I was recently having a chat with my mum about Children's television. I was basically watching some of the toss that kids these days get peddled, and I said that I didn't remember TV being this bad when I was young.

And it wasn't. So I went out and found the proof.

I'm now going to show you some you of the shows that got me in to Sci-fi and made me the man I am today.

The Finder, also known as Finder Keepers.

This was on Channel 4 really early on a Saturday...or was it a Sunday morning? I forget now. However I was very young but I remember getting up really early to watch it every weekend. I'm not sure if I quite grasped the concept because I would have been around 8 years old.

Anyway this kid gets invited to participate in a game show in another dimension - nice huh? He has to find objects from the parallel world that have been lost in ours - to be in with a chance of winning a million pounds.

He has to cross something called the time barrier which is the thing that separates their would with ours. Clocks weaken the barrier and allow people to cross over. The strange one in the shopping centre seems to have weakened it the most because that's where all this shit goes down.

If you read some of the comments on youtube, a lot of people thought that they had dreamt this show. I thought I had too, apparently not though as here is episode 1, it's worth a watch. It really is a great bit of Sci-fi.

(Part 1)

(Part 2)

The Girl From Tomorrow

This was a BBC program. Watching it now; the special effects are terrible, but that doesn't really matter as it was made in 1990 which would have made me 7 for the people that are bothered.

In the year 3000 the world is recovering from 'the great disaster'. To better understand it they are travelling back in time to find out what happened. However a Mad Max style Criminal from the 2500 steals a time capsule when they come to visit in order to try and take over the future. He travels to the year 3000 but fails miserably and escapes with Alana - the main character - to the year 1990...woah. Considering I was 7 I can't believe I got this.

Alana must steal back the time machine from the Mad Max guy before it automatically travels back to the future without her.






The Odyssey

This is a Good-un...in fact I think I 'm going to try and find this on DVD.

This was another Channel4 early morning special. I love the concept of the show. I really want it to be remade, it could even be a film. Ok - I have hyped it enough - lets go:

Jay, the main character falls from a tree house and lapses in to a coma.

In the coma, Jay finds himself in another world. A world where none of the kids ever reach the age of 16. There are no adults so the kids have shaped the world on their own. I seem to remember that it resembled a fascist police state for some reason.

All the people from Jays life appear in his dream even his dad who he has decided he has to find, and is the key for Jay to get home.

Mean while in the real world his mum and his friends try to help him regain consciousness which sometimes results in the merging of the two worlds.

I found the first episode on lovely lovely Youtube.

(Part 1) 

(Part 2)
(Part 3)

I have missed a good few more out of this list on purpose because I'm going to do another post when I have the time.