Starhyke Latest News Posted by John Hoare on 17th October 2006, 01:21 Starhyke. It’s kinda fallen off our radar recently, but there’s now been a couple of trailers released. Have a look at them, and then come back here. Now, whilst everyone was slagging it off, I maintained that the show has the potential to be very good, and we shouldn’t say it’s rubbish until we’ve actually seen it. All of which I stand by, because I love taking the moral high ground. But. BUT… for the first time in my life, I find myself agreeing with someone on YouTube: “Firstly, all praise to anyone who gets a new show off the ground, but… One *good* joke would impress me more than any number of dodgy “musical” trailers, no matter how good the visuals or attractive the cast. It’s looking decidedly iffy from the comedy perspective, guys…” I think that’s spot-on, and I do find it very worrying. I want to support the show, and a decent SF comedy on our screens again would be great, and it does look quite nicely produced – but they don’t seem to be over-keen to show us any actual comedy. As with regards of an actual broadcast, they have this to say: “We still need to get the numbers up if we’re going to convince a channel that you want Starhyke on TV. It’s up to you, spread the word and help to get the number of downloads up to 100,000.” Incidentally, I had to transcribe that from scratch from their site, because in their infinite wisdom, they’ve disabled right-clicking. I mean, what is the fucking point of making life difficult for those who want to spead the word about your show? And what exactly does disabling right-clicking achieve anyway? So, there we go. To be honest, it’s the trailers that I find most worrying – and that’s not something a trailer should do. Put one together than includes some funny lines, and I’ll feel rather more confident about the show. Although – fucking hell, I didn’t know Danny was in it!
Danny’s in it! Fuck me! In fact, that’s the second piece of casting that’s surprised me. Seeing the woman who played Ivanava(?) in Babylon 5 in this surprised me a little.
> “We still need to get the numbers up if we’re going to convince a channel that you want Starhyke on TV. It’s up to you, spread the word and help to get the number of downloads up to 100,000.” Alternatively, it’s up to you to make a decent show that a channel wants to commission…
>Alternatively, it’s up to you to make a decent show that a channel wants to commission… Yeah, arguably it’s a bit cheap of a show’s creators to try and fob off responsibility for its success or failure on viewers. It’s almost arrogant, somehow, as tho’ they’re so assured of the flawlessness of their project that any failings on its part simply must be someone else’s fault…
Yeah, if Hyperdrive showed anything, it’s that there’s definitely a market for a good sci-fi comedy. Genre-based comedy isn’t exactly out of fashion – look at what Pegg and Wright are doing with their movies – and if someone comes up with a decent script, then there’s going to be an audience for it. What they’re trying to do is make people think that the status quo of the mid-to-late nineties – that genre (and specifically sci-fi) wouldn’t get touched with a bargepole by the majors – is still the case and, as has been said, blame their own failings on that. Whereas if it were any good, it’d have been snapped up in an instant. Anyway, I DON’T want Starhyke on TV, as it looks SHIT and will undoubtedly damage not only the credibility of TV SF (and TV SF comedy), but also invite yet another hundred or so lazy hacks to make cheap Dwarf comparisons…
I must admit, I nearly did say exactly that – that if it hasn’t been bought, it can’t be that great a show. But I didn’t – because I thought some smart aleck would bring up the Movie script. Which is a *completely* different situation (because of the finances involved), but I couldn’t be arsed arguing it. Mind you, I don’t actually think the trailer makes the show look shit – if there had been some jokes in there, I would be saying it looks promising, because some of it looks quite good fun. But unfortunately, “quite good fun” is not the same as “funny”, which is what the show is meant to be.
It’s not simply the fact that it hasn’t been bought that makes me think it can’t be that good, though – it’s the fact that they’re so defensively – and so desperately – saying things like “No-one wants to buy this, only YOU can make it happen!” That’s the sort of thing you say about a cult hit that’s about to be canned by an evil faceless network, not about something that hasn’t even established itself (yet feels it has the right to claim “cult” status already simply because it’s got a few people from a few sci-fi shows in it). It sounds like they know they’re defeated from day one.
I must admit, they do sound like they’re getting a bit desperate. It was shot back in 2004 – from what I can tell, they pretty much expected it to be bought in 2005. The fact that it hasn’t been must have sent them into a sort of fluster – which is understandable. What can I say – it’s a low budget SF comedy, and I have an automatic soft spot for low budget SF comedy. My main problem with all this is that they have yet to demonstrate that they’ve actually produced something funny. If they’d done a trailer that was actually funny, I’d be supporting the show myself. But they haven’t.
I think the reason most people round here were immediately negative to the show is because of the title, yeah. As I keep saying, I’m going to wait until I see the show before I pass judgement, but I’ll admit that the title doesn’t inspire confidence.
