Michael E. Briant

Directing

Michael E. Briant

Born 1942-02-14

Michael Edwin Briant (born 14 February 1942) is a retired English television director and author, best known for his work as a director for BBC television drama in the 1970s and 1980s. At the age of 21 Briant joined the BBC as an assistant floor manager in the drama department and a year later became a production assistant. In 1966, he took a Directors Course. Sometimes credited as just Michael Briant, he subsequently directed series such as Z-Cars and Doctor Who, directing Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker in a total of six serials: Colony in Space (1971), The Sea Devils (1972), The Green Death (1973), Death to the Daleks (1974), Revenge of the Cybermen (1975) and The Robots of Death (1977). He went on to direct several episodes from the first season of Blake's 7 in 1978, and Secret Army between 1978 and 1979. He later directed four of the six episodes of its sequel, Kessler, and the thriller series Blood Money, in which he cast many of the actors from Secret Army.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

No artwork available
7.5

A former CIA agent is forced by crooked agents of the government to pose as a notorious smuggler of the Tangier Straits who happens to be a stiff

Tangiers

1982

Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks poster
6.2

An energy drain traps the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith on the planet Exxilon with its hostile natives, causing the travellers to make an uneasy alliance with a Marine Space Corps expedition and a squadron of Daleks. The key to escape for all of them lies at the heart of a powerful and mysterious lost city, but only after a series of deadly traps.

Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks

1974

Blake's 7: The Beginning poster
9.0

In the far future, freedom fighter Roj Blake, framed by the all-powerful but corrupt Galactic Federation, escapes his captors from his sentence to a harsh penal colony and, helped by a handful of fellow convicts and armed with a superbly-equipped alien spaceship, sets about restoring freedom to the galaxy.

Blake's 7: The Beginning

1985

Blake's 7: Duel poster
NR

Supreme Commander Servalan assigns the task to the deadly Travis-his orders simply to seek, locate and destroy Blake's 7! Travis and his Mutoid crew clash with Blake in a crucial struggle over the Federation's secret cypher machine and again in desperate hand-to-hand combat on a mysterious dead planet. Finally, they confront each other on a barren ice world as Blake attempts to rescue the resistance leader, Avalon. This time, however, Travis is expecting him, and a terrible trap awaits. . .

Blake's 7: Duel

1986

Blake's 7: Orac poster
NR

A spaceship crashes approaching the planet Cephlon and when the crew of the Liberator answer the distress call they find their own lives endangered. Blake is caught in a desperate race against time to save the lives of the crew and also find the mysterious ORAC. Once in Blake's possession, ORAC predicts the future of Blake and his crew by showing them an image of the Liberator blown to atoms in space. Blake is powerless to alter their inevitable destruction, and when the Liberator is seized by a hostile force, a series of terrifying events sets the prophecy in motion.

Blake's 7: Orac

1986

Doctor Who: The Robots of Death poster
7.9

The Doctor and Leela must catch a killer on a vast mining ship run by robots and humans.

Doctor Who: The Robots of Death

1977

Doctor Who: Colony in Space poster
6.6

When the Master steals the Time Lords' secret file on the Doomsday Weapon, they grant the Doctor a temporary reprieve from his exile on Earth to deal with the crisis. He and Jo arrive on the planet Uxarieus and become enmeshed in a struggle between an agrarian colony and a powerful mining corporation.

Doctor Who: Colony in Space

1971

Doctor Who: The Sea Devils poster
7.6

The Doctor and Jo visit the Master in his high-security prison on an island off the south coast of England. The governor, Colonel Trenchard, says ships have been disappearing mysteriously at sea. The Doctor discovers that Trenchard and the Master are in league to contact the Sea Devils, a race of reptiles in hibernation in a base beneath the sea, who have been awoken by recent work on a nearby sea fort. The Master intends to use his new allies to help him conquer the world!

Doctor Who: The Sea Devils

1972

Doctor Who: The Green Death poster
8.4

The Doctor and UNIT investigate a deadly infection lurking underneath the Welsh mining town of Llanfairfach. It's an adventure that will change Jo Grant's life forever...

Doctor Who: The Green Death

1973

Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermen poster
5.9

Arriving on Space Station Nerva in its distant past, the Doctor, Sarah and Harry find its crew threatened by a mysterious plague. Discovering that things are not as they seem, they uncover a Cyberman plot to destroy Voga, planet of gold.

Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermen

1975

Treasure Island poster
NR

Jim Hawkins discovers a treasure map and embarks on a journey to find the treasure, but pirates led by Long John Silver have plans to take the treasure for themselves by way of mutiny.

Treasure Island

1977