The Tomorrow People
Jan. 8th, 2014 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholmIt wasn't too disappointing, but only because I went in with low expectations.
I bridled at some of the sly digs at the British series: "The Tomorrow People - we didn't choose the name." "Homo superior - we didn't choose that name either." Of the computer, Tim: "Like Hal, but not evil". Fair comment in one sense, but on the other hand if you can't bring yourself to treat your source material with respect, why not invent your own fucking series concept, arsehole? Forgive my language, but we've been this way before. Those Seeker scars run deep.
Actually it was very much a Seeker-ised version. It came with the standard kit of American characters: high school bully, girlfriend who wants to understand but is driven away by hero's "strange" behaviour, hard-pressed single mother, missing/dead messianic father, etc.. There's no sign of aliens yet, just a dubiously motivated organization devoted to wiping the TP out, a la The Matrix (there was even a bit of bullet stopping to drive that home). There's more violence, more sexual tension, and American teens in the 2010s clearly work out more than their weedy British 1970s counterparts, raised as one on white bread and spaghetti hoops.
The one ray of hope is that our confused hero decided at the end of Episode One to leave his fellow TP in the lurch and go and work for the baddies. That could be interesting, if he really means it - but I suspect he's just undercover.
What other '70s shows are ripe for Americanization? I wonder about Blake's 7 - but I suppose Firefly queered that pitch. Most of my favourites are too tightly linked to particular locations to survive transplantation.
I bridled at some of the sly digs at the British series: "The Tomorrow People - we didn't choose the name." "Homo superior - we didn't choose that name either." Of the computer, Tim: "Like Hal, but not evil". Fair comment in one sense, but on the other hand if you can't bring yourself to treat your source material with respect, why not invent your own fucking series concept, arsehole? Forgive my language, but we've been this way before. Those Seeker scars run deep.
Actually it was very much a Seeker-ised version. It came with the standard kit of American characters: high school bully, girlfriend who wants to understand but is driven away by hero's "strange" behaviour, hard-pressed single mother, missing/dead messianic father, etc.. There's no sign of aliens yet, just a dubiously motivated organization devoted to wiping the TP out, a la The Matrix (there was even a bit of bullet stopping to drive that home). There's more violence, more sexual tension, and American teens in the 2010s clearly work out more than their weedy British 1970s counterparts, raised as one on white bread and spaghetti hoops.
The one ray of hope is that our confused hero decided at the end of Episode One to leave his fellow TP in the lurch and go and work for the baddies. That could be interesting, if he really means it - but I suspect he's just undercover.
What other '70s shows are ripe for Americanization? I wonder about Blake's 7 - but I suppose Firefly queered that pitch. Most of my favourites are too tightly linked to particular locations to survive transplantation.
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(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-09 10:23 am (UTC)Also, it gives the impression of being less ethnically diverse than the original series - all ethnic minority characters are placed in secondary roles.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-09 11:32 am (UTC)Yes - I noticed that too.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-09 11:54 am (UTC)I have to admit to an unhealthy curiosity as to what the Americans would make of Sapphire & Steel...
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-09 11:59 am (UTC)