The Tomorrow People are a thing of the past no more. The executive producers behind two of the CW’s biggest hits, The Vampire Diaries and Arrow , are teaming up to bring a US version of the cult 1970s UK children’s telefantasy to the network.
According to Deadline , Julie Plec ( Vampire Diaries ) and Greg Berlanti ( Arrow ) have been friends since college days,when they had a shared love of the show, and they’ve been looking to attain the rights for The Tomorrow People more than a decade. The pilot will be written by Phil Klemmer ( Chuck ).
The original series was created by Roger Price and was ITV’s unashamed answer to Doctor Who , even down to using Who ’s regular composer to write the theme tune and having a budget determined by a whipround of the production team. It was great fun, though, and with its storylines about teenagers from around the world “breaking out” and developing superpowers such us teleportation, telepathy and telekinesis. The cast changed regularly over the eight series, although John (Nicholas Young) remained a polo-necked presence throughout.
ITV itself remade the series in the ’90s, but it met with only moderate success.
It’s a perfect fit for the CW. Lots of potential for impossibly good-looking teenagers having angst over being different and misunderstood, while the rest of us are thinking, “Teleporatation… COOL!”
The real shame is that the best bit about the original series is clearly not going to make it into the new version. The opening titles were awesome (see below), but these days all the CW wants is the name of the show in a fancy font on screen for couple of seconds. But, for old time’s sake, can we please have a computer called Tim made out of bits of dangling Hoover attachments?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xez4o1ujOPI&feature=player_embedded
