Spellbinder (TV series)
A boy from Sydney stranded in a world where technology is called magic.
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A powerful group called Spellbinders control that world by manipulating people's fear and ignorance, pretending their technology is magic.[1][2] Paul survives by employing his scientific understanding and cleverness, aided by a local inhabitant called Riana (Gosia Piotrowska), while his classmates from school attempt to bring him back.[1]
Making and release
It has 26 episodes of 30 minutes each.[3] The series was devised by Ron Saunders and written and created by Mark Shirrefs and John Thomson.[2] Executive producers were Ron Saunders, Kris Noble and Andrzej Stempowski, and the producer/director was Noel Price.[2] The Spellbinder world was conceptualized as a speculative exercise of what might occur if a teenager was transported to a world without the Industrial Revolution.[4]
The Spellbinders' decision to control knowledge was because their world had almost been destroyed by massive experiments with electromagnetism centuries earlier.[5] Film Australia and Telewizja Polska, together with the Australian Children's Television Foundation, were the production entities behind the 26-episode series, each episode running 30 minutes.[3] Mark Shirrefs and John Thomson, the show's creators, envisioned that the Spellbinders maintained their authority by restricting access to knowledge, following a societal breakdown caused by a human-made environmental catastrophe.[4]
What the cited sources add
According to the Australian Television Information Archive, the protagonist is immediately identified as a stranger and charged with being a foe of the Spellbinders.[2] Riana forms a friendship with the protagonist, and together they use her familiarity with the area and his 1990s-era capabilities to trick and outsmart the Spellbinders.[2] Two novelizations, titled Spellbinder Book 1: Riana's World and Spellbinder Book 2: Paul's World, were written by the series' creators Mark Shirrefs and John Thomson.[6] The Spellbinder world's economic system is based on farming and uses a barter method known as "swapping" instead of money.[7]
The Spellbinders prohibit any new ideas or basic mechanical work, which leads to a complete absence of manufacturing.[7] Riana finds the idea of roads entirely unfamiliar, as none exist in the Spellbinder world.[8]
References
- Wikipedia, "Spellbinder (TV series)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Spellbinder", Chip Taylor Communications LLC; "Spellbinder - Series 1", Australian Children's Television Foundation; Zuk, "Spellbinder", Australian Television Information Archive (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Zuk, "Spellbinder", Australian Television Information Archive. facts only, no text reused. australiantelevision.net
- Wikipedia, "Spellbinder (TV series)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Spellbinder - Series 1", Australian Children's Television Foundation; "Spellbinder - Exploring Science Fiction And Fantasy", The Australian Children's Television Foundation (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Spellbinder (TV series)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Spellbinder Castle - Information Section - Concept", spellbindercastle.tripod.com; "The Spellbinder Castle - Information Section - Concept", spellbindercastle.tripod.com (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Spellbinder (TV series)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Spellbinder Castle - Information Section - Concept", spellbindercastle.tripod.com (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Spellbinder (TV series)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "AACTA Awards", AFI AACTA (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Spellbinder (TV series)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gil, "Where am I?" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Spellbinder (TV series)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gil, "It Isn't Magic, It's Science" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Spellbinder (TV series) (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Spellbinder (TV series) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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