The Tomorrow People 3: 1: Secret Weapon
01/06/2003 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 

video: Revelation PAR 50133. 4 episodes. 100 minutes. Price: £10.99 (UK) but look around for the best deal.

starred: Nicholas Young, Peter Vaughn Clarke, Elizabeth Adare, Dean Laurence, Philip Gilbert, Trevor Bannister, Bryan Stanion, Ann Curthoys and Christopher Chittel

check out website(s): www.revfilms.com

A new season and the breaking out of a new Tomorrow Person in the form of gypsy boy Tyso, only we don't really see much of him other than episodes one and four.

Professor Cawston is on the look out for other people similar to Stephen whom he met the previous year and finds a similar theta brainwave in Tyso who is also demonstrating minor telekinetic abilities.

A demonstration to the military for funding ends up with Tyso being bought off his gypsy father and sedated as Colonel Masters and his assistant Tricia Conway aim to use them for espionage work.

The Tomorrow People seek to rescue Tyso before he completely breaks out only to have each of their number slowly captured.

In many respects, writer Roger Price has learnt well from the previous seasons of this series and this story is even a little more adult than standard teen-age fare. All the characters get some time in the sun and even the villain of the piece, Masters' - ably played by Trevor Bannister - point of view can be recognised even if he's entirely wrong in how he goes about achieving it.

In the game of dirty tricks, kidnapping, abduction and getting them to obey is what he sees as a potentially useful commodity to serve his country seems perfectly normal. The success of this story has Masters and Conway re-appear later in the season and this story works beautifully enough that you want to see them again.

When I was watching this, I have to confess to suddenly smiling at how much this story must have influenced my own thinking when I was writing my 'Psi-Kicks' stories many years later although I went entirely from the POV that my own characters would have the upper hand and not the other way around.

For material that was first broadcasted in 1975, this holds up reasonably well and if you're only just discovering this because you weren't born when it first came out or want to re-live old memories in your dotage, then this video is really is worth buying and watching. .

GF Willmetts