David Jason by Buster Merryfield). In 1989 Jason starred as Ted Simcock in the ITV drama series "A Bit of a Do", aired from January to December. In 1999, Jason starred as Captain Frank Beck in BBC's feature-length drama "All the King's Men" about the Sandringham regiment lost in World War I. He earned acclaim for a string of straight roles. These include Skullion in "Porterhouse Blue" (for Channel 4), Sidney "Pop" Larkin in the rural idyll "The Darling Buds of May" (Yorkshire Television/ITV) and based on the H. E. Bates novel, which featured Catherine Zeta-Jones in an early role. In 1992,
Harry Bates (author) Day the Earth Stood Still". The movie starred Keanu Reeves as the alien Klaatu and Jennifer Connelly as Dr. Helen Benson. David Scarpa wrote the screenplay based on Edmund H. North's 1951 screenplay. The critical and commercial success of the 1951 movie relied on the novel themes Bates introduced in his short story. Ever since H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" (1898), aliens were often described as menacing, aggressive, and murderous, with a degraded moral and ethical sense. In Bates' story, aliens are the opposite, possessing a good moral character. The alien Klaatu's face "radiated kindness, wisdom, the purest