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A Twist in the Tale Season 1 Episodes
Season 1 Episode Guide
15 Episodes 1999 - 1999
Episode 1
Obsession in August
Sat, Feb 6, 199953 mins
"...The two enduring English folk-heroes are Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest and King Arthur of Camelot. We know Sherwood Forest existed - it's still there. But where was Camelot? ... A hundred years ago three brilliant men were prepared to risk their sanity - and their lives - to prove they knew its exact location ... " Our story opens in Victorian England. Vicky (14) and Aidan (11) Tudor are wildly excited about the imminent return of their mother and father after three years traveling abroad. However, the carriage that finally rumbles up the driveway contains not their parents but their beloved uncle, the gentle and scholarly Lance Dulac (36). The Tudors' ship has been delayed, and in their absence Lance has come to take the children with him to visit his dear friend, Arthur LeRoy, the Earl of Sackville, and - perhaps even dearer to Lance - the Earl's lovely and lively daughter Guinevere (18), known to all simply as Jenny. To Aidan's particular delight, the Sackville's estate, Gramayre, is in Dorset, deep in Cameliard: the land of King Arthur and his court of Camelot. But despite the warm welcome the children receive from the Sackvilles, this is far from being a simple holiday in the countryside. Even as they approach Gramarye for the first time, a mysterious wind blows up around them: harsh, hot and dry, a terrifying roar filled with menace. Strangest of all, although the sound of the wind is deafening, it seems to move nothing in its path. As the children react in fright, we see their carriage is being watched through narrowed eyes by the sinister gypsy Morgana. Jenny is particularly pleased to make the children's acquaintance, and it doesn't take long for quick-witted Vicky to notice that Jenny and her uncle have a certain understanding between them. However, Lance's primary purpose in coming to Gramarye is the pursuit of knowledge rather than love: he, the Earl and a third party, the sombre Merlyn Tredinnick, have been working on an excavation site within the estate for fifteen years, and their work is nearing completion. Arthur, Lancelot, Merlin and the lady Guinevere drawn together again: Aidan is delighted by the coincidence, but as Jenny points out, if he remembers the legend correctly, it is not necessarily a happy one ... To the children's disappointment, their first day at Gramarye dawns gloomily. Confined indoors, they decide to explore the house - and very rapidly make an intriguing discovery: a shrine concealed behind an ornate mirror, and within it, a sword and anvil beneath a medieval tapestry. The face of the knight figured there is startlingly like that of their host, the current Lord Sackville. But when the children tell Jenny of their discovery she is half-uneasy, half-indifferent. Jenny, indeed, is the only adult in the household not in the thrall of the Arthurian legend, and perhaps she has good reason. Lance has formally proposed to her, but they cannot marry until the work on the excavation site is complete. As Jenny tells the children, if you become too obsessed with the past it leaves no time for the present: and the present is where we live. The second day dawns fine, and with the men busy at the site, Jenny, Vicky and Aidan set out for a picnic on the lake. Aidan, who true to form is paddling his own canoe, is ahead and out of sight of the others when he finds himself being dragged off-course. He is horrified to see guiding the wayward canoe a woman's arm, clothed in white, rising from the waters of the lake. Leaping ashore in terror, Aidan sees a figure in white beckoning him on ... and as if hypnotized, he sets out to follow her... The modern day king, knight and necromancer have uncovered an astonishing find: a Roman tessellation, perfectly preserved: and in the center, the figure of a medieval monarch - King Arthur. As Professor Dulac gravely observes, this is potentially the most dangerous archaeological discovery ever made - because it utterly defies both time and history. Echoing the Obsession in August cont. knight in the children's tapestry, the face of the King is ... that of the Victorian Arthur LeRoy. Into this solemn conclave comes Aidan, hot, dusty, frightened, and whooping for breath. The Earl wheels on him in fury - the nature of their work has always been contained in complete secrecy. Sobbing and distressed, still under the partial thrall of a magic he does not understand, Aidan bolts away through the forest, with a mysterious voice singing threateningly in his head: the King needs him, the King needs him... Jenny and Vicky are not the only ones relieved when Aidan stumbles upon their picnic site. There is a nasty consequence for Aidan of his afternoon's adventure, however - he has run through hemlock, and the pollen has burned him badly: Vicky finds him in the bedroom very ill indeed. Jenny is reassuring - she has seen hemlock burn before: the old gypsy Morgana will be able to mix a potion to counter the poison. Vicky approaches Morgana's caravan in great fear and trembling, and certainly the wise woman's reception of her is chilling. She sends Vicky running with both the antidote and a flea in her ear. Stumbling round the side of the caravan, Vicky sees, to her horror, a crude small gallows from which three clay figures dangle ... Standing behind her, whispering in her ear, Morgana coaxes the girl to study the faces of the figures: and as Vicky watches they mix into those of Sackville, Dulac and Tredinnick - Arthur, Lancelot and Merlin. These three are meddling in a past that does not belong to them - and no good will come of it. The following day Aidan is better, but still not well enough to venture out of doors. The girls go off on a sketching expedition and leave him to his own devices. Bored and disgruntled, he returns to the hidden shrine - but discovers that the sword and anvil have vanished. How can this be? Then, terrifyingly, the face of the King in the tapestry speaks to him: he must not tamper with Camelot; it will destroy him if he disobeys. Aidan bolts, badly frightened. His dreams that night are full of menace and foreboding, but the children are powerless to dissuade the three men from setting out on the final day of the dig. Indeed, all three are hugely excited: they have uncovered, beyond the tessellation, what appears to be a granite tombstone - and in its side, engraved in Latin, are the words, "The once and future King." Could it be that the Holy Grail lies buried inside?
