Serial offender - Children of the Dog star (TVNZ 1984)

Children of the Dog star was a six part sci-fi childrens serial first broadcast in New Zealand in 1984.

While not based on any previous books, the series borrows concepts and postulations from the 1976 pseudoscience book "The Sirius Mystery" by Robert Temple.

Set in the New Zealand outback during the mid 1980s, the series sees the 12 year old Gretchen on holiday at her uncles homestead in rural New Zealand.
One of the first things Gretchen notices when she arrives is a strange weather vane on the roof of the homesteads barn, which her aunt refers to as "the brass daisy". Her uncle says that the daisy has been there for as long as he can remember, and is sort of a mascot for the farm, but he has no idea where it came from.
Gretchen meets Robby, a young Maori boy, who lives with his uncle in the nearby town. Robby is a bit of a tearaway, and has been sent to live with his uncle in the hopes that it will straighten him out somewhat. Robbys uncle is the chief of the local Maori peoples, and as such, owns extensive ancestral lands in the area, including a large area of swampland, which local property developers are trying to buy so they can drain and build on it. Robby amuses himself by disrupting survey efforts on the land by the developers, of which his uncle disapproves, but understands why the boy does it. He explains to Robby that the land is "Tapu", or "forbidden", as it is said in local legends that the swamp holds a great evil, and will wreak terrible catastrophes on anyone who interferes with it, as many Maori tribes people before have found out when they have tried to do things with the swamp land.
As time passes, Gretchen notices that the brass daisy behaves strangely, making strange sounds and seemingly moving of its own accord, not only this but it also seems to be able to move objects with some kind of telekinetic force.

As it turns out, the brass daisy is in fact an alien artifact, part of a sentient space probe named "Kolob". Kolob was sent to Earth along with 2 other similar sentient machines by a race of people who live on a planet orbiting Sirius many thousands of years ago, with a mission to educate the primitive peoples of Earth. Unfortunately, Kolob crash landed in the swamp, scattering its various parts all over the area, the brass daisy being its core processing unit.

Gretchen, Robby and another boy named Bevis scour the swamp to find his missing parts and reassemble him so he can complete his mission, the problem is that when they assemble Kolobs various parts, their effects have some bizarre consequences.
The series eventually ends with Kolob being fully reassembled and making contact with the people of Sirius, but then in a bit of a twist ending, the series final scene is a cliffhanger, which has never been explained or resolved.

I remember watching this series when it aired on ITV some time round about 1985/86, and it was the first serial show I recall watching. although until recently I hadn't rewatched the series, because it was never released on video or DVD, nor did it get a replay on any TV channel due to licensing issues.
The series is a very well and intelligently written piece of teen fiction, and it has a distinct "Wyndam-esque" feel to it, being somewhat similar to the book "Chocky" (Which also received a TV adaptation in 1984, leading some people to confuse these two series), albeit less scary in nature.

The series plays with some very interesting concepts, such as the ancient astronaut theory, and the theory that early man was influenced by these alien visitors.

Although the series is now available on DVD, it is somewhat difficult to obtain, however the entire series is available on youtube, and I heartily recommend a watch for those who like sci-fi but want a bit of a change form the usual fayre.

Serial offender - "Spellbinder" (1995 CITV)

Yeah, changing tack slightly from the norm, heres a series that aired on CITV.

"Spellbinder" was a 1995 Sci-Fantasy serial (26 Episodes) made as a co-production between the Australian children's film foundation (many of whose shows were a staple of kids TV in the UK during the 90s) an Polish broadcaster Telewizja Polska.

The series doesn't really star anyone you've ever heard of, although the parts shot in the "Spellbinder World" (all scenes of which were shot in Poland) star some famous names associated with Polish TV and films, The Australian scenes though (our world)  don't contain anyone of any real note, unless you count actress Heather Mitchell, who had a small part in the film "Muriels Wedding".


The story involves Paul, a teenage boy with a penchant for amateur science falling through a portal into a parallel dimension, created when a prank involving a lodestone outcrop and some high voltage cable goes a bit wrong.
The world he ends up in is ruled by an elite known as the "Spellbinders", people who use their fantastic powers to rule over the people of their land by fear, especially through the use of their "flying ships" and their power suits, which allow them to hurl bolts of energy at will.
At first, Paul thinks he has somehow travelled back through time, however when he sees the Spelbinders powers he recognises them for what they are...scientists who misrepresent their crude understanding of science as magic.
His adventures bring him into conflict with the spellbinder Ashka and her sycophantic apprentice Gryvon, who want to use Pauls knowledge of science (which, even though he only has a basic understanding of it, is actually more advanced than theirs in many ways) to help them create crude gunpowder weapons so she can conquer the world etc.
Over the course of the series it becomes apparent that the Spellbinders are not as evil as Paul and his native friend Rianna thought they were, so Paul helps them to put a stop to Ashkas evil plans.
About half way through the series, Paul manages to return home, only to have Ashka follow him and then try to use the science of our world to build an improved version of the power suit (which can now fly and is not susceptible to being shorted out by getting wet) and to acquire weapons to use back in her own world.
As it turns out, the "Spellbinder world" was once much more advanced than our own, but at some point in the past, a terrible disaster (implied to be a massive nuclear accident) sent the world into darkness, thus the spellbinders that survived decided to withhold their knowledge from the other survivors, but over time their own knowledge is diminished, tot he point at which they are now no longer capable of manufacturing new machines. To hide this, a series of laws are enforced which forbid the common people from inventing anything new or pursuing knowledge.

The story is nothing new, but, I have yet to see anything else with a similar premise and definite steampunk leanings appear on TV.
One other thing I like about this series is that many of the science concepts used are actually real science, and explained as such in a way that is educational and entertaining, even the parts that are science fiction are based somewhat on theoretical science, mostly the application of magnetic fields.
Oddly, even though CITV began airing this show in the summer of 1995, they only showed the first 13 episodes, meaning the series never aired in full in the UK, thus the only means of seeing the series in its entirety is via bootleg methods.


A second series, named "Spellbinder: Land of the Dragon Lord" followed in 1997. Although this second series is along the same lines as the first, the only returning characters were Ashka and Gryvon, and documented the discovery of a third alternate dimension, which resembles a high tech version of ancient china.