Jeopardy (BBC TV series)
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| Jeopardy | |
|---|---|
 Title logo of Jeopardy |
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| Genre | Science fiction drama |
| Creator(s) | — |
| Starring | see below |
| Country of origin |  United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes | 40 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | approx. 24 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | BBC One |
| Original run | 26 April 2002 – 2 September 2004 |
| Links | |
| TV.com summary | |
Jeopardy is a BAFTA award-winning television series which ran for three series, from 2002 to 2004, on the BBC.
The show is about a group of eight high-school students and their teacher who go from Falkirk, Scotland, to the Australian Outback to look for UFOs. They are given camcorders to record any sightings, and the series (much like the Blair Witch Project) makes extensive use of jerky footage supposedly from those handheld cameras. Jeopardy was acclaimed for being thoroughly gripping and was said by some to be the best children's program in many years. Each episode was 20 minutes long and ended on a cliffhanger, to be continued the next week.
Contents |
[edit] Characters
- Gerry Simmins (Steven Vidler) (seasons 1-3) - A middle-aged teacher who runs the UFO club and has been a Ufologist ever since he saw a UFO fly past him back in Scotland. He kept this experience to himself in order to keep his job, only later telling the UFO society he founded.
- David (Gordon McCorkell) (seasons 1 and 3, with cameo appearances in 2) - The 'boffin' on the trip, though he can get arrogant and annoyed. He is best friends with Harry. He falls in love with Sarah, and is later trapped with the aliens.
- Sarah (Kari Corbett) (seasons 1 and 3, with cameo appearances in 2) - The 'hippie chick' on the trip. Best friend of Lucy. She falls in love with David and is abducted with him. This is evidenced by the fact that they are holding hands in the finale ofseries two.
- Harry Hastings (Craig Moncur) (seasons 1 - 3) - A bit of an unpopular person, he has epilepsy and is David's best friend. He falls in love with Lucy, and takes control of the group when it's in trouble. He has frequent conflicts with Simon in the second season, however, in the first season he is accused by Lucy of avoiding all conflict.
- Lucy Jefferson (Samantha Bowie) (seasons 1 - 3) - Sarah's best friend. She falls in love with Harry.
- Leon (Stanley Smith) (seasons 1 - 3) - The 'joker' on the trip, he falls for Shona. He is the only black member of the group. His role is comic relief. He is the first person to catch 'red eye', which hugely disrupts the group.
- Shona (Shelley O'Neill) (seasons 1 - 3) - The quiet one, she came on the trip as an escape from her harsh traditional parents. She falls for Leon.
- Simon (James Pearson) (seasons 1 - 3) - The arrogant one, he thinks he's the best because he is the captain of the school football team. However he learns some valuable lessons from a mysterious Aborigine.
- Chrissy (Charlie Wilson) (seasons 1 - 3) - She joined the trip as a 'bimbo', just so she could be with Simon, but as the season progressed, she became more kind and genuine, and fit in with the rest of her classmates.
- Melissa (Tammy Macintosh) (season 1) - The park ranger who travels with the group in the outback.
- Helen Stanich (Caroline Dunphy) (seasons 2 and 3) - The shady government agent who pursues the group.
- The Twins (season 2)- Two little girls who have a mysterious link to the group and the aliens.
- Ed (season 2) - The Twins' grandmother, who owns a ranch. She describes UFOs as 'minmins'.
- Professor Sharpe (season 3) - Works for the Australian government in solving extraterrestrial diseases.
[edit] Plot
See List of Jeopardy (BBC TV Series) Episodes
'Jeopardy' is about a group of nine senior school kids from Falkirk, Scotland, and their teacher, who go to Australia in search of aliens and UFOs. The school Ufology club has organised a trip to the outback to search for extraterrestrial activity. However, it is not just the geeky club members who come along but several members from across the school who want a trip to Australia. They are all given camcorders to record any sightings, and the series (much like the Blair Witch Project) makes extensive use of jerky footage supposedly from those handheld cameras. They stay in the heart of the outback where there is no contact with the outside world, and it is then that it all begins to go horribly wrong. The series is similar to the later television series Lost.
