The Tomorrow People - Science Fiction Fantasy Chronicles: forums

Dave · 5th August 2002, 08:09 PM

Did anyone else watch this? I remember avidly watching it in my early teens. It was ITV's answer to the BBC's 'Dr Who'. At the time most teenagers thought that it was much more hip (cool). Unfortunately, I've seen it again more recently on the Sci-Fi Channel, and the acting is atrocious, the special effects bad, and the storylines are full of plot holes.

This early 1970's Thames Television show followed the exploits of a group of teenage super beings that were based in a secret lab in an abandoned London Underground railway station. They were the next step in human evolution: 'Homo Superior' (a name taken from a David Bowie lyric). The show's creator Roger Price came up with the idea after meeting Bowie, while making a TV pop show at Granada, and reading a mind-expanding novel called 'The Mind in Chains', by psycho-scientist Dr Christopher Evans. Evans would become the show's 'scientific adviser'.

The title sequence music and images was quite memorable, with a fist, a brain and some other objects that I never worked out, alternated between the faces of the current cast.

The child actors came and went at an alarming rate, explained away in the series by them going to the Galactic Federation, the Galactic Trig, which Earth would one day be able to join, if we stopped waging wars. In reality, they had gone on to Drama school, or to get 'proper' jobs.

Many stories involved them discovering a new Tomorrow Person as they 'broke out' during puberty and discovered their powers. This could be a both frightening and potentially dangerous event.

They were able to teleport (jaunt), move objects by telekinesis, and communicate telepathically with each other as well as their own biotronic supercomputer 'Tim'. Tim could amplify their powers, and also kept a constant watch on all TV and radio broadcasts. He was a source of information only comparable with Batman's Bat-computer in an age before unlimited computer memory and the Internet.

Each week the villains would be a variety of military types who wanted to use them as cold war spies, evil galactic criminals with bushy beards, and aliens who used forced child-labour. They would inevitably be knocked out, have their minds controlled, or lose their special powers completely.

The earlier episodes were the best and most thought provoking. This is quite a realistic review: http://www.animus-web.demon.co.uk/tellydoc/peeps.htm and stacks of further information here: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html

There was a recent re-imaging of the series, but I only saw part of an episode, and it just wasn't the same. The older series ended very abruptly, there was supposed to be a concluding serial, but the day that they would start filming the last serial, there was a strike at Thames Television, and it was cancelled.

ray gower · 5th August 2002, 09:48 PM

Would this be the one where in one episode thay were taken over, witnessed by sizeable amounts of cling film. And cured themselves by virtue of contacting a cold? Reminisent of the Body Snatchers.

If so. Yes I remember it.

Another had a warring race arriving and befriending Earth.
Seem to recall the kids persuaded an Astronaut to take them to the Galactic Federation Headquarters in his new space ship. Then torpedoing the headquartrs with nuclear missiles to make them do something.

Dave · 5th August 2002, 10:11 PM

I'm afraid that the later episodes got worse and worse. I think the story you are referring to is the one with Peter Davison (before he was 'Dr Who' or in 'All Creatures Great and Small') as a kind of male slave to female dominant aliens, when he dressed up as a Cowboy and Traffic Warden. It was extremely cringe making.

Watch the first season before you denouce it completely. 'The Vanishing Earth' story and 'The Blue and the Green' were as good as any 'Dr Who' stories.

ray gower · 5th August 2002, 10:38 PM

I quite enjoyed the ones I saw. Just didn't see many of them

Effects, such as they were, tended to be less imaginative than Doctor Who and a few of the kids looked as if they were reading the prompts.

But hey! We are going back nearly thirty years! Almost all SciFi was done on the cheap then! It is bound to look tacky now, when effects are glossy, easy and cheap(ish).

Think I would still prefer to see reruns of the Clangers though?

Bayleaf48 · 11th August 2002, 11:20 AM

I remember it vaguely, but didn't watch it all of the time though

Brit Chick · 25th September 2002, 02:04 PM

I SO remember this series - like you Dave, I was in my early teens when it was on and my brother and I were just waiting for the day when we would 'break out' - unfortunately for my little bro all he broke out in was acne !!! We just used to pretend we were Tomorrow People and had these super powers and esp.

I had such a crush on Mike (can't remember his last name - some crush eh!) the one that went on to be in the pop band.

I remember the Blue and Green ep and it was good - It all started with the painting in the antique shop if I remember correctly. I wonder whatever happened to those actors !! I bet they do have a little cringe when they see themselves in the series.

