BIG FINISH’s THE TOMORROW PEOPLE audios: Lost Season Six

 

BIG FINISH’s THE TOMORROW PEOPLE audios

 

Lost Season Six

 

Season five came to an end, set for a sixth season with Earth being invaded by the Cartel and Jedikiah returning. All seemed lost for the TP who were being captured one by one. Everything was in place for one hell of a resolution.

 

But that never came. The plans were:

 

6.1 SAVING THE WORLD (Aug 07)  70 min

6.2 TALKING TO GOD (Sept 07)

6.3 WAR OF THE SLARVIANS (Oct 07)

6.4 TANDEM (Nov 07)

6.5 GODWIN’S LAW (Dec 07)

6.6 BUARTEK (Jan 08)

Nigel Fairs set the background for this season as, “The planet Earth has changed. In early 07 Cartel warships appeared above the major cities of the world and demanded that the people of Earth should give up the Chairperson of the Galactic Federation (Liz). Of course, the people of Earth know nothing about the Federation so the ships attacked, wiping out vast areas of Washington, Tokyo, Moscow, and London. After a while the ships left, but the world is left scarred and scared.

 

“The President of the US, Gemma Godwin, knows of the TP’s existence. During the alien invasion she proclaimed them to be responsible and has thus driven them into hiding.”

 

“Meanwhile, members of the British Government, who also knew about the Tp’s existence, have turned to John for help, but he’s in a dilemma; though he swore to protect humankind, he simply can’t and won’t provide the government with the military information they demand.”  SAVING THE WORLD was the first of three episodes recorded.

 

6.1 SAVING THE WORLD by Nigel Fairs

The Galactic Federation has fallen, the Trig under control of the Cartel and the Earth has been invaded by the ruthless aliens, the Tnawi. John, Elena, and Robert are presumed dead and TIM is off-line.

 

Suzy Hopkins is a survivor of the Cartel attack on Earth, and has taken shelter under the streets of London. She loses her family but finds a kindred spirit in American Nathaniel, known as Mouse and the pair share a telepathic link. They have discovered they have amazing powers and want to fight back. Mouse is seemingly autistic. They hide in the London Underground while evading the invaders.

 

On the surface Jedikiah continues to rain destruction on the planet, demanding the humans hand over the missing Federation President. Which is Liz.

 

While exploring underground, Suzy finds a door—inside is a Lab and dormant TIM. The two accidentally release the teleport stasis that has kept Liz and Stephen in limbo since the first attack on the Federation. Liz and Stephen jaunt into the Lab explaining they’ve been delayed in getting back to Earth. Liz and Stephen reactivate TIM. They plan to go in  search of sanctuary with the two new friends.

 

Suzy and Mouse show them their other discovery: a secret DERA base. Suzy, who grew up in a religious sect, is protecting Mouse, who can create objects people visualize in their minds. Liz and Stephen discover their two new friends both saw UFOs when they were younger as Liz explains Timus suspected a traitor in the Federation before she went into hiding---she is the missing President. Hearing movement elsewhere in the base, they meet Gemma Godwin, whose people were negotiating with Dracquell before the attack on Earth.

 

Stephen returns to the lab but is stunned by Paul—really Jedikiah. 

 

Suzy refused to believe Liz’s talk of the TP being humanity’s best hope for survival; she betrays Liz and Stephen to the Earth authorities…and to Jedikiah.

 

Suzy reveals she worked at the DERA base as she has the ability to stop time and was there when Godwin—the American President—was visiting before the invasion began. Godwin has Suzy and Liz drugged and taken to Stonehenge. Liz is put in a cell but later freed by John, who has been fitted with a psi dampener. The go to a secret base Federation weapon, the UC1, which is hidden 400 feet beneath Stonehenge. John tells her Jedikiah killed Dracquell and took his place and can now take on people’s personalities. But Jedikiah cannot use the UC1 as no one knows the secret key. John wants to destroy the Trig, the Cartel’s military base but Liz realizes John IS Jedikiah. The robot starts to kill his captives until Liz tells him TIM is the key. Jedikiah powers up TIM to use the UC-1 device to disrupt the universe at a molecular level.

