Category: Tomorrow People

Giving the police the slip, Chris returns to the Tomorrow People’s hideout to tell Stephen and Elizabeth that John has vanished without a trace. Violence on Earth reaches crisis proportions; bearers of blue and green badges are splitting off into violent tribes. War seems inevitable. Aboard a hidden spaceship, John learns from Robert that the badges and the pictures are all part of a plan to harvest the psychic energy of the human race as it goes mad to help incubate the next generation of Robert’s people. Is there a way for these aliens and the people of Earth to live, or must one species die off?

written by Roger Price
directed by Roger Price
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Elizabeth Adare (Elizabeth), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Christopher Chittell (Chris), Nigel Pegram (Grandfather), Jason Kemp (Robert), Simon Merrick (Police Inspector)

Notes: The model of the American space station is a model of Skylab, which was launched in 1973 and occupied by three crews, the third of which was still aboard while this episode was in production, but had departed shortly before broadcast. The idea of warring factions denoted by blue and green accessories would be “borrowed” some 20 years later by an episode of Babylon 5.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

John and Stephen each have dreams about Peter, the boy from the future that they encountered months ago, returning to ask for help and bearing an antique vase of some sort. Somewhat unhelpfully, TIM can’t obtain any more information about the vase in question, leaving Stephen and John to go through a catalogue of photos, one by one, until they find one resembling the vase Peter held in their dreams…but the search itself may draw unwanted attention to the Tomorrow People.

written by Roger Price
directed by Darrol Blake
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Elizabeth Adare (Elizabeth), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Christopher Chittell (Chris), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Sylvia Coleridge (Prof. Freda Garner), Bryan Stanion (Prof. Cawston), Richard Speight (Peter), Stanley Lebor (Gaius), Mike Lee Lane (Guthrun), Leonardo Pieroni (Lothar)

Appearing in footage from The Medusa Strain: Sammie Winmill (Carol)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Accidentally whisked into the future by the telepathic time travel device, Stephen finds himself in a holding tube, with an angry Guardian on the other side. When Stephen mentions Peter, however, he is released and told that Peter has become marooned at some point in Earth’s past. Stephen returns to the Tomorrow People’s base to inform Elizabeth and John of what he has learned, and together with Chris they prepare to go into Earth’s past to save Peter. But once they are there, they discover that their powers have been sapped…and they’re now as helpless as Peter.

written by Roger Price
directed by Darrol Blake
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Elizabeth Adare (Elizabeth), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Christopher Chittell (Chris), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Stanley Lebor (Gaius), Stephen Jack (Zenon), Richard Speight (Peter), Sylvia Coleridge (Prof. Freda Garner), Bryan Stanion (Prof. Cawston), Mike Lee Lane (Guthrun), Leonardo Pieroni (Lothar)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Stephen’s survival instincts serve him well in ancient Rome, but the fact that he’s unable to use his powers tells him there’s more going on. John, Elizabeth and Chris make their way toward the arena cautiously, while Stephen finds that Peter is still alive. As suspected, Gaius, the slave master training fighters for the gladiatorial games, reveals that he is not of this time…and perhaps not of this world.

written by Roger Price
directed by Darrol Blake
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Elizabeth Adare (Elizabeth), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Christopher Chittell (Chris), Peter Duncan (Cotus), Stanley Lebor (Gaius), Mike Lee Lane (Guthrun), Leonardo Pieroni (Lothar), Leonard Gregory (Trystan)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

By introducing the steam engine during Roman times, Gaius has caused massive disruption to history. Not only has human technology deveoped far ahead of schedule, but that rapid development has outpaced human wisdom. Humanity has become an oppressive force, subjugating and enslaving alien species as it expands through a brutal future, with Gaius in command. With humanity’s expansion threatening other worlds, John and his friends must stay alive in this alternate timeline…or sacrifice everything to ensure it never existed.

written by Roger Price
directed by Darrol Blake
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Elizabeth Adare (Elizabeth), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Christopher Chittell (Chris), Stanley Lebor (Gaius), Peter Duncan (Cotus), Leonard Gregory (Trystan)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

John sends Stephen undercover at a Scottish boarding school in an attempt to find out about a secret society of warmongers known only as the Doomsday Men. The society’s founder, General McLelland, runs the school, while his grandson Douglas runs roughshod over new students – including Stephen. Stephen survives enough new-boy hazing to impress Douglas, who invites him to join the Doomsday Men…the initiation rituals for whom are far more dangerous.

