By the Bel: Blasts from the Past — Part 3

I would like to introduce you to a series that was shot in 1992 and a second series shot in 1993. Yes, that was the last millennium.

The Girl From Tomorrow

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVS376aIVqQ&feature=related

was ahead of its time for YA TV. Directed by Kathy Mueller and series writing credits go to Mark Shirrefs and John Thomson. It was shot, around areas in New South Wales.

IMDB is a great place to find stuff out and here’s their synopsis of The Girl From Tomorrow: Alana, a teen-aged girl from the year 3000, finds herself trapped in 1990 with a criminal from the year 2500. Alone, and confused, she befriends a spirited girl named Jenny Kelly. Together they attempt to track down the time capsule which brought her there, while evading Silverthorn, the villain into whose hands it appears to have fallen.

It was so good they brought it back in 1993 for a second season; anyway, as per the IMDB, here is the synopsis for The Girl From Tomorrow: Tomorrow’s End… Realizing that they have polluted the time stream with their experiments, the scientists from the year 3000 resolve to return Jenny and Silverthorn to their respective times and then destroy the capsule before it can do any more harm. Troubles in the year 2500, however, lead to Alana and her guardian, Tulista, returning to a devastated future. They must return to 2500 and change whatever it was that went wrong in order to cause The Great Disaster to reach Australia.

You probably thought the graphics and special effects were a little lame, and not worth jumping up and down about, but the simple fact was, nobody had that kind of technology in a YA program at the time. Budgets just didn’t stretch that far.

Not only was this groundbreaking for the special effects side of things, but the stories were intelligent. For what felt like the first time on Aussie TV  we were allowed to imagine stuff and we were encouraged to dream of future technologies. Liberation for the above-26-geek-crowd really got started here.

I’ll continue with my nostalgia in future instalments. Hope you don’t mind.