These EpisodesGuardian of Piri
These EpisodesFrom the These Episodes documentary originally on the 2005 Network DVD boxset.
Series 1 was a very successful collaboration both between the script department and between Brian Johnson's special effects and Keith Wilson's production design.
Often Keith would talk to me about something which he might do; he would draw pictures for me, and from those I would work backwards then into the script, and devise a story which was driven by Keith Wilson's imagination.
I suppose the central idea I was wanting to explore is the human aspiration always to reach for a perfect life, and what might a perfect life look like when we eventually got there, and how much would we actually like it.
We had all gone down to Piri, and the guardian of Piri had made us all feel very relaxed. So, mass hypnotism in a way, I suppose, each thinking this is the perfect planet for us.
Martin is the only one not affected, and the rest of us are in a kind of trance state, and as he goes by to find Helena he grabs me. Martin is an extremely physical actor. When he grabs you, you know you've been grabbed. Was that my full vertebra clicking?
The narrative of the episode is about the Alphans encounter with perfection and their realization that actually when you get there, perfection is pretty boring. And that life on earth, or rather human life as it still continues to exist on alpha, which for all its imperfections and for all its privations, was going to be a hell of a lot more interesting than life on Piri.
Contents copyright Martin Willey