In 1905, you could avoid gossip and scandal by moving to the outskirts of
town. It is basically impossible today, but the best option Sarah Robinson can think
of to shield her family from venomous tongues is a trip to a backward wireless
dead-spot, like the Scottish Highlands. She needs to level with her kids, but the
motivation for their sudden relocation is a difficult subject to broach in Julian
Kemp’s The Primrose Railway Children, based on Jacqueline Wilson’s
contemporary re-conception (or whatever term you might prefer) of Edith Nesbit’s
classic children’s novel, The Railway Children, which premieres this
Sunday on BYUtv.
Precocious
young Phoebe Robinson always felt closer to her intermittently-employed
animator father Rob than her annoyingly responsible and disciplining mother Sarah.
As a result, she takes his sudden absence particularly hard. Initially, her
mother tells her and her siblings—kind of popular but still highly
self-conscious older sister Becks and bookish, slightly-on-the-spectrum brother
Perry—their father is in Japan for a pitch meeting, but that story will not
hold for long.
Indeed,
their sudden “holiday” to the Highlands still seems suspiciously ill-timed.
Even in this small town, Mo, the owner of their rental cottage, acts weirdly solicitous.
Of course, Becks rebels against the new smart phone prohibition, so she enlists
Phoebe help to find their dad’s number in their mother’s phone and scrounge up
some change to call on a pay phone. Meanwhile, Perry is fascinated by the local
“heritage railroad,” a retro rail tourist attraction that is more about serving
tea than transit from point A to point B. Nevertheless, the steam engine so
fascinates him, Barbara the engineer takes him under her wing—until Phoebe pulls
her siblings into serious trouble.
At
least in one respect, Wilson’s sprucing up Nesbit’s concept makes a fair amount
of sense. In the 1905 novel, the missing father had been unjustly convicted of
espionage. For the modern retelling, Rob Robinson only has himself to blame for
his absence, which leads to a very frank discussion regarding how adults need
to accept personal responsibility for their actions. Arguably, the messages for
younger people might be more on-point in Primrose than previous Railway
Children.
Kids vanish from camps all the time in TV series and movies (looking at you
Camp Crystal Lake). The weirdly similar sounding Camp Silverpoint is a little
different. Four kids reportedly disappeared in the nearby woods twenty-five
years ago, before Bea’s parents, Daniel and Steph, established their summer
camp. Every year, they sternly insist the campers never venture outside the perimeter
fence. Of course, that is where the group of camp misfits finds the “artefact”
that causes all the chaos in creator Lee Walters’ 13-episode Silverpoint,
which premieres on BYUtv today.
Kaz
is a rebellious foster kid, who tries to run away from Silverpoint. Not wanting
to get in trouble, the rest of her “Dragonfly Tribe” follow after her. Louis is
the sci-fi geek. Kaz is the pudgy South Asian kid and Meg is scared of
everything. When they catch up with Kaz, they stumble over the thing. First,
they pick up on the energy that seems to surround it. Then they discover it has
the power to transmit matter.
Despite
their issues and mistrust, they are all sufficiently intrigued to agree they
will revisit and study the artefact. They are all acting so weird, Bea starts
to suspect they are up to something. It is not easy being the daughter of the
camp counselors. Nevertheless, she has gotten close to several returning campers.
Unfortunately, she just discovered her friend Alice has been secretly hooking
up with Finn, her not so-secret crush. As a result, she might be in the mood
for a new circle of friends, like the clearly smitten Louis. However, the
Dragonflies are determined to keep the artefact a secret between themselves,
especially when they start experimenting with its matter transference. Unfortunately,
they are not the only ones keeping an eye on the thing.
If
a lot of sf fans had seen Silverpoint when they were twelve, it probably
would have been their favorite show. It is still possible to watch Silverpoint
a vicariously appreciate its youthful sense of camaraderie and mystery. Waters
and a battery of co-writers smoothly incorporate a whole lot of genre motifs,
including Men in Black, “big dumb objects,” time travel, “the Matrix,” and
matter transference in a brisk, engaging narrative.
Each
half-hour (if that) episode advances the story considerably and ends in a
cliffhanger, while still nicely developing nearly dozen characters. It is
definitely economical story-telling. A few of the visual effects are also
economical, in the wrong kind of way, but for older viewers, that gives it further
nostalgic appeal (remember, the BBC original conceived Doctor Who as a
children’s show).