written by Roger Price
directed by Roger Price
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Elizabeth Adare (Elizabeth), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughn Clarke (Stephen), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Christopher Chittell (Chris), William Relton (Douglas), Simon Gipps Kent (Paul), Nigel Pegram (Traffic Warden), Lindsay Campbell (Lieutenant General McLelland), Arnold Peters (Dr. Laird)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

High in orbit above Earth, the Damocles space station acts as a deterrent to warfare on Earth. Crewed by the United Nations, Damocles’ nuclear missiles are meant to provide any warmongers on Earth with a good reason to stop fighting. But the Doomsday Men have a plan to take over Damocles, and with it, the entire world.

written by Roger Price
directed by Roger Price
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Elizabeth Adare (Elizabeth), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughn Clarke (Stephen), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Christopher Chittell (Chris), Eric Young (Lee Wan), Arnold Peters (Dr. Laird), William Relton (Douglas), Simon Gipps Kent (Paul), Nigel Pegram (Traffic Warden), Lindsay Campbell (Lieutenant General McLelland), Derek Murcott (Major Longford)

Notes: Much of the last third of the episode is tracked with Gustav Holst’s “Mars, The Bringer Of War” from The Planets suite. The special effects model sequences are unusually ahead of their time in one respect: where most American contemporaries such as The Six Million Dollar Man or the TV movie Earth II kept using footage or model sequences of Apollo spacecraft, The Tomorrow Men uses a model of an early design of the Space Shuttle.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Contact with the Damocles space station is lost…until General McLelland himself, now commanding the nuclear-armed peacekeeping outpost in orbit, makes his demands to the United Nations. John realizes that Douglas, McLelland’s grandson, is now a vital part of any negotiation with the general…but someone else has realized that too, and kidnaps him.

written by Roger Price
directed by Roger Price
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Elizabeth Adare (Elizabeth), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughn Clarke (Stephen), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Christopher Chittell (Chris), Eric Young (Lee Wan), Lindsay Campbell (Lieutenant General McLelland), Arnold Peters (Dr. Laird), Derek Murcott (Major Longford), William Relton (Douglas), Simon Gipps Kent (Paul), Nigel Pegram (Traffic Warden)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A spacecraft with only three human occupants drops out of lightspeed and goes into a parking orbit around Earth to recharge. On the ship, naive, servile Elmer does practically all the labor, freeing his older sister Emily and their mother up to watch transmissions from the primitive world below. As most of those transmissions seem to be cowboy movies, they assume that this is an accurate representation of life on Earth, sending Elmer down to the planet via matter transporter to restock food – and dressing him in full cowboy regalia, which is a little out of place in 1970s England. Having been told how to behave (in accordance with the westerns seen by his sister and mother), Elmer shoots a man rather than paying for food. Already aware of the ship’s presence in orbit, John and Elizabeth jaunt into space, where the ship grabs Elizabeth but leaves John adrift. He returns to Earth to follow TIM’s reports of Elmer’s dangerous behavior. Knowing that Elmer is an alien who likely doesn’t know how to act among humans, John and Stephen try to get Elmer out of harm’s way…but must jaunt out of sight before the police arrive.

written by Roger Price
directed by Stan Woodward
music by Dudley Simpson

Cast: Elizabeth Adare (Elizabeth), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughn Clarke (Stephen), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Margaret Burton (The Momma), Sandra Dickinson (Emily), Peter Davison (Elmer), Dean Lawrence (Tyso), Robin Parkinson (Publican), Bill Dean (Mr. Greenhead)

Notes: This episode of The Tomorrow People marks the series television debut of young actor Peter Davison, age 23 – six years before he became the youngest actor ever to be cast as the Doctor in Doctor Who up to that point. (That record was later broken by Matt Smith.) Between The Tomorrow People and Doctor Who, of course, Davison made a name for himself as a reliable and likeable actor in such series as All Creatures Great And Small, Love For Lydia, and Holding The Fort. This was also Davison’s first professional collaboration with his future wife, Sandra Dickinson, who would go on to play Trillian in the BBC’s TV adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

LogBook entry by Earl Green