[edit] Series 1 (2002)
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In the first season, the group go to the Australian outback to look for extraterrestrial activity. The nine kids, their teacher, and a park ranger, Melissa, stay in tents, with monitoring equipment set up around the area. But then things begin to go out of control. Leon is bitten by a deadly snake, and the antivenom is missing. Melissa goes in search of medicine, but something stops her getting there. The kids find themselves alone, their teacher's control thwarted by rasher members of the group. Soon everything is spiralling out of control as people go missing, they see lights in the sky, radio signals fail, several people decide to set off alone, and others are driven into madness. No radio signals work. When they all finally get back together, the kids and their teacher manage to get a radio signal to contact rescue services, who agree to rescue them from Paramundi ridge. They are all waiting on the ridge when they see what they think is a helicopter; a bright flash occurs and they all disappear.
[edit] Series 2 (2003)
The second season starts with the group on Paramundi ridge, where they are picked up by several helicopters. They are taken to a military complex where they realise that their camcorder tapes have been altered. Gerry, the teacher, has been locked up in a mental home due to his ravings that they were abducted by aliens before being replaced and picked up by the military. The group also realise that David and Sarah are missing. They escape from the facility and are pursued by an agent called Stanich. They travel around Australia in an old hippy van searching for David and Sarah. Their search leads them from weird UFO buffs to Aboriginal prophecies and bizarre twin girls. At the end of the series, they return to Paramundi ridge where they link arms to bring the aliens down to return David and Sarah. However, this fails, and they find themselves back in Scotland.
[edit] Series 3 (2004)
The group, minus Gerry, David and Sarah, find themselves in back home in Falkirk, Scotland. However, they find themselves invisible, only visible to two people - David and Sarah. David and Sarah were returned to Earth to witness the apparent suicide of the rest of the group. While David and Sarah stay in Scotland, the rest of the group return to Australia via a portal. Back in Scotland, they are visible again, and are continually pursued by Stanich. They realise that they must try to contact the aliens so that everything can be returned to normal. But things go terribly wrong when they discover that all their portal travel has given them a condition called "red-eye". Under this condition, when an individual gets stressed, his iris turns red and he "splits", looking as if he is two separate people for a couple of seconds, and then promptly disappearing. As more and more of them disappear, the remaining members must team up with Stanich. Eventually their search leads them to a top-secret base on Astrid Island. At this island, they find their friends who had disappeared - however, they now have the mentality of 8 year olds, and the unusual symptom of appearing black on an infrared camera.
The ending of the final episode was voted in by viewers, who chose among a happy, surprising, or spooky ending. The viewers voted for the spooky ending. In this, the aliens suddenly pop up and reveal themselves to all be twins. They were the original race on Earth. They cannot reverse the red-eye disease but send Harry and Lucy back in time to stop the trip altogether. Racing to their school, they manage to convince the group not to travel to Australia by showing them their videotapes from throughout the series; however, when the present-day Harry and Lucy enter the classroom, Lucy sees her past self and her eye turns red. The series then ends on this cliffhanger.
Later this final episode was shown again with the 'happy' ending. The episode ended a few seconds earlier with Harry and Lucy watching the videotapes and holding hands. As of February 2007, there has been no showing of the 'surprising' ending.
[edit] Possibility of the series' continuation
It is unlikely that the series will be continued due to the fact that the last episode of series 3 was described as the final episode. The third series was probably left on a cliffhanger with the knowledge that the series would not continue, as was seen in The X-Files. However there has been a call for the release of season four from fans. Jeopardy has a high repeat rate on BBC and the CBBC channel. A DVD of series 1-3 is a possibility.
[edit] Film locations
The series was produced for CBBC Scotland and filmed on location in both Scotland and Australia.
[edit] Awards
In 2002 the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awarded the first season Best Children's Drama. The programme was also chosen as the best new drama, and was recommended for all teenagers.
[edit] The Game
On the CBBC website, a Jeopardy online game was released. In it, the player, an agent, has to find all the group before Stanich does. The player has first to piece a note together, then search for the different members in a maze. The game can be accessed here: [1]
[edit] Fan Following
Jeopardy has gained a significant internet fan following, on such websites as the forum ASTRID. Fans have campaigned for the release of DVDs and a fourth season. They have proclaimed October 25 'National Jeopardy Day', due to this date's significance in the show.
