Oh Bumbles...A (Not So) Brief History of Parallel 9 - Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of my "(Not So) Brief History of Parallel 9" or as one Twitter user perceptively described it, a "deep dive".  Part 1 covered the vision, the launch and first 14 shows.  This part covers the second "phase" of the series as it returned from the mid-series break with a renewed confidence that would ultimately lead to the run concluding on a high.

But first, we've unfinished business... 

Show 15 - tx 15/08/92, 0900-1055

Betty Boo performs her single Let Me Take You There and Kylie Minogue beams up to show her latest video What Kind of Fool. Author Raymond Briggs introduces The Man, Mike McShane brings some earth humour to the white hole and Cal flies in a hot-air balloon. One lucky viewer wins the chance to meet Michael Jackson and there are more prizes to be won in the new game Parallel Playback. Plus a review of the new film Freddie as FR 0 7 and the pop video vote on Bands in the Sand.

Following the Barcelona Olympics maintenance work on the Stargate, Parallel 9 returned to BBC1 on 15th August with the resolution of the gameshow cliffhanger that was deftly woven into the plot three weeks earlier. I uploaded the end of the previous episode to YouTube in April 2009 so apologies if you've been waiting for the rest of it. Above is the entire episode that followed.

The story so far: Mercator, Skyn and Steyl are trapped in Nether Space and Cal on, er, Earth, after failing to answer Spam Ululux's quiz questions correctly.  Show 14 had concluded with the Tope pleading for "earth elders" to help save the Parallel 9-ers. Here on 11th August is Andi Peters referring back to this call to arms in the Broom Cupboard. Andi apparently thinks they've gone to "nether nether land" and viewer Candy Smith has not been taking notes either as her suggestion is addressed to "the Talk, or the thing in the middle".

Four days later and the show returns. The show can't open with the usual shot of Mercator's capsule landing so there's an urgent cut from the starfield section of the titles which I rather like, but things aren't going well:

Tope: I am all alone. A Tope with no hope.

Steyl: Oh shut up. At least you haven't been trapped inside a television set for three weeks. It's awful.

Skyn: It's more than awful. It hasn't even got Nicam digital stereo.

But a saviour has been summoned to help in the shape of returning "youngster" Andi Peters, who is amusingly profiled in the menu by the Tope wearily saying "Andi Peters is more than 10".  

Steyl: Oh great.  Our one chance of getting back to Parallel 9 is in the hands of a man whose best friend is a duck.

He's still going on about Candy Smith not knowing what the Tope is called, but he's also brought almost ten other letters for Mercator to scan. After fetching the "time tambourine" from the news pool (and credit to them for continuing to try and convince us that this is accessed by scaling the side of the cave rather than using the handy staircase round the back) Mercator is able to do what he does best and meddle in the laws of time to have another try at the 72 Zillion Dradoc Question - and win.  (As an aside I'm cutting all the cartoons and music videos out to try and avoid copyright strikes but it's worth looking up "Kissing" by Link and Bikini which features as a bizarre interlude to this sequence because it's really quite something).

In another densely plotted show, host Spam Ululux is then put on trial for his crimes. No one takes the trial scenes seriously at all, with Cal and Steyl even knitting at one point. Spam is however found guilty and given some community service we'll come onto shortly. Meanwhile Skyn hasn't forgotten that he and Steyl posed as being "engaged" to get onto the gameshow in the first place, so continues to plan their wedding which winds the lucky lady right up.

Thynkso finally returns to be Best Man for that wedding (officiated by a very game Mike McShane) that's eventually revealed as a sham to punish Steyl for putting them all through the ordeal.  There's another great line when Mercator tries to get Steyl to pull herself together:

Mercator: Remember who you are, the dictator of Draoph, a woman feared on a dozen planets and mildly resented on a dozen more!

Spam's community service is the final piece of the jigsaw in tweaking the format to be more "Saturday morning" by adding a "gameshow within the show" - essentially Parallel 9's Double Dare.  Parallel Playback, presented by Dominic McHale as Spam and assisted by Kevin Williams as his glamourous assistant "Skynette", took the Zarbian laws of time to their ludicious extreme.  

