Now in many ways this is great news – it is great that the BBC are committing themselves to a British-made sf series and that Clerkenwell Films (Afterlife, Jeckyll & Hyde) are continuing to get commissions for sf&f material on the UK’s main terrestrial TV channels.

Simon Cellan Jones is a really interesting choice as a director – he doesn’t appear to have done any specifically genre stuff before but he is an established name in UK television – Cracker, Our Friends in the North, The Trial of Tony Blair – and work on Generation Kill for HBO.

Writer Liz Mickery’s recent remake of The 39 Steps got quite a bit of criticism – and a lot of it was aimed at the script – but I really liked it, and I liked The State Within (2006) – although most of her other stuff seems to be more or less bog-standard cop show stuff.

Tamzin Outhwaite, however, makes my heart chill. I can’t think of a single show I’ve ever seen her in that I didn’t immediately hate. Red Cap… Hotel Babylon… The Fixer – all cack.

Perhaps she’ll surprise us all.

Overall, though, the rehabilitation of sf on British TV seems to be continuing.