The Tomorrow People - The Slaves of Jedikiah.

Recently, I acquired the complete series of The Tomorrow People on Ebay for a fairly small amount. Figuring that the price was low enough, I bought them, despite the series having a less than stellar reputation amongst cult TV fans. So, was it worth it?

Well...

As way of introduction, The Tomorrow People was a British SF show that ran for 8 seasons between 1973 and 1979, and was revived with a new cast in 1992. It was touted as ITV's answer to Doctor Who, but the show has never enjoyed the same popularity, and as mentioned above, has a somewhat bad reputation, usually being mentioned fairly derisively as a camp show, or for making Doctor Who look lavish and expensive.

The Tomorrow People themselves are the next generation of humanity, blessed with powers of telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation (referred to as jaunting here). In theory, they are supposed to shepherd in a new era for humanity, watching out for new tomorrow people, and helping them through the process of 'breaking out' (i.e. puberty).

The first story is "The Slaves of Jedikiah", a five part story. It beings in the time honored tradition of introducing the team and concept through the eyes of their newest member, in this case Stephen. He shows up whilst in the middle of breaking out himself, and the other tomorrow people are introduced whilst monitoring him, waiting for the moment he breaks out, to recruit and help him. Or, as actually happens, to bicker amongst themselves, act like gits, keep losing Stephen, and get involved in an incredibly convoluted plot.

The general concept itself is not an original one, and is familiar from a million different other works, X-Men being the first one that leaps to mind (they also use the term Homo Superior, which had popped up in X-Men before this). The execution, though, is incredibly flawed. The first thing that leaps to the notice is the pace. I know that 70s TV and modern TV have different sensibilities, but even compared to its contemporaries, The Tomorrow People is glacially paced. This opening story is five parts long, and barely has enough plot for half of that. We spend an inordinate amount of time jaunting from place to place and back again. From the streets of London to a hospital to the lab, to the hospital again, to the lab, to a country house, to the lab, to a country house again, back to the lab, etc. Maybe it didn't seem so bad in weekly chunks, but on DVD it's interminable.

The next is the characters. Again, I know this was kid's TV from 30 years ago, but our heroes are an alternately bland and annoying lot. Stephen and Kenny (the youngest TP) are one dimensional, Carol (the girl) spends all of her scenes on the verge of hysteria for some reason, and John (the leader) is a tit. Sorry, that was a little stronger than I intended, but he is. He's incredibly patronizing and insulting, and he spends all of his scenes belittling his supposed friends, acting like a know-it-all, and making heady speeches about how normal humans are terribly inferior and how the TP must be careful, blah blah blah....

The third is the plot. I mentioned the meandering before, and that extends to the plot. We start off with Stephen breaking out, and after that we that as well as our heroes, some sinister types are after him as well. Well, I say sinister - they're actually kid's TV versions of a biker gang, as thus about as menacing as a chicken vol-au-vent. It then turns out that they are working for some big guy called Jedikiah, who wants Stephen for his own nefarious purposes. After a few tedious episodes of getting captured, escaping, getting captured, escaping, etc, it turns out he also works for someone else - an alien cyclops! Who is the same cyclops from Greek myth (I think - it gets a bit confusing). But he's just inconvenienced, not evil. But then Jedikiah malfunctions, and the bikers turn good, and the cyclops is rescued, and Jedikiah runs around randomly blowing things up, and...well, then it just sort of ends. If that sounds confusing, it was even worse when you're watching it. Just imagine that description, only two and a half hours long, and you get the idea.

I can't help feeling, after watching this, that The Tomorrow People's bad reputation is mostly deserved. The whole thing is generally fairly tedious, with quite unlikable or boring characters, an alternately boring and confusing plot, and a horrible air of cheapness around the whole thing. I know that other Brit shows of the same period, like Who, are similarly cheap, but with them, they managed to rise above the flaws (mostly), by being genuinely engaging, well plotted, or at the very least, having good characters. Doctor Who (which I love) looks amazingly cheap most of the time, but I'm usually engaged enough by the story or characters that I don't mind. With The Tomorrow People, I'm not that engaged by what's happening, and I notice all the other flaws much more readily.

In summary, The Tomorrow People starts out badly. After watching this, I'm not particularly inclined to watch any more. However, I did already buy the series, so I should give it another chance. We'll see if this is just a poor pilot, or representative of the series itself later...