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The very first episode of the very first Tomorrow People story opens with London looking at its grim and depressing best. If Tower Bridge had flared trousers and an afro, this would be the ultimate 70s tableau.
An astonishingly bad bit of chromakey introduces us to the first of our heroes – this is Kenny. Don’t get to like him – he won’t be around for long.
This is happy go lucky school boy, Stephen Jameson. He doesn’t know it yet but he’s about to become a homo superior. I think that's a senior lesbian nun but I might be wrong.
Mmm – chocolate.
Something very weird is happening to Stephen – his head is full of voices and everything is going a bit blue. Rather like realising you’re on live television and Frankie Boyle is shouting at you through your earpiece.
We forgo the opening titles and instead enjoy a simple visual effect which just goes to prove that everyone is the same colour if looked at through a SFX filter.
This is John – he’s running things at TPHQ. He doesn’t have a last name. He’ll be our rock, our guide, our roll-necked hero for the next 70 episodes.
Medics put Stephen on a stretcher and prepare to take him away. They don’t know about Tomorrow People so they’ll probably treat him for mumps or something.
One suspicious character looks on. Actually there are two of them but the other is too short to be in shot. We can see Ginge, we’ll shortly meet Lefty.
And this is Carol – she won’t be sticking around either but she’s the closest the Tomorrow People ever got to proper totty.
That weird foamy effect means she’s jaunting – the TP word for teleporting. The effect was silly so they dropped it after the first series. Jaunting involves clutching one’s belt in an extremely camp way. She can just about get away with it because it pushes her boobs out but the men sacrifice their dignity every time they can’t be arsed walking somewhere.
A shouty policeman has spotted Kenny sitting on the bridge. Lord love a duck – he doesn’t half gawp when Kenny vanishes a moment later.
Stephen is brought here – to the Claremount General… you can read it for yourself. His position is being calculated by TIM – the Tomorrow People’s alien computer.
And by Ginge and Lefty on their human motorbikes. By which I mean built by humans rather than built out of humans. It’s a wacky show but not that wacky a show.
They report Stephen’s position to their boss using futuristic alien technology. Their boss is the trapper from "The Keys of Marinus" and anything else in the 1960s which needed a huge man with a beard.
A pointless scene next – the first thing that would’ve been chopped off by a modern script editor – as we get Stephen’s mum hearing about her son being in hospital.
But not before she puts the phone down and walks over to switch the record player off. A slow scene just got a whole lot slower.
And then she hangs up, redials and has the same conversation (but playing the other role) with Stephen’s dad.
Back at the lab, they are combining all their data into one big chart and TIM is drawing on that chart in magic pencil.
Stephen is still asleep. The doctor has a quick look at him but can’t find anything wrong. He leaves the nurse behind to do some light medical stroking until the parents arrive.
John is concerned – if Stephen falls asleep while breaking out he might jaunt into the middle of who knows where. Ignore that Stephen is already asleep and assume John is right. That’s the key to enjoying the Tomorrow People.
Stephen’s mum has arrived at the hospital and is pumped for information about family medical issues past, present and future. The only thing she can think of is that Stephen has been daydreaming a lot recently. And having terrible nightmares. And been hearing voices. Apart from that, no history of mental illness whatsoever.
Right on cue, Stephen starts hearing voices.
And he falls into a heart monitor. Not literally – I think it’s a metaphor or something.
Ah ha – TIM has found him. Let’s hope John doesn’t scupper things by putting his X in the middle of the board.
Carol is going to jaunt to Stephen’s bedside. She was in "Doctor In Charge" so I’ve already seen her in a nurses uniform. Hence my not being bothered if she goes undercover this time.
Is it me or has he been put at a very weird angle in that bedroom? He seems to be diagonally across the room. Weird. The blob – you’ll recall – is the incoming Carol.
She wakes Stephen up and a blob of green appears. I think he’s about to finish breaking out. All it needed was a sympathetic blonde and all would be well. I’ve told my doctor that but he won’t prescribe me one.
Oh dear - it’s not going very well – Carol is hysterically shouting at him and Stephen is moaning distantly.
And then it stops and Carol is happy because it has worked. Stephen is going to be OK. He isn’t about to disappear or die.
She tells him to look into her eyes and trust her. This scene would be so much creepier if John had gone instead.
She tells him to imagine a fist slowly opening in his mind. Just concentrate on the fist. Don’t let your mind wander. Just think about the fist.
Meanwhile, Ginge and Lefty have arrived at the hospital and are failing to blend in for some reason.
Carol gives Stephen a quick lecture on how humans evolved from apes and now Tomorrow People have evolved from humans. Basically, they are better than us in every way. Except Kenny – he’s rubbish.
She puts her serious face on for the next bit – Tomorrow People can’t kill. Not even to defend themselves.
Ginge and Lefty have found coats. Now they blend in perfectly.
They come into Stephen’s room and try to take him away for "surgery". Carol is suspicious – I think she’s spotted the leather trousers – and tries to stop them.
They have weird golden snake shaped guns. Lefty shoots Stephen.
And Carol.
John is appalled.
Ginge and Lefty wheel Stephen out while Carol lies unconscious on the floor. They haven’t noticed she’s stolen one of their weird golden snake shaped guns. Careless. Four episodes left and they leave a clue like that behind. Tsk.
John jaunts in. He’s facing the wrong way. That’s something you almost never see in teleport-based drama. They always get it spot on.
See what I mean about the chaps having no dignity when jaunting?
Stephen is spirited away in a stolen ambulance by Ginge and Lefty.
The ambulance driver is appalled.
John examines the weird golden snake shaped gun. He concludes it is shaped like a snake.
They turn to TIM for more information. He says "no".
Stephen wakes up in the ambulance. He’s still hearing voices but now they are just recaps of the conversation he just had with Carol.
Back at the lab they hear Stephen’s thoughts. John tells him to recite a nursery rhyme so they can get a fix on his location.
But Lefty hears his nursery rhyme and shoots him with the golden snake gun thing to shut him the hell up.
It goes silent for John so he shouts at Stephen. To no avail. And watching proceedings from his dark HQ is this sinister man. Whoever he is.
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The
Tomorrow People
