From: T.G.Nattress@newcastle.ac.uk (Graeme Nattress)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv.uk
Subject: Re: The Tomorrow People, today....as it were
Date: 19 Nov 92 09:25:22 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU

asr@castle.ed.ac.uk (Angus "Furry" Rae) writes:

Spoilers ahead.....




























>Well, I just finished watching the "All New" The Tomorrow People. It
>looks as if it might be not too bad, thankfully. I wasn't paying maximum
>attention as I was preparing to dash out, but here's a quick synopsis
>anyway.

I've watched it twice so I may be able to add a little more detail...

>Opens with somebody (unnamed during first show, but Adam (Kirsten
>Schmidt(sp))

Kristian Schmid (sp) from Neighbours....  His acting seemed ok, but then again,
he didn't actuallly say anything!

> from credits) waking up on a beach having apparently been
>half drowned. He wanders up the beach and finds a stange tailfin like
>object emerging from the sand. There is a round panel with strange
>markings round it next to it. When he investigates, it glows and opens
>sucking him inside. He falls into what is obviously a spaceship, and
>explores a little before finding a bridge of some sort, with what seems
>to be a Slave rip off at the centre...

Now we have the opening credits:

There is no on screen or radio times identification for the story title.  The
opening titles consist of a computer graphics representation of the hatch of
the spaceship with "the tomorrow people" written in the middle (not in the old
style font either....)  With the writer, etc.  apearing after.  It is written
by Roger Damon Price (the chap who wrote the origonal TP.

>Kevin (didn't read credits well enough, British though) is first
>introduced seeing an image of Lisa falling into water, and telling a
>friend about strange dreams he's been having about this girl called
>Lisa.  They then fire at a couple of local heavies with waterpistols
>from the bus.  (Idiots!) When he sleeps over at the friends house, they
>start playing an ESP style game which involves the other kid (nickname
>of Megabyte, I think) looking at cards and Kevin guessing them.

 This bit is very like the Schiziod Man from the Prisoner!

> He
>scores 100% and also sees an image of a car magazine that MB looks at
>inadvertantly.  Later he reveals that he's been able to do this for a
>while but it's getting worse and now he has these dreams... he falls
>asleep.

Before this they have a go of a video game...

>Lisa (didn't read credits again, American) is introduced being prepared
>by her mother for a talent contest which se doesn't want to enter.  When
>she gets onstage she freezes completely, and when the audience starts
>laughing she suddenly vanishes to a little glowing dot, which fades...
>(yay!)

A slight misinterpretaion of events here, methinks.... What happens is, as Lisa
enters the stage , everything slows down, and the people clap slowly.  This is
obviously a bit of direction showing how nervous lisa is...  She trys to pick
up the mic. but it moves of it's own accord and falls out of her hands, then
everyone laughs, she touches the mic. stand and vanishes....

>She plunges into water off a coastline. Kevin, meanwhile, is having a
>nightmare about this and calls her name, and then promptly vanishes as
>well. He also plunges into the water, but can't swim and has to be
>rescued by Lisa. They make it ashore, and both think that they're
>dreaming. Lisa asks Kevin to slap her, get's fed up by his not very
>enthusiastic slaps and slaps him a cracker. He promptly vanishes again
>and reappears back on the bed, covering it in sand and water.

>Lisa explores the beach, and finds a tent which she pinches a change of
>clothes from. She then finds the same tailfin and hatch and is also
>sucked in.

>Back at the talent concert, a British science intelligence agent and an
>American science intelligence agent start to set up shop in the hall.
>The British agent mentions that they usually reappear where they left
>from, and they nearly caught one last month, but they used too much power
>and there wasn't much left. "We're still in a sort of learning curve
>situation." He sets up devices around the point Lisa left from.

>Back in the UK, Kevin and (whatever his name is, I'll check the video)
>set out for school, with much discussion of experiments later. They run
>into the heavies again, and escape on a bus,

Just like in the Prisoner ep Fallout!

> which stops at the
>lights... The one called Hulk (heesh!) grabs Kevin and starts banging
>his head off the roof while the other holds the other kid. Kevin
>vanishes again... and appears over the sea and promptly starts to drown.
>End of episode...

He gets cuaghtin some seaweed as well...

>I hope I got everything there.

>Now, interpretations...
>Compared to the earlier TP, Kevin is grossly powered. He has strong
>precog (he saw Lisa falling into the water before she did so by a good
>12 hours) and strong telepathy with non-TP. I can't recall any of the
>others having precog or telepathy that strong. (Alternatively, the other
>kid might be also a TP, and Lisa is the precog...)

Remember, Kevin is breaking out and it would seem to run true with the old TP
that their powers go a bit wild during this stage.  It was also evident in the
old series that different TP's had slightly different powers..., ie the black
lad was good at psychokinesis...

>There must be something guiding these jaunts - Lisa should have jaunted
>somewhere she knew. Kevin might have jaunted to Lisa. Also, Adam must
>have jaunted there (unless he was in the tent and went swimming in his
>clothes or something...)

It would seem as if the spaceship was drawing them there...

>The ship... now, if that isn't sent by the Galactic Trig I'll eat my
>hat... it must be an "auto break out" detector or something... and I'll
>lay strong odds that the Slave ripoff is actually a Tim ripoff minues
>the lava lamps. (Shame!)

And minus a voice aparantly!  BBTW the set was VG and the loaction was very
nice...

>All in all, it looks not too bad. But I'll reserve final judgement until
>they finish scene setting.

Only too true,  it was only the opening ep and they were still intorducing the
characters...

BTW it looked as though it had a large budget.  Also the video effects were a
little OTT but with it being shot on film it looked quite nice....

>--
>Angus G Rae, the Cuddly Vampire Teddy Bear [asr@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk]
>"Let me explain about Genetic Engineering. That's where you take a cell
>from a human being and put it into a sheep, in the hope that one day it
>will go out and buy something."           Neil Innes, More Jam Tomorrow

Graeme,


{---    T.G.Nattress@uk.ac.ncl -----------------------------------------}
{--------------------------------- The Moral of this story is: ---------}
{---    Never trust a Venusian Floghorn with a Perigosto Stick. --------}
{-----------------------------------------------------------------------}