I found the whole 9 episode series of Star Cops on YouTube. I watched them over the last few days and wasn't much impressed. It's a show created by, and mostly written by, Chris Boucher. Some Doctor Who fans might recognize his writing credit on 3 different episodes. He was also the script editor on Blake's 7 and wrote some episodes of that series. Star Cops is about cops in space. It's slightly in the future and we aren't too far into the solar system. Here's a chunk of text from the Wikipedia that fills in the show's backstory.
Star Cops is set in the year 2027—some 40 years into the future at time of broadcast—a time in which space travel has become common and mankind is in the process of exploiting and colonising the Solar System. There are five permanently manned space stations orbiting the Earth and there are bases on the Moon and Mars. Approximately 3,000 people are living and working in space. This near future setting was influenced by the potential for greater access to space promised by the burgeoning Spac Shuttle programme and by the militarisation of space through the US Government's Strategic Defense Initiative programme (also known as "Star Wars") both of which were underway in the early 1980s. Accordingly, space travel and life in space is portrayed in a realistic manner with depictions of weightlessness and low gravity environments and lengthy space journeys (months or years in cases of interplanetary travel) as well as hazards such as spacesuit failures, radiation exposure and explosive decompression. This air of realism has led to Star Cops being frequently compared with the 1973 BBC drama series Moonbase 3. Similarly, the pioneering spirit evoked by the process of colonising the Solar System seen in the series has led to comparisons with the Western genre among many commentators.
Law and order is provided by the International Space Police Force (ISPF), twenty part-time volunteers disparagingly nicknamed the "Star Cops". The decision has been made to put the ISPF on a permanent full-time footing and a new commander, Nathan Spring, has been appointed to accomplish this. Many of the series episodes deal with Spring's efforts to establish the Star Cops—he sets up a base of operations on the Moonbase, recruits new staff, roots out and dismisses corrupt officers and works to extend the Star Cops' reach first into the American space stations and then, at the end of the series, the far-flung reaches of the Mars colonies, all the while investigating whatever crimes occur along the way.
Many of the crimes that the Star Cops investigate have a science fiction "twist" to them arising from the unconventional (for a police show) environment the series is set e.g. a murder in which the two victims are not yet dead, a ransom demand for kidnapped embryos, a hoax discovery of an alien civilisation, etc. It is out of these scenarios that one of the major themes of the series emerges: the conflict between human emotion and morality on the one hand and machine logic and rogue science on the other.
Another major theme of the series is the "sins of the father": Spring’s first assignment as a detective was to arrest his father for industrial espionage, the villain in "Intelligent Listening for Beginners" is motivated by his inability to match his father’s reputation, Spring’s deputy, David Theroux, watched his father die of radiation poisoning, the kidnapper in "A Double Life" is seeking revenge for his father’s murder and Star Cop Anna Shoun betrays the multinational company which employs her (and with whom she has a paternal relationship) when she discovers their unethical behaviour.
Sounds good, huh. Well, sadly it's rather lack luster, but it's still better than Blake's 7. The Wikipedia details some of the production issues with the series. The producer didn't like a lot of Chris's ideas, so the two of them didn't get along one little bit, and the two different directors that they used had completely different ideas on what the look of the show should be. Story wise they were ok, nothing too complicated in the mystery. Typical greedy corporate types, stealing things to get richer, just like you'd see on an Earth bound crime show. I didn't like the characters all that much but part of that is they don't always have the best dialog. I liked the show enough to get through it but it's not something that I would want to add to my library.
Since I'm watching Babylon 5 right now I can't help but compare it to SC. B5 came out just 6 years later and it makes the British show look so amateurish. Star Cops is completely shot on video which just doesn't help it's look. I thought the music sucked in Star Cops and I guess I wasn't the only one, Here's a chunk from the Wikipedia page:
The theme song for the series, titled "It Won't be Easy", was written and performed by Justin Hayward, the lead vocalist with the Moody Blues. The theme was produced by record producer Tony Visconti who also composed, with Hayward, the incidental music for every episode. Gridneff hoped that the theme would act as a gentle method of enticing casual viewers into the series. Reaction to the music and Hayward's song in particular, has generally been negative. SFX magazine, in particular, has been highly critical of the theme tune: in one issue it was placed twenty-ninth in a list article titled "The 50 Worst Things About SF Ever!" while in another it was placed sixth in a list article titled "The 10 Worst Things About UK Telefantasy". Writer and critic Kim Newman has described the theme as the "worst single theme tune of any TV show ever". Chris Boucher has said that he "hated the music. The incidental music wasn't appropriate and it didn't have the style and feeling it should have had".
I couldn't recommend the show, at least not with any enthusiasm, but I don't know how crazy you are. There's a chance to find out at the link above. At least you don't have to buy the DVD or cough up any cash to get to see it.
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