It opened with the credits and the "final" round before challenging the contestants to give back their prizes to win the game. It provided a better home for the previously standalone "Backwards" feature (with archive clips reversed and given a humourous commentary from Maude-Roxby), was stuffed with catchphrases ("Tope, Tope, how did they cope") and concluded with an obstacle course around the set played in reverse, again commentated on by Mercator.

Parallel Playback provided a further element of the show for the visiting "elders" to partake in, though all six shows appear to have been recorded in a block during the show's period off air. Look very closely and the photo that Thynkso was throwing darts at in show 14 is still pinned to the cave wall next to the obstacle course in every episode confirming this, as does some of the contestants later appearing as audience members during other editions. If there's one criticism, it's that the kids look absolutely terrified as they are asked to spell words backwards and identify negative images of London landmarks. Overall though it's great fun and provides a nice framework to hang the occasionally cumbersome idea of time running backwards around.

Elsewhere this week there's a nice interview with Raymond Briggs, who at the time of writing has recently passed away. It was made clear in the many tributes that he wasn't big on publicity and that comes across here in a presumably quite rare interview with Helen Atkins as Cal. There's also a moment that became possibly the only part of Parallel 9 to ever be repeated, where Jenny Bolt as Steyl books her place in Auntie's Bloomers by accidentally providing the (incorrect) answer to a competition question (which Cal corrects at the end of the show). There's also a nice cockup in the climactic wedding scene where in her anger Steyl accidentally knocks her headband off and has to improvise asking for Thynkso to pass it back to her. 

Andi ends up hanging around for the entire programme, throwing himself into proceedings as Judge Peters as well as fitting in very well as a co-presenter for Cal - work experience that could come in handy in around a year's time.

The show concludes with a lovely performance of an underrated track by the divine Betty Boo, and any song that contains the rhyming couplet "we'll make our way through the day with much promptness/excuse me while I make the most of this" is a winner for me.  Obviously Let Me Take You There has to be on the beach rather than in the iceberg (and can we just take a moment to say how stunning the opening shot above is?), but with the cast larking around in the background it provides a nice celebratory feel to the end of the first show back. I'll also state here and now that Thynkso holding a can of lager and acting drunk throughout is a landmark moment for Children's BBC that Dominic McHale doesn't get enough credit for.

As the credits roll, the shot of Mercator getting into his capsule from show 1 is used for the final time. It hadn't closed the show for a few weeks anyway but its use here is presumably intended to depict normality returning.  Fans of corporate branding may also wish to learn this is the first show to end with a second bigger BBC logo, as rolled out on all of the corporation’s programmes in the summer of 1992.  One curiosity about the Olympic break is that the series paperwork numbers the shows "x of 22" throughout, with the last show "14 of 22" and this one "17 of 22".  There's probably a boring admin reason for this (perhaps Parallel Playack was recorded using the allocation for shows 15 and 16?) but it does imply that it wasn't always the intention to go off air during the run.

This particular show started with the trio stuck in limbo, continued with a trial and ended with a wedding.  There's been a lot going on - as Cal says at one point, "would Ceefax subtitles help?" - but it's a triumph of writing and plotting from the team that all this is done in small, very funny chunks between the usual features. 

Show 16 - tx 22/08/92, 0900-1037

Cathy Dennis ventures in to space today to perform her new single You Lied to Me and there's more music from a new band from London called East 17. And author John Clare travels to the white hole to tell everyone what it was like to go on a journey with Christopher Columbus. However, all of this morning's guests have to escape the greedy clutches of Lionel the Bartelusian Lunch Lizard! There's behind-the-scenes footage of the competition winner meeting Michael Jackson at his Leeds concert, another round of the new backwards game Parallel Playback and video reviews of My Girl, starring Macaulay Culkin , and a new selection of Tom and Jerry cartoons.

