Stark (novel) on this novel, which was subsequently made as "Stark", a television miniseries. It was a joint production by the BBC and the ABC (the British and Australian national broadcasters). Ben Elton played the lead role, with Colin Friels as Sly and Jacqueline McKenzie as Rachel. There were some differences between the novel and the miniseries; some characters were renamed, and the ending was different. Elton's subsequent two novels, "Gridlock" and "This Other Eden", also deal with environmental themes and are set in a dystopian future. "Alternative 3", a 1977 British television hoax masquerading as a documentary, shared some themes with
Gridlock in a different context. The first appearances of "gridlock" in newspapers occurred during the 1980 New York City transit strike. The word is attributed to Sam Schwartz, who was then the chief traffic engineer for the New York City Department of Transportation at the time of the strike. Schwartz said the word "gridlock" was used internally in his department during the 1970s, perhaps as early as 1971. Writing up a memo of emergency recommendations for senior officials, he recalled the words of a colleague several years earlier who had been analyzing a proposal to close Broadway to vehicular traffic. His