 

At some point, both Davidson’s synopsis and BF’s differ or maybe Davidson is trying to hide spoilers. In any case, it is Suzy who betrays the TP.

 

The Tp are taken to a base beneath Stonehenge and Jedikiah’s base is there. He has the UC1 trained on the Galactic Trig and gets the key from TIM. The countdown slowly reaches zero…

 

REVIEW: It’s difficult and perhaps, unfair, to review something from just a synopsis or two, both differing slightly from each other. I will boldly say this, however---this is NOT the way to go for ANY TP series. Instead of being grounded in real emotion and real problems confronting Earth, these plans do the complete opposite. Mouse sounds like a direct steal from BEAUTY AND THE BEAST TV series from the 1980s. There is no real human emotion in this type of story which removes the entire premise even further from reality and human connection. IN a way I am glad this never was fully completed. It really sounds awful. If you read it, there are so many clichés: Stonehenge, secret bases, a traitor in their midst! A secret super weapon. A countdown to disaster. I thought the Trig was already taken over? I thought the Cartel aliens left the Earth? Are the Tnawi new invaders? All of it is rather mundane and far too cliché sci fi for even the TP. Even if it is not, it changes the entire premise of the TP in many ways, having them known to the public pretty much. Really bad stuff.

 

Suzy was to be played by Clare Calbraith

Mouse by Matthew Blair

Gemma was to be Sarah Douglas!

Jedikiah was to be James Daniel Wilson.

 

 

 

6.2 TALKING TO GOD by Nigel Fairs

High in the mountains on a new world, a group of old friends battle for their lives. The TP are stranded, seemingly on a remote world, their powers gone. Unaware of the fate of the Earth or the Federation, they struggle for survival and a way to return home. In reality, our heroes are trapped inside the UC1 weapon, sharing a nightmarish vision of a shattered galaxy.

 

On a strange new world at the very edge of the new universe, Carol and Elena sit round a fire as John heads off to climb a mountain with Stephen, hoping to build a distress beacon. The group have lost their powers and Robert finds James praying. They talk as Robert paints a picture of a mountain range in the Sahara. James wonders if they are on an alien planet, having prayed to God and heard him answer back. Lilith wonders if they are on ancient Earth while Mike bemoans their lack of powers, before they hear a voice saying, “Buartek.” James is angered when Robert won’t believe he talked to God, wanting him to keep an open mind. James finally convinces the others that he is telling the truth but that it is the voice of Balkhu that he has heart. James, Robert, Elena and Carol set off down the mountain and discover what look like the remains of Stonehenge. Looking up, they realize that they have been living on a mountain range identical to the one in the Sahara where Elena and Robert first encountered the Tuareg tribe. John is devastated to see that nothing lies beyond the mountain range. Lilith works out that they are all dream sharing and that in fact, they are all trapped in the UC1.

 

The fantasy collapses. Beneath Stonehenge, at the moment the device was detonated, Jedikiah is jubilant—he has destroyed the known universe and is master of the new one….except he isn’t. Mouse created what Jedikiah wanted to see, enabling an act of self-sacrifice: he and Suzy trap Jedikiah in the split second before Liz and TIM shut down the device. The Tp are revived and return to the Lab, where they discover that the Cartel, though leaderless, is still a major force and has control of the Trig. Pres. Godwin has named the TP as being responsible for the invasion that destroyed many of the planet’s major cities. The Tp must go into hiding.

 

REVIEW: Again, a really poor way to do the series. Major clichés: a VR world, self-sacrifice. This might even work as a DW episode but not as a TP one. This is a poor story IMO.

 

23 minutes and 12 seconds of this episode were completed.

 

MORE INFO: this was going to “wrap up” story threads that were hanging from the first five seasons. Why did Rob have the healing power? Why was he an orphan? Who was in that spaceship in ALONE? Also addressed would have been Paul’s death, its final repercussions,  and Elena and her mum’s story (and the truth behind the Hollinghurst Foundation and Elena’s birth…Elena also a healer).  They wanted their seasons to have John knowing what it was like to be on the brink. At the end of WAR OF THE SLARVIANS, one was bearing down on John and he used telekinesis to force him against the wall. James comments he hadn’t seen anything like that before.

