Serial offender - Archer's Goon (CBBC 1992)

Its time for another delve into the murky world of children's television serials again...

Archer's Goon was a 1992 CBBC adaptation of the 1984 young adult fantasy novel written by Diana Wynne Jones.


Howard Sykes is an average 13 year old boy who lives with his parents, younger sister and their au pair in the fictional town of Holisbury.
One day, Howard is surprised when a leather clad, thuggish looking man, the titular "goon", turns up in a bin lorry at his home demanding to speak with his father Quentin; a local writer and teacher of English, with regards to "the payment of 2000".
Obviously, Howard and his family assume that this means some kind of monetary payment, and the"goon" is an enforcer for some shady criminal organisation, however, when they finally speak with Quentin, it turns out that "2000" actually refers to 2000 words.
Quentin explains that 13 years ago, he was suffering from writers block, but was miraculously cured of it when he was made an offer by local councillor, Mr. Mountjoy. In exchange for Quentin producing a document containing 2000 nonsense words once a year, Mountjoy would make sure that the Sykes household kept its amenities (gas, electric, water etc), and not have to pay for them, also, writing the document would force Quentin to come out of his writers block, and, oddly, it worked.

The goon explains that this years document did not reach "Archer", despite being delivered to Mountjoy at the local town hall as promised, and, as such "Archer" had sent the goon round to collect the "debt", with failure to produce an acceptable document punishable by having local amenities removed. Quentin sits and writes a replacement document, however this one is later found to be unacceptable, as it contains passages which appeared in previous entries, so, the Sykes family find themselves coming under some bizarre attacks, such as their water and power being cut off, local shops refusing to serve them, schools refusing to allow Howard and his sister to attend, rubbish laying uncollected and, most bizarrely, Howards mothers musical instruments playing themselves loudly and continuously.
The goon takes an unusual interest in Howard, and takes him to see Mr. Mountjoy to find out who "Archer".
As it turns out, the town of Holisbury is actually run by seven mysterious individuals with magical powers, all of whom "farm" certain aspects of town life in order to maintain their power:-

Archer - Controls the towns money and local authorities
Shine - Controls local crime
Dillian - Controls local law enforcement
Torquil - Controls local music, religion, sports activities and shops
Hathaway - Controls local transport, as well as town record keeping and administration
Erskine - Controls local refuse collection and water supply
Venturus - Controls local education and housing

Howard, after eventually getting to meet with Archer, begins to unravel the mystery as to what the 2000 words his father produces are actually used for, and exactly what part he personally plays in all this.

This is one of those stereotypically "British" bits of telly that folk from other countries would find difficult to "get". The fantasy environment it takes place in is wonderfully weird in its premise, insofar as that although most people live in the "ordinary" world, there is in fact a secret "underworld" that few people know or care about that actually pulls the strings of everyone in the town. The story also has a wonderful kind of "whodunnit?" mystery attached to it, and, eagle eyed viewers should be able to spot tell tale signs of the true story right from the first episode.

This is an enjoyable serial, and, having read the book, I can say that the TV adaptation is pretty damn close to the original source material.

Serial offender - Elidor (CBBC 1995)

Once again delving into the murky depths of children's television, I find myself revisiting an oft forgotten serial named "Elidor"

(Series Title Card)

"Elidor" was a six part 1995 fantasy series which aired on CBBC, and was an adaptation of the 1965 novel of the same name by Alan Garner.

Set contempory times (mostly in the mid 90s Manchester and northern Cheshire), Elidor sees a group of young people embark on an adventure to save the magical alternate realm from "the Darkness", an army of men and creatures who are evil.

The world of Elidor is protected by four magical treasures, which are housed in four castles, however due to the war with the Darkness, three of the castles have been destroyed and the treasures have been lost, however, an ancient legend tells that a group of children will one day find the treasures and return them to the remaining castle, where their magic will once again protect the land from evil.

