What was it about?
Based on the trilogy of novels by John Christopher, The Tripods was set in a dystopian yet quaintly rural future, where the human race is enslaved by giant, three-legged robots from outer space.
Three teenagers – Will Parker and his cousin Henry from England and ‘Beanpole’ (Jean-Paul, geddit?) from France – rebel against their mechanical alien overlords and head south through Europe to join up with an insurgent band of free men living in the Alps.
Over two series transmitted in 1984 and 1985, our heroes battled unwieldy props, horrendously padded scripts and dodgy ratings before eventually being defeated – not by the Tripods, but by sci-fi-phobic controller of BBC One, Michael Grade, who axed the show with only two of the three books filmed.
Who was in it?
The Tripods was something of a necropolis for acting careers. None of the three youthful principals, John Shackley, Jim Baker and Ceri Steel, appeared in anything to speak of again, and – unusually for a BBC series of the period – there were few if any cameos by established names.
Best moment?
The special effects were genuinely impressive for the time, towering head, foot and metal tentacles above the sort of thing TV viewers of the time were used to from Doctor Who.
Despite some creaky moments, a lot of the visuals, particularly of Tripods bestriding the landscape menacingly, still stand up today. The scenes from early in Series 2, where Will and his friends are attacked in a forest by the giant alien machines, are superb.
Last seen?
Having escaped from the Tripods’ city of gold and lead, Will returns with Beanpole to their base in the Alps, only to find it deserted and destroyed. It was a cliffhanger ending, designed to lead into a third and final series, but the axe had already fallen – with enough time for a line of dialogue to be inserted that had a gloomy double-meaning for the actors and production team.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Will laments at the end of the last episode, transmitted in November 1985. ‘Has it all been for nothing?’
The future?
Although the show has generally been regarded as an expensive mistake (not least by the BBC themselves, who have never repeated it and only released the complete series on DVD in 2009) the novels upon which it was based remain vibrant and gripping reading 45 years after their original publication.
The film rights have been owned by Disney for some time and – according to rumour – 2012 will see a movie going into production. However, what we’d like to see is a new television adaptation, sticking more closely to John Christopher’s original stories and filming all three of them.
What are your memories of The Tripods? Let us know below…