Bugs
Genre	Action drama
Running time	48 minutes
Creator(s)	Brian Eastman Stuart Doughty
Starring	Jaye Griffiths Craig McLachlan Jesse Birdsall Jan Harvey Paula Hunt Steven Houghton
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original channel	BBC One
Original run	April 1, 1995 – 28 August 1999
No. of episodes	40

Bugs was a British television drama series which ran for four seasons from April 1995 to August 1999. It was originally broadcast on Saturday evenings on BBC One, and was produced for the BBC by the independent production company Carnival Films. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 518 KB) Summary Screenshot of Bugs TV show opening sequence Licensing This image is a screenshot of a copyrighted television program or station ID. As such, the copyright for it is most likely owned by the company or corporation that... Jaye Griffiths is a British stage and television actress. ... Craig Dougal McLachlan (born September 1, 1965 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) is an Australian actor and singer, best known for role as Ed in Bugs. ... Jesse Birdsall (born February 13, 1963 in Highbury, London) is a British actor, known in the UK for his starring roles in several high-profile, popular television programmes. ... Jan Harvey is a British actress, born in Penzance in 1947. ... On the cover of his debut CD Steven Houghton (born 1971) is a British actor and singer. ... BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the primary channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation. ... April 1 is the 91st day of the year (92nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 274 days remaining. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... August 28 is the 240th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (241st in leap years), with 125 days remaining. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the primary channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation. ... Founded by Brian Eastman in 1978 as Picture Partnership Productions Limited, Carnival Films swiftly built up a strong reputation as an independent production company. ...

The series was devised by Carnival boss Brian Eastman and producer Stuart Doughty with input from veteran writer-producer Brian Clemens, who had previously worked on The Avengers. Clemens described Bugs as "an Avengers for the 1990s". Other notable series writers included Colin Brake and Stephen Gallagher. Two episodes (Bugged Wheat, Hollow Man), were written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who went on to create the series Smallville. Brian Clemens (born 1931 in Croydon, England) is a screenwriter and television producer, possibly best known for his work on The Avengers and The Professionals. ... The Avengers is a British 1960s television series featuring secret agents in a fantasy 1960s Britain. ... For the band, see 1990s (band). ... Colin Brake (born 1963) is a television writer and script editor best known for his work for the BBC on programs such as Bugs and EastEnders. ... Stephen Gallagher (born 13 October 1954 in Salford Lancashire) is a British writer. ... Alfred Gough is a screenwriter and producer. ... Miles Millar is a screenwriter and producer. ... Smallville is an American television series that follows the adventures of a young Clark Kent (Tom Welling), as a teenager living in Smallville, Kansas, during the years before he becomes Superman. ...

The programme was a mixture of action/adventure and science-fiction, with a reliance on fast-paced plots, technical gadgetry, stunts and explosions. Much of the programme's filming took place around the London Docklands area, which had recently been redeveloped with projects such as Canary Wharf. This was intended to give a modern, and perhaps even slightly futuristic, feel to locations of the episodes. A broadcast of the long-running and popular British science-fiction series Doctor Who. ... The Millennium Dome and Canary Wharf from the Royal Victoria Dock. ... HSBC Tower (left), One Canada Square (centre), Citigroup Centre (right) Canary Wharf in Tower Hamlets, London, England, is a large business development on the Isle of Dogs, centred on the old West India Docks in the London Docklands. ...

The plot of the programme involved a team of specialist independent crime-fighting technology experts, who faced a variety of threats based around computers and other modern technology. The main trio of regulars were Nick Beckett (Jesse Birdsall), Ros Henderson (Jaye Griffiths) and Ed (Craig McLachlan in seasons one to three, Steven Houghton in season four). From series three, they worked with government department the Bureau of Weapons (an organisation featured in the previous two seasons and decimated in the second season finale) renamed Bureau 2, whose head was codenamed Jan (Jan Harvey) and her secretary, Alex (Paula Hunt). The series evolved, as a result, from a series of relatively unconnected one-off episodes to an over-arching 'soap opera' complete with office romances. Jesse Birdsall (born February 13, 1963 in Highbury, London) is a British actor, known in the UK for his starring roles in several high-profile, popular television programmes. ... Jaye Griffiths is a British stage and television actress. ... Craig Dougal McLachlan (born September 1, 1965 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) is an Australian actor and singer, best known for role as Ed in Bugs. ... On the cover of his debut CD Steven Houghton (born 1971) is a British actor and singer. ... Jan Harvey is a British actress, born in Penzance in 1947. ...

The programme came close to cancellation at the conclusion of its third season, but due to an exciting cliffhanger ending deliberately included by the production team, and strong foreign sales, a fourth was commissioned. The final season suffered from being moved to an earlier timeslot on Saturday evenings, and for only having the first eight of its produced ten episodes scheduled for broadcast ^[1] Coupled with the Omagh Bombing forcing the BBC to postpone the series for a week, this meant that the concluding three episodes would not be broadcast until a year later. Another attempt to save the show by giving the season a cliffhanger ending was not successful, and the ending of the final episode — as Ros and Beckett are abducted by an attacker unseen by the audience but recognised by Beckett — was never resolved. The Omagh bombing was a car bomb attack carried out by the Real IRA on August 15, 1998, against civilians in Omagh, Northern Ireland. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is one of the largest broadcasting corporations in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of more than £4 billion. ...

