MovieChat Forums > The Tomorrow People (1973) Discussion > Did fans of Babylon 5 pick up on this?

Did fans of Babylon 5 pick up on this?

posted 15 years ago by ncrawford82
4 replies | jump to latest

Thanks to the oh so wonderful power that is Netflix I was able to watch the first series of The Tomorrow People and it got me to thinking.

I wonder how much of J. Michael Strasinsky's Telepaths were based on the original Tomorrow People.

In Babylon 5 Telepaths are basically evolved members of different alien races, even though we learn that it was another alien race who sped up the process. Each race has their own telepaths, with the exception of a few rare species that never "broke out".

Then you have the episode Blue and Green, which I swear must have been the basis for the Drazi's annual ritual where they select a purple or green scarf and then begin beating the heck out of each other and sometimes killing one another.

I just think Babylon 5 is a briliant series. And The Tomorrow People was an equally brilliant series if it inspired creators like J. Michael Strasinksy.

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[–] Muldwych 15 years ago

JMS has often stated that little to none of B5 was inspired by earlier SF television, but rather from various forms of literature, from Lord Of The Rings, The Epic Of Gilgamesh, the Bible etc in terms of epic-storytelling and themes. In the case of telepaths, he often cites Alfred Bester's novel 'The Demolished Man' as the key work on the subject which precedes The Tomorrow People by 20 years - http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-15215&query=

He does however make mention of stuff like Blakes 7 and Doctor Who for example as shows that had ongoing story arcs, which had never been done on US television before B5. So he could well have seen TTP and the rise of the telepaths is certainly a common theme, but likely coincidental based on his comments over the years.

[–] jedi_boyuk 10 years ago

Look to history for the birth of both tales. Rome.

Roman Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora were "Blues" and there was a massive uprising in Byzantium, Rome on which both SF storylines of Blue & Green fighting are based.

Blues were generally posh gits and greens were working class.

The Blues and Greens had absorbed the White and Red factions respectively which were the original four chariot racing "teams" of the time. It was a bloody sport but very obsessively followed.

At one race, due to extreme taxation, the 2 sides stopped fighting and went after the Emperor and his chief taxman, this was known as the Naka uprising and was around 57AD IIRC. They wanted to replace Justinian with a kid who was his Nephew.

They almost won but he locked the mob in the Hippodrome (which held 150,000 for chariot events) and sent his army and lots of mercenaries in to slaughter all 300,000 of them!

Then he put the taxes up again, reinstated his man, and carried on being nasty to the poor along with his nasty, tory, "scarlet woman" empress who had a VERY chequered past and was an altogether nasty piece of work but very beautiful, Justinian was a privileged oik who didn't have many of his own ideas, was weak, but had a coupla good Generals. A bad lot.

"I don't recall dying - must have happened when I was too drunk to give a flying FU.....

[–] peterpicture 8 years ago

Two years on, but still thanks; I hadn't known of these two. Here's Wikipedia on the subject;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodora_%286th_century%29#The_Nika_riots

[–] jedi_boyuk 8 years ago

No worries. Just re-read it and didn't even realise it was my piece.
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Sometimes... ya gotta laugh at yourself.

I don't recall dying - must have happened when I was too drunk to give a flying FU.....