The Tomorrow People
The next stage of human evolution emerges with psychic powers.
The Tomorrow People, a British sci-fi series for children, was created by Roger Price. It aired on ITV from 30 April 1973 to 19 February 1979, produced by Thames Television. Australian composer Dudley Simpson wrote the theme music.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Fantasy
- Drama
- Sci-Fi
- Runtime
- 30 minutes
- Creator
- Roger Price
- Music
- Dudley Simpson
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Company
- Thames Television
- Network
- ITV
Facts from the source article.
Premise
Every version of the show focuses on the rise of a new human evolutionary stage called Homo novis, commonly known as the Tomorrow People. A seemingly ordinary child, born to human parents, may undergo a "breaking out" process between childhood and late adolescence, gaining paranormal psionic abilities like telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation. Their psychology makes them incapable of deliberately killing anyone.
Original series (1970s)
The original series of The Tomorrow People was made by Thames Television and broadcast on ITV. Their hidden headquarters, known as The Lab, is located inside a disused London Underground station. The group is always on the lookout for new Tomorrow People who are "breaking out," which usually happens around puberty, when the young person's mind suddenly changes and causes them intense mental suffering. The team helps them through this difficult time. They also deal with attention from alien species and face more down-to-earth threats from military forces around the world who want to either recruit or capture them. A key part of their nature is that they cannot deliberately kill another person. This pacifist rule is called the "prime barrier"; if a Tomorrow Person causes the death of a human, the confusion in their brain would drive them insane. They are connected to the "Galactic Federation," which looks after the well-being of telepathic species across the universe. Besides their psychic abilities—telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation, known as the 3T's—they use advanced technology like TIM, a biological or "biotronic" computer that can think for itself, read minds, and boost their psychic powers. TIM also helps them teleport over long distances, but they need a device built into a belt or bracelet for this to work. In the show, teleportation is called jaunting. The team used jaunting belts until the end of Series 5, after which they switched to much smaller wristbands. In the original series, the Tomorrow People are also called Homo novis and Homo superior. The term Homo superior appeared in David Bowie's 1971 song "Oh! You Pretty Things" with the line "Let me make it plain. You gotta make way for the Homo Superior." This term came up during a conversation between Roger Price and David Bowie at a meeting at Granada Studios in Manchester, where Price was directing a program featuring Bowie. Price was working on a script for his Tomorrow People project, and when the term Homo superior came up in their talk, Bowie liked it and soon used it in his song. Price has sometimes said that the song's lyrics were inspired by the series.
Revivals
When Roger Price revived The Tomorrow People for the 1990s, he did so through Tetra Films, an independent production company largely made up of the former children’s department from Thames Television. The show was a co-production between Thames and its American subsidiary Reeves Entertainment, made for both Thames and Nickelodeon from 1992 to 1995. Because Thames lost its ITV franchise at the end of 1992, the series was actually broadcast on ITV by Central in 1994 and 1995. Under pressure from executives, Price chose to start completely fresh, making the new version almost entirely unlike the original. None of the earlier cast, characters, or music returned. To make the show easier to sell internationally, the cast was multinational. Each storyline ran for five episodes, a format the 1970s series never used after its second-season story "The Blue and the Green." The old belt buckles were gone, since these new Tomorrow People could teleport without them. The non-lethal stun guns and other gadgets were also removed, leaving the characters to rely on their wits and powers alone. Some similarities remained. The Lab was replaced by a psychic spaceship in the South Pacific that draws in Tomorrow People when they "break out." The computer TIM was replaced by a mute computer built into the alien ship. Effects artist Clive Davis gave the show much better visual effects and sets than the original. The lead role of Adam Newman went to Kristian Schmid, then well known in the UK for his regular part on Neighbours. The other original cast members were Kristen Ariza as Lisa Davies, Adam Pearce (with no prior acting experience) as Kevin Wilson, and Christian Tessier as Kevin’s American friend Marmaduke "Megabyte" Damon. The 1992 season was a single five-part story written by Price. It had no on-screen title, but the DVD release calls it "The Origin Story." The series opens with Adam already broken out, while Lisa and Kevin break out at the same time in the first episode. Megabyte breaks out in the final episode. The plot heavily borrowed from the 1975 story "Secret Weapon," even reusing that story’s villain Colonel Masters. It involved intelligence agencies chasing the Tomorrow People to use them for their own purposes. The story also introduced Jeff Harding as Megabyte’s father, General Damon, an American officer stationed in the UK who became a regular ally.
Documentaries
Fantom Films and First Time Films put out a documentary called Beyond Tomorrow in October 2005, which was originally made in 1997. It includes interviews with original series cast members like Nicholas Young, Peter Vaughan-Clarke, Sammie Winmill, Elizabeth Adare, Dean Lawrence, Mike Holoway, and Philip Gilbert. A year later, Fantom Films released Re-inventing The Tomorrow People, a DVD that talks with 1990s series writers Lee Pressman and Grant Cathro.
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