Episode 2
A Crack in Time
Sat, Feb 13, 199953 mins
The Johnsons live in a small country town. Their dairy farm has been in the family for three generations, and although in recent years they have been struggling, Mike - the father of David (13) and Katie (10) - is not about to let it go without a fight. David has his own worries - he is being bullied at school by Wayne Brogan (14), the son of a rich neighboring farmer. Wayne is particularly scornful of David's push-bike, which is no match for Wayne's own all-singing, all-dancing version. On the day our story begins, Wayne chases David home from school, knocking him into a ditch and badly damaging the bike. Mike is as suspicious of Pat Brogan as David is of his son: for some years now Pat has been offering to buy up the Johnsons' farm. The chief money-spinner of the farm is their specialist cheeses: with the bank threatening to foreclose, despite the best efforts of the family's accountant Larry Sharpe, there could not be a worse time for the persistent and mystifying spoiling of the product. Mike is not beyond believing Pat Brogan to be somehow behind the contamination - and Nicky (19), the Johnsons' attractive dairy assistant, doesn't like him very much either... The night of David's crash, there is a huge thunderstorm over the farm. David cowers under the sheets - and therefore misses the most spectacular effect of the lightning... ... Until he wakes the next morning - the morning of Friday the 13th - to find a girl in his room he has never seen before - insisting that he is trespassing in her room. Jem Johnson - from the year 2098. Jem's father, back in the future, has designed a "compucator" - what Jem calls a commie. The commie is an astonishing invention: a kind of hand-held, intuitive supercomputer, which works by accessing the user's alpha waves and the universal matrix, the 21st century's version of the Internet. Jem has the prototype, and was being chased by a couple of what she calls "badlanders" for it when she crawled into her closet to come out in David's time. Jem is charming, brave, quick witted - and impulsive. After a number of near-misses with David's bewildered family, and unable to get back to her own time, she finally takes matters into her own hands and introduces herself to Mary, the children's mother. Katie, David's sister, is very keen on Jem, particularly when Jem reveals a fantastic common skill of the future: telepathy, for which Katie displays a definite flair. Strangest of all, when Jem takes herself to school, she makes a surprising conquest - Wayne Brogan. The only thing that worries responsible David are the two sinister men who seem to take as keen an interest in Jem as Wayne does... David is suspicious of Wayne's sudden transformation into Sir Galahad, and slightly jealous as well. When Jem's commie goes missing from her locker, he suspects Wayne has stolen it, despite Wayne's indignant denial - and when Jem goes missing next, he's certain of it. He and Mike have an angry confrontation with Pat and Wayne, but at midnight Jem is still not back. Unable to sleep with worry, David is startled by the appearance of Katie in his bedroom. The telepathy game the children played has had an unexpected outcome: Katie is receiving persistent images she is sure are from Jem - images of an office, a filing cabinet, a night street seen through a window. The children slip out of the house with only their dog Bones for company and set off to the rescue; they are joined by an unexpected friend and ally - the erstwhile bully Wayne. Jem's images lead the children to the main street of their little town, and into the offices of ... Larry Sharpe. But what can the family's sympathetic accountant have to do with the kidnapping of Jem? As Katie and Bones keep watch outside, Wayne and David begin the difficult task of breaking into Larry's inner office, where Jem is bound and gagged. Katie is horrified by the appearance of Larry and - of all people - Nicky, the Johnsons' dairy hand: what on earth are these two doing together? Leaping to her feet, Katie cannons into the fire exit door through which the children broke in - and to her horror it slams shut, locking her out and the two boys in. There follows a tense scene with Wayne and David in precarious hiding - but eavesdropping can sometimes be illuminating: it becomes clear not only that Larry and Nicky are behind the kidnap and the theft of the commie, but that they have long been in collusion over the jeopardizing of the farm's produce - the "accidental" spoiling of the cheeses - in order to force a sale - and force the Johnsons out. With the appearance of the two men David has observed watching Jem, the dastardly quadrangle is complete. Larry pays off the kidnappers and he and Nicky leave, gloating. With not only the farm but the secrets of the commie in their grasp, they will be very rich villains indeed. Katie and Bones sneak into the building as David and Wayne free Jem. With her telepathic powers she unlocks the combination dial of the safe and regains her commie ... and David makes a very important discovery: documents that clearly implicate Larry in the fraudulent handling of the business affairs of the farm. The children's gleeful laughter merges with the rumble of an approaching thunder storm... ... and we open again on David asleep ... and his calendar, clearly showing Friday the 13th, as Mary shakes him awake. David stumbles downstairs, bewildered: Jem is nowhere to be seen, and his inquiry about her meets with a blank response from Mary. But Mike and Mary certainly have enough to be distracted by - the morning mail brings the precious contract from Pacific Dairy Products they have been waiting for, and the paper the shocking news of the arrests of Larry Sharpe and Nicky. David is lost in thought, as the joyous dance of his parents mirrors the joyous dance of he and Jem the night before ... and Katie enters, bearing a puzzling object: the commie, which she has just found in David's room. David can only smile at her: it is something he has dreamed up, dreamed up for the future...
Episode 3
The Anchoress
Sat, Feb 20, 199953 mins
Cindy (13) and Jonathan (10) Copeland live happily in a small seaside village with their fisherman father, Bob. Since the mysterious disappearance of their mother when Jonathan was still a baby, they have been cared for by their gruff but kind Aunt Moya. The only cloud on the horizon is the recent downturn of business: with the waters around the port close to being fished out, Bob is having a hard time earning a living. All that looks set to change one day when he brings in a very special catch - the merman... Aunt Moya is horrified when Bob has the merman preserved and brings his trophy home - mer-people are said to be very bad luck, and haven't the Copelands had enough of that? But the children are fascinated - especially Jonathan, who has a keen interest in all natural things, and trails a constant menagerie of pets in his wake wherever he goes. The superstitious village people, like Moya, are shocked and disapproving, but the outside world takes a keen interest in Bob's find. All the media attention gives Bob an idea: with fishing no longer a going concern, why not turn his hand to the hotel business? And so the Copelands' home is transformed into a seaside inn - The Mermaid's Rest. Business booms, and at first it seems the merman has brought the family nothing but good fortune. But there are some unpleasant surprises looming. Aunt Moya's husband Jim has a nasty accident: she and the children are already overworked running the inn, and now that she must look after Jim, Bob is at his wits' end. This is when Moya has her brilliant idea. It is high time Bob stopped grieving for Mary, the children's mother, and found him a new wife. What better way to vet candidates than by - advertising? Jonathan is vastly amused by the responses to Bob's ad, but Cindy is not at all - the village is laughing at them, and anyway, she doesn't want a stepmother: she thinks the family is complete as it is. Her worst fears are realized by the arrival of the first prospect, the cold and manipulative Jennifer Shilling. Greatly distressed, Cindy runs out of the house - heading for the hills, where she can be alone and mull things over... But what Cindy stumbles across is the little hut of the Anchoress - the Holy Woman of the Blari Hills. Drawn by this woman, Cindy pours out her troubles. In return, the Anchoress tells her a story which seems oddly familiar - of a beautiful young woman, a stranger, who came to the village, fell in love, married, had children - and then vanished. That night Cindy can't sleep: the sound of the sea seems to be calling her. From her window she looks down on the beach, and sees a still figure, a woman, standing before the waves - and then another appears: it is her father. As Cindy watches he runs after the woman, calling for her to come back ... but when Cindy arrives on the beach, both of them are gone; and in the morning, when she asks him about it, Bob doesn't know what she's talking about. Cindy tells Jonathan about the Anchoress, and takes him up to where she first came across the hut. But all that remains is a small shrine, with a plaque dated ... 1776. Cindy is bewildered, the more so as she continues to catch glimpses of who looks like the Anchoress in the village - entering the church, in the old village shop - but by the time she reaches her, the mysterious woman has gone. Meanwhile, Bob's search for the perfect wife continues just as fruitlessly as before. Jan Pollock has the advantage of great good temper - and an appetite to match, which when Jonathan's rabbit Fizz disappears leads Jonathan to fear that Jan has eaten him. The children scour the hills for the wandering bunny - and once more find the Anchoress' hut. But this time the story she tells is slightly different: it is of a man who falls in love with a mermaid he once glimpsed in the waves, and searches for her ever afterward, lost without his one true love. For the first time Cindy realizes what it must be like for Bob to live alone, even if he does have her and Jonathan for company; and she makes a fateful wish: that Bob might, after all, find love and marry again. Not that the third candidate, Hazel Bouncer, is what Cindy has in mind. Hazel has a compulsion to organize and reorganize: the house is in an uproar for the duration of her stay, but her visit has an unexpected outcome. Amongst the drawers Hazel turns out is a photograph - the only one of her mother that Cindy remembers ever seeing - and who Mary looks like ... is the Anchoress. Bob too is tiring of the search; he begins to believe with Moya that perhaps the merman, floating inscrutably in his bell jar, has brought them bad luck. The children set off on a picnic - secretly they are going once more in search of the Anchoress: Cindy means to ask her for a miracle - for Bob to find a wife he can love. While they are gone, Bob impulsively takes the merman in its jar and sets out to bury the creature at sea. But while he is gone a terrible storm blows up, and Bob is believed lost. The children, however, never lose hope. Bob has been missing a week when Jonathan, combing the beach for clues as to the fate of the Mary Jean, comes across a seaweed pouch - filled to bursting with tiny, pearly shells: with mermaid coins. Back at home Moya has opened the last letter in response to Bob's advertisement: from a young woman named ... Maris. When Jonathan comes racing home with his treasure Moya bursts into tears - the mer-people cannot pay for Bob's life with this! Cindy, however, has quite a different understanding of the gift from the sea: a dowry - for a mermaid princess! For Maris! And she insists Moya answer the letter, asking Maris to come immediately. When Maris' letter of acceptance arrives Cindy races down to the quay - with the bride on the way, can the bridegroom be far away? And there indeed is the Mary Jean, coming finally and safely into port, with Bob and a huge catch of fish aboard. When Maris arrives it is as if the entire family recognizes her: green-eyed and gentle, she is the Anchoress, or she is Mary, or she is some magical combination of both. The tide has turned; the mermaid is indeed finally at rest.