 

6.3 WAR OF THE SLARVIANS

 

Slarvians are apparently giant space snails.

In the lab TIM detects a pod crash landing on Earth. Inside it is a Slarvian, who hands John a message from Emperor Kklurgargen, begging for help as the New Federation and Cartel are blockading Slarvos. John, Elena, Robert and James jaunt to Slarvos, learning the Emperor’s people have been at war for years with their twin planet Slarvia. The Slarvians bring out their prisoner—Benson. On Slarvia, they launch 2000 thermonuclear missiles as Slarvos, John and Benson being teleported away to a base on Slarvos, along with the Emperor’s treacherous aide Sslarma. John is tortured by Benson for information while the Emperor and the other TP have taken shelter in a bolthole. The Emperor realizes he has lost the Pearl of Wisdom the Slarvian totem of power. Robert and James agree to go on to the surface to find it and scour the radioactive planet to find it in AE Suits, avoiding mutated survivors. TIM locates a psi dampening field on Slarvia, deducing it to be John’s likely location and Sslarma takes the captured James and Rob to Slarvia. Elena and Kklurgargen enter the base and are handed the pearl that the friends had located. The Emperor now reveals his true colours, saying he was working with Benson all along----but then Benson betrays the Slarvians having wanted to restore his standing with the Cartel, and takes the Pearl of Wisdom, a huge power source, with him. He wants to be the new president and transmits away on a Tnawi ship. Jedikiah, Mike and Lilith arrive just in time for the others to jaunt to them, as Benson has the Tnawi open fire on the base on Slarvia. They realise Robert isn’t with them and watch as John rescues him, using his powers to fend off the Emperor’s attack, before taking Robert to safety on the ship.

 

REVIEW: More cliché. More awfulness. This sounds almost like a terrific…BLAKE’S SEVEN story. And as such, with teleports, MORE betrayals, and mutants, it sounds a lot like that plus any number of DOCTOR WHO stories. Glad THIS wasn’t made, too.

 

6.4 TANDEM

Elena, Mike, and Lilith are looking for Sap patients who were being treated at the Trig but were sent down a wormhole to escape the Cartel attack. A malfunction sent them to a parallel Earth, rather than a healing world. The trio talk telepathically but the police force chases them for illegal psi comm. They meet Amos, who tells them psi communications were declared illegal fifty years previously, ten years after the Great Breakout. They try to lie about where they are from but their lying, known as Mendace, hurts Amos, a side effect of psi dampening. They also learn psi dampeners were installed in people to stop jealousy between different people’s powers. In a hospital, Dr. Marcovich has the lost Trig patients and is preparing to experiment on them. Elena hears a girl’s voice cry out to her while Amos talks with the parallel universe Mike on a monitor---he’s a huge music star and is preparing a concert to send out a subliminal message urging rebellion. Dr. Marcovich reports to Britain’s leader, the Lord Prior, that his experiments are complete, as Elena hears the girl, Evie, calling for her mum. Lillith learns Prior wants to reverse human evolution and “free” everyone from psi comm. Mike agrees to use his powers to send the message, by performing at the concert—and Elena learns Lillith is a healer. She also discovers her parallel universe self is Lady Prior and she poses as her, meeting the Lord Prior—Paul. The parallel universe pair have a frosty relationship and she leaves, stealing some papers.

 

The group learns that the patients are due to die by lethal injection and one of them is Lou. Elena returns to see Lord Prior, revealing who she really is to him, and sleeps with him, while Mike starts his performance. Lillith and Elena go to the survivors and find Marcovich has already killed three of them. Lillith stops the doctor, just four minutes before TIM is due to pen the wormhole home. Back in the lab, Lou awakens, having been cured by Lillith.

 

NOTE: Amos is an older character who is Mike’s road manager for the singing career. Lot of exposition, the actor who played him claimed. An attractive older character.