"Lionel the Bartelusian Lunch Lizard" (?!) didn't make the cut in the end as you can find out in the full show above.  And now, I've no idea what Flipper's on about at the start either.

The plot this week is kicked off by Thynkso musing to Steyl about his lack of focus compared to his fellow inmates:

Thynkso: I needed a hobby. It's alright for you, you've got your headbands, Skyn's got his radio station and Mercator's got being trapped in a time capsule all week...

Simulaneously there's a visitor to Parallel 9 in the form of Meractor's former teacher "Ovabyte", a small robot that resembles a barbecue, who missed her former pupil so much following his sentence that she tracked him down.  Or so she says.  Ovabyte (presumably a play on "overbite"?) is voiced by Jo Manning-Wilson, seemingly the only actor additional to the core cast to portray a guest role in the entire series.

Mercator is really pleased to be reunited with his old mentor, but The Tope is less than chuffed with the situation and is in fact extremely cheesed off at the new arrival taking all of Mercator's attention.  Everyone else seems to love her though - including Skyn and Steyl, whose tortuous relationship over the last few weeks has been improved following Ovabyte's mediation.  

Ovabyte is extremely interested in how Mercator has managed to use The Tope - intended as a life support system for the planet - to summon guests from Earth, which was after all why he was sentenced to most of the week in suspended animation in the first place.  She suggests Thynkso could focus his attentions on writing a history of Parallel 9 (ha, who'd attempt to do that) listing all the people who have visited the planet.

Away from the storyline this week there's a very early performance from East 17, "a new band from London" as the Radio Times helpfully points out, and oh to have been a fly on the wall as the foursome stepped into Stage J at Pinewood.  There's also the (very long) filmed report from the "meet Michael Jackson" competiton promoted heavily before the Olympics break, though the moment itself is thankfully brief.  The King of Pop's discredited figure casts quite the shadow over this series but this is the last we see of him.

The climax of the storyline sees a suspicious Tope request a scan of Ovabyte's circuits - a request she refuses when she confesses she has been reprogrammed by the Time Barons to find proof of Mercator's continual transgressions so they can send him into suspended animation forever.  But before he can sound the alarm Ovabyte apparently destroys The Tope, in an unexpected moment marked with quite an impressive visual effect.  

But it transpires he fled into Cal's body, meaning he can inform Mercator so they can team up and defeat Ovabyte.  It's quite a dramatic climax, with some great lip-syncing by Helen Atkins to Stephen Hope-Wynne's lines, but it's the last of the sci-fi heavy plotlines until the finale with a greater leaning towards straight comedy over the coming weeks.

Skyn: Tut tut, typical teacher, they're all the same.  Power mad.

Show 17 - tx 29/08/92, 0900-1055

There's a double helping of music today as Belinda Carlisle opens her Little Black Book and Ce Ce Peniston performs her new single Crazy Love. Wrestlers from the WWF turn up to show that they aren't afraid of the P-9 ghost, and Bruno Brookes braves the spooks to invite everyone to Radio 1 's 25th birthday party (Sunday 12.30pm - see page 76). Plus a steel band, a look at the preparations for this year's Notting Hill Carnival, a feature on training animal actors and another round of Parallel
Playback.

Minus the "P-9 ghost", another story element that doesn't make it out of the Radio Times billing, here's the episode in full from my VHS collection.  Flipper is wearing another lovely jumper and in case you were wondering Robbie Williams did indeed play Maggot Moments on But First This, and thanks to The Internet you can watch this era-defining moment here.

This episode sees the debut of a new costume for Steyl, reinforcing the move of her character to be more independent of the other aliens as she continues to scheme in a similar way that got everyone sent into Nether Space a month ago.  Her ambition this week is no less than to "take over Parallel 9", and to this extent she steals Mercator's "imagineering bracelet" which appears to be one of those strips of metal wrapped in fabric from the early 90s that you would snap around your wrist.

