7 /10 1 Votes
3.5/5 Amazon Created by Lizzie Mickery Original language(s) English Final episode date 22 December 2009 Program creator Lizzie Mickery | 7.2/10 IMDb Genre Sci-fi crime drama Country of origin United Kingdom First episode date 24 November 2009 Number of episodes 5 Networks BBC, BBC One, BBC HD | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Directed by Simon Cellan Jones
Omar Madha Starring Tamzin Outhwaite
Mark Bonnar
Emun Elliott
Chiké Okonkwo Cast Tamzin Outhwaite, Emun Elliott, Mark Bonnar, Chiké Okonkwo Similar The State Within, Welcome to Paradox, HolbyBlue, The Fixer, Hotel Babylon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Paradox is a 2009 British science fiction police drama, starring Tamzin Outhwaite as Detective Inspector Rebecca Flint. Written by Lizzie Mickery and produced by Clerkenwell Films for the BBC, it was filmed and set in Manchester, England.
Contents
Flint heads a police team played by Mark Bonnar and Chiké Okonkwo, working with a scientist played by Emun Elliott, as they attempt to prevent disasters foretold by images being sent from the future.
A first series aired on BBC One and BBC HD during November and December in five hour-long episodes. It received mostly negative reviews from critics, and it has been reported that there will be no second series.
The paradox series teaser trailer 2014
Production
Murray Ferguson, chief executive of Clerkenwell Films, said that they were looking for something "different from the traditional formula of investigating a crime that has already taken place" and premise for the series, the police having knowledge of future incidents, was developed. Lizzie Mickery (The 39 Steps, The State Within) was chosen to write the series. She said she has "always been interested in the decisions you're not aware you are making". The series was based on the "moral and emotional implications of having the ability to change the future". The series was then commissioned by Ben Stephenson and Jay Hunt for BBC One with executive producers Patrick Spence, for BBC Northern Ireland, and Ferguson. The series was produced by Marcus Wilson and directed by Simon Cellan Jones and Omar Madha. Filming began in Greater Manchester, England in June 2009, with the majority of filming in the Northern Quarter district of the City of Manchester. The Imperial War Museum North is used as the backdrop for Dr King's place of employment, Prometheus Labs.
Filming was completed over 13 weeks and Fergison said: "Each episode is set within a very short time period so the changeable weather caused havoc."
Synopsis
Detective Inspector Rebecca Flint (Tamzin Outhwaite), Detective Sergeant Ben Holt (Mark Bonnar) and Detective Constable Callum Gada (Chiké Okonkwo) investigate images being broadcast to an eminent astrophysicist Dr Christian King's (Emun Elliott) laboratory, which appear to show catastrophic events in the future.
Reception
The series peaked at 4.81 million viewers for the first episode.
In The Daily Telegraph, James Walton said that despite the "exciting" climactic scenes, "[s]adly, by then the show's complete absence of internal logic (or, if you prefer, its overwhelming silliness) meant that it was beyond help." Comparing with American series FlashForward and ITV1's Collision, Alex Hardy from The Times said that the former "is currently doing a much better job at such space-time contemplation" and that the "'working back from an accident' format unfolded much more deliciously" in the latter. Following the second episode, The Times' Andrew Billen said that although the last 10 minutes were exciting, "[t]he difficulty lay in the 50 minutes of scratchy dialogue, robotic acting and general misery that it took to get there." Jeremy Clay from the Leicester Mercury also liked the climax but said "the rest was utterly daft", the programme tried the patience of The Observer's Phil Hogan and Tom Sutcliffe from The Independent said that "the Prometheus Innovation Satellite Downlink offers a perfect acronym for the state you'd have to be in to take this kind of thing seriously".
Cancellation
On 1 January 2010, The Sun reported that the BBC had cancelled the show due to disappointing ratings. On 25 February 2010, David Bentley of the Coventry Telegraph writing in their Geek Files blog, quoted an unnamed BBC spokesman: "In spite of a great cast and production team, Paradox did not find its audience in the way that we had hoped".