blurbs for
Sky is a mystically-oriented children's science fantasy television serial made for ITV by HTV and broadcast in seven parts from April 7 to May 14, 1975.
"A mysterious alien boy with strange solid blue eyes, the eponymous Sky (Marc Harrison), finds himself on Earth. He uses his psychic powers for achieve his goal of ensuring a way back home. Sky finds the very world soul of Earth in the form of nature, only to reject him the way an immune system might an infection. In his quest to return home, he joins his destiny with that of three human children. The serial was written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, also known for their scripts for Doctor Who and a fantasy television series for children, Into the Labyrinth."
Into The Labyrinth? Another one I missed.There's this novel I read as a child, I recall neither the title nor the author, but it involved children who discover a whole underworld of tunnels and passageways beneath the fields near their home, inhabited by, I dunno, elf-people or malign beings of some sort or other. They have to thwart them or go to war with them in some way. That's as much as I can remember. Think it was a pretty well-known, 'for older kids' type book at the time. Any idea?
More Sky...
4 comments:
Could this be the novel?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_and_the_Goblin
Read it myself when I was young, an old battered copy belonging to my dad. I still remember it vaguely so it must have made an impression of sorts.
Really enjoying your recent 70s Brit TV nostalgia-fest despite being born twenty years too late. Very interesting that this was probably many kids first (only?) exposure to avant-garde sounds. I guess the nearest parallel from my youth would be video game music, especially from games I wasn't meant to be playing as a 12 year old (though I guess that misses the point in that these programs were made for kids "Sitting on the carpet with their McVities"). http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6A2D20CC67C2669E
I watched Children of the Stones and the first few episodes of The Changes (been on my watch list for a few years http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goky0Fs1u50). Really enjoyed Children of the Stones. An odd thing that stuck out at me were the aerial photographs in the museum, something you don't see too often in general these days. Remember my primary school having a random collection of them, the surrounding area of the small Welsh village I grew up in. Strange feelings of isolation and vagueness. The bigger picture, rather than the detail where the devil lies.
that looks really good, but as i recall the one i read was set in the more or less present, i.e. post-world war 2. i wonder what it was. i can't really loving it so i'm not sure why i'm so keen to remember!
you know what, i got a funny feeling it's this one actually:
Alan Garner - Weirdstone of Brisingamen: A Tale of Alderley. "Set in Alderley Edge, it revolved around two children, Susan and Colin, who are sent to live in the area with their mother's old nurse maid, Bess, and her husband, Gowther Mossock. Setting about to explore the Edge, they discover a race of malevolent creatures, the svart alfar, who dwell in the Edge's abandoned mines and who seem intent on capturing them, until they are rescued by the wizard Cadellin who reveals that the forces of darkness are amassing at the Edge in search of the titular "weirdstone of Brisingamen". "
are those aerial maps in the first episode? haven't got very far with C of Stones as the wife is resistant to all these spooky uk telly, being american so it's not her memoradelic repertoire. quite impressed by saphire + steel though, she was
these shows are so slow moving c.f. modern equivs like Lost, with their twisty-turny plots and fast editing. i prefer the 70s pace, more oneiric, and when something scareeee happens it really is a jolt
All the childhood fantasy I read seems to have blurred together. Remember the book more for the cover, the wearing, the musty smell. Will have to see if I still have it.
Not sure when they crop up, it's a pretty minute piece of set design that just seemed to spark something in me. Will check out Sapphire and Steel.
Totally agree, probably why I have such a soft spot for old, creepy horror. The retrospective ugliness and the lack of CGI also make it seem much more unsettlingly than most made today.
As an aside, halfway through Energy Flash which is as excellent as expected. Will have completed the Reynolds bibliography once that's done, apart from The Sex Revolts. Will have to keep up with the blogging to get my fix.
cheers!
if you're feeling completist, you can probably find Sex Revolts going really, really cheap...
it's something of a curio, with some very 80s/90s theory elements that may not date well. Over-arching thesis a little overstated, i fear. But lots of individual bits in its are still sharp i think - stuff on Nirvana and Henry Rollins, on Siouxsie Sioux. Section on the Beats and Angry Young Men stands up quite well, and much of the psychedelia analysis.
whatever effects they're using in Sapphire + Steel are so much better than today's CGI
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