Bayleaf48 · 26th September 2002, 09:04 AM

Didn't really have a favourite character myself as I don't remember the characters 2 well

:blush:

Hi-lites · 25th September 2003, 02:43 AM

I wasn't even alive yet when the original series came out and I was too young to remember the new one coming out, but from what I hear, this show sounded excellent! :coolyello Too bad I won't ever get to see it.

L. Arkwright · 6th October 2003, 11:04 PM

I have to be honest, I never liked the Tomorrow people. Well I say I never liked it, what I really meant was it scared the pants off me.

Hmm so did a program called children of the stones or something like that. Lol I was such a cowardly child

ray gower · 6th October 2003, 11:35 PM

LOL.

Did you have a good secret base behind the sofa for Doctor Who, like the rest of us, too?

L. Arkwright · 7th October 2003, 12:03 PM

Haha, you know im begininng to think that their where subliminal messages in Dr Who because everyone who ever watched it and where "ahem" shall we say slightly unerved by it, always chose to hide behind the couch. Run out the room? Nope behind the sofa. Have a sudden urge for the loo? No way, instead feel the need to intimately study the differing types of fluff behind the settee.
There was something very suspicious going on back then.

triffid · 7th October 2003, 12:52 PM

Ahhhh, I remember the Tomorrow people. I used to watch that show on quite a regular basis when I were a kiddy. It's a pity they made such a hash of the re-imagening.

philoSCIFI · 22nd July 2004, 11:06 AM

I wasn't born when the original aired. And unfortunately I haven't had the luck to see the original in any form of sindication or other recordings. I have however seen the New Tomorrow People when it aired on Nickelodeon(? I believe?). I thought this was the coolest show when I saw the pilot. As much as I liked the new tomorrow people, I would have really loved to watch at least one episode from the original series.

5th August 2002, 08:09 PM	#1 (permalink)
Dave Wherever I Am, I'm There Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Greater London Posts: 11,308	The Tomorrow People Did anyone else watch this? I remember avidly watching it in my early teens. It was ITV's answer to the BBC's 'Dr Who'. At the time most teenagers thought that it was much more hip (cool). Unfortunately, I've seen it again more recently on the Sci-Fi Channel, and the acting is atrocious, the special effects bad, and the storylines are full of plot holes. This early 1970's Thames Television show followed the exploits of a group of teenage super beings that were based in a secret lab in an abandoned London Underground railway station. They were the next step in human evolution: 'Homo Superior' (a name taken from a David Bowie lyric). The show's creator Roger Price came up with the idea after meeting Bowie, while making a TV pop show at Granada, and reading a mind-expanding novel called 'The Mind in Chains', by psycho-scientist Dr Christopher Evans. Evans would become the show's 'scientific adviser'. The title sequence music and images was quite memorable, with a fist, a brain and some other objects that I never worked out, alternated between the faces of the current cast. The child actors came and went at an alarming rate, explained away in the series by them going to the Galactic Federation, the Galactic Trig, which Earth would one day be able to join, if we stopped waging wars. In reality, they had gone on to Drama school, or to get 'proper' jobs. Many stories involved them discovering a new Tomorrow Person as they 'broke out' during puberty and discovered their powers. This could be a both frightening and potentially dangerous event. They were able to teleport (jaunt), move objects by telekinesis, and communicate telepathically with each other as well as their own biotronic supercomputer 'Tim'. Tim could amplify their powers, and also kept a constant watch on all TV and radio broadcasts. He was a source of information only comparable with Batman's Bat-computer in an age before unlimited computer memory and the Internet. Each week the villains would be a variety of military types who wanted to use them as cold war spies, evil galactic criminals with bushy beards, and aliens who used forced child-labour. They would inevitably be knocked out, have their minds controlled, or lose their special powers completely. The earlier episodes were the best and most thought provoking. This is quite a realistic review: http://www.animus-web.demon.co.uk/tellydoc/peeps.htm and stacks of further information here: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html There was a recent re-imaging of the series, but I only saw part of an episode, and it just wasn't the same. The older series ended very abruptly, there was supposed to be a concluding serial, but the day that they would start filming the last serial, there was a strike at Thames Television, and it was cancelled.

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5th August 2002, 09:48 PM	#2 (permalink)
ray gower Registered User Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Gwynedd Posts: 3,576	Would this be the one where in one episode thay were taken over, witnessed by sizeable amounts of cling film. And cured themselves by virtue of contacting a cold? Reminisent of the Body Snatchers. If so. Yes I remember it. Another had a warring race arriving and befriending Earth. Seem to recall the kids persuaded an Astronaut to take them to the Galactic Federation Headquarters in his new space ship. Then torpedoing the headquartrs with nuclear missiles to make them do something.

