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Virtual Murder was an early 1990's piece of BBC telefantasy, and stared Nicholas "Excalibur" Clay and Kim "The Tenth Kingdom" Thomson. It ran for six episodes in the Summer of 1992 and was overlooked for the most part. Yet, there was something wonderful and magical about it - I can't really begin to do it justice in a small, little discussion here. It had some marvellous touches - wonderful characters, a superb atmosphere, great actors and, most importantly to me, a relationship between the lead characters that has - I recognise now - defined what a relationship between a man and a woman is supposed to be for me all my adult life. It occupies a unique place in my heart, being - in part - the television series that prompted me - again, in part - to begin what became my first "novel" (The Nightmare Heresy, a Judge Dredd tale . . . which owed little to Virtual Murder except the name of its protagonist and his relationship with the heroine).

Virtual Murder was based on a simple and effective premise - a criminal psychologist and his fantastically talented, rich and gorgeous lover (who, for reasons that are never adequately explained, lived in the penthouse of a local hotel) help the police solve crimes. In the best tradition of such things, the two lead characters managed to involve themselves in murders, thefts and so forth without ever either getting arrested for their interference or - indeed - yelled at too much. Just as an exercise, try "helping" the local police solve crimes by turning up at S.O.C., stealing evidence, telling them how to do their job and so forth. Saying, "Miss Marple always does it" won't cut it, I assure you . . .

But, then again, that is part of the charm of such concepts - it's been standard since Dupin and Holmes, all the way through Poirot and Marple to their modern counterparts.

I think that Virtual Murder was sadly neglected (it was on at a poor time-slot during a hot Summer, and never quite got the investment it needed to flourish - it always felt like a somewhat derivative copy of The Avengers) and it is a shame that it never really took off. Of course, nothing like that would ever stop a FanFic author from writing FanFic!

So, here is the story - Requiem for Mesmer! A series of suicides is occuring in the city, and - as ever - JC and Sam are determined to get to the bottom of it!

One of the things that I am working on with this piece is an experimentation in style and with some new techniques - a more dialogue-heavy style, surreal, farcical and otherwise ridiculous elements in a serious context, invented and differently used words and - I admit - a more childish style in writing this. It is an interesting exercise, but I shall be more interested to see how successful the work is.

Here are a few links to Virtual Murder sites that might be of interest (there are a number of guides which will give an indication of what the series was like);

• The IMDB entry for Virtual Murder
• TV Tome's guide to the series
• Action TV's guide to the series
• RareTV.co.uk - a place which sells unofficial DVDs (highly recommended for those who have not seen the series!)
• TV.com's guide to the series