The Girl from Tomorrow (TV series)

[Roja]

Welcome to the forum, Cordell!

I had no idea that the show was so popular in Hungary! It’s a pity that the dubbing voice actors changed between the 2 series though- did it spoil your enjoyment of the show when you were young?

Thanks for sharing the clippings and for translating, too! Although I see that whoever wrote one of them misidentified Tulista

Fanat, I had found and read that other interview with Mark Shirrefs years ago, but didn’t think to mention it here.

I’m going to post a comment to the Making The Girl From Tomorrow YouTube video to let other fans know about this forum and hopefully we can get some more new people joining this thread!

[Roja]

Andrew, I finally got around to answering another one of your questions…

Jenny quickly losing the hair dye in episode 1 of Tomorrow's End! A production decision? I always assumed it was because Melissa Marshall had asked not to bother with the purple rinse!

I thought that was the likely reason too, but another possibility occurred to me. Maybe the dramatic change to Jenny’s hair was intended to be a visual reflection of her character’s development in the second series?

In the first series, Jenny’s temper was much shorter, and she was channeling her unhappiness about her life situation (her life dramatically changing due to her parents divorce, moving interstate, and being treated like a misfit by the girls at her new school) into being rebellious and bossy, and she would regularly vent her frustration at Petey and her mother. And instead of attempting to fit in with the crowd at school, Jenny took revenge on Maria, and defiantly and proudly presented herself with her punk look of purple, backcombed hair.

But after making friends with Alana and and after quickly accepting James as Irene’s boyfriend (initially she was unhappy about their relationship, but after James’ science knowledge came in useful when the Kelly’s rescued Alana from Silverthorn’s house, she was warmer towards him) Jenny’s persona softened a bit. Then, after returning to 1990 at the beginning of the second series, Jenny didn’t re-dye her hair, and neither did she bother doing the big backcombed styles any more.

Her softer hairstyle also may have reflected her character’s more obvious vulnerability in the second series when she was in 2500. Suddenly the roles were reversed- in the first series, Alana was the fish out of temporal water, and it was Jenny who took charge helping her, but in 2500, Jenny was the scared stranger who had no idea how things worked in that time. Alana meanwhile, by this time, had become more assertive. And something I also noticed in Tomorrow’s End was how protective Jenny was of her little brother. I am sure she always had cared about him, but her concerns were less obvious in the first series when she was frustrated and shouting at him, and calling him stupid, a mutant, etc.

I guess it’s a question to ask Melissa Marshall if any of us manage to get in contact with her!

[Roja]

Japanese VHS release cover (sadly I couldn’t find any higher resolution pictures of it)

[Roja]

If you and Roja want to add the Hungarian edition to your collection, drop me a line!

I'm a very happy owner of all the six books (2 TGFT + 4 Spellbinder).

I can’t read Hungarian… but does it have a picture of Silverthorn on the back cover? If so, I might be tempted…

[andrewd1984]

Andrew, I finally got around to answering another one of your questions…

Jenny quickly losing the hair dye in episode 1 of Tomorrow's End! A production decision? I always assumed it was because Melissa Marshall had asked not to bother with the purple rinse!

I thought that was the likely reason too, but another possibility occurred to me. Maybe the dramatic change to Jenny’s hair was intended to be a visual reflection of her character’s development in the second series?

In the first series, Jenny’s temper was much shorter, and she was channeling her unhappiness about her life situation (her life dramatically changing due to her parents divorce, moving interstate, and being treated like a misfit by the girls at her new school) into being rebellious and bossy, and she would regularly vent her frustration at Petey and her mother. And instead of attempting to fit in with the crowd at school, Jenny took revenge on Maria, and defiantly and proudly presented herself with her punk look of purple, backcombed hair.

But after making friends with Alana and and after quickly accepting James as Irene’s boyfriend (initially she was unhappy about their relationship, but after James’ science knowledge came in useful when the Kelly’s rescued Alana from Silverthorn’s house, she was warmer towards him) Jenny’s persona softened a bit. Then, after returning to 1990 at the beginning of the second series, Jenny didn’t re-dye her hair, and neither did she bother doing the big backcombed styles any more.

