Bugs: All Under Control
I know that I pride myself that everything I blog about here is cult TV, but in this post we are in proper cult TV territory, in fact a show I haven't long known about. Bugs (1995 to 1999)is not one of those shows that just everyone has watched, but has a definite cult following in the UK, with actual fans. I don't know whether it has much or any of an international following. In fact Bugs has been described as 'an Avengers for the nineties'.
Frankly I wish people would mostly stop comparing shows to The Avengers. It doesn't do, they don't usually compare, and it sets up an unrealistic expectation of what the show can come up with and places the show under unfair stress. Adam Adamant Lives is a show this has been done to, as is Virtual Murder, and both shows are quality entertainment in their own right and don't need comparing to anything else. However in the case of Bugs it's not just anyone describing it as the Avengers of the nineties, but it's Brian Clemens. Yes, that Brian Clemens, script writer, editor and producer of The (actual) Avengers, who had an input into this show. Holy cow, this show had the bloke who did The Avengers working on it. Of all the shows compared to The Avengers, this actually *is* as close as we'll get to The Avengers of The Nineties.
It's an action/adventure cum science fiction show about Gizmos, a team of crime-fighting technology experts. And so we have the witty dialogue, we have the fantastic technology, we have the sexual chemistry, we absolutely have the great and the good gone bad, and while the complete unreality has been toned down a bit, it has rather been transferred to the technology that features in the show. Oh, the technology that features in the show. I don't mean the fictional technology, I mean the technology of the nineties. Thirty years later this show might as well be set in 1960 because some of the technology looks so outdated it's like a trip down memory lane. Of course this wasn't intended at the time. My personal opinion is that it doesn't really matter that the sort of futuristic fictional technology depicted didn't really come to pass in most cases, because that aspect of the show can firmly be consigned to fiction. It's against a familiar nineties background, though.
One of the things which makes the background so nineties it that the show is shot with a very definite aesthetic in mind. Its palette is predominantly blues, and greys, with splashes of yellow or read in places. Essentially if you heap up a collection of vintage nineties computing equipment you would have exactly the aesthetic of this show and it's glorious.
Another interesting feature of this show is that it was impacted twice by IRA bombs during the tail end of the Troubles. Initially it was mostly filmed around the reveloped London Docklands with its futuristic appearance, but this was ended by the IRA bombing of the South Quay Plaza in 1996. Then the Omagh bombing in 1998 severely disrupted the broadcast of the final series. Truly of its time.
All Under Control is perhaps slightly different from the other episodes because it's about the team's investigation after a passenger aircraft is hijacked by remote control. Not to beat about the bush here, I love the dead nineties computer set up with a mouse that the hijacker uses to hijack the plane. Otherwise the episode is a great opportunity for filming outside the city, including obviously at an airport and also at the homes of the genius who designed the state-of-the-art navigation system of the plane. It's great stuff.
I have to say that the plots of Bugs episodes are fairly straightforward in the early episodes (I haven't got there yet but apparently in later episodes more human interest stuff starts intruding): basically they are presented with a problem, investigate it and find the solution. It's about as no-nonsense as you can get, while still having that Avengersesque/futuristic feel. I suspect this is the reason this show has a cult following: you'll either take to it or you won't, and personally I don't follow the plots too closely and just let it wash over me.
If I have a criticism it is that I think the episodes are possibly a little longer than they could be, at least in terms of plot. the good looks and nineties state of mind never gives up. I wouldn't go to the stake for this opinion though.
I have to say it is a pleasure to find a series which might actually have a claim to be a successor of The Avengers because of having Brian Clemens work on it and I recommend it very highly. I'd suggest starting at the beginning if you've not seen it because the fans seem to like the earlier ones better than the later ones.
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