> Yeah, if Hyperdrive showed anything, it’s that there’s definitely a market for a good sci-fi comedy. Please don’t remind me of that excremental piece of television. It’s returning as well, I gather. Why not just use the budget to make a series of ANYTHING else.
Oddly, I had not heard of this, must have missed it somewhere…… What a pity I cant say the same for Hyperdrive.
I only saw the first episode of Hyperdrive – so I can’t really criticize the series properly. But what I saw I thought was rubbish. It’s telling to note however, that whilst I meant to watch the rest of Hyperdrive to give it a fair chance, and just couldn’t be arsed – I managed to record Red Dwarf every week from The End onwards when I was 13 in 1994.
Hi to everyone I came across your posts about Starhyke and thought I?d post a response to a few of the comments made. I?m not expecting to change anyone?s mind, but I do want to put my side across. I?m the producer of Starhyke, so I do know a little about the status of the series. We had very long conversations with three prospective channels before we did anything, finally making a deal with a channel for them to buy the finished series. They were unwilling to commission the series because we didn?t have an established track record, so we found an investment company to raise the budget for us. We put together a great cast and filmed the series in Dec 2004. In Jan 2005, we were stung by the finance company and suddenly had no money to pay for postproduction. We spent a year fighting this, during which time we couldn?t work or do anything on the series and then lost our channel. In October 2005, we finally started postproduction, but could only afford to do a rough cut of the pilot episode. In the last year we?ve shown the pilot to several channels and had nothing but positive feedback, unfortunately we haven?t managed to get any of them to finance postproduction on the strength of a half-finished pilot episode. It?s difficult enough to get a commission or sell a show as an acquisition, but a series that?s neither is almost impossible. We?ve got another channel interested in paying for the series to be completed so they can air it. What we?ve been trying to do with the virals trailer is to give them a little positive feedback from the shows future audience, so we can confirm their confidence in us is justified. We cut the virals ourselves, which is why they were cut to music (dialogue would have taken mixing equipment we don?t have). We?re currently having a 10 minute trailer professionally cut, which will be released at the beginning of December 2006. This will have full stereo dialogue, composed music, CGI, the works. This is a six part series made for less than one episode of Dr Who. The show has flaws and there are things we?d like to have done better. However, the comedy is funny and it?s worth watching. We?ve had a lot of support from the cast including Danny John-Jules. They?re all very positive about the series and wouldn?t be constantly promoting the show if they didn?t think it was any good. If the actors thought the show was crap they?d drop it like a bad smell. Moreover, to argue the point that we?re trying to blame all our troubles on the networks for not commissioning the series, when really it?s because it?s not worth commissioning. I would point out that Life on Mars took 7 years to be commissioned, Dr Who took 5, Hyperdrive took 4 and Red Dwarf had setbacks before it was commissioned and only got into it?s stride and attracted an audience after the second series. Had it been made now, it would be in the same position we are (and that comment came directly from one of the senior execs at the BBC). And no, I?m not trying to compare us to Red Dwarf, it?s very different to RD and shouldn?t be compared just because it?s a British, sci-fi and/or a comedy. You are all as qualified to voice an opinion as anyone else, we are happy to take the criticism with the praise (hopefully there will be praise). At least let us get the show finished and on TV before you call for our heads. Andrew and I are sci-fi fans too, we?ve made a series that we wanted to watch, because at that time nobody else would. We?ve spent every penny we have getting to a point where the show will be finished, because we believe in what we?re doing, good or bad. Rgds Jonathan Brown Producer
Sadly, that all sounds far too familiar. No previous experience and no chance of getting experience. We keep hearing that the leisure industry is the biggest growing and lets face it, TV has to be the backbone of that industry. Surely, it’s about time someone had the guts to finance at least a decent pilot if a concept or idea is good enough. The BBC for example used to be the leader at producing new programmes, I would like to see some of ‘our’ money going to some kind of series of ‘pilot’ shows.. Put them out and let the viewers decide, we fund it after all.. Hmmm, Good luck with it etc.
Indeed. I do still have my worries about the show, but I hope I’ve always been clear in saying: I really really hope it works out.
Yeah, good post Jonathan, thanks for that – despite my reservations, I’m pleased that things *seem* to be moving in the right direction for you, as no show should be allowed to rot once it’s been filmed and almost finished to this degree. And may I say you have an excellent name.
Oh, I still don’t think it’s going to be much cop (and I still downright loathe the title), but there’s nothing worse than someone being extremely nice about it when you’ve been really harshly critical ;-)
If I’m honest, Jonathan’s post is exactly why I keep repeating that it’s only fair to judge the show once we’ve seen it. With all the hard work that’s put into making something like this, it seems only fair really, even if I have reservations about what we’ve seen so far.
