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Artemis 81

FUCKING ODD (and slightly laughable) pretentio-fest ’bout – yes, it’s the eighties – an apocalyptic war with angry Gods, mucky sods, blethering loudspeakers, dry ice, model buildings and flabby classical references. STING played “Asreal”. HYWEL “SHELLEY” BENNETT was a sci-fi writer. Half of its three-hour running time was spent on a North Sea ferry (TRIANGLE) where everyone topped themselves. Pompous sci-fi in the eighties manner, though not badly done for early 80s BBC.

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  1. john

    February 7, 2011 at 11:36 am

    Its always the same. The daring ,innovative, incredible work of visionary d writers and directors is inevitably marginalised and dubbed pretentious. I dont care. ARTEMIS 81 was a shattering compulsive piece of rivetting drama from an era when tv execs were not concerned with quotas and viewing figures. Would that these days were now !
    Most tv these days insults my intelligence. ARTEMIS 81 did not.
    TV writers , directors and producers should rediscover the imagination , the dream, the vision and to hell with all this half baked gritty unfunny so called realism.

  2. THX Kling Klang

    February 5, 2012 at 8:45 pm

    Just the trailer for this was enough to put me off watching it, it looked too scary. There was one shot of this sinister monk slowly turning around and I thought at least they won’t show his face, but they did and it was this horrible fabric thing. Thanks for freaking me out at a young age, BBC.

  3. Pessoa

    February 6, 2012 at 10:16 am

    As written by David Rudkin, playwright and author of Penda’s Fen and the notorious prehistoric episode of Churchill’s People. This was typically odd and a wee bit pretentious, but as John said a year ago, he deserves some respect.

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