Using this she fools the Tope into thinking she is Mercator in order to summon Captain Zarb back to Parallel 9 to assist with her plot (though in this scene Stephen Hope-Wynne is for some reason without his usual voice effect). Steyl's impersonation is comedically preposterous, but it does the trick. 

Through some hefty plot dumps we're reminded of Zarb's stormy relationship with his cousin Mercator and a new backstory is woven into the plot about his past romantic relationship with Steyl.

You may also have spotted in the billing that Bruno Brookes was due to visit to promote Radio 1's 25th anniverary.  Well, the jag must have been in for a service, as then-new weekend overnight DJ Lynn Parsons visits Skyn FM instead to talk all things Fab FM 1FM.  

Also visiting "the Planet 9" is wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper who lives up to his nickname by entering playing bagpipes and then talking non-stop for his entire slot, to the extent that we even see floor manager Julie Sykes covering his mouth so as not to disrupt the next item.

The finale depicts Steyl and Captain Zarb's attempts to blast Mercator into orbit, which Steyl abandons when she suspects he is being unfaithful with Cal.  "Old Merky" is surprisingly forgiving of Steyl given Zarb is largely blamless, having been duped into taking part in the plan under false pretences.  It's not the strongest plot this week but it does further build Steyl's backstory as a dictator and further push her independence from the others.

Show 18 - tx 05/09/92, 0900-1012

Today's show features fast-moving ice hockey action with a preview of the excitement to come when the Montreal Canadians face the Chicago Blackhawks at Wembley next week. There's a film showing what happened at a special "clinic" for young players that some of the players held at Alexandra Palace in north London on a recent visit to Britain.

There's another round of the new backwards game Parallel Playback, some backwards talking, cartoon action with Swamp Thing and the latest video reviews. Meanwhile, the alien Prince Mercator is still stuck on Parallel 9, the white hole in outer space where he has been banished for seeking knowledge and asking for change on a planet where such things are forbidden. His fellow exiles, the three villains Steyl, Skyn and Thynkso, and earth-girl Cal, are still trying to amass enough knowledge to be able to escape.

A familiar figure introduces the show - it's Andi Peters pulling a Saturday shift!  This is presumably to give Flipper some time off after doing 6 days a week throughout the holidays, but Andi puts his stamp on proceedings using some Parallel 9 incidental music in the background (which has now been dropped entirely from the show itself) and putting a signed photo of the cast in the front of shot too.

This is the shortest show yet, clocking in at just 72 minutes, with the culprit being The Cricket.  The slot was affected like this on the first Saturday in September every year, which when coupled with all the other short shows this run makes you realise why The 8.15 From Manchester made such a point of getting on air early.  Mercator even draws attention to the length of the show, asking "is that it? it seems rather short" after the menu.  It's exceptionally poor timing too - over on the other side, this Saturday saw the launch of ITV's new flagship Saturday morning show What's Up Doc.

The wafer-thin plot wedged into this week's reduced runtime is the Tope going on holiday, and being replaced by his Mum "Mrs Tope" (yes, really).  This gives Stephen Hope-Wynne some great material to work with particularly when playing his own mother, and it's nice to see an episode focus on our crystalline friend, but other than some bits of business around Skyn setting up a band there isn't time for much else this week, with numerous regular items dropped.

In the none-scripted bits this week there's a future number 1 in the form of Tasmin Archer performing the very fitting Sleeping Satellite, possibly the most successful of all the performances in the iceberg this series.  They hit gold by finding a guy who can talk backwards, and this episode also served as my introuction to John Hegley, who has definitely done his homework on the format and turns in a very entertaining guest appearance (personal footnote - upon discovering my fiancee shared my love of his poetry we used one of his poems during our wedding ceremony!).

The episode ends rather abruptly when Mercator declares he'd rather cut short his 2 hours outside of his pod than do any more chores for Mrs Tope.  So there you have it - that capsule must have been quite cushy if it's preferable to spending 50 minutes doing the washing up.

