old enough to remember the BBC’s botched reboot of Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), then you’d be wise to be wary of late ’60s remakes. But let’s be brave. Give it to the right showrunner, give them the right budget, and The Avengers could be the appointment excitement that TV needs when Doctor Who isn’t on. At its best, during the Steed & Peel years, The Avengers was champagne spy-fi at its most classy, sexy, and silly.
And if you can’t be classy and silly and sexy on a Saturday night, when can you?
What do you want to see in BBC One’s Saturday evening slot? Let us know below…