Episode 4
Charlie
Sat, Feb 27, 199953 mins
Louise Adams (14) is new to Cranford - and she doesn't like it. Cranford is a place where people either fit in or move on, and Louise knows which of her options she'd prefer. She and her mother Kath have moved to this old mining town after the disastrous break-up of the Adams' marriage. Despite her very good relationship with Kath, Louise is so bitter about the circumstances of the divorce, and in particular her father's new partner, that she is determined not to make any effort in her new school or her new life - in short, not to trust anyone, ever again. Her only consolations are running - at which she excels - and her loyal setter, Minty. Louise's talent at track has been noticed - both by the crusty but lovable coach, Mike Horan (late '60s), and Anna and Pat, two girls from Cranford High who first meet Louise at the Yacht Club with her father and are anxious to be friends. However, Louise rebuffs approaches from both parties - she won't join the track team and she'd rather not socialize at all, thanks. Lou's high-school teacher, Mrs. Yates, is beginning to be concerned about her: she feels that perhaps it is time for Louise to have some counseling. Kath is alarmed by the suggestion, and Lou rejects it out of hand: all she wants is to be left alone. As far as she is concerned, her running is therapy enough. Louise's favorite place to run is by the now-defunct mine, along the tracks that wind up through the wooded mountain. The only people in the town who take an active interest in the mine are Mike Horan, who still pans for the tiny flecks of gold there are left, and the mysterious Charlie (17): a pale, withdrawn boy who wears the Cranford High tracksuit, but is never seen in school. Louise has seen Charlie in the distance on several of her runs, but whenever she rounds a corner after him it's as if he's vanished into thin air. Louise's class is working on a project researching Cranford and its history. Mrs. Yates tries to encourage Louise to join in with a group, but she insists on working by herself - and for good measure rejects another invitation from Anna to come with the other kids to the local hangout after school. Instead Lou goes to the library alone to begin research on the mines ... and looks up to find Charlie watching her silently from across the stacks - but before she can approach him, he has gone. Louise is becoming genuinely interested in the history of the mines. On her next run she takes her camera with her to get some photographs for the project. To her annoyance, Charlie runs into frame just as the shutter descends. It's not a propitious first meeting: he's no more happy about having his photo taken than she is about having her shot of the deserted shaft ruined. To add insult to injury, Charlie tries to persuade Louise to stay away from the mines in future - out of danger. The fiercely independent Lou is infuriated. But it seems she need not have worried about Charlie spoiling her photo. To her bewilderment, none of the prints show his image at all, and no one at the small school seems to know whom she's talking about when she describes him. Mrs. Yates has a suggestion to further her work, however - to check the Cranford Gazette "Morgue", or archives, to see what old material might be held about the mines. Louise finds none other than Mike Horan running the Morgue. In Mike she recognizes a kindred spirit, despite her stubborn refusal to join his precious track squad. Mike too is a little uneasy about Lou continuing to run so close to the pits; when she describes the boy who warned her off, he listens closely - then finds her a photograph of Charlie dated ... 1961. But how can a photograph of the adolescent boy she met be thirty-six years old? Why does her presence on the mountain make him so nervous, and what does any of it have to do with Mike Horan? Louise's next encounter with Charlie is dramatic. In her wish to be totally self-sufficient, she has paid too little attention to warnings about the danger of the mine: we open on her frozen with fear at the lip of the Cranford Pit, beyond the "DANGER" signals and the protecting fences. Charlie approaches silently from behind her - there is a frightening moment when it seems he might be about to push Louise to her death; instead, he seizes her wrist and pulls her clear just as the edge of the shaft caves in. It's certainly a hell of an ice-breaker, and quite soon - to the evident pleasure of both of them - the two are chatting like old friends. Charlie shares Lou's interest in the workings of the old mine, and between that, their shared "loner" status and their joint excellence at running, they are well on the way to feeling they are soul mates. Neither Kath nor, at first, Minty share Louise's pleasure in her newfound friendship with Charlie. The loyal dog is curiously uneasy in the boy's presence; Kath just can't understand why Lou won't bring him home to meet her, and - herself still hurting from her recent divorce - she's suspicious of Charlie's motives. Louise is indignant - isn't making friends exactly what Kath has been bothering her to do? She feels comfortable with Charlie in a way she hasn't felt with anyone in a very long time: she feels she can trust him, that she can confide in him, and that he does not judge her. Apart from Mike, Charlie is the only person she tells about her sense of Len's betrayal. Charlie is empathic - the loss (even the perceived loss) of a father is very difficult and lonely; he knows, he lost his own... Back at school, Louise participates no more than she did before, and is being singled out by the school bully, Brenda, and a couple of her nasty cronies. They're scornful of her stories of Charlie - oh right, the invisible boyfriend, the one in the photograph who wasn't there? Louise tells herself she doesn't care - she spends more and more time with Charlie, who even Minty has grown friendly toward. They run and hike and fish together, but to Louise's disappointment, Charlie always refuses to come down into the town with her and meet Kath, or go to one of the school socials. Clearly the situation cannot continue as it is forever, and the crisis comes when Brenda spies on Louise and Charlie - and discovers Louise apparently talking to herself. Brenda tells Anna and Pat that Lou's crazy, talking to trees - and the adults' concern about Louise and this mysterious boyfriend comes to a head. Lou's furious - she feels invaded and misunderstood: she goes to Mike for comfort, and he shows her an astonishing thing: black-and-white footage of the disaster that finally closed the struggling mine. Three men were trapped below: we see, stepping forward to volunteer - Charlie. The photographs, the footage, the fact that no one else seems ever to have seen Charlie - Louise is totally bewildered. Mike sends her to ask Charlie about it himself. Finally Charlie explains. His father's death in Korea, forty years before, and his mother's following soon thereafter left him feeling bitter and hopeless: he volunteered for the rescue mission because he didn't care what happened to him any more. And rescue he did - Mike Horan, who was partly crippled in the accident, but escaped with his life: and in this, he was luckier than Charlie. Louise cries as Charlie tells her that she must never allow herself to feel hopeless or bitter: what she has is not a rehearsal, it is the real thing - her only life. She must forgive her father and be brave enough to trust other people again ... and she must do one more thing for him, Charlie, to allow him to finally rest in peace. Mike Horan has become almost frantic with worry as Louise has still not come home. From his point of view, we find her standing at the edge of the pit - is she about to throw herself in? But then Louise drops into the void a bunch of yellow roses ... She looks round to find Mike smiling at her. This was her last gift to Charlie: the grief at his untimely death of someone who loved him. They return home to find Kath in a state of great excitement. This boyfriend of Louise's has gone right over the top: her room is filled to bursting with - yellow roses.