Show 19 - tx 12/09/92, 0900-1055

Boy George and Definition of Sound touch down on P9 to perform their new singles, and percussion group Urban Strawberry Lunch make music from the studio set. Skyn decides there's myrtz to be made from selling package tours to P9. But then he gets a grading visit from Zoe-Ee Gravalaxx , fearsome editor of The Good Planet Guide. Plus, a unique weather report with Michael Fish, another round of Parallel Playback, and the winner of the automaton competition.

Back to the "full" 115 minutes for the last two shows and Andi's back in the Broom Cupboard, seemingly with a bit of time to fill by running through the entire Monday afternoon lineup and making clear his feelings for Toxic Crusaders.  This is because for the final two shows the ever-popular (if looking far older than its six years here) Defenders of the Earth fills the cartoon slot, promoted as starting at 9.25.  This is the only time in the entire series something in the menu is given an exact start time, and it doesn't take a genius to work out why.  Also this week for what I think is the only time this series is a Bugs Bunny short, which either suggests something fell through or they thought that this would compete well against the new cartoon-heavy lineup on ITV.

The storyline in this episode plays to on the series undoubted strengths, the Skyn and Thynkso double act, with the former once again scheming in an entertaining attempt to turn Parallel 9 into a tourist attaction.  

To do this he manages to summon the editor of "The Good Planet Guide" Akenna Gravalax (note the slight change of name from the Radio Times billing).  Jenny Bolt gets the "transformation" role for the first time in quite a while as she turns in a brilliant performance as Akenna that appears to draw heavily on Janet Street-Porter.  

Much of the episode is given over to Skyn showing Akenna round the planet set bigging up the potential for sighseeingting from the bridges, live entertainment and merchandising opportunities.  This allows some cracking shots of the set though one does unfortunately capture a camera crew scuttling past.  

Thynkso is of course on hand to help out, variously selling t-shirts, as "Reg" the beach inspector and "Rog" the resort planning consultant.

Akenna: Keep up the good work Reg!

Reg: Righto!

Skyn: Go away now Reg.

Reg: Righto!

Skyn: Yes go away!

Reg: You're standing on me right toe!

(a silly gag but I loved it at the time)

This also allows for two special guests to become part of the storyline - a special effects expert (who seems very underwhelmbed by his job) and weather forecaster Michael Fish, culminating in an entertaining segment where Akenna and Skyn experience all of Parallel 9's seasons in the space of a couple of minutes.

At one point Cal reads out a letter from a viewer who clearly hasn't been taking notes and writing them up properly afterwards to consolidate their learning over the past 18 shows.  "Why are you up on Parallel 9 - have you done anything wrong or are you just there to look after the others?"  They then follow up some directness only young children can ger away with: "are you going out with Andi Peters? you seem to hang round with each other quite a lot!"

Eventually Mercator gets wind of Skyn's plot, very perceptively adding that Skyn is "at his most plausible when he's telling lies, that's why it sounds as if he's telling the truth".  In a nice throwback there's also a mention of the Wrongfinder General from show 10 in this scene. He later manages to scupper the plans by posing as a builder and telling Akenna he is about to develop the Parallel 9 Toxic Waste Reprocessing Plant.  Mercator has been somewhat sidelined this week but Roddy Maude-Roxby really steals this scene, and it's a shame he wasn't given more material like this. 

Sadly after playing VHS roulette all summer the very end of this episode isn't on my upload (though you can see the end of Bands in the Sand on this Boy George-centric upload here).  I didn't really pay much attention to how long the tapes were in those days so it's only because the previous week was so short I got so much of this one!  But the final episode to have a "standalone" storyline is another entertaining and very funny romp, giving (eventually) all the cast time to shine.

Show 20 - tx 19/09/92, tx 0900-1055

Last in the series as Mercator announces that this will be the final broadcast from prison world Parallel 9, as he has decided to try an amazing escape plan which will either free the P9-ers from the planet ... or cast them adrift in the seas of time for ever. Plus another round of Parallel Playback, cartoon action with Defenders of the Earth, video reviews and a feature on the pet stars who appear in television advertisements.