In our world, siblings Roland, Helen, David and Nicholas Watson are exploring Manchester, when, after getting a bit bored, they consult a street finder machine (once a common sight in British towns and cities, now almost totally unheard of) to see if it can point them in the direction of something to do. the map directs them to a run down part of the city, where they find a creepy little curiosity shop. After looking at the various knick-knacks the shop has on sale, David chooses to purchase a video game named "the chase", however when he asks the shop keeper how much it is, he begins a long monologue about 4 people being chased, one of whom is strong, but is getting stronger. He then gives David the game for nothing, insisting that he come back later and pay him what he thinks its worth.
The siblings leave the shop and eventually end up in the grounds of an abandoned church, which they end up looking inside when Roland kicks a football through one of the windows, and they enter to try and retrieve it.
Throughout the day, Roland has been seeing a robed, hooded figure seemingly following and watching them, none of the others have noticed this, so dismiss his claims as being stupid, however this figure is Malebron, a man from Elidor who, using magic, has travelled through "the gate" (a place where the walls of reality are thin) to find the four children and get them to find the lost treasures.
The Darkness though has also seen this, and has sent a warrior, along with a creature called a "sniffer" (a sort of goblin like creature that can track scents) to stop the children from completing their task by using both sword and sorcery, as well as trickery.

Most of the story focuses on Roland, the aforementioned one who is "strong, but getting stronger", as he tries to figure out what is going on and what to do in the strange world of Elidor, all while trying to get the treasures (a spear, a sword, a chalice and a stone tablet) to the last remaining castle, where Malebron says he will bring Fyndhorne, the last Unicorn, so he can sing and restore light to Elidor...or something...

I have never read the original book, but from watching the series, I get the distinct impression that there is a lot of stuff missing from the adaptation,  I could be wrong, but it does seem that way.
The special effects used in the series look a bit dated now, being a mix of green screen and early CGI, and the acting, well, the less said about that the better.

All in all, Elidor is a bit of a confusing mess, and watches a bit like how you would expect to see people doing LARP for the first time act as they wander around the woods and dales mumbling pseudo medieval dialogue.
Yeah, its not very good, I didn't like it much back when I first saw it in 1995, and I like it even less now.

Serial offender - The Girl From Tomorrow/Tomorrows End (1990 & 1993)

Another delve into the mysterious and murky world of childrens TV serials finds me once again washed up on the shores of Australia for another sci-fi outing, this time with hints of time travel and environmentalism....

Produced by Film Australia (one of the writers went on to create "Spellbinder"), "The Girl From Tomorrow" was one of the numerous TV series created by Australian TV networks in the 1990s, most of which ended up being shown on CBBC (as in the case of this one) or less frequently CITV and Channel 4. An odd thing I found out about this series is that the premise is actually based on a Soviet TV series called "Guest from the future" (Гостья из будущего) which aired on Russian television in 1984.

The show begins in the year 3000, most of the Earth is uninhabited due to a disaster which occurred in the year 2500, which led to the entire northern hemisphere being rendered an uninhabitable wasteland.
Alana is a 15 year old girl who was born on Titan (by the year 3000, the moon, Mars and some of Jupiters moons have been colonised, with Venus in the process of being terraformed), but whose parents sent her to Earth to get an education. While on Earth, which is now a veritable ecological paradise, she becomes close to Tulista, one of her teachers who instructs her in the use of the "transducer", a device which resembles a headband and acts as a brain amplifer, allowing the user to manipulate objects by thought alone. Alana hopes to become a healer (I love how when trying to be exotic, programs like to replace the word "doctor" with "healer" to make it sound less scientific and more cuddly) and the transducer can be used as a healing device, however, as Alana finds out in the opening sequence of the first episode, if someone uses a transducer isn't able to concentrate or control their emotions, the transducer can be a pretty destructive weapon.
One of the leading scientists in the year 3000, Bruno, has invented a time machine, and Tulista, being a historian amongst other things, has been chosen to travel back in time to the year 2500 in order to try and find out the exact nature of "The Great Disaster", which they hope will enable them to make better progress in rebuilding the northern hemisphere, this causes much concern for Alana who believes that time travel is dangerous, and Tulista will be killed, so, she smuggles herself into the "Science Dome" just in time to see the time machine vanish into the past.
The machine returns almost as soon as it left, although 28 days have passed from Tulistas point of view (relativity is awesome innit?), but Tulista has an unwelcome guest with her in the shape of Silverthorn, an all round ne'er do well from the year 2500, who immediately proceeds to threaten everyone in the science lab with his laser pistol, but soon goes off the idea of being their overlord when one of the scientists demonstrates the incorrect use of a transducer. Silverthorn, realising he isn't going to be welcome in the future, decides instead to try the past, and, grabbing Alana as a replacement hostage, he sets the time machine going again and transports himself and Alana back to the year 1990.