Episode 5
The Duellists
Sat, Mar 6, 199953 mins
Beneath the spreading shade of an ancient, solitary oak, two young men, Tobias Jones and Samuel Crittenden, melt into our vision. They are dressed in late eighteenth-century costume - breeches and shirts - and face each other aggressively, swords in hand. From some distance we hear a woman crying their names - the beautiful Ariadne Blake, running desperately to where the rivals stand. As if her voice was the catalyst the men needed, they begin to duel... Two hundred years ago Tobias and Samuel both lost their lives in a bid to win the hand of Ariadne - who loved neither. Now, once a year, on the anniversary of the tragedy, the ritual of hate is played out again, and the fruitless battle waged with Ariadne once more helpless to avert it. Always before the duel has been unobserved; but this year things are about to change... ... Ben Garfield (13) has only one thing in common with the school bully, Darren: their mutual interest in the pretty and feisty Zoë (also 13). The children are being taken on a training run by their coach and mentor Chris Hayward when Darren trips Ben up - and the class runs on, leaving him behind. Winded and breathless, Ben literally does not believe the evidence of his own eyes when the ghosts fade into being before him. The ghosts have always been bound to the site of the oak tree itself, but when they are seen, for the very first time, by a living person, they find that they are able to leave it. Samuel has an idea: if they could possess real bodies once more, they could settle the feud once and for all. Ariadne is alarmed by the implications, but Samuel and Tobias don't wait around to listen to her objections - they melt into the air in hot pursuit of Ben. Tobias makes the first move - and finds that he can indeed infiltrate another human being, though it's tough work. (Ben - bewildered by the momentary takeover - would no doubt agree.) It's settled, then: the duelists will choose appropriate hosts, and using the humans as instruments, duel for Ariadne for the final time. The situation leaves Ariadne with no alternative but to comply, despite her misgivings: unless she chooses a corporeal form for herself, she will be powerless to avert another pointless tragedy. Having followed Ben to school, the interlopers look around them. Samuel chooses Darren as his victim, and Ariadne, Zoë. But at the fateful moment, Darren and Zoë change places in the crowd - and Samuel's ectoplasm enters Zoë's body, and Ariadne's, Darren's. Tobias, who was heading for a larger and more aggressive host than poor Ben, is drawn helplessly back to his first choice: having once entered a human psyche, the ghosts are bound to that one and that one only. So the two duelists are now embodied in Ben and Zoë - and the sweet feminine mediator, in the hulking bully Darren. The scene is set for some ludicrous mismatches - and great bewilderment for the unwitting human hosts - until the children can figure out what is happening and how to take control of their own bodies again... ... But the only way to achieve that is to effect a reconciliation between the ghosts - and it takes the very real danger of losing both Darren and Ariadne forever before Samuel and Tobias come to their senses, and in setting the children free once more, free themselves.
Episode 6
Bertie
Sat, Mar 13, 199953 mins
In 1928, Bertie Milton won the Godolphin Cup on a horse trained by his grandfather, Sir Jasper - the only amateur jockey ever to win the race. The victory was celebrated at the famous annual Milton House Fancy Dress Ball: but the consequences of this particular party could not have been foreseen by anyone... A tragic accident leaves Bertie a reluctant ghost - a ghost who can't bring himself to scare the living, and one who has yet to master the simplest skills of the afterlife - dematerialization, for instance, or how to walk through walls. Unfortunately for Bertie, his haunting is being overseen and critiqued by a very tough taskmaster: Mr. Pym, the ultimate spectral bureaucrat. And Bertie has been assigned a most specific task: no one who is not part of the Milton family must be allowed to stay in the rambling old Milton Hall - which, since the Milton line has entirely died out, is kind of a tall order... ... And does not bode well, in 1998, for the Rhodes family - David, Paula, and their two children, Kate and John. David is a writer; he and his agent, the excitable Hugh, are in the final stages of negotiation of the sale of the screen rights to his latest novel. Perhaps rather precipitately, David has bought the Milton mansion against the vast profits he and Hugh confidently expect to flow in when the deal goes through ... But will it? Paula has some doubts, but Kate and John don't care. They fall in love with Milton Hall on sight; and the resident ghost becomes equally rapidly fond of them. It turns out that David has a connection to the place even Paula was unaware of: when a young woman his grandmother worked as a servant there, and told David so many exciting and colorful stories of the house that as a child he used to dream about it. For David, coming to Milton Hall for the first time has an eerie sense of coming home. He hangs a portrait of his grandmother in the main hall and settles down to prepare for his final meeting with the film company. Al Wicks, the fast-talking and very overbearing American producer interested in the project, comes to dinner: but due largely to Bertie's playful antics leaves in a fury, telling David he has just blown the best deal he'll ever see. David is himself so angry at the changes Al was intending to make to his precious story he hardly cares: but how will the Rhodes family stay in Milton Hall without the sale of the book? Several money-making schemes are cooked up between Bertie and the children, but all are foiled by Mr. Pym and an unexpected ally. Driven to distraction by his charge's hapless good humor, Mr. Pym has summoned the man who brought Bertie up: if anyone can bring the undisciplined spook into line, it is his authoritarian grandfather, Sir Jasper. But alas for Mr. Pym - Sir Jasper has secrets of his own. He is startled to find hanging in his old home the portrait of David's grandmother - a young woman he was once very much in love with. In the second chance of the century, Sir Jasper and David's grandmother meet again - and the best marriages are made in heaven... So the Rhodes family becomes part of the Miltons, and are permitted to stay. Sir Jasper now throws his redoubtable energies into securing their fortune: he and his ghostly bride choose to take their honeymoon in the Malibu mansion of Al Wicks, and prove very persuasive. Al relents; David's deal is made; and the family settles into what, in a strange twist of fate, has become their ancestral home.
