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Roger Price created this science fiction
adventure series, inspired equally by Dr Christopher Evans' mind-expanding
psychology book The Mind in Chains and a meeting with David Bowie on a TV
pop show. The Tomorrow People were teenagers who had reached the next step in
human evolution to become 'Homo Superior' (a phrase taken from the Bowie song
'Oh You Pretty Things').
Such special teenagers went through a painful process known as 'breaking out' - a clear play on puberty - to emerge with
powers of telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation as agents of the all-powerful Galactic Trig. Led by senior Tomorrow Person John and bio-computer TIM, numerous appointed teens helped protect Earth from marauding aliens. It was a clever piece of wish-fulfilment by Price on behalf of his constituent audience, one that allowed children to become superior to parents, teachers and all other
forms of authority.
This was a broad action-adventure series, with escape and capture routines familiar from Enid Blyton dressed up not only with sci-fi trappings of rayguns and teleport 'jaunting' but 1970s fashions, a glam
rock design sense and a dose of liberal casting (the Tomorrow People admitting black and Oriental characters to its London-based team). The series rarely dabbled with deeper science fiction concepts, though one story, 'The Blue and the Green', about warring factions of schoolchildren, drew parallels with conflicts in Northern Ireland. There was the odd scare (the genuinely creepy
'The Living Skins' saw synthetic fashion garments spearhead an invasion by giant bubble aliens), but also many jaunts into rather camp playing from guest casts.
Price revived the series in the 1990s, helped by American finance. It retained the sense of fun and adventure from the original but with inevitably more advanced special effects. Nonetheless it failed to help define the decade as its predecessor had done.
Alistair McGown
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1. Opening titles (3:35)
