This year’s BAFTA nominations for the TV awards have been announced and it looks like slim pickings for the telefantasy crowd. After the roaring success for the new Doctor Who show and the lead actors at these awards in the first couple of years of the new series this year it doesn’t seem to be making an appearance on the shortlists. A little disappointing naturally, but given how many awards the show has picked up since it began perhaps it is to be expected – can’t be winning them all every year, after all.
(some of the cast from the BBC’s Life on Mars)
Life On Mars holds up the British telefantasy end (although many argue that it isn’t SF at all) with John Simm nominated in the Best Actor category and the show itself in Best Drama Series. The show ended last night with a terrific finale, but today the BBC announced there would be a sequel set in the 1980s this time, with a modern-day female detective filling John Simm’s time-travelling shoes alongside Philip Glenister’s DCI Gene Hunt in London in 1981, following an accident. Hmmm, really not sure this is a good idea – Life on Mars was a great idea, combining the fish-out-of-water idea with gripping drama and throughout the struggle to understand if Sam Tyler had actually somehow gone back in time or if it was all a dream during a coma. I’m really not sure that can work a second time, but given how well the original two-season show turned out perhaps I should give them the benefit of the doubt.
Wed, Apr 11, 2007
Awards, Film, TV and radio