Episode 7
The Magician
Sat, Mar 20, 199953 mins
Emily Watson (12) and her widower father Sam are show people, and along with their faithful dog Pepper make a living moving through the small towns of 1950's North America giving performances and selling "Dr. Watson's Magical Elixir" - Sam's own herbal remedy for just about anything. Although Emily of course still grieves for her mother, she is happy with her unconventional life and upbringing. However, the Watsons' lives change forever when they rescue the beautiful and mysterious Grizelda. Grizelda is a newcomer in what appears to be just a run-of- the-mill New England town - but since her arrival, the old aunt she says she came to visit has never been seen, and the townspeople believe she has been murdered. Sam and Emily find Grizelda fleeing for her life. She explains that she, like Sam, is a healer, and is being accused by the villagers not only of murder but of witchcraft. Sam is fascinated by the young woman, who insinuates herself rapidly into the routine of the little family. She helps Sam with the preparation of his emulsions, Emily with the cooking, and even joins the magic act - but Pepper distrusts her from the start. Emily too notices a peculiar thing about Grizelda: periodically she succumbs to abrupt and violent headaches, which seem almost to turn her into another person. There is only one thing that will cure the malady: a potion of Grizelda's own making, which she is extremely secretive about. Emily happens into the caravan as Grizelda takes the potion, and is startled by the violence of Grizelda's reaction - she seems to think Emily has been spying on her. But what does Grizelda have to hide? Unused to sharing her father's attention, Emily is glad to arrive at Bitter Creek, the little town they visit every summer, and to meet up again with the friend she made there the previous year, the farm-boy Tom (14). But it is at Bitter Creek that Grizelda's true nature will be revealed... Sam has none of Emily's misgivings. In fact, Sam is a man in love - and to Emily's distress, they no sooner arrive at the market and set up their stall than her father and Grizelda are married. From this point on - her objective achieved - Grizelda has no further interest in trying to win Emily over. Angered by Pepper's protectiveness of his mistress, Grizelda makes the dog "vanish" during the magic show. Emily searches the tent after the show - and to her great shock finally finds a frog: a frog that barks. So Emily does spy on Grizelda, and uncovers the ghastly truth. Far from murdering her old aunt as she was accused of doing, the luscious and youthful Grizelda is the crone herself. Her "headaches" indicate that the spell is wearing off - which is why whenever they strike she must rush back to the caravan to take a fresh dose of potion ... When Emily tries to explain to her father how much and how dangerously they have been duped, he is horrified - horrified at Emily and her "lies". With not even Sam able to believe her, Emily takes the still-enchanted Pepper and the rest of Grizelda's potion, and with the help of loyal Tom steals away. Without the potion, Grizelda of course reverts back to her true shape. In a peculiarly ironic twist, Sam is accused of killing his lovely young wife and daughter - for where are they now...? Tom carries back news of Sam's trial to Emily, who is hiding in his barn. As the children set off to the rescue, the barn door swings open to reveal, triumphant, Grizelda - she has followed Tom back from the village to Emily and the potion! But the witch is no match for the ingenuity of the two children and Pepper. It seems only just that it is Grizelda's own wand which transforms her into a harmless black cat - running for its life before the dog she so cruelly transformed.
Episode 8
A Ghost of Our Own
Sat, Mar 27, 199953 mins
Laura Bradley and her two daughters Jenny (10) and Alison (13) are traveling in great excitement to their new home - the mysterious Bradley House, an unexpected inheritance from a great-uncle they never met. But their taxi driver, the surly Alfie Noakes, is rather less than welcoming: he tells them Bradley House is well-known in the neighborhood as haunted - and that nobody ever stays there long... Jenny loves Bradley House from the moment she sees it: she has a curious sense of being in her rightful home there. Alison just thinks it's spooky; Laura thinks the house is probably, and regrettably, going to be far too expensive to maintain. But Jenny wants desperately to stay, particularly when they uncover the full-length portrait in the Hall of Jonathan Bradley, circa 1780, a stern-faced captain of the Royal Navy. Great-great-great-great-Uncle Jonathan, who vanished in sinister circumstances two hundred years before: is he the famous ghost? Well, at any rate, he's family! But does Uncle Jonathan want the modern day Bradleys to stay? From the moment of their arrival strange and alarming events seem to be conspiring to force them out: shadows are half-glimpsed peering from windows, a flowerpot falls from the roof and comes dangerously close to felling Laura, footsteps are heard moving around in the dead of night... Jenny is not one to be thrown off the scent of a good mystery by a little fright. She is determined to track down the source of the footsteps, whether it be ghostly or mortal - and accordingly she creeps back into the house when Laura and Alison are in town, and discovers hiding in a locked room two stowaways - the cat Bartholomew and the brave and resourceful Tommy, a little boy of about her own age who has run away from the orphan's home he was placed in, and until the Bradleys' arrival had been roughing it in the empty house. Tommy is afraid that Jenny will tell Laura about him, and he will be sent back to the Home - but Jenny promises him she will not reveal his presence to anyone: he can go on hiding just as before. Laura, meanwhile, has been seeking advice on the possibility and wisdom of a sale from the apparently kind and decent solicitor James Pardoe - whose interest in the case seems to be partly motivated by his interest in Laura. Alison, too, is adjusting rapidly to the new town: on the steps of the library, waiting for Laura, she meets a new friend and fellow budding intellectual - Nigel Hargreaves (13). Laura comes home worried. Not only would the house be a monster to upgrade and maintain, but Pardoe feels that due to its reputation she is unlikely to make any money even from a sale - though he has managed to find an interested buyer for her, at a depressingly low price ... Laura's worry turns to outright horror as all three Bradleys are woken by terrifying noises in the night. Finally the chandelier crashes down right in front of where they are huddling together for safety, and Laura has had enough - she wants the girls to leave the house with her right now. But of course Jenny knows what the others do not - that Tommy is also here, and that if the place is really being haunted by a malevolent presence she cannot leave him behind. Despite Alison's protestations she dashes back into the house - and is captured by the man faking these so-called "hauntings": the Apparition turns out to be none other than their unfriendly taxi driver, the ruffian Alfie Noakes. But why is Noakes so keen on forcing the Bradleys to sell? With poor Tommy held as prisoner and hostage, Noakes gloatingly reveals all. In fact, the estate of Bradley House is worth a fortune - particularly if the house could be torn down to make room for a new development ... The unnamed buyer is Noakes himself - together with his partner, the deceptively sweet James Pardoe, Noakes is out to make a mint. But if Jenny wants to see her friend alive again, she'd better hold her tongue - and make sure Laura signs Pardoe's papers of sale tomorrow...Very subdued, Jenny rejoins her angry mother and sister. Reluctant as she is to leave Bradley House itself, furious as she is to have her family cheated out of its rightful inheritance in this way, it seems she has no choice but to go against all her own wishes and inclinations and try to persuade Laura to go with Pardoe's duplicitous suggestion. However, Alison has been suspicious of the lawyer from the start. With Nigel's help, she discovers the truth about the worth of Bradley House. Despite Jenny's tearful pleas to leave well enough alone, Alison and Nigel burst into the solicitor's office just as Laura is about to sign the papers - and spill the beans. Poor Mr. Pardoe, who had been driven to desperation by mounting debts, confesses all. But his contrition may have come too late for Jenny, who has raced back to Bradley House to save Tommy. Thwarted, Noakes turns nasty on both of them - especially when he receives a call from Pardoe telling him the game is over, he'd best give himself up. He seizes Jenny - she will be his hostage to freedom... At this desperate juncture, the real ghost of Bradley House enters - not Bartholomew, not Tommy, not Noakes, but Uncle Jonathan himself. "Unhand my niece, you knave!" - and Noakes flees for his life. So the immediate danger is averted. But there still remains the problem of how the Bradleys can afford to maintain their ancestral home. Nothing easier, Uncle Jonathan tells Jenny - and in one stroke their financial embarrassments and the two-hundred-year- old mystery of his disappearance are solved. Jonathan takes Jenny to a secret room that no one else has ever known of: and there sits Uncle Jonathan's skeleton, still in his naval uniform, still with its hand poised over the chest of gold coins he had been in the midst of counting at the moment of his death.