Once there, Alana experiences culture shock as she escapes the time capsule (which materialises in a rubbish dump) and wanders dazed and confused through the local town, before she eventually meets up with Jenny Kelly, a typical 90s teenager with strange coloured hair and a penchant for being rebellious.


The remainder of the series sees Alana try to find the time capsule and return home before the 28 day time limit causes it to go without her, all whilst trying to avoid the machinations of Silverthorn, who is doing surprisingly well for himself due to his abuse of the Time capsules databanks which allow him to make money by knowing about things before they happen.

(This series was filmed in 1991, however it didn't air until 1993)


Following on from the end of the first series, "Tomorrows End" sees Alana return to her home time, however Jenny has to go with her, as does Silverthorn, both of whom sustained injuries which only the advanced science of the future can heal. After a month living in the future, it is decided that both Jenny and Silverthorn must be returned home, as their presence in the future has somehow altered the past. While Jenny has fully recovered from her injuries, Silverthorn claims to be suffering from total amnesia, however this is just a ploy to gain peoples trust, which allows him to steal Bruno's plans for an upgraded version of the time capsule, a time portal.
Jenny is returned to 1990 without incident, however when Silverthorn is returned to 2500 (which is shown to be an over populated, polluted post industrial wasteland), he tries to steal the time capsule again, but Alana and Brunos new assistant Lorien escape and travel back to 3000, however when they exit the time capsule, they find the future Earth has been totally destroyed. Quickly deducing that Silverthorn must have done something to alter the future, they return to the past, only for things to go horribly wrong as Lorien is captured and turned into a mindless slave for "Globecorp" (a megacorporation that owns everything on Earth) and it turns out Silverthorn has been using the time portal to bring items from the past into the future, including some nuclear weapons (all weapons, short of personal weapons, have been banned by Globecorp, being as countries blowing each other up is bad for business) which are then used by Globecorps director of operations on Earth, a megalomaniac called Draco, in an evil scheme to take control of Earth away from the board of directors who live in opulent luxury on the moon, while everyone planetside is left to slowly starve or be poisoned to death.




A third series was planned, but was never filmed as funding was not made available, being as the series' special effects budget was quite high, plus the two main actresses were getting too old to convincingly play teenaged children.
There is a strong environmental theme running through the show, although this was common in the early 90s, what with the hole in the ozone layer being discovered and concern mounting over depletion of natural resources etc.
The series does make attempts to be funny on occasion, most of which are successful, albeit cringeworthy in places, such as Alana becoming all giggly after consuming a chocolate eclair, having never been exposed to processed sugars before, which leads to Jenny being embarrassed whilst trying to ask a boy out, and then later leads to Alana spewing up in class as he stomach finally rejects our 20th century processed food.
The remainder of the shows humour usually comes courtesy of two "stock" characters, Petey, Jennys younger brother (standard annoying pre teen boy type) and Eddie (standard clueless goon type), both of whom go through a series of bungles and misadventures over the course of both series' .

The series now looks really dated, but, thanks to its time travel theme, this is perfectly ok, as all the scenes in 1990s Australia are authentic, although the visions of the future do have that distinctive "wobbly set" feel to them, and are properly representitive of what people in the early 90s thought the future would be like.

