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The Cult of Cult Programmes

© Allan Lee

What is it with cult programmes? How do you define them? Why is it that The X-Files is a critically acclaimed cult TV programme while, say, Space Precinct is not? Why has The Archers lasted on BBC Radio since the 1950s, while Waggoner's Walk did not (I think a special prize goes to anyone who can remember ANYTHING about Waggoner's Walk).

What Makes a Cult Programme?

Patrick MacGoohan, who starred in, wrote, directed and produced one of the most successful cult TV shows of all time (The Prisoner), says in his introduction to the book Cult TV, "Perhaps the answer is that these programmes were made by enthusiasts who believed passionately in their work, and the energy of their belief is transmitted to a select audience sympathetic to the theme and hungry themselves for an enthusiasm."

That sounds pretty good to me. After all, many of the most successful Cult programmes in the history of broadcasting weren't actually successful at all by normal measures. Star Trek was a ratings flop on its first outing on NBC, cancelled ignominiously during the third season. And yet the series has truly changed the world we live in. The first NASA space shuttle to fly (well, glide, anyway) was the USS Enterprise. Nichelle Nichols, the actress who played the beautiful Lieutenant Uhura, is credited by Martin Luther King, no less, as giving young black people a positive role model when there were few others on TV. And phrases like "Beam me up, Scotty," or "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it," have become commonplace in everyday speech. Not everyone's a Trekkie... but there aren't many people on the planet who haven't been touched by the vision of Gene Roddenberry.

Take MacGoohan's own series, The Prisoner. The series confused and confounded the viewer with its twists and turns. Who - and for that matter, Why - was Number Six? Did ANYONE understand the last episode? When the series was transmitted in Britain, ITV switchboards around the country were jammed by viewers, furious at the inconclusive conclusion. And the series still lives on, and people still travel to the village of Portmeirion in North Wales where it was filmed.

Cults aren't new

And it's not as if the cult programme is a NEW invention. The Archers, an everyday story of country folk, began on a one-week trial on Whit Monday in the BBC's Midland region in 1950. At the beginning of 1951 it was given network status on The Light Programme. And now the "dum de dum de dum de dum" signature tune is a key point in Radio 4's programming,

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