Parallel 9

PARALLEL 9
Made by: BBC
Shown on: BBC1 & BBC2
Years shown: 1992-4

Oh, when will it all end? Whenever Going Live! wasn’t on the air, BBC1 found it necessary to try and do something off-the-wall and a bit zany with the weeks left between series. Parallel 9, fundamentally no different from any other Saturday morning shows, was supposedly broadcast from the dimension Parallel 9 (the set looked a bit like an updated Blake’s 7) by Mercator, an ancient alien traveller and pseudo-Dr Who, who had been banished there from his own planet because of his forbidden thirst for knowledge. Unfortunately, it is an accepted fact that no-one learns anything from Saturday morning TV. Anyway, Mercator was only allowed to awake for two hours, conveniently 9-11am on a Saturday, when he could ‘beam up’ guests and try and learn from them. He was joined by Calendular, ostensibly an earth girl, who he seemed to be keeping on Parallel 9 against her will; also ‘doing time’ there were Steyl, Skyn and Thynkso, apparently criminals of some kind, who were constantly trying to escape (can’t really blame them.)

There were the usual competitions, where children could win the entirely useless Parallel 9 backwards watch (time goes backwards there, apparently), and there was also a computer game slot, where two kids would compete on a new game, and review it at the same time. Cartoons were there to fill in the time as well, including the dreadful Toxic Crusaders. No-one can have possibly transgressed as badly as Mercator was supposed to have done - surely his planet would have had mercy if they’d witnessed this below-par show?

It was all-change for series two, which probably upset the purists, if such people existed. There was a new, younger Mercator, who was a failed commander, and he was accompanied by Zee, a girl with a nasty ginger bob, Dr Kovan, and a dinosaur called Brian, who was allegedly from Rotherham. Brian later acquired a little brother called Derrick, who hatched from an egg, and liked to make farting noises - as you can see, the tone they were aiming for was really high. They had a new, garish set, and also a base on earth, which was basically an old caravan. The earth ‘correspondent’ was Richard Norton (Ryan in Neighbours, and later in Home and Away too), followed by Lucinda Cowden (formerly helium-voiced Melanie from Neighbours), and they beamed the guests up to Parallel 9 from the shower cubicle in the caravan, usually fellow soap stars or teeny-pop acts. They also presented Parallel 9 Pinball, an interactive game for children at home, which you could supposedly operate using your phone keypad, but it was temperamental to say the least.

Another revamp took place for the third, and final, series, where only Dr Kovan and the dinosaur puppets survived the cull. There was yet another Mercator, now quite bolshy, to whom Parallel 9 seemed to be more of a research facility than the slammer; and his new assistant was Flynn, an objectionable girl with bottle-blonde hair. I strongly suspect that by this time Mercator was desperately trying to devise some way to blow the whole planet to kingdom come and save us all from a fourth series, which was extremely selfless.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 1/10

(Thanks to www.its-behind-you.com for the borrowed pic)