- Following his success with a new form of TV - 'The Family' (in which personal and wider social issues were raised within the confines of the daily life of a family) Paul Watson sought to extend how television could deal more broadly with such material. He came up with the idea of extended local production. To do this he created a production unit in the Lancashire town of Darwen - once a thriving industrial centre but at the time of the series had entered its years of decline - here he and the team lived and worked among groups of the town's citizens recording how local, national and international events affected them and how they regarded the governance of the Town, the County and the Country.—Anon
- Following his success with a new form of TV 'The Family' (in which personal and wider social issues were raised within the confines of the daily life of a family) Paul Watson sought to extend how television could deal more broadly with such material. He came up with the idea of extended local production. To do this he created a production unit in the Lancashire town of Darwen once a thriving industrial centre but at the time of the series had entered its years of decline here he, and the team, lived and worked among groups of the town's citizens recording how local, national and international events affected them and how they regarded the governance of the Town, the County and the Country. The unit's H.Q. was based at the heart of the town above the local Baker's shop and here, for 3 months, the programmes were created and edited. The resultant 10 half hour weekly episodes were transmitted from the BBC's regional base in Oxford Road, Manchester. The series dealt with a wide and controversial range of issues and caused controversy both locally and nationally. It might be regarded as 'Run Away Television' as it was produced far from the Television Centre and Departmental control. For the first time the contributors were much more closely involved with the whole production process than had ever been previously the case. Perhaps it started what was later to become 'Access Television'. Shot on film the programmes were created at great speed and each episode of the series running from January to March was only completed shortly before the 6.30 pm transmission slot.
EP 1 transmitted 18th January 1983s
EP 10 transmitted 22nd March 1983
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