 

Amos de Sante..Ian Brooker

Lillith…Elizabeth Counsell

Lou…Louise Jameson

 

Review: Sigh. Another cliché story, parallel universe doubles, music sending out a message about rebellion (would that involve killing?), wormholes, and the like. It’s more like BLAKE’S 7 and even STAR TREK : THE NEXT GENERATION than the TP. I’m also very confused about which Lou is which? Didn’t Lou die, being Elena’s Mother? Why was she among the patients? Was she carted off to the Trig in a past story? Is this “our” universe’s Lou?

 

 

Other notes of interest: The second half of the season would have been set on the ruined Earth following the Cartel invasion. Earth is now a desolate place with humanity clinging on for survival. Jedikiah is eventually defeated but the aftermath of the war with the Cartel would have far reaching implications---for humanity, for homo superior, and for Elena, who discovers she had a brother and a baby growing inside her.

 

6.5 GODWIN’S LAW

Earth President Gemma Godwin appears at the London Palladium with host Angela Harkness. She talks about the menace posed to Earth by the TP as Angela shows clips from her recent time in the White House with her cameraman, James, meeting Godwin’s PA Robert. In the Palladium, Godwin takes phone questions from viewers, including Lillith, John and TIM, querying some of the facts she has given to the public which are shown to be erroneous. On the tape, Godwin shows Angela the White House sickbay, where Dr. Marcovich is treating patient Jo. The New World Gov’t then shows a CCTV tape of Jo meeting Paul and being injured as a result of the encounter. Godwin again warns of the TP and John, painting him as a cult leader. In the studio, a would be assassin shoots at Godwin, saying, “This is from the TP.”  His shot only grazes her arm and she continues with the interview, showing a clip of Jo dying. Mike phones in, pointing out the tape of Paul’s attack was a fake as he knows about music, sound and video editing techniques.

 

Angela then introduces Godwin to John—he contacted her to put forward their side of the story and she was impressed with his lack of spin. Mike and Lillith reveal themselves and Godwin is stunned to learn James and Robert are both TP. Robert also kisses James live on TV. Robert tells them Jo is alive as he healed her and the assassination attempt is exposed as a fake, having been organized by Godwin’s head of security. Angela is then shot—and Robert can’t save her. He returns to the Lab later than the others, telling them he’s been checked over and is 100 percent fine. However, he leaves them and goes to speak alone with Jo and tells her he’s dying.

 

With time running out for Robert, there was still a whole mystery to solve. In the first ep of the fifth season, the TP met a tribesmen, Balkhu, who has since haunted them both in dreams and occasionally in ghost form. He told them an amazing tale about Buartek, the Ancient Traveller, a spirit who has lived for thousands of years.

 

Review: Given the circumstances of the premise now, this is not a bad idea and would have made an interesting addition to the saga. Having Robert dying is not a good idea. I loathe that idea.

 

 

6.6 BAURTEK

Liz tells John about the Cartel situation, how their meeting with Benson is going to be their best bet for peace. Benson speaks to them, arranging it on a neutral world. Rob arrives in the lab, looking for James and they jaunt to the Sahara. Elena talks to TIM about pregnancy, though not directly when her mum Lou phones. Rob tells James that he’s dying and has come here to that he can die in the desert. Elena goes to meet Lou and meets her brother Bruno, born in the Hollinghurst Labs from one of Lou’s eggs, who is displaying healing powers. An upset James and Rob reach the mountain range and find an abandoned camp, a mass suicide. They find Balkhu in a tent, apparently dead but he communicates with Robert, who also appears to “die.” James can’t even touch Robert; his hand goes straight through him. Balkhu and Robert are in another dimension. The tribe sacrificed themselves so that they might make the journey, Elena admits to TIM that the mountain range in the Sahara is pulling her there. Liz and John arrive at a station on the neutral world, where their powers are nullified by Cartel psi dampeners.

