Luna (TV series)

Did You Know?

• Many episodes featured "techno talk" versions of classic or music hall songs, such as "I belong to 3540" and "Maybe it's because I'm a 3540er".
• The character 80H was played by Roy Macready and U2 by Bob Goody.
• The first season was repeated in the weeks immediately prior to the broadcast of the second season, but has not been repeated since.

Premise

The series was set in the year 2040 in sector 80 of a colony named the Efficicity, where an eccentric family group shares living quarters assigned by the bureaucracy; the characters are not biologically related. The show's two central characters, both named Luna, were played by Patsy Kensit in the first series and Joanna Wyatt in the second. The programme was co-written by Colin Prockter and Colin Bennett, who also acted in it, and was created and produced by Micky Dolenz of the Monkees. Dolenz stated that the idea dated back to the late 1960s and was based on his daughter Ami, and that it came into being after he met Colin Bennett in Hollywood. A distinctive feature was the language of "techno-talk", an alternative version of English designed to be easier for computers to understand, characterised by new words formed from existing English stems. Examples include "habiviron" (habitat and environment), "eduviron", and "diminibeing". The first episode depicted Luna threatened with execution for losing her citizen's identity card.

Characters

Luna (first series, designated 72-batch-19Y) is a female "diminibeing" who is kind and demure. Raised in a "dimini colony", she knows little about the old world but is curious to learn and keen to fit in. Andy gave her the name Luna because she was "batched" on the moon. The second series introduces a different Luna, a replacement after the original left; she adopts the same name and is equally kind-hearted but more lively and outgoing. Brat (3G-batch-19Y) is a geeky male diminibeing, younger than Luna, extremely intelligent and technical, but spoiled and selfish. He has attempted to have Andy and Luna replaced and Jazzmine returned to her abusive owner, and refuses to learn about the old world, using code numbers instead of names. Gramps (WB1889U) is an aging punk who grew up in the old world and struggles with techno-talk, which he rarely uses. He tolerates the diminibeings and keeps a stash of illegal old world artifacts in his bedroom.