Episode 9
Jessica's Diary
Sat, Apr 3, 199953 mins
Being thirteen is difficult enough at the best of times - and Jessica is not having the best of times. Her mother, Rose, has recently become bedridden with a mysterious illness. Despite a battery of tests, none of the doctors know what Rose is suffering from, and when, or indeed if, she will get better. In this time of great stress for the family, Jessica's relationship with her stepfather Mike has deteriorated sharply. The only pleasant thing in Jessica's life is her new friendship with the boy who is working on the farm for the summer, the level-headed and practical Chris (16). Chris is an invaluable ally and confidant - for Jessica is beginning to believe that Mike actually hates her... In this frame of mind, Jessica is vulnerable to a very eerie experience. In town to buy the week's groceries, she stumbles across a little bookshop she has never noticed before. The bookseller who runs it - an elderly, sprightly man, with a faintly malevolent smile - selects a book especially for her: Jessica is even embossed on the cover. But how does the bookseller know her name? When Jessica brings the book home she finds, to her astonishment, that it is the diary of a girl called Jessica Brown, exactly her age, writing exactly a hundred years before. The diary makes extraordinary reading - for the coincidences between the lives of the two girls do not stop there. Most striking of all is the relationship between the long-dead girl and her stepfather - who Jessica Brown detested... It becomes clear, in fact, that Jessica Brown believed her stepfather was planning to kill both her and her mother in order to inherit the farm. And the story is unfinished: it stops abruptly on January 13th. Was Jessica Brown murdered, as she feared she would be? Chris and Jessica search out the church records for more information. They find the record of Jessica Brown's birth, and her grave, but no date. Could this old tragedy possibly have any bearing on what is happening to Rose? Could it be that Jessica Brown is somehow trying to warn the present-day Jessica of a terrible danger? The diary begins to have a sinister sway over Jessica's mind. As the 13th of January comes closer in the present day, Jessica becomes convinced that the diary was sent to her as a warning... Chris has observed the development of Jessica's obsession with increasing concern. He steals the diary, hoping that simply removing its presence might help Jessica. But the diary simply reappears in Jessica's room - it seems neither of the children are able to destroy it until its task is done. The thirteenth dawns with Jessica actually sick with apprehension. She is now certain that Mike has been slowly poisoning Rose, and that he will kill her, Jessica, too - if she doesn't take drastic action ... The poison she finds in the doctor's bag when he pays a house visit seems a gift straight from heaven. Now completely under the diary's evil influence, Jessica steals the poison - and pours it into the bowl of soup she has been preparing Mike. Chris arrives in a terrible panic. In continuing his investigations he has had a great stroke of luck: he has stumbled across the name of Jessica Brown in an old newspaper. But the story the article tells is not what Jessica has been led to believe. Far from Jessica Brown dying at thirteen, she lived to be an old woman - in an asylum. She was notorious in the district at the time for the murder of her stepfather - who she believed to be trying to murder her ... History is indeed about to repeat itself, and in the most hideous way. When the two children rush into the kitchen Mike is just polishing off the last of the soup ... but that's not the bowl Jessica gave him! They realize Mike has taken the poisoned bowl upstairs - to Rose... In the nick of time Jessica races into her mother's room and spills the poisoned soup all over the bed. As the replay of the hundred-year-old tragedy is thwarted, the diary disappears from Jessica's room as if it had never been there. On the same fateful day, Rose's illness is at last diagnosed - she can be easily treated. Jessica is at peace - and finally, she comes to believe, so is poor Jessica Brown.
Episode 10
The Pirate
Sat, Apr 10, 199953 mins
The Craig family have always taken their annual holidays at the beach, in their quaint, much-loved Seaview Cottage. But this year things are poised to change for Sarah (11) and her brothers Peter (14) and Jack (16). Their father has lost his business, and unless the children can come up with a solution, they will lose the second home that has always meant so much to them. Peter and Jack have long grown out of digging for buried treasure, which is the only plan Sarah can come up with for restoring the family fortunes. Sarah is used to being the butt of her older brothers' jokes: when she really does make a find, she is not surprised that they won't pay her or it any attention. But there's something very special about this particular piece of jetsam. What Sarah has unearthed is a silver salver - valuable in itself, but far more importantly, containing the spirit of James Pierrepoint, pirate. Pierrepoint wants Sarah to find the key to release him from the four-hundred-year-old curse that has kept him prisoner. But the man who cast the curse originally is still very much around. The infamous Dr. Dee, Elizabethan alchemist and sorcerer, is posing in the town as an antique-dealer. He displays a sinister interest in both Sarah and the salver - for Dee he doesn't want this particular antique going anywhere ... At first a frightening and ghoulish figure, Pierrepoint warms to Sarah. He twice saves members of her family from danger - her brothers from a rock-slide, her mother Sylvia from a car accident - for as Dr. Dee tells her, "Things were a little muddled when the curse was made. Flashes of the future, nods and whispers about the past as well..." Four hundred years ago Pierrepoint marooned a relative of Dr. Dee's on a desert island. His punishment is to remain forever trapped in the salver, condemned to a waking death of never-ending cold and never-ending fever - unless the curse can be lifted ... but how can Sarah find the key? Pierrepoint shows Sarah one last vision: a little boy hurt and lost. When the search parties of the community fail to find him, and she cannot convince her family of what she saw in the salver, Sarah sets out, in desperation, to consult with Dr. Dee. Dee tells her the salver has one wish, and one wish only, for the person who finds it. Sarah is faced with a terrible choice: she can use the wish to find the little boy; she can save the cottage she and her brothers love so much by asking Pierrepoint to tell her where the accumulated treasure of his career of piracy is hidden; or she can set Pierrepoint himself free. If Pierrepoint has used his "flashes of the future" to help Sarah, surely she has an obligation to do what she can to help him in return? But the life of a child is at stake... It is the final irony, that in doing what Dee had never expected her to do and using her one wish for someone other than herself - apparently dashing both her own and Pierrepoint's dearest hopes in the process - that Sarah unwittingly unlocks the curse and sets Pierrepoint free. The key to the curse had always been an unselfish wish - and for four hundred years that one twist had been enough to keep Pierrepoint prisoner. Weary but content, Sarah throws the salver back into the sea and turns to say goodbye for the last time to the irascible old pirate - but he has gone forever. The only clue that he was ever there at all is what he has left her: a torn, ancient map ... to buried treasure.