Another odd thing is that although Silverthorn is made out to be a big badass villain, some lines of dialogue in the 5th episode of the series illustrate that although he wants to exploit his knowledge of the future for his own personal benefit, his intention is on the whole, good, as he wants to stop the world from becoming the radioactive hell hole that it became by his time, this is probably the first time I saw a villain on TV that had this kind of noble purpose hidden behind ruthless ambiguity.

I have fond memories of this series, as it approaches the subject matter in an intelligent and entertaining way, without being condescending in some manner as shows like this intended for children end up being these days, although that said some of the episode "cliffhangers" were a bit daft

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.

Serial offender - Dark Season (1991 CBBC)

Another delve into the murky world of childrens "serial" type programs has me arrive at one of the more highly regarded examples to come out of early 90's kids TV.....

Lets set the scene shall we..its the late 1980s, and a young man named Russell T Davies is working as a producer on the CBBCs summertime filler program called "Why Don't You?" (oddly enough, this show also featured a young Ant McPartlin in a segment showing how to make sandwiches..I digress). After he made numerous changes to the format of the show, he decided it would be a groovy idea to try his hand at screenwriting. He came up with the concept for a show named "The Adventuresome Three" and, abusing the BBCs internal mail system, he made sure that the script was put into the hands of the head of Childrens Programming, where it was promptly put in a drawer and forgotten about for 18 months.
Davies was not to be contacted about his scribblings until late spring of 1991, when Tony Robinson decided he wanted a break from writing and producing "Maid Marian and her Merry Men" , thus a gap in CBBCs schedules occurred.

Changing the name of the show to "Dark Season", because "The Adventuresome Three" sucked, filming began on the first three parter story, which began airing on the 14th of November 1991, and continued for the next six weeks, with two 3 part stories forming the first, and only series.

The series is sort of semi famous for featuring a very young Kate Winslet in one of her many roles before she got her tits out in Titanic, and also featured many people associated with British TV shows from the 70s and early 80s, chief among them being Jaqueline Pearce, who starred as Servalan in Blakes 7, and who had feature din another successful CBBC serial "Moondial" a few years before.


As is the norm for a CBBC serial, the heroes of the piece are teenaged children, with the leader of the three being the 13 year old "Marcie", who is basically an extremely skeptical paranoid conspiracy theorist detective type, and her two older mates, Reet and Tom, whose job it is story wise is to get into trouble in some fashion and/or provide much needed clues to Marcie so she can figure out whats going on.

Things get weird when one day a fleet of vans arrives at their school and the mysterious and sinister "Mr. Eldrich" announces that he is giving one of his new "Abyss" computers (a mixture of rebadged Acorn Archemedes computers and some early 90s laptops) to every child, free of charge.
Marcie gets suspicious as the idea of someone giving away thousands of pounds worth of computer equipment to school children means they must have some sort of ulterior motive....cue some sci-fi techno thriller elements which have links to the cold war..and the story moves on to its second part, in which a team of archeologists find some interesting ruins in the grounds of the school, however the ancient ruins turn out to be a cover story for something far more sinister involving cold war politics, and bizarrely, neo-nazi ideology...

Although the series was intended to just be a bit of "filler" until regular programming resumed, "Dark Season" ended up being something so completely different form the norm that it made a distinct impression on those who watched it. For a start, it more resembled adult drama than a childrens program, with a dark and intelligent storyline, albeit one simplified for consumption by a younger audience.
As Russell T Davies was a fan of Doctor Who, he incorporated many elements and references familiar to Who fans into the characters and storyline, most of which would be lost on anyone not familiar with the show, or anyone not familiar with BBC sci-fi in general (oddly, references to Dark Season have turned up in more modern Doctor Who, both on TV and in the books).
The shows only bad points is that due to its limited running time, the storys end up having that extreme "rushed" feel to them, which works fine for less sophisticated shows, but with something as high concept as what Dark Season was, it gives it the distinct feel that the BBC werent really concerned with the shows content, only that it had something to fill the empty programming block with, which to be fair, is what the BBC tends to do regardless of the programming genre.

