I can't honestly say I remember or had even heard of this 70's children's television series. So going into it I really didn't know what to expect. It seems to have sustained a good reputation from British kids who remember seeing it back in the day and I guess I can understand why, as it is a distinctive bit of television. Despite being aimed at children, it does have some slightly dark and serious themes running through it which suggests to me that maybe 70's children were treated with less kid gloves than they are nowadays. The story revolves around a mysterious event which creates a psychosis in the British population which manifests itself in an intense hatred of machinery. The cities are emptied as people flee to the country or overseas. A teenage girl gets separated from her parents in the chaos and is forced to go it alone.
Having watched this ten parter, my feelings are overall a bit mixed if I am totally honest. While on the one hand, I do have to give the programme credit for introducing a somewhat unusual and ambiguous story to children with interesting themes such as racism, misogyny and ecological concerns, on the other hand it was a bit clunky in actual execution quite a lot of the time. The original set-up was somewhat hurried, with the girl being separated from her parents in a poorly thought out manner with the father figure deciding it would be easier to go to France and then travel back to find his daughter who was clearly still in the general vicinity! While at the other extremity, the ending involving Merlin's stone was, to put it mildly, a bit underwhelming, with the totally unnecessary daftness of an aeroplane being heard in the sky overheard no more than five minute after the stone decides to reverse its malevolent force because the heroine asked it to be more reasonable. In between it still has leaden sections too, with some under par acting not helping massively. But it is a TV production aimed at kids so you do need to cut it some slack and it was pretty progressive to have a group of Sikh characters enter the narrative in a major way, as even today ethnic groups aren't always very well represented on television. I also really enjoyed the witch-hunter story thread which I thought was handled well, with some good suspense levels. And overall, the sheer enigmatic quality to much of it was a welcome thing, even if the mystery was, as I said earlier, not exactly resolved terribly well. Overall, this is still a definite interesting curiosity and something worth seeking out for those with an interest in TV science fiction in particular.
Having watched this ten parter, my feelings are overall a bit mixed if I am totally honest. While on the one hand, I do have to give the programme credit for introducing a somewhat unusual and ambiguous story to children with interesting themes such as racism, misogyny and ecological concerns, on the other hand it was a bit clunky in actual execution quite a lot of the time. The original set-up was somewhat hurried, with the girl being separated from her parents in a poorly thought out manner with the father figure deciding it would be easier to go to France and then travel back to find his daughter who was clearly still in the general vicinity! While at the other extremity, the ending involving Merlin's stone was, to put it mildly, a bit underwhelming, with the totally unnecessary daftness of an aeroplane being heard in the sky overheard no more than five minute after the stone decides to reverse its malevolent force because the heroine asked it to be more reasonable. In between it still has leaden sections too, with some under par acting not helping massively. But it is a TV production aimed at kids so you do need to cut it some slack and it was pretty progressive to have a group of Sikh characters enter the narrative in a major way, as even today ethnic groups aren't always very well represented on television. I also really enjoyed the witch-hunter story thread which I thought was handled well, with some good suspense levels. And overall, the sheer enigmatic quality to much of it was a welcome thing, even if the mystery was, as I said earlier, not exactly resolved terribly well. Overall, this is still a definite interesting curiosity and something worth seeking out for those with an interest in TV science fiction in particular.