Episode 11
The Skeleton in the Cupboard
Sat, Apr 17, 199953 mins
Cherry Painter (12) comes from a fascinating family. For three generations they have made their living as magicians - but with her father the tendency seems to be dying out. He and his funny, astute sister Linda, a great favorite and confidante of Cherry's, seem - unaccountably, in Cherry's eyes - to want nothing more than to lead ordinary lives. Cherry has the gift - she wants to be the first world-class female magician, and she cannot understand the others being seemingly more than content to leave show biz for menial jobs. But then, the very mention of her Granddad's famous act - which culminated in the trick known as "The Skeleton in the Cupboard" - seems to make her relatives nervous. Is there something that has been kept from her all these years? A final, disastrous show at the house of Cherry's deadly enemy, the smug and superior Donna Carver, clinches Mr. Painter's decision. He turns his wand and costume over to Linda for safekeeping, and takes a job as groundsman at Cherry's own school. The embarrassment! Cherry's furious - and her wisecracking friend Jimmy is for once of little help. It is up to Cherry, she decides, to rescue the family reputation - and a talent contest at school seems to provide her with the perfect opportunity. She will be tutored secretly by Aunty Linda, and with Jimmy as her (very reluctant) assistant put on a magic show that will both dazzle the school, and demonstrate to her father the error of his ways. Poking around in Linda's attic, Cherry finds a picture she has never seen before. There's her father, all right, and there's Linda, albeit twenty years younger, and there's her poor grandfather, as vibrant and domineering as he was before his stroke - but who is this other young man ... ? Under persistent questioning, Linda finally caves in. The man Cherry does not know is her uncle, Geoff, who was the star of the show and in Linda's generation certainly the one with the gift. But he vanished - truly and for good - during one of the "Skeleton in the Cupboard" shows, and was never seen again ... Neither Cherry's father nor grandfather can bear to hear his name mentioned. Linda was commissioned with destroying the "Skeleton" box, but could not bear to: here it is still, in the corner of her attic, a dazzlingly-painted and strangely fascinating object the size of a grown man... Perfect for her show, Cherry decides. But during the performance, Jimmy vanishes for real. Has the box taken him? At this point Geoff makes his first ever appearance in his niece's life. He had seen the article about Jimmy's mysterious disappearance - nothing less would have forced him to recontact the family he left so many years ago. He explains to Cherry that he knew the box was evil, and that he himself had been falling further and further under its spell. After one occasion when Linda, as his assistant, actually did vanish and was gone for several hours, Geoff was so frightened he wished to leave the show - but his competitive and difficult relationship with his own father, Cherry's Grandad, made it impossible ... so he staged a disappearance. Does the box need another victim before it will give up Jimmy? If so, Cherry - who seems to be falling under the dark influence of the box herself - has the ideal candidate: what better way to get rid of Donna ... But tragedy is narrowly averted when a reconciliation is effected between Geoff and Cherry's grandfather. With the cycle of hate broken, the box is powerless. Jimmy is returned; the ugly family secrets have been resolved; and the box is at last destroyed.
Episode 12
Between Life and Death
Sat, Apr 24, 199953 mins
Jamie Irving (12) loves and admires his father - but the two of them are worlds apart. Rick - tough, smart, perfectionist, and very determined - has a glamorous and dangerous job as an investigator working for Customs; he is the quintessential man of action, and does not understand how to deal with his gentle, intellectual son. Jamie feels misunderstood and constantly put down by Rick; when he cannot handle effectively the bullying a timid boy of his age is often subjected to, he feels his father despises him. But Rick is about to find out that there are times when discretion is certainly the better part of valor. He has stumbled onto information that he may have to pay for with his life. The smooth and debonair Alex Trent - a big time businessman, with powerful government contacts - is dealing in nuclear arms: the next shipment is due at any moment. It is a case with frightening international ramifications, and the last person Rick should have chosen to confide in is his boss... For Marsh is working for Trent himself - and Rick is taken hostage, interrogated, and then thrown into the harbor, more dead than alive. It seems incredible to Jamie that his larger-than-life father could be vulnerable in any way - but an even bigger shock is in store for him... For Rick appears to him as he plays in the garden, and tells Jamie he desperately needs his help. But how can this be, when Rick is lying comatose in Intensive Care? - Rick's spirit has "dissociated" from his body, and Jamie is the only one who can see him. It may be the first time Jamie has had his father's undivided attention in his life... Rick and Jamie's first attempts to alert the police to what has really happened to Rick, and what he risked his life to defeat, are foiled at every turn. Rick knows he will need hard evidence to convince anyone of what seems an outrageously far-fetched scenario - that a highly respected businessman and a senior inspector are working together to supply arms to terrorists. During his interrogation he had noticed surveillance cameras all through Trent's hideaway, recording the every move of its inhabitants. Perhaps his own security measures could be turned against the villainous Trent - if Rick and Jamie could only get the tape showing Trent giving the order to have Rick killed to the police ... But between Rick's impatience and Jamie's timidity, none of their carefully-laid plans come to fruition. The turncoat Marsh - who is still presenting the plausible face of the caring boss to the world - is, like Jamie's mother Jean, puzzled by Jamie's peculiar behavior, and the "fantasies" he is having about what happened to his father ... But unlike Jean, Marsh knows how close these so-called fantasies come to the truth. And time is running out... Rick for the first time understands he will not be able to achieve his object without figuring out a way to work as a team with his son. Both sets of unique and specialized skills - Jamie's quick mind and technical expertise; Rick's strength, decisiveness and courage - must play a part if their plan is to succeed. Jamie - guided and directed by Rick - manages to infiltrate Trent's center of operations and acquire the incriminating tape. He is immediately pursued - but Rick cannot stay with him: his time is up - if his spirit does not go return to his body he will probably die. Jamie bravely insists his father leave him to fight the rest of the battle alone. In demanding respect for his own strengths, Jamie discovers he is braver and more resourceful than he knew - and in that, he is truly his father's son.
Episode 13
Darkness Visible
Sat, May 1, 199953 mins
Groby Temporal, clock-maker, bon vivant and black wizard, has lived alone on his own private beach for longer than anyone can remember. He claims the land was given to his father in perpetuity - but the local town council can prove otherwise. They are determined to erect budget holiday chalets for city families on just a hundred yards of the land Groby is accustomed to calling his own. Twenty adults and perhaps sixty children staying within spitting distance?! - It is at this point that the councilors start mysteriously disappearing, one by one ... Three penniless orphans - Murray (12), Ruth (12) and Dot (10) - are the only children from the Home left unclaimed for the holiday period. Wandering disconsolately in the woods, they discover and rescue a dog caught in a rabbit snare. In return, Vespa leads them to her home, the magical house of Miss Angela Dwelf, charming and eccentric white witch. Angela has been called in by the authorities to control Groby Temporal, who has sent one citizen too many into limbo - into what Groby himself calls "darkness visible". The feud between the two sorcerers' families is of generations' standing - ever since Angela's great-grandfather convicted Groby's father of black magic, and sentenced him to hang ... But what is it in the children that Groby instantly recognizes? What power do they possess that he fears - Groby Temporal, who fears nothing? Angela is intrigued. Is it that they are three children together, or orphans, or - as Angela suggests - simply that they are so young they have time on their side - a sensitive issue for an erstwhile clockmaker who's overstayed his welcome by more than a century? Not one to pass up a possible advantage, Angela takes the kids with her when she goes to confront Groby. With him distracted, she sends the kids into Groby's shack to discover the secret weapon she can sense, and from which he derives his power. But Groby catches them in the act - and although Murray and Ruth escape, little Dot is kidnapped and held hostage. Groby tells Angela that unless she persuades the councilors that the beach rightfully belongs to him, none of them will ever see Dot again ... Time for a rescue! By dint of stone-throwing, window-breaking and slingshot-wielding, Ruth and Murray manage to get Dot out of the shack safe and sound ... But Groby switches his attention to Murray himself - and sends him into "darkness visible". He swears Murray is lost to them forever - and he and Angela engage in a shape-changing battle to the death on the sands. Angela opens strongly, but without the knowledge of Groby's secret weapon she is slowly beaten down. Ruth and Dot, watching in anguish from further up the beach, realize that to save not just Murray's life, but the whole town, they must identify and dismantle the source of Groby's strength. Ruth tears into the shack. As she looks around desperately, the four clocks that stand guard in each corner of the room begin to chime in perfect discord: Angela's time is up. Ruth realizes that the clocks are set at different times - what better metaphor for a clockmaker gone horribly to the bad? Frantically she resets the clocks so that they are chiming together harmoniously - and in the same way that Angela is weakened by dissension, Groby Temporal is by accord. He falls powerless to his knees - to be banished forever by Angela. The time of Temporal is over. The beach once more belongs to everyone. And the three orphans have found with Angela Dwelf a home worth fighting for: they are orphans no longer.