Still, despite its flaws, Dark Season is still quite rightly a highly regarded bit of a kids TV curio, and we have never since seen anything like it in the kids schedules, and are extremely unlikely to either being as kids shows in this day and age don't like to provide any content which challenges the viewers mental capacities.

Dark Season is one of the few CBBC childrens serials to be released on DVD, although now out of print, it can still be found for purchase online, although it is somewhat rare. It can also be found to view by other means for those who know where to look.

Serial offender - "Watt on Earth" (1991-1992, CBBC)

"Serial" type shows were a staple component of kids TV here in the UK from the 70s through to the late 90s, CBBC producing loads, many based on semi popular childrens books and many original productions.
Said serials would usually feature children being the "hero" in some fashion, and would often take place in some sort of fantasy/sci-fi setting.

Although a popular format for over 30 years, its popularity waned in the late 90s and such types of show are now almost totally unheard of.

"Watt on Earth" had 2 series, each consisting of 12 episodes, both written by the veteran TV writing team of Pip and Jane Baker, and centred mainly around the misadventures of an alien prince, the titular "Watt" (geddit? "what/Watt" on Earth...puntastic!) and his human friend Sean, whose job it is to keep Watt hidden from his family (all of whom are journalists of some description) and generally keep him out of trouble.

Watt, who is considered a child on his home planet, despite being over 300 years old in Earth years, is the last remaining member of the royal family, his parents having been "killed in an accident" arranged by his evil uncle who has designs on crowning himself king as he has grown a bit sick of merely being the planets "regent protector", unfortunately for his evil plans, Watt, being the remaining heir, will become king when he comes of age.
Watt is sent into exile on Earth by a faction within his planets government who are still loyal to the royal family until such time as they can remove the Uncle from power and restore Watt to his rightful place as ruler. The uncle though, who isn't stupid, catches on to this plot and dispatches his faithful right hand man, Jemedah, to Earth to hunt down and kill Watt......(wow, heavy stuff for a kids TV show from the early 90s eh?).
Watts people are energy beings, so in order to blend in, Watt and Jemedah use a technique called "Transanimateobjectification" to appear as numerous people and objects found on Earth, although Watt, being only a child, isn't able to use this ability properly, so whenever he changes himself, he often messes it up, for example, in the first series, his human disguise (A shell suit wearing man in his early 20s) is ok apart from his ears being backwards, and in the second series, he gets his ears on the correct way, but they are green. He makes similar mistakes when he tries to imitate inanimate objects as well, such as becoming a teapot that has 2 spouts, an apple what has a blue flashing stalk etc.

The series itself is a fairly bland, middle of the road bit of TV filler, and is packed with teenage cliches, such as Seans sister being obsessed with pop music, and some inoffensive humour, most of which is derived from Watts inability to understand human customs and situations. One such "comedy sequence" that jumps out is during episode 3 where a whole 5 minutes is spent with Watt hunting around the kitchen looking for food, and ending with him making a cat food and squirty cream sandwich, which he then finds disgusting, but still eats anyway (Watt must keep his energy up otherwise he isn't able to transanimateobjectify, therefore he spends a lot of time moaning about being hungry).

The first series deals mainly with Watt acclimatising to living on Earth, but also trying to find out what is happening back home, the second series deals with Watt returning to Earth after being away for a fortnight, although due to relativity issues, a year has passed on Earth. The second series ends with Watt returning home for good to take his place as king.

Like i said, this series isnt too bad, although it is unashamedly a bit of filler used to pad out the CBBC winter schedules schedules between 5:10pm and when Neighbours came on at 5:25pm, its hardly memorable though when put alongside other childrens serials of the same type (in many ways, the show resembles CITVs sci-fi sitcom "Mike & Angelo", another series about an oddball alien arriving on Earth and befriending a series of young children. A show which incidentally ran for 11 years, I dont know why because it was a bit tedious).

As is the norm for CBBC serials, it has never been released on video/DVD, although a book was available, so if you want to watch this series, youll have to head over to Youtube, where several people have uploaded the series in fairly high quality video.