 

James is awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of vehicles outside and sees Robert and Balkhu have gone, informing TIM. In the vehicles Bruno sings the Tuareg song, comforted by Lou. They get out and see Elena, Bruno having insisted they come here. Elena explains that an ancient temple once stood on the site. Bruno and Elena have a vision and “see” the entrance. Elena realizes that she’s been here before, with her father, when she was four. The temple grows up around them. Balkhu welcomes them all to the place of healing. He tells them thousands of years ago, Buartek died. At the moment of his death, his body and spirit were divided into two—his body was laid to rest in a holy world where all life was spirit. For many years, Buartek’s spirit roamed free, but longed to walk upon the Earth again. Corporeal beings imprisoned him and took him back to their world to study…

 

But they encountered a firestorm, crashing and lay buried on Earth, where the ship remained until a young boy disturbed it and awakened Buartek’s spirit…the boy was Robert. The spirit of Buartek was taken away from Earth but as the ship roared into the sky at the end of ALONE, it collided with another one, which was travelling through time and space (the Konnon probe from A BROKEN SONG), causing the firestorm that had made the ship crash in the first place.

 

The spirit of Buartek was flung back through time, finally coming to rest thousands of years ago in the Sahara. Buartek created a temple and mountain range in the manner of his spiritual home. The temple crumbled but the mountains remained.

 

In the 20^th century, men came from England to study the tribe but the Taureg tribe’s ancient writings said that the only way for Buartek to find peace would be for his spirit to be reunited with his original body. It was written that 12 healers would be born in Buartek’s homeland to the same woman and tha tall of them would be called to the Place of Healing at the time of resurrection. Balkhu’s job was to protect the healers. The 12 healers were all created in the Hollinghurst labs with Lou’s eggs. They open the casket and inside is Buartek’s body. It’s Paul. Robert gives his life to bring Paul’s body back to life and reunite Buartek with his original body with James distraught at the death of his boyfriend.

 

John and Liz defeat the Cartel and the Federation is reinstated.

 

More notes: We learn that Buartek had been a constant presence I the lives of the TP; the creature in the tunnel in ALONE was Paul, and the voices Elena, John and Robert heard in END OF SILENCE, AFTERMATH and throughout the final season were all  Paul. At the end of A BROKEN SONG, Paul was transported to the distant past where he waited for millennia, eventually forgetting who he was. The probe that transported him was the same one that crash landed in the Sahara early in the 20^th century, infecting Hollinghurst and sparking the creation of the Family, the genetic experiments designed to further his life and the manipulation that enabled Caine and the governments of the world to suppress the Great Breakout.

 

At the close of the season, Stephen’s journey to redemption would continue, culminating in the return of a healed Stephen, much like we remember him of old. TP of old and new would join forces to help the Earth and the Federation rebuild after Jedikiah’s devastating powerplay.

 

Along the way, there would be the first gay relationship among Homo Superior, with Robert coming out on national television in a quiz show. The burgeoning romance between Robert and James began to be more evident in TALKING TO GOD and would have continued to develop. This would end when Robert sacrificed himself to save Paul and effect that would have on the man (James) he had fallen in love with.

 

At the same time, James’ religious beliefs would continue to be tested as he battled with the conflict of being homo superior, a practicing Christian and a homo sexual. His faith would be tested to the breaking point by Robert’s death.

 

Elena, John, Paul and James would be the line up at the end of the sixth season. Sigh.

 

Review: When you contrive a totally magical story with the themes of resurrection and revival, not only does one want to like it, one …well, as a TP fan, does not.

 

It reeks of DW myth and magical fantasy rather than the TP sci fi world. THEN, worst of all: they bring back Paul by sacrificing Robert. Now, I grew to sort of semi like Paul but I liked Robert so much more. One of the first …no, wait, the first gay TP? And they kill him off and any love affair he and James might have developed further. Glad this was not made. At this point, I can only determine that the makers of this audio series and I just were NOT in sync with what constituted good TP and good characters and stories. In fact, much of this seemed like BLAKE’S 7 and DOCTOR WHO, among other things.

 

I have to admit I found a lot of this storyline convoluted, old hat, unnecessarily timey whimey and frankly, boring. It’s all done to bring Paul, a character I really didn’t care about, back from the dead and make Robert dead. Two things I did not want.