Her softer hairstyle also may have reflected her character’s more obvious vulnerability in the second series when she was in 2500. Suddenly the roles were reversed- in the first series, Alana was the fish out of temporal water, and it was Jenny who took charge helping her, but in 2500, Jenny was the scared stranger who had no idea how things worked in that time. Alana meanwhile, by this time, had become more assertive. And something I also noticed in Tomorrow’s End was how protective Jenny was of her little brother. I am sure she always had cared about him, but her concerns were less obvious in the first series when she was frustrated and shouting at him, and calling him stupid, a mutant, etc.

I guess it’s a question to ask Melissa Marshall if any of us manage to get in contact with her!

Thank you so much for this and your other responses!!
Looking forward to your other ones when you get the chance!
Thanks
Andrew

[Roja]

Hi again everyone, a huge apology from me for disappearing for over a month!!

Unfortunately I have been going through something very difficult these past few weeks. Normally, watching and discussing TGFT is a comfort and an escape for me, but in these particular circumstances it wasn’t. Anyway, thankfully I’m now feeling a lot better than I was at the beginning of May, but my situation isn’t over yet, so there’s a chance I might disappear again later. I hope not though, because I wanted to help get this thread more active! And I do still want to eventually get around to answering all of Andrew’s other questions!!

Anyway, I do have some good news… Mark Shirrefs sent me some more of John Halfhide’s still photos from Tomorrow’s End!!

A beautiful shot of the Time Capsule in the wasteland version of the year 3000:


An exhausted Lorien and Alana about to leave 2500 in the Capsule:


Silverthorn looking absolutely terrifying… imagine seeing him at the other end of a dark alley, walking towards you!!


A behind the scenes photo from the shoot of the 5 million BC scene. In the background, a piece of blue fabric can be seen behind where Alana, Jenny and Petey are standing. This was used to create a ‘Green screen’ effect so that the special effects team could add the Time Gate into the scene afterwards.

[Roja]

Also, I wanted to share my theory on how Jenny became so skilled at using the Transducer in such a short time (something I recently discussed in an email with Mark). I don’t know if this was something that has always been obvious to other fans of the show, and if it was just me who took decades to finally work it out!!

I always used to find it difficult to understand how Jenny Kelly learned to be so adept at using a Transducer after just a few sessions, when it took Alana most of her life to master those skills.

But then I thought about the concept of the Transducer as a brain amplifier, and suddenly it clicked and made sense to me! The reason why Jenny was able to do the mind link to push PJ into space was because of the strength and force of her WILL.

Jenny’s first attempts at using the Transducer (in both the show and the book version) were hopeless because in those instances, her stubborn, impatient nature and strong will worked against her. Jenny needed to be focused and patient to make the Transducer work, and she really struggled with it. She only succeeded in levitating the fruit when she finally stopped trying to force the Transducer to work, and pictured the fruit in her mind with her eyes closed.

And then, after Jenny had grasped this concept, using the Transducer was much easier for her because she focused her energy and emotions into vividly visualising what she wanted the Transducer to do.

So when Jenny was levitating PJ into space to catch the spaceship, I could imagine her wishing for the drone to catch up with the ship with every fibre of her being, and picturing that image in every detail. (And as we already knew, Jenny had a very vivid creative imagination when it came to quickly coming up with lies to get out of trouble, so I’m sure that helped!! ) And that was why she managed to do something extremely advanced (for people raised in Alana’s time) so efficiently.

We often hear stories in the news of desperate people being capable of extraordinary acts in emergency situations, such as a mother with no athletic training lifting a car off her trapped child, and I think it was similar to that with Jenny. I think when humans are tested, and have no other choices, they learn the full power of the mind over the body, and it is amazing what we can ultimately be capable of, especially when our survival instincts (or wanting to save others) come into play.

