BAD GIRLS

THERE’S GONNA BE A JAILBREAK, SOMEWHERE IN THIS UNIVERSE… SKY ONE’S NEW SHOW INTERGALACTIC FOLLOWS A GROUP OF ON-THE-LAM FEMALE PRISONERS. WE VISIT THE SET AND SPEAK TO THE PRODUCERS AND THE CAST

- IAN BERRIMAN

WE’RE STANDING IN THE shadow of the snout of a dirty, scorched spaceship, its gangplank lowered. You can easily imagine Firefly’s Malcolm Reynolds striding out. Zoom out from a tight focus, however, and the illusion’s broken. This is just a small slice of set – a place to shoot exits and entrances, aided by bluescreen. Behind it, across a road, humdrum residential housing stretches out on either side.

It’s February 2020, and SFX is on the backlot at Manchester’s aptly named Space Studios. Last time we visited it was home to Sky One’s near-future road race series Curfew. Now it’s hosting a space-faring sci-fi show from the same production company, Moonage Pictures.

A short stroll away, a main street set has been constructed. Lined with market stalls, its buildings are painted in Mediterranean shades of green, orange and turquoise. A menu on a wall listing dishes en français further suggests a European influence. If it sounds like a possible holiday destination that’s only because we haven’t mentioned the tyre-tracked mud underfoot, boarded-up windows and bullet holes. Welcome to the planet Skov.

It’s just one of the colony worlds featured in Intergalactic, whose eight-episode run centres on a bunch of escaped prisoners on the lam in a stolen ship, pursued by Earth authorities as “enemies of the state”. Thinking “Sounds a bit Blake’s 7”? You’re not alone. But there are plenty of differences from Terry Nation’s ’70s space saga – not least that these convicts are all female.

THE GREAT ESCAPE