Here we are at the end, though the final show could have ended earlier than planned when an extremely heavy prop lands a lot closer to Cal than seemingly intended.  The final airing of the titles is truncated presumably because Mercator is clearly already out of his capsule, not that it's bothered them before.  Of course, the final episode is themed entirely around the characters finally leaving Parallel 9. Mercator's come up with some magic that will help get them back to Zarb.  In a nice echo of the first show he's got to collect items with enough energy in them to get the spell to work.  

Steyl feels sad that her time on Parallel 9 is coming to an end as it means no more earth music.  To this end Cal has bought her a CD of the best of Soul II Soul, though the shop have put the wrong disc in the box, and there's not much point in her keeping the receipt given how far she is from the nearest branch of Our Price:

Steyl: Well, I shall keep it.  If I have any trouble reconquering Draoph I'll just threaten to play them Des O'Connor's Golden Moments.

Thynkso and Skyn spend much of the episode packing.  Skyn later has to pick his favourite video tapes to take with him...

Skyn: The Nightmare on Thorb Street.  I must take that one.  Bat-Thorb - that's one of my favourites, that has to go.  And The Bernard Manning Workout Tapes - no that can stay here...

Mercator places his bag of tat magic items in the centre of the Tope to make the first attempt at escape, but it doesn't work as there's not enough energy.  

Meractor: There will be a slight delay.

Cal: But why?

Steyl: Oh, leaves on the starbeam, staff shortages...

To fix this he builds an energy asorption magnet out of "bits of Ovabyte" which allows Jo Manning-Wilson to return to play MAG-E.  In another nice collision of the different elements of the show, a sequence interviewing a stuntman allows for a stunt scene on the set to generate an explosion for MAG-E to absorb.

Many of the "demonstration" items have been pre-recorded this run, but for some reason the segment involving animal actors is completely live and comes unstuck a result when Toto the dog is distracted by one of the other animals.  The pretence slips briefly when Cal says "you wouldn't normally have a squirrel in a studio - or on a planet for that matter".  There's an interview with the late Gerry Anderson, then riding the wave of the recent Thunderbirds revival, and Craig Charles returns seemingly just to take part in Bands in the Sand.  He makes this sequence fairly riotous, during which we discover he knows the Dad of one of the final visiting elders from Liverpool.

Mercator finally reveals his plan is to reverse time on Zarb itself, rewinding to just before the Time Barons discovered him meddling with time.  If he can complete his experiments, he will never be discovered, he will never be sent to Parallel 9 and neither will any of the others.  There is however a slight technical mishap in the (pre-recorded) final scene where VT almost reverse time themselves. Had this persisted further it's likely the programme would have been taken off air by BBC1 presentation, ruining the climax.  There's also a small continuity error with the beach area clear of props in the shots behind MAG-E, but set up for Bands in the Sands during the closing sequence.

Cal monitors events on Zarb at the news pool (well, she watches the title sequence), but after a while things grind to a halt.  It turns out MAG-E still hasn't got enough energy to complete Mercator's spell.  At this moment the longest-running gag of all gets its pay-off.  Remember in show one Skyn claiming there was nothing in his hand, and this being referred back to regularly?  

He reveals he's been concealing a Thorban Hydro-Nuclear Shock Grenade since being detained, but just as he was attempting to use it to escape the guards came to collect him, meaning he's had to keep his hand shut ever since.  And if you look back Kevin Williams has indeed had his hand clenched for the entire series in a fabulous attention to detail that ultimately forms a key part of the plot.

However, there is debate over whether to use the grenade to provide the required energy boost as it may blow up the entire planet.  Cal says that they can't as it's too dangerous, but the three aliens all say in turn how much they miss their family and friends and want to go home.  In defiance Skyn throws the grenade, which has the desired effect and restarts the spell, but they and Mercator immediately disappear leaving just Cal in shock at what has just happened.

