dark beige

A dangerous new chapter in the beleaguered history of former TV heroes has begun. Tensions between the various factions had been relatively quiet for the past few years, ever since Hamish Macbeth famously called an emergency "gathering of the clans" to plead for peace, after the senseless slaying of Jonathan Creek and Taggart, who both ended up murdered after a long running feud that echoed that of Tupac and Biggie Smalls in America.

Historically, two rival factions have battled for years over a mixture of issues including total number of Radio Times covers achieved, and DVD rights. But the original split was very simple - a fall out between TV detectives (Cagney, Petrocelli, Lacey et al), who for years have dominated the TV hero world, and all the others, people who even if their role was similar to that of a detective were not officially detectives by profession. This group was sick of missing out on what they saw as their rightful slice of the pie, and included men like Father Dowling, Quincy and Dr Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap (though even the very fact he didn't have his surname in the show's title was controversial to some).

Tensions once again arose at the UK Gold summer party, which many had hoped would pass off without incident. However, an at first seemingly trifling tussle between Lovejoy and Bergerac over the final mini pizza canape lead to an all out brawl between up to 15 men and women. Many were hurt in the fight, including MacGyver with a broken arm, Wycliffe with a broken nose, Renegade with internal bleeding and Scully from X Files in a coma.

Many are hoping a truce can quickly be called before events again spiral out of control, with different opinions emerging from both camps. On the detectives' side, Spender has urged calm, but a fired up Detective Jack Frost vowed vengeance.

In the "non-detective" camp, Cadfael naturally preached peace, while Perry Mason (who in a cruel twist of fate has to share a likeness with arch enemy Ironside) said that things weren't looking good for peace. "You just never know what Mitch Buchanan might do", he warned. Meanwhile, Quincy muttered something about a toxicology, and a conspiracy.