5th August 2002, 10:11 PM	#3 (permalink)
Dave Wherever I Am, I'm There Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Greater London Posts: 11,308	I'm afraid that the later episodes got worse and worse. I think the story you are referring to is the one with Peter Davison (before he was 'Dr Who' or in 'All Creatures Great and Small') as a kind of male slave to female dominant aliens, when he dressed up as a Cowboy and Traffic Warden. It was extremely cringe making. Watch the first season before you denouce it completely. 'The Vanishing Earth' story and 'The Blue and the Green' were as good as any 'Dr Who' stories.

5th August 2002, 10:38 PM	#4 (permalink)
ray gower Registered User Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Gwynedd Posts: 3,576	I quite enjoyed the ones I saw. Just didn't see many of them Effects, such as they were, tended to be less imaginative than Doctor Who and a few of the kids looked as if they were reading the prompts. But hey! We are going back nearly thirty years! Almost all SciFi was done on the cheap then! It is bound to look tacky now, when effects are glossy, easy and cheap(ish). Think I would still prefer to see reruns of the Clangers though?

11th August 2002, 11:20 AM	#5 (permalink)
Bayleaf48 Hero Of Time Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Barnstaple, North Devon Posts: 3,126	I remember it vaguely, but didn't watch it all of the time though

25th September 2002, 02:04 PM	#6 (permalink)
Brit Chick Ooh look - shiny things ! Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: London Posts: 276	I SO remember this series - like you Dave, I was in my early teens when it was on and my brother and I were just waiting for the day when we would 'break out' - unfortunately for my little bro all he broke out in was acne !!! We just used to pretend we were Tomorrow People and had these super powers and esp. I had such a crush on Mike (can't remember his last name - some crush eh!) the one that went on to be in the pop band. I remember the Blue and Green ep and it was good - It all started with the painting in the antique shop if I remember correctly. I wonder whatever happened to those actors !! I bet they do have a little cringe when they see themselves in the series.

26th September 2002, 09:04 AM	#7 (permalink)
Bayleaf48 Hero Of Time Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Barnstaple, North Devon Posts: 3,126	Didn't really have a favourite character myself as I don't remember the characters 2 well :blush:

25th September 2003, 02:43 AM	#8 (permalink)
Hi-lites Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Texas, USA Posts: 5	I wasn't even alive yet when the original series came out and I was too young to remember the new one coming out, but from what I hear, this show sounded excellent! :coolyello Too bad I won't ever get to see it.

6th October 2003, 11:04 PM	#9 (permalink)
L. Arkwright Vimes's stunt double Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Salisbury England Posts: 97	I have to be honest, I never liked the Tomorrow people. Well I say I never liked it, what I really meant was it scared the pants off me. Hmm so did a program called children of the stones or something like that. Lol I was such a cowardly child

6th October 2003, 11:35 PM	#10 (permalink)
ray gower Registered User Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Gwynedd Posts: 3,576	LOL. Did you have a good secret base behind the sofa for Doctor Who, like the rest of us, too?

7th October 2003, 12:03 PM	#11 (permalink)
L. Arkwright Vimes's stunt double Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Salisbury England Posts: 97	Haha, you know im begininng to think that their where subliminal messages in Dr Who because everyone who ever watched it and where "ahem" shall we say slightly unerved by it, always chose to hide behind the couch. Run out the room? Nope behind the sofa. Have a sudden urge for the loo? No way, instead feel the need to intimately study the differing types of fluff behind the settee. There was something very suspicious going on back then.

7th October 2003, 12:52 PM	#12 (permalink)
triffid Wasteland wanderer. Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: In a pot. Posts: 188	Ahhhh, I remember the Tomorrow people. I used to watch that show on quite a regular basis when I were a kiddy. It's a pity they made such a hash of the re-imagening.

22nd July 2004, 11:06 AM	#13 (permalink)
philoSCIFI Questarian Gaterider P3g Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: California Posts: 1,029	I wasn't born when the original aired. And unfortunately I haven't had the luck to see the original in any form of sindication or other recordings. I have however seen the New Tomorrow People when it aired on Nickelodeon(? I believe?). I thought this was the coolest show when I saw the pilot. As much as I liked the new tomorrow people, I would have really loved to watch at least one episode from the original series.