WE’RE STANDING IN THE shadow of the snout of a dirty, scorched spaceship, its gangplank lowered. You can easily imagine Firefly’s Malcolm Reynolds striding out. Zoom out from a tight focus, however, and the illusion’s broken. This is just a small slice of set – a place to shoot exits and entrances, aided by bluescreen. Behind it, across a road, humdrum residential housing stretches out on either side.

It’s February 2020, and SFX is on the backlot at Manchester’s aptly-named Space Studios. Last time we visited it was home to Sky One’s near-future road race series Curfew. Now it’s hosting a space-faring sci-fi show from the same production company, Moonage Pictures.

A short stroll away, a main street set has been constructed. Lined with market stalls, its buildings are painted in Mediterranean shades of green, orange and turquoise. A menu on a wall listing dishes further suggests a European influence. If it sounds like a possible holiday destination that’s only because we haven’t mentioned the tyre-tracked mud underfoot,