British television science fiction fiction was "Star Cops" (1987), which ran for only nine episodes to poor viewing figures on the corporation's second channel, BBC2. It was written by Chris Boucher, who had contributed scripts to "Doctor Who" and "Blake's 7", and was script editor for the later series entire run. The 1980s also saw the arrival on the BBC of two science fiction comedy series both of which had their origins on radio. The first was "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (1981) by Douglas Adams which amalgamated aspects of the original radio series with that of the subsequent novel. The second was
Planets in science fiction that Venus' cloud cover was necessarily water, decreed in "The Destinies of the Stars" that "A very great part of the surface of Venus is no doubt covered with swamps" and compared Venus' humidity to the tropical rain forests of the Congo. Venus thus became, until the early 1960s, a place for science fiction writers to place all manner of unusual life forms, from quasi-dinosaurs to intelligent carnivorous plants, and where hostile interactions with Venusian natives were reminiscent of European colonial projects in Africa and Asia (see Venus in fiction). In fact Venus's surface is hot enough to melt lead,