The Girl from Tomorrow (TV series)

[Bobby K]

Hi Roja and Fanat!

Yes, i watched TGFT and Spellbinder while growing up in Australia - the former while i was in primary school and the latter during my early high school years.

I've actually written an essay on how both series are wonderful stories about the worlds of children and young pepole and how they can guide social work practice.I've submitted the article to Australia's social worker quarterly magazine, so hopefully it gets published and i'll share it with you all

I have to say, Alana's my favourite character from TGFT. I find her very sweet and genuine and relate to her 'idealist' upbringing. However, like all the young characters, i admire how she grows throughout the show to be quite brave and also adapts a bit to get out of danger, such as by lying and so on.

Well, the monopoly game, with real Australian money, was pretty funny lol

Hmmm, favourite scene, that's a tough one. You know, actually, i like the scenes when Alana goes to school; and she's way smarter than the teachers which arouse their suspicions. Alana discovering chocolate eclairs was pretty hilarious too

What i do like about Eddies characterisation is that, while he is a 'bad guy', like on Silverthorn's side, he doesn't have a malicious streak. Like, he's got some sort of foolish vulnerability about him, which makes him a bit more relatable

Speaking of relatable, i had totally forgotten in Spellbinder, Season 2, when Kathy asks Ashka, "Did you have a bad childhood?", and Ashka says she grew up as an orphan. While it didn't excuse her behaviour, i had a better understanding of her mentality. She was probably overreacting to her past trauma, always seeking power as she thought that was her only way to survive

It's funny what we learn from shows, even watching them more than 20-30 years later

[Roja]

Hey Bobby, apologies for my late reply to your post- I hadn’t logged in for a while. I’ll see if I can change my settings so in future I’ll get emails when there are replies to this thread.

I would love to see your essay- clearly you are a super fan of both shows- and I’m sure Mark Shirrefs would be flattered to see it too! He loves reading about how people have been positively influenced by the shows he’s written!

I see you are interested in the psychology of the characters and that’s an interest I share too. I’m not a professional in that field, but I’m very interested in psychology and have done a lot of reading about it, partly for my own healing as I’ve had past trauma, and partly because I’m just interested in the reasons why people are the way they are and do the things they do. Everyone has their own baggage and backstory which explains how they behave in the present day.

I also found Alana’s scenes at school in 1990 funny, but my favourite moment was when she was caught gazing out of the classroom window at the boys exercising, and, when asked by the teacher if the boys were more interesting than her class, Alana truthfully answered “Yes.”

You have interesting thoughts about Eddie! Funnily enough, a few months ago me and Mark Shirrefs were having an email conversation about his character. I’ll paste what we wrote in those emails-I’m sure Mark won’t mind me sharing it here.

I wrote:

I think Eddie's character gave an
important message to kids about how some people will do just about
anything for money.

Eddie wasn't a sociopath like Silverthorn, and showed signs of having
a conscience occasionally, for instance when he looked very
uncomfortable at first when his boss abducted Alana in the limo. The
problem was that Eddie's greed usually overrode his conscience,
leading to him doing some very bad things, including attempting to
attack children, and deliberately crashing a car into a garage with
people inside.

But the worst thing Eddie did was to tell Silverthorn where he could
find nuclear weapons. If Eddie had activated his conscience at that
stage, he could have prevented the Great Disaster, because the warship
was only in port for a week, and without Eddie telling him about it,
Silverthorn would probably have never found out.

And Eddie knew what kind of person Silverthorn was... it wasn't as if
he was going to use a pair of nuclear warheads as ornaments for his
garden! But for Eddie, who had tasted the high life living it up in
the mansion when Silverthorn was away, and had aspirations to be the
king of the castle again AND to break free of a boss he secretly
hated, Silverthorn's promise of any payment Eddie wanted in return for
finding him the weapons was an irresistible opportunity.

Then later on when it actually came to getting the weapons, Eddie was
visibly nervous and had cold feet, but he'd got himself into a
situation he couldn't get out of. One of Eddie's problems was that he
was too dense and/or shallow to think through the long term
consequences of his actions- he only thought about immediate
gratification, something evidenced by the way he blew a load of
Silverthorn's money betting on the horses without knowing the results,
when a smart guy in his position would have invested the money
instead.

Personally I was surprised when Eddie got a happy ending, considering
what he'd done and that all the other bad characters in the show were
punished in some way (except that technician who modded people under
orders). Perhaps you felt he'd learned his lesson due to his scary
experiences with Draco and Silverthorn, or that he was young and
deserved another chance? Or maybe the ending was simply reflecting the
reality that many people get away with doing bad things and are just
lucky.

Personally I suspect Eddie had not suddenly decided to be good
overnight, and I still wouldn't trust him, because while Eddie was an
ambiguous character throughout the show, one thing I learned for
certain about Eddie was that little scragger wasn't loyal to anybody
except himself! And that was another important message in the show:
that you can bribe people, but you can't buy genuine loyalty.

Oh, and in the book (not in the show) Eddie told Jenny "I hope your
kitten dies", which, as a cat lover, I cannot forgive him for!

And Mark replied:

I really enjoyed reading your assessment of Eddie. You nailed everything we tried to do with him.
In some ways Eddie was my favourite character because he did have a conscience and do the right thing but then would let his greed override it.
I think he never had much love growing up and therefore only looked out for himself, but deep inside he knew what was right.
He was always fun to write for and Miles did a great job with his character.

[Roja]

Also, Mark Shirrefs was doing some tidying up during lockdown and found this old magazine featuring him and the other TGFT (and Spellbinder!) writer John Thomson on the cover, posing with prop guns made by John Howard:


(Mark S is the blond one, John T in the glasses)

[Roja]

And here’s a recent photo of Clifton House, which in my head will always be Silverthorn’s Mansion

The swimming pool that used to be right in front of the house has been filled in and replaced by a sports pitch, however in other recent pictures of the grounds I saw that a new, larger swimming pool was built further away from the building.

I imagined that Eddie taught Silverthorn how to swim in the pool at the mansion while he was in 1990, since there weren’t any swimming pools in 2500 and the sea was too disgustingly polluted to swim in, and that was how Silverthorn was able to swim to rescue the drowning boy in the year 3000.

[Roja]

This photo from 2014 (before the trees, bushes and stone lions were added to the sports pitch area) shows the new swimming pool:


The house itself doesn’t look to have changed at all

[Roja]

One more bit of TGFT trivia I thought I’d share before I go to bed:

I recently discovered that the actors John Howard (Silverthorn) and Marshall Napier (Draco) share the same birthday, October 22. Marshall is exactly one year older than John, who was born in 1952.

It dawned on me recently that I am now older than both actors were when they played their characters in TGFT!! Just shows how time flies!!

[Bobby K]

That's wonderful you've been able to correspond with Mark Shirrefs. It must be very satisfying for him to hear that the likes of ourselves to be touched by these shows and to find the nuances of the characters and story so compelling.

Thanks for sharing the pics. I do like how some parts of Sydney from TGFT are still around - i was chuffed to see the Kelly corner store block is still there from earlier posts people shared. I will definitely have to swing by to check it out in person sometime - i'm only 15 minutes drive away

[Roja]

Lucky you!! It would be amazing to live so near the locations and check them out. I realise that strict lockdown restrictions are in place in Australia at the moment, but when you are able to travel again, maybe you could take some photos and post them here?

[Bobby K]

That would make for a fun way to explore Sydney - will do

[Roja]

This lady has done a rendition of The Girl From Tomorrow theme tune on her harp...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uzKIfYTCVtg