Alana had never dreamed of attempting anything really advanced in her early stages of Transducer training because she always had it drummed into her how dangerous and destructive strong emotions could be (which was understandable, considering her world was being rebuilt after an apocalypse and no-one wanted to risk a repeat of that). So she was extremely cautious and inhibited in her use of the Transducer.

Alana was also specialising in training to perform surgery, so for that, being extremely careful, gentle, and highly experienced was critically important. (I would NEVER trust Jenny Kelly to perform brain surgery with a Transducer!! )

But as Lorien pointed out (in a scene in the book version), in certain situations, Jenny’s strong emotions gave her strength, and the people in the year 3000 could learn an important lesson from that. Because despite how their society had evolved to a utopian state, in the process, their generations had lost some of the positive qualities that the people in previous centuries had possessed.

[Roja]

I just wanted to mention that I re-watched part of the 5 million BC scene from Kings Of The Dinosaurs last night, to compare the finished sequence with special effects to the behind the scenes photo from the scene I posted yesterday.

I have to admit that despite re-watching TGFT and Tomorrow’s End episodes many times over, the final episode, Kings Of The Dinosaurs, is the one episode I rarely re-watch. NOT that it was a bad episode at all- the writing and acting were great!! But because, for a few reasons, I find it sad viewing, so I have to be in the right mood to watch it.

Reasons why I find Kings Of The Dinosaurs a sad episode:

-Despite Jenny and Alana managing to save the Southern Hemisphere, the Northern Hemisphere (and PJ!!) were annihilated.

-The goodbye scenes were very sad, knowing that Jenny and Alana would never, ever see each other again for the rest of their lives.

-Each time I’ve re-watched it, I’ve remembered the sad feeling I had as a 13 year old when I realised the series was over and there would be no more episodes. Of course, I understood that the show couldn’t continue forever! But it had brought me so much joy as a kid, during a time in my life when I was otherwise very unhappy, so for me, the end of the series was a very sad day!

-I am sure some people will make fun of me for this last reason, but I’ve now reached an age where I no longer care, so I will say it: Silverthorn was my first crush, so as a 13 year old girl, I was absolutely distraught at what happened to him, and I cried for the rest of that day.

Obviously I can now laugh about my intense teenage emotions, and I don’t get that upset re-watching the episode now. I think as a kid the ending shocked me, because it was my first time seeing the show and I’d had no idea what was coming, but I have had many years since then to come to terms with Silverthorn’s fate. Although I have to admit, I still find it cringe inducing to watch Silverthorn desperately, pathetically begging (“I’ve always been on your side, really!!”) and to see him utterly humiliated and looking so undignified with his topknot messed up, and the look in his eyes when he sees the TimeGate disappear and he screams “NOOOOOO!!”
🥺🥺🥺

Anyway… …

I wasn’t in the mood to watch that part again last night, so I turned it off before it happened but I did notice that when Alana emerged through the TimeGate into 5 million BC, the force field parted like a curtain. So the blue fabric in the behind the scenes photo was in fact a pair of curtains!

[Fanat]

Roja, welcome back to the forum and thank you very much for keeping this thread so active and informative! I hope you will overcome your difficulties soon.

John Halfhide's photos are absolutely fantastic! I'm always very interested in everything related to the filmmaking process. If you could on occasion ask Mark or someone else where exactly they filmed the wasteland 3000 (which looks like a rocky desert) and the pond 5 million BC, it would be great! Even people from Sydney can't recognize these two locations because not really many details are visible.

[Roja]

Roja, welcome back to the forum and thank you very much for keeping this thread so active and informative! I hope you will overcome your difficulties soon.

John Halfhide's photos are absolutely fantastic! I'm always very interested in everything related to the filmmaking process. If you could on occasion ask Mark or someone else where exactly they filmed the wasteland 3000 (which looks like a rocky desert) and the pond 5 million BC, it would be great! Even people from Sydney can't recognize these two locations because not really many details are visible.

I actually already asked Mark about those exact two filming locations in the most recent email I sent him, as I thought “Fanat will want to know!!” And if he tells me then I will of course let you know. If Mark doesn’t remember (as a writer, he wasn’t on set very often) I could try asking Nick McCallum.