Episode 14
The Green Dress
Sat, May 8, 199953 mins
Being the new girl is often rather frightening, even at a conventional school, so for Rosa Martinelli (13) to have been accepted into the School of the Performing Arts is something of a mixed blessing. It came at a topsy-turvy time in her life anyway: her father Nick and mother Brigid have just separated, and Brigid and Rosa are trying to figure out their new life on their own. Rosa's pleased to have delighted Brigid so much in taking the first step toward the dream of stardom - but is it Brigid's dream, or Rosa's own? Although Rosa's voice is pleasant, it is nothing extraordinary, and being naturally shy she doesn't enjoy the audition for her first school production. Pretty and spiteful Lucy - who is far more confident both in her talent and her social life than Rosa - doesn't empathize: she's delighted to have a new victim for her teasing, and the interest Brad - school hunk and erstwhile boyfriend of Lucy - takes in Rosa doesn't endear the new girl to her any further. Lucy gets the main part, Rosa takes a place in the chorus - but even this poses its problems: the actors must find their own costumes, and how can Brigid afford to buy Rosa a new dress? Rosa's eye is caught by a beautiful forties dress in the window of the local op shop. It fits her perfectly - as if it were made for her... But the dress was originally made for Julia - fascinating and charming, Julia was poised on the brink of stardom when she was tragically killed. And Julia plans to make the comeback of all time - from the grave... At first Julia's presence in Rosa's life seems benign - exciting, certainly. With Julia taking over Rosa's voice, "Rosa" stuns Mrs. Monmouth, her music teacher, with her overnight transformation into a student of extraordinary talent. But it's too late to recast the main part - until Lucy suffers an unfortunate accident. She insists a girl she has never seen before pushed her down the stairs ... and Rosa becomes faintly uneasy about her ghostly new friend. Rosa/Julia does the show to great acclaim - but at the end of the night Julia refuses to leave Rosa's body: she's out for a complete takeover. And when Rosa returns to consciousness she discovers she is trapped - trapped in the green dress... Luckless Lucy spots the dress hanging back in the window of the op shop. Intrigued, she tries it on - and discovers Rosa... Wearing the green dress, Lucy confronts Julia - with Rosa speaking through her. But Lucy has an ulterior motive: come to me, Julia - leave second-hand Rosa's body behind. With my looks and your talent, how can we fail...? Despite Rosa's frantic warning, Lucy invites Julia into her soul - and is trapped herself - trapped in the green dress. As for Rosa, she has realized there are many things she is no longer interested in giving up in pursuit of fame and fortune. Her dreams are her own.
Episode 15
A Matter of Time
Sat, May 15, 199953 mins
David Morgan (12) is a natural scientist. He is already obsessed with what is destined to become his lifework: the design and construction of a time travel machine, what David affectionately refers to as the "Tasmo" - Time and Space Modulator. But the path of a boy genius in a small and conventional town can be thorny. David's father, Alan, would rather see him out on the playing field with a baseball than in the annals of history; to add insult to injury David is failing all his subjects except science, and even his teacher, the bookish spinster Miss Jameson, is beginning to lose faith that the Tasmo will ever work ... A mysterious newcomer to Alverton seems to know and understand more about David, his work and his problems than anyone else. What does the middle aged, balding and paunchy Donald Wells have to do with young David's life? When Alan's shop is broken into and the prototype Tasmo stolen, Donald seems the obvious suspect. But Donald Wells is from the future - he's been sent to ensure David does get the Tasmo back, because without it the development of time travel is impossible. He meets David "accidentally" in the park, and drops a clue as to the true identity of the thief that David can barely credit. In his groundbreaking work on the Tasmo, David has miscalculated more than the chronology determinator: dowdy Miss Jameson is not - or not simply - the altruistic mentor she seems. While essentially good-hearted, she has fallen desperately in love with the school headmaster, the cold and manipulative Eamonn Dodds, and at his urging has entered into a money-making scheme to get them out of Alverton forever - together. The Tasmo is a hair's-breadth away from actually working - and the plan is to steal it from David and sell it to the highest bidder. So David and Donald join forces. If Miss Jameson has stolen the Tasmo, then David must steal it back. He and Donald creep into the school in the dead of the night together - but the burglary goes badly wrong when David makes a shocking discovery: that Donald knows so much about him and his tensions with his father not because he was exceptionally well briefed, but because he is David - as David will be in 2035 ... This isn't the future as David imagined it - and if rescuing the Tasmo means that David will grow into the balding and overweight Donald, then it's time to change the course of history! David runs away, leaving Donald behind to be caught in the school grounds and arrested for breaking and entering - but not before he has hidden the Tasmo. Donald has had a pointed conversation or two with Alan, too - and when Alan realizes that David has abruptly lost all interest in time travel and turned overnight into a super-jock wannabe, he is more anxious than gratified. David refuses to discuss his change of heart, leaving his father very worried ... When he sees David being shepherded into the headmaster's car and driven away, his concern turns to fear. Dodds is of course frantic to find the Tasmo again - but his interrogation of David is of no use: David doesn't know where it is either, and at this stage, couldn't care less. Miss Jameson, who has been becoming more and more uneasy about the part she has played in the skulduggery, is shocked and disgusted by Dodds' bullying of who is, after all, her favorite pupil. Alan bursts in at the critical moment - and duplicitous Dodds draws a gun on all three of them. But Alan remains resolute under fire: he tells David he must do what he wants with his life, not what Alan or Dodds or Miss Jameson want ... Dodds sneers, but he would have done better to have kept alert: the moment she sees he is distracted, Miss Jameson creeps up behind her erstwhile suitor and knocks him unconscious with a vase. As Dodds falls, the vase shatters - and there in the shards lies the Tasmo, David's historic invention - and his future.