Created by William Smethurst, Jupiter Moon hit screens on 26th March 1990. It was intended to be an ongoing space soap opera with 150 episodes filmed ready to broadcast. Unfortunately its home British Satellite Broadcasting’s Galaxy channel only manged to show the first 108 episodes for BSB went out of business. The remaining episodes were later shown on Sci Fi Channel in 1996 as part of a complete run of the series.
Jupiter Moon is set in the year 2050 and concentrates on the space ship Ilea which is in semi-permanent orbit above the space city on Jupiter’s moon Callisto. The Ilea is home to a university and many of the programme’s main plot threads revolve around the lives of the students, helping the programme to deal with more mundane issues despite its far-flung setting. A secondary plot deals with an attempt to travel to the stars known as the Daedalus Project.
As the show begins it is New Year’s Eve 2049, and the students of the University of Space spaceship Ilea are having a party, then first-officer Finbow Lewis (Phil Willmott) sees something very strange on the ship’s deep-space scanners. Something outside the Solar System is heading towards the ship at a frightening speed!
Other plot highlight include Victoria (Nicola Wright) going crazy with space confinement syndrome, shuttles crashes, and mystery illnesses.
Cast members to keep an eye out for include Lucy Benjamin as Fiona McBride, her younger brother Timmy (Andrew Read), Anna Chancellor as Mercedes Page, Anna Pernicci as Anna Begani, Andy Rashleigh as Eliot Creasy, Alison Dowling as Rebecca Harvey, Jason Durr as Alex Hartmann, Richard Lintern as James Bromwich, Jamie Glover as Phillipe Gervais, Fay Masterson as Gabriella Tanzi, Christopher Simon as Christophe Chazalon, and Richard Hainsworth as Paul Fitzroy Drummond.