Interview with Joe Ahearne, September 2000 - Part 3 of 4

Interviewer	For people who don't know you were also involved with the TV drama This Life.
Joe	While I was working on the pilot of [Ultraviolet] they gave me some work on This Life. I wrote a couple of episodes and directed another three episodes in the second series. That's where I met Jack Davenport who went on to do Ultraviolet, for his sins.
Interviewer	Did you always have him in mind as Michael?
Joe	No, actually. I'd written all the characters before I worked on This Life. It was only after I worked on This Life I thought he'd be good. In fact initially I was a little bit worried because I thought, oh is he too young? But actually he can play quite a bit older than he is. Once I'd worked with him I thought he'd be perfect. One of my relatives is a policeman who works on murder squads and stuff... I know the personality type quite well, you know, the dead pan humour and all that kind of stuff which I thought Jack does really well. And the sort of energy he brings to it, which is quite unflappable and, yeah, charismatic, I think. But in terms of whether we thought there'd be any more there's two things: A I didn't have time to work on developing any more, B we didn't really design it to do a lot of episodes. But putting apart all that I honestly don't know exactly what the story is with Channel 4 because it may well be that they didn't really like the series or that it didn't get enough viewing figures for them. Although I think it got quite good viewing figures in relation to other dramas they've done. Also bearing in mind it's quite an expensive drama. I mean I think it's more expensive than most one hour dramas that you see on telly because of the special effects and so on. It may well be that Channel 4 just weren't interested. As far as I'm aware Channel 4 has never banged World's door and said, we're mad keen to get some more. I think if they had it might have been different, you know. If Channel 4 had said, we think this is great and it's got real potential to go on and to be a franchise, to be an ongoing thing, I'm sure the attitude at World would have been different and maybe we would have sat down and kind of come up with ideas for more that I might not necessarily have been involved in, or whatever. But as far as I know that never happened, because I'm not privy to those discussions.
Interviewer	And so now various things have happened, and please do correct me if I'm wrong. Our version, the World version, your version has been playing on the sci-fi channel in America. But in between all of that we did sell the rights to Fox in America who have made an American pilot. I don't think it's actually been aired yet. So tell me about your involvement in that.
Joe	Right, well I have no involvement in the American version out of choice because I'd done what I wanted to do with the British version. Particularly those characters and those actors. As much as I love American TV and American films and stuff, I was very keen to do something that was a thriller and a horror thing but set in this country because there's so little of it done and America does seem to own the market on those kind of things. If it's social realism, if it's comedy and if it's period then that's what Britain does but anything else, America seems to get hold of. As a matter of fact I think it's amazing that World managed to get Ultraviolet off the ground in Britain at all, actually, and I'm grateful for that. So having done it, I know that once things are re-versioned, my personal view, I think it's better for the writer or whoever to take a back seat on that because they really have got to re-invent it and they've got to re-invent it for their particular market place. So I've never had any contact with Fox about it. Not through any dog in the manger sort of thing, it's just that I don't really think it's appropriate. Sometimes when people write books and they're made into films, sometimes the author will write the screenplay of the book and it works out fine, but this is slightly different because I wrote and directed a TV thing which was fulfilled in its own form. It wasn't like a book or a play or whatever. It was done in its own version and what they want to do is do a different version, otherwise they'd show our version. So, that being the case, I think it's better that they just do that. So I haven't read any of the scripts that they've developed of that version and I haven't seen the pilot, although I understand it's good. All I know about it really is what I've read, you know, in the press and in the science fiction magazines and so on where the producer who's spoken about it, you know, he's talked about the development of the show. He's described it as a sexy vampire soap opera and that's not how I saw Ultraviolet at all. That's not a criticism of the approach they're taking because they're working in a much more crowded market place. I mean, when was the last vampire serial you saw on British television? I don't think there's ever been one. Whereas in America you've got things like Buffy, you've got spin-offs from Buffy, you've got X Files, you've got all sorts of science fiction, horror stuff in America. Loads of different series and they've got to differentiate it somehow and also they've got to make sure that it runs for a long time. So they are not going to burn up all their story material in six weeks like we did purposely. They're going to want to parcel it out. So I think that's where the soap opera thing comes from. They're going to focus more on the relationships, I guess. I don't know what they're doing with the action stuff and the investigation side of things. So I'm sure I'll see it at some point. I don't know whether, I've heard varying reports about whether they are going to go to series or not. I'm sure I'll see it at some point but at the moment it does feel like a different animal and you're sort of better to let it go, really.
Interviewer	And were you asked to contribute? Did they actually approach you and ask you to take part in the show - to write or direct it?
Joe	I think they approached after they'd done the pilot. Well, I know they did. They rung my agent and I'm not sure whether that was as a writer or a director and I was approached to take a conference call with the producer, that kind of thing. I just didn't really see the point in doing that because if Ultraviolet had any future the only thing I'm really interested in doing with it now would be to do a one off, you know, to do a film or do a two hour television thing. But really only with the actors playing those parts. And this two years down the line and they've moved on to other things. There might be, you never know. I mean I wouldn't rule it out but I've got to say the chances are pretty slim at this stage because although, as far as I understand it, in its own kind of audience, Ultraviolet has been very successful and in America as well. But, you know, time passes and it's slightly difficult to see how you can pick something up after 2 years or three years. But I don't regret it hugely because those were a result of the kind of decisions that we made at the time, both in the way that it was made and my involvement in it, and also, you know, Channel 4's perspective. I don't think Channel 4 were interested in making any more.

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