The series has something of a minor cult following in the UK, not least for glaring production faults - for example in the first episode the cast are quite clearly stepping onto pre-chalked outlines to aid what was presumeably a necessarily short external shot.

Overall forty episodes were produced, ten in each of the four seasons. Virgin Publishing produced novelisations of the episodes of the first season, but these were not successful and subsequent episodes were not novelised. As of 2005, the series is available on DVD in season-by-season box set form, released by Revelation Films. A complete box set collection of all four seasons is also available. Virgin Books is the book publishing arm of Virgin Enterprises, the company originally set up by Richard Branson as a record company. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... DVD (commonly Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ...

References to The Avengers

Bugs contains several references to 1960s cult series and Brian Clemens' masterpiece, The Avengers. Here are some examples : The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ... Cult television, like cult figures, cult film and cult radio, attracts a band of aficionados devoted to a specific television program or unreal universe. ...

• The colour of Beckett's Jeep Cherokee is British racing green, the same green as the various Bentley John Steed used to drive in The Avengers. It may also be a reference to the cult series that the car Ros drives in "Out of the Hive" (Season 1, Episode 1) is a Peugeot 205 Vauxhall, as Steed drove a Vauxhall Motors 30/98 E-Type car in two episodes of The Avengers.
• In "Down Among the Dead Men" (Season 1, Episode 4), Beckett keeps correcting Ed who speaks of boats instead of ships. John Steed also explained the difference between boats and ships to Tara King in the The Avengers episode "Game".
• In "Shotgun Wedding" (Season 1, Episode 5), Ros is seen rather badly sewing a fake button on Ed's leather jacket, while at the end of the episode Ed resews the button with remarkable skill. Back in the 1960s, John Steed marvelled on Emma Peel's ability to sew in the The Avengers episode "Escape In Time". This is a sign of social change : in the 1960s, Emma was a modern woman who was not expected to sew, but in the 1990s, things have become more complicated: Ros is the modern woman who is not expected to sew - and can't, and Ed is the modern man who is not expected to sew, but can anyway.
• In "Bugged Wheat" (Season 2, Episode 3), the Bugs team encounters Nathan Pym, a villain with a pronunciation problem who wants to decimate wheat with a pest. In the Avengers episode "The Rotters", John Steed chatted with another Mr. Pym, who kept using meaningless words in his sentences; the episode was about villains wanting to destroy the country with dry rot.

The Jeep Cherokee is a name for three different SUV models produced from 1974 to the present: 1974–1983 Jeep Cherokee (SJ) full-size SUV 1984–2001 Jeep Cherokee (XJ) compact SUV 1993–present Jeep Grand Cherokee mid-size SUV 2002–present european version of Jeep Liberty mid-size SUV... Bentley Motors Limited is a British based manufacturer of luxury automobiles and Grand Tourers. ... Fictional television spy played by Patrick Macnee on the British series The Avengers and The New Avengers. ... Cult television, like cult figures, cult film and cult radio, attracts a band of aficionados devoted to a specific television program or unreal universe. ... The Peugeot 205 is a supermini produced by the French automaker Peugeot between 1983 and 1998. ... Vauxhall Motors is a UK car company. ... A boat, like a ship, is a buoyant vessel designed for the purpose of transporting people and possibly goods across water. ... For online phenomenon of shipping, see Shipping (fandom). ... Turn of the century sewing in Detroit, Michigan Antique Singer sewing machine Using a modern sewing machine Sewing is an ancient craft involving the stitching of cloth, leather, animal skins, furs, or other materials, using needle and thread. ... A small flat button Metal, plastic, and leather shank buttons. ... Leather jackets A leather jacket is a type of clothing, a jacket made of leather. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ... The Avengers, John Steed (Patrick Macnee) and Emma Peel (Diana Rigg), appear on the cover of a 1994 reprint of an Avengers novel co-written by Macnee. ... It has been suggested that Social development be merged into this article or section. ... For the band, see 1990s (band). ... Look up pronunciation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Species T. aestivum T. boeoticum T. compactum T. dicoccoides T. dicoccon T. durum T. monococcum T. spelta T. sphaerococcum References:   ITIS 42236 2002-09-22 For the indie rock group see: Wheat (band). ... Look up Pest in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Pest may refer to: A pest, an animal (usually an insect), or sometimes a plant (weed) with characteristics that are injurious or harmful to humans. ... Dry rot is a disease of trees, often caused by the fungal species Merulis lacrymans, Poria incrassata, and/or Serpula lacrymans. ...

Trivia

• The production was originally based at two warehouses of Blackwall Basin, on the Isle of Dogs in London. After the IRA bombing of the South Park Plaza, the crew had to travel further to find intact buildings for exterior locations. ^[2]

Quotes

• Ed : "And they say video games aren't any good for you !"
• Ros : "My lovely car."
• Jean-Daniel : "Women are sheep."

External links

• Official website
• Fan site
• Bureau 2 Database (fan site)
• Action TV
• Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film and Television entry
• Bugs at the Internet Movie Database
• TV.COM entry

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about motion pictures, actors, movie stars, TV shows, TV stars, production crew personnel, as well as video games. ...

Notes

1. ^ Original announcement of BUGs season four's eight episode run on the Official BUGs website [1]
2. ^ SFX Magazine, May 1996, p. 51.