"I found a spaceship..." - Des Kinvig

Des Kinvig leads a particularly dull life; as he runs his unsuccessful electrical repair shop with his fussing wife, Netta, and their dog Cuddly, he whiles away the hours daydreaming of better things. However, all that is about to change… One night, Des comes across an alien spaceship parked on a piece of waste ground; entering the vessel, Des meets three strange aliens named Loom, Bat and Sagga, and learns to his astonishment that their commander is none other than one of his customers – the captivating Miss Griffin…

’Kinvig’ can best be described as quirky, oddball, and bizarre, and is certainly one of the most underrated and overlooked science fiction / sitcoms made. Whilst it is rarely laugh-out-loud funny, the show does succeed in presenting some fun storylines filled with wry humour and amusing parody; the characters of Des Kinvig and his layabout friend Jim Piper are particularly entertaining, as their zealous belief in extraterrestrial intelligence causes them to lose all sense of rational thought and objectivity, as, by completely misinterpreting innocuous situations, they become swept up in what they believe to be an alien plot to take over the Earth. Des’ out of body experiences are nothing more than the daydreams of an idle mind, which enable the work shy repairman to subconsciously relieve his frustrations by creating for himself a fantasy world in which he is the hero, and Miss Griffin (clad in some of the most garish and revealing costumes ever seen outside of ‘Buck Rogers’) is his beautiful, sexy, extraterrestrial lover.

Creator Nigel Kneale ('Quatermass', 'The Stone Tape', 'Beasts' and countless more seminal works!) got the inspiration for ‘Kinvig’ after attending a science fiction convention; he was so astounded by the bizarre behaviour exhibited by some of the more obsessive fans that he decided to parody them in a comedy series. However, this may not have been his best move, as the people he was sending up were the very people that the show was pitched at! It also didn’t help that audiences were confused by the show’s premise, which they found too ambiguous; left unsure whether Des actually lived in a fantasy world or not, many people missed the joke, and the show fell flat. It is a shame that Kneale’s plans for a second season never got the go ahead; if ‘Kinvig’ had been given the opportunity to develop and improve itself it could have become much more successful, rather than the forgotten gem it is…


Kinvig - Season 1

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Legal Bit: 'Kinvig' is a registered trademark of Carlton Television. The 'Kinvig' logo and all images from the television series are copyright Carlton Television unless otherwise stated; music is copyright the original composers and producers; no copyright infringement is intended. All specially created images and text are copyright © Clive Banks; please do not use these without my permission. All rights reserved. No profit is made from this website, and any revenue made from using the banner-links featured goes straight back into the costs of maintaining it, which comes out of my own pocket in the first place. No profit advertising is accepted. This website was created purely to entertain and amuse, and any references to persons living, dead, comatose, in suspended animation, not born yet, a figment of someone's imagination or abducted by aliens is purely coincidental. All opinions expressed are my own, so there...

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