Have watched the second of the clips. One thing I would say is it looks like those involved had a lot of fun making it. Which generally is a good sign. Also the fact that the producer is willing to come on here, take criticism on the chin and still keep plugging away at something two years after filming it has to warrant respect. I look forward to this 10 minute trailer. As mentioned several times above I just hope it has that “one great joke”.
Oh forgot to add, the clip with the ship crashing through the satellite did raise a smile. The production looks great too but just how many shots of people kissing are needed? Pray god tell me it’s not Friends in Space.
> Pray god tell me it’s not Friends in Space. I’d probably watch that for a laugh. As long as they flushed Ross out the airlock.
Hi to everyone (again) I just checked back to see if anyone had responded to my post last night and I can truly say that I?m very touched by the large response. This series has turned into a bit of a ?right of passage? for us. We?ve spent 3 years pushing the project forward, and it?s been both a rewarding and harrowing experience (it has literally turned Andrew grey in 18 months). When we finally get the show on air, it may be crap / unfunny / cheesy / a flop / a huge disaster / absolutely fantastic / all or any of the above. We?ve just tried to make something that we think is worth watching and like any other show we fully expect to get negative feedback as well as positive, only time (and more money) will tell. We?ve done it because we love sci-fi, it?s that simple. Let?s hope that when we do get the show out everyone agrees it was worthwhile. Thanks again for the great responses. Jonathan P.S. “Nobody should feel bad about comments posted earlier, opinions are based on what we know at the time. As long as an opinion is honest, it’s never in error” Reginald Hogsby (supposed inventor of the Brassier).
Interesting quote… So Reginald was of the opinion that breasts should be covered up and duly created the bra……..Being told he was wrong by all his mates down the pub, he then apologies and claims it was an honest opinion at the time and thus, the saying was created, yep, makes sense :-) Actually, just to put some perspective on all this re my Hyperdrive comments… Just taking a typical Saturday nights available viewing, if you put hyperdrive on at any point early to late evening, I would watch it over anything else at the moment apart from maybe Robin Hood, which I’m still not sure about…… Much as I find it pretty dire, it’s still preferable to a great deal of the so called enertainment put out, and has had a lot more effort put in than a lot of the dross……
Thanks again for that Jonathan. I do hope it all works out, and I look forward to seeing the end result! It deserves to be seen, so we can all have an informed opinion. On the subject of Hyperdrive – here’s a Kevin Eldon interview: What’s next for you? Another series of Hyperdrive. I don’t think the first series was quite right but that’s first series for you. We shall endeavour to make it truly smashing. The fact that Kevin didn’t think a huge amount of the first series makes me look forward slightly more to the second. Maybe they’ve realised their mistakes, and the second series will be, well, funny…
Unless they have changed the writers (Father Andy Riley and someone else) or they’re gonna make major changes to the format, it will be as crap as the first series. Crap. And that’s swearing.
>I?m the producer of Starhyke I said it before and I’ll say it again: the internet is a beautiful place.
Oi! I AM the producer, honest. My photo is on the website and everything. It takes a channel about 6 weeks to decide they love the series but don’t want to screen it (it’s happened a lot!) this gives me a lot of spare time to troll the internet for forums to post my comments on. At least you guys are listening, it’s more than the bloody channels do. :-( The good news – i think we’ve found a channel that has the guts to give us the chance to prove ourselves and will air the series. I’ll keep you all posted. In the meantime, we screened the pilot to an audience at Cult TV last weekend and it went down very well. We got a lot of positive comments. You can watch some of these on Google and Youtube. We’re also showing the pilot and new trailer at Memorabilia in November. If you’re there, come across and introduce yourself. We’ll have Claudia Christian, Rachel Grant, Jeremy Bulloch and Danny John Jules with us. Danny is also comparing the Q&As.
Have just watched the trailer. Is it ironically funny? Or just Prisoner Cell Block H in space? And why have they kidnapped Gandalf? Mind you, would PCBH in space be such a bad thing? Oh yeah, Ganymede and Titan rules! (Discovered recently and addicted already)
Jonathan, I think Phil believes you! He’s just referring to a few past incidents where the people we review actually turn up and comment on our articles. I hope you manage to get the show out, anyway.
>Oi! I AM the producer, honest. Oh yeah, Cappsy is right. I meant no disrepect at all. I’m just always surprised when one of us writes something that ends up getting the attention of the person behind the project in question. The fact that several of them actually take the time to reply is even better.
I’m going to make a point of looking out for you at memorabilia, camera in hand etc. I too, hope it gets off the ground and more importantly, that it’s funny. I’m looking forward to the screening…