The footage from Zarb disappears from the pool, instead showing a British high street in the early 90s, followed shortly by the appearance of Mercator, Steyl, Skyn and Thynkso (and there's a lovely detail with the latter two triumphantly shaking hands, oblivious of what's actually happened).  Cal's excitement that they are alive is immediately followed by the realisation that things have gone very wrong.  If they're on Earth, Mercator's magic must be sending her to Zarb.  The echoey final words of the series are spoken by Calendular as she slowly disappears:

"Oh bumbles....."

This final scene is, for my money, Parallel 9's finest hour.  It's a properly decent bit of drama that returns the show to its dark origins and discards much of the "Saturday morning" modifications made since.  The desperation of the characters to return home despite the real risk of death is brilliantly done.  Even putting aside the notion of aliens throwing hand grenades, it's pretty damn scary.  The crew will probably be fine on Earth, and Steyl can even exchange that CD.  The sending of Cal to Zarb - which let's not forget, we have been told all series is not a very permissive place - is an extremely downbeat way to end the series and, given she's the viewer's representative, a complete u-turn on the earlier decision to allow her to return to Earth each week and never come to harm.  I'll admit that as an 8 year-old this ending did somewhat spook me, but as a 38-year-old I think it's bloody brilliant and one of the best bits of children's TV I've ever seen.

The credits run over one final crane shot panning around the deserted set that would never be seen again in this form.  One notable addition on this final show is Edward Barnes as an Executive Producer.  Barnes would have been a contempoary of Jill Roach at the BBC children's department in the 70s and 80s, but its anyone's guess as to why he was added for the final show.  Simon Staffurth (who early in the series replaced original director Graham C. Williams) has gone on to direct huge amounts of notable high profile live television.  Writer Paul Alexander contributed to numerous sitcoms in the years following, including reuniting with Craig Charles on Red Dwarf.  But possibly the most notable name is Line Producer Sally Debonnaire, who has recently stepped down as the Global Director of Production for ITV Studios. 

The following week Going Live! returned for its final series, opening with a spoof sketch set in space with Philip and Sarah wearing comedy eyebrows.  And that was that...well, until April 1993, but that's another story.

It's no secret that this series received a mixed reception.  Back in 1992 there was none of the immediate response you get now through the internet and social media but I recall my attempts to bring it up in the playground didn't get too far.  Watching it back it's quite clear that the format is being changed rapidly in the first few weeks when first impressions were being formed.  Following the first show the pace is upped considerably, the lighting is less gloomy and there's more concrete "plot" added, along with format points more in common with the Saturday morning format.  By the middle of the series the semi-educational focus on history and literature is gone, replaced by sci-fi plots that in turn give way to comedic setups in the last few weeks, and in the process something rather good is created.

Writing this piece, I've asked myself why it stayed with me so much.  I think what "got" me in the first place is that opening shot of Mercator being fired into space.  It's such an iconic image that poses so many questions.  Who is he, what has he done, where is he going?  Wanting answers drew me in, and what completely hooked me was the mid-series cliffhanger that turned everything on its head. 

Whenever I revisited my tapes in the decades that followed I found they stood up rather well, and I came to appreciate different elements of the finished product each time.  Whilst the impressive imagery behind the programme has a "wow" factor this doesn't sustain 120 minutes on its own, and the writing and performances from the cast are really quite impressive when you consider the strains they must have been under.  The characterisation of the six credited roles is second-to-none and remarkably consisent throughout the series in a way that doesn't take the audience for granted.  It's also often very, very funny.  In its own small way I hope this "not so brief history" helps form something of a defence of Parallel 9, as when series 1 was on form it was absolutely brilliant.  Drama, comedy, sci-fi and of course entertainment - and all before Grandstand.  

When I started writing this piece it was very much from the perspective of there being absolutely nothing on record about it from anyone who appeared on it, so I'd try and tell the story myself instead.  Thankfully, that's about to change.  

Coming in Part 3, thirty years on, we hear from the Class of '92 as the cast of Parallel 9 speak!