It struck in a flash. A single bolt of lightning attacking the roof of the old factory building, Douglas House, in Kingswood.

The former Douglas Motorcycle Company building crackled as the surge of energy rushed through the structure.

From inside their office on the top floor of the old factory, aspiring television producers Andrew Dymond and Jonathan Brown looked at each other in horror.

The lightning had found the computer network cable and, in a split second, it had coursed through the veins of the building, causing damage costing thousands of pounds to repair and all but frying every computer in the building.

The significance wasn't lost on Andrew and Jonathan, who have run the LightWorx post production studio in the Hanham Road building since 1999.

For buried into all those computers was four years' work – material that had cost more than £850,000.

Indeed, nothing short of an alternative universe was at stake.

Since 2003, Andrew and Jonathan had been developing and filming Starhyke, a six-part sci-fi comedy.

And at that moment, just a week before its premiere at the Cinema de Lux in Cabot Circus, it looked like the whole series might have gone up in smoke.

"I worked on the computers for hours and hours, with sparks flying right, left and centre," explains Andrew.

"I was desperately hoping that the material hadn't been damaged by the lightning – and somehow, miraculously, it hadn't. It was all still there."

Jonathan laughs, and with a shake of his head, he adds: "It was quite a relief, I can tell you. But it's as if everything that could be thrown at us to stop Starhyke making it to the screen has been.

"Apart from the financial struggle that we've endured to find more than £800,000 of capital to film the series, our best-known actor and a good friend, Star Wars veteran Michael Sheard, died tragically a couple of weeks before we started filming.

"And early on in the project, I discovered that I had a brain tumour.

"In fact, I'm very lucky. I wouldn't have known about the tumour if it hadn't been for the medical I needed to take to get insurance for the project.

"Thankfully, discovering it meant that I was able to have it successfully operated on.

"If it wasn't for Starhyke, I mightn't be here now."

But the pair have been determined throughout that they would see the project through.

Jonathan says: "We've believed in it since the beginning and we still believe it could be a real success when it reaches television screens."

Jonathan, 37, who is originally from York, and Bristol-born Andrew, 38, had the idea for Starhyke shortly after setting up their Lightworx company.

"I liked the idea of creating a science fiction comedy that was funny but also offered real sci-fi plots," Jonathan explains.

"Then Andrew told me he had produced a short film 20 years before called Starhyke, which had won a cult TV award. We decided we could use this as a starting point for the series."

The story is set in the year 3034. Humans have wiped out almost all alien species with the help of a molecular compound which was designed to stop anger, fear and envy – but it has destroyed all human emotions as an unfortunate side-effect.

Humans begin to threaten the last alien race, the Reptids. But they have a secret weapon in their arsenal – a weapon that is able to reignite the emotions of the Starhyke crew.

"It was tough at first to get anyone interested in backing the project," Jonathan says.

"This was back in 2003 before programmes like Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica had made their big comebacks. Sci-fi was seriously out of fashion for a while."

But Andrew and Jonathan were able to find an ingenious way to develop a budget.

"We went to a venture capital company," Jonathan explains.

"In return for a cut in the final product, they agreed to find investors.

"In fact, they found about 50 individuals in the end who could see that if the series was a success they could enjoy some great returns.

"The fact that we were able to film it under the Government's Enterprise Initiative Scheme meant they would get a tax break by putting their money into it anyway, so that was also a great incentive."

After clearing out their own savings accounts to make up the shortfall, Jonathan and Andrew finally had the money to make the show.

But in the world of sci-fi television, £850,000 is a tiny budget.

"We had to think outside the box a little when it came to filming the series," Jonathan says.

"We knew we couldn't afford to hire a sound stage studio to film in, so we rented a floor of a former printworks building in Fishponds and soundproofed it ourselves with chicken wire and insulation.

"Because it was so much cheaper than hiring a studio, we were able to set up 15,000sq ft of sets for the entire duration of filming.

"To be honest, it worked really well. We'd do the same thing again next time – maybe find an even bigger warehouse to convert, rather than paying for a studio."

For exterior shots, Andrew and Jonathan looked no further than Bristol itself.

Scenes were filmed across the city, including Oldbury Court Inn, Dangerfields fish and chips shop in Fishponds and Central Chambers gentlemen's club in St Stephen's Street.

"The people of Bristol have been brilliant," Jonathan says. "We wouldn't consider filming anywhere else.

"We put a poster up in the Forbidden Planet comic book shop in Broadmead, calling for sci-fi fans to volunteer their services in helping to build the sets – and had a tremendous response."

Former Forbidden Planet manager Simon Gilvear played the lead alien, along with established actors such as Danny John-Jules (Cat in Red Dwarf), Claudia Christian (Susan Ivanova in Babylon 5), Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett in Star Wars) and Brad Gorton (Dan Barratt in London's Burning).

There was also a role specially written for Sky At Night icon Sir Patrick Moore, who plays The Oracle who provides learned advice to the crew while dressed in an Ali G-style yellow tracksuit.

"Luckily enough, Sir Patrick is an old friend of the family," Jonathan says. "He was the godfather of one of my great cousins, so I was able to get hold of his phone number fairly easily.

"I gave him a call and explained what we were doing. He agreed to take a look at the script, and phoned back a few days later to say he'd enjoyed it and would love to feature in the show. He was a great sport throughout the filming. He was happy to dress up in whatever costumes we wanted to give him."

The series already has a considerable fanbase before it's even been screened on television.

"We set up a good website, and even early on we were getting a million hits each month.

"There's a lot of people out there excited about the prospect of seeing the series reach their TV screens."

Andrew and Jonathan unveiled all six episodes to a crowd of 240 of their website fans at the Cabot Circus launch last week.

"We were delighted with the response from the crowd," Andrew says. "They all said they would watch the series if it made it to TV."

The next step for Andrew and Jonathan is to make that dream become a reality.

"We have meetings planned in the next few weeks with three different television stations, all of which are interested in buying the series to screen, and hopefully to commission future series if it proves a success.

"But whatever happens, we will be releasing Starhyke on DVD next year and we're also developing a Starhyke computer game to marry up with the series."

For more information on the series, visit the website at www.starhyke.com