''Spacemen are ten-a-penny. What they need out there is a good copper.''

''Star Cops'' was a British science fiction television series first broadcast on Creator/{{BBC}}2 in 1987. Set in the year 2027, the world of ''Star Cops'' includes five permanently manned space stations orbiting the Earth, as well as bases on the Moon and Mars, and approximately three thousand people live and work in space. The setting was influenced by the potential for greater access to space promised by the then new Space Shuttle programme, and by concerns about the militarisation of space through the US government's Strategic Defense Initiative (known as "Star Wars"), both of which were underway in the early 1980s. Space travel and life in space are portrayed in a [[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness hard science-fiction]] style, with fairly realistic depictions of weightlessness and low-gravity environments, lengthy space journeys of months or years, and hazards such as spacesuit failures and radiation exposure.

Law enforcement in the developing stations and colonies is provided by the International Space Police Force (ISPF), initially made up of twenty ineffective part-time volunteers derisively nicknamed the "Star Cops". A decision is made to put the ISPF on a permanent, full-time footing, and veteran detective Nathan Spring is appointed to lead the force. Many episodes deal with the efforts of Spring and his team to establish the Star Cops as a credible organisation as he sets up headquarters on the Moon, recruits new staff, dismisses corrupt officers, and works to extend the ISPF's jurisdiction to the American space stations and Mars colonies. At the same time the team investigates the cases that come their way, many of which are new crimes arising from the technologically advanced future society the series depicts, and the hostile frontier nature of the environment.

In total nine episodes of ''Star Cops'' were made. A tenth episode, titled "Death on the Moon", was planned but industrial relations difficulties during production led to it being abandoned shortly before recording was to commence. A combination of factors, including conflicts in the production team and poor scheduling, meant that the series never found a satisfactory audience and was cancelled after one season. In recent years, ''Star Cops'' has undergone something of a critical reappraisal and is generally hailed for being a good attempt at a realistic [[http://www.space-frontier.org/HighFrontier/ "High Frontier"]] SF series.

!!''Star Cops'' offers examples of a number of tropes, including:

* AnyoneCanDie: Nathan Spring's girlfriend was seemingly set up as a recurring character in the first episode, but killed off suddenly in the second.
* ArtificialGravity: Averted. Spacecraft and space-stations don't have artificial gravity, apart from the American stations which have rotating sections. The weightless environment is cleverly simulated with wires, camera angles and careful movement by the actors.
* BluntYes: A rather good one from Nathan after Kenzy demands to know if she's going to be [[YouGetMeCoffee a glorified secretary]] for the rest of her Star Cop career. It's not that he's noticeably sexist by the standards of the day, mind you; Kenzy was [[DirtyCop on the take]] but too politically well-connected to be fired outright or overtly ReassignedToAntarctica.
* BollywoodNerd: Dr. David Chandri, who turns out to have [[TheCracker written a computer virus]] responsible for hundreds of deaths.
* BritishBrevity: Only nine episodes.
* {{Eagleland}}: Indulges in the "Americans are jingoistic war-mongers" stereotype.
* EvilTwin: An evil clone actually.
* FrickinLaserBeams: Handled realistically. The laser weapons only produce a green "muzzle flash" but no visible beam.
* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: The Soviet Union is apparently alive and well in 2027. They're referred to just as "the Russians", but their flag is the red banner with hammer and sickle of the USSR.
* HeelFaceTurn: Pal Kenzy. She's fired for taking bribes, and virtually blackmails herself back onto the team, but redeems herself by the end of the series.
* IWantMyJetPack: It's 2027 and we have bases on Mars, but no internet, mobile phones etc.
* MultiNationalTeam: The International Space Police in general, and the main cast (see FiveManBand) in particular:
** Nathan Spring. British, Commander, TheHero, TheCaptain, OldFashionedCopper.
** David Theroux. American, Chief Superintendent, TheLancer
** Colin Devis. British, Inspector, TheBigGuy, ''very'' OldFashionedCopper.
** Pal Kenzy. Australian, Sergeant, TheSmartGuy, DirtyCop (She gets better...)
** Anna Shoun. Japanese, Physician, TheChick, TheMedic, TokenMinority, Something of an ethnic stereotype.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Pal Kenzy's Australian and Alexander Krivenko's Russian accents are wobbly.
* OurGraphicsWillSuckInTheFuture: The computers and displays look ''very'' eighties, including obvious IBM PC/AT keyboards, and there's not a graphic interface in sight. There are however desktop computers that resemble someone's attempt at building a tablet with the hardware of a mid-90s PC. (Insert your own Windows 8 joke here.)
* PerpSweating: Spring and Devis love to sweat the perps. Sometimes literally.
* TheProfessor: Alexander Krivenko, the Russian commander of the moon-base where the ISPF is headquartered. A winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
* RecycledInSpace: A literal case; the show was criticised at the time for being ''Series/{{Bergerac}}'' [-IN ORBIT!-]
* ScrewedByTheNetwork: The series was plagued with conflicts between the creator/writer and the producer. Two different directors ''and complete production teams'' were used to make the nine episodes (Team-A produced episodes 1 & 2, Team-B 3, 4 & 5, Team-A 6, 7, 8 & 9). Each team had its own designer, and very different ideas about how the series should look, leading to jarring continuity problems. Finally, the program was broadcast on a weird schedule that did not co-ordinate with the BBC's other programming (it clashed with [=BBC1=]'s flagship Nine O'Clock News for example).
* SpaceIsNoisy: [[AvertedTrope Averted.]] The only sounds heard in space are radio chatter and non-diegetic music.
* SpacePolice
* SurrealThemeTune: "It Won't Be Easy" by Justin Hayward of ''The Moody Blues''. Not surprisingly, it's actually rather good but has no obvious connection to the programme at all.[[note]]A case could be made that it is about Nathan's sense of lonelines and detachment from the world following Lee's death.[[/note]] Compare and contrast with the theme of ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise''.
* UsedFuture: The first couple of episodes were a bit squeaky-clean, then the series switched to a less brightly-lit, used-and-cluttered style for three episodes, before switching ''back'' for the remaining four. See Screwed By The Network above...
* WhodunnitToMe: "Conversations with the Dead" involves an investigation into an incident leading to the death of two astronauts -- who are still alive, and able to take part in the investigation by radio, but stranded in space with no hope of rescue before their oxygen gives out. [[spoiler: Experimental cryogenics equipment that just ''happened'' to be onboard was used in the hope of saving their lives when the inventor of said cryogenics technology just ''happened'' to overhear what was happening. Nathan put two and two together quite quickly, but couldn't actually ''prove'' anything, and the show ended before we could find out if the guy really did sabotage the ship.]]