Call it a sign of the times, but in the 1970s, people assumed the world was headed for disaster. Quite what that disaster was going to be varied. It might be a virus that wiped out the world’s population (cf Survivors), intelligent computers taking over (cf Colossus: The Forbin Project), man-made inventions (cf Doomwatch), complete ecological breakdown caused by over-population (cf Soylent Green) or the ubiquitous nuclear war – actually, that was more of a 60s/80s thing.
One thing that was very rarely seen as being a problem likely to cause the apocalypse, however, was magic. That was until the 1975 10-part BBC children’s show The Changes, based on Peter Dickinson’s The Weathermonger series of books.
Imagine waking up one day and suddenly every piece of machinery or technology in the country is emitting a strange noise, a noise that makes anyone who hears it – including you – become violent and destroy the machine. Well, that’s what happens to teenage schoolgirl Nicky Gore and, in fact, the rest of the world (or at least England). It doesn’t take long, but soon all of society falls apart and regresses to the middle ages, and even the mention of technology is forbidden.
The only people who appear unaffected by the noise are those who work on the land, very young children and Sikhs. Why? Well, it’ll take you 10 episodes to find out, or I’ll tell you after the jump.
Here’s a wee snippet and you can watch the entire series after the jump as well. Interesting title sequence twist: there were entirely different theme tunes for the start and end credits, one modern and exciting, one medieval-esque, and a new one again for the end credits for the final episode. Fun, hey?