This was really good fun! It's a really good children's adventure series! It started off very like "Survivors" but with kids. Like in Survivors the protagonists have to learn to survive after everything changes, in this case all the adults, and teenagers over the age of 15, in the world disappear. As a result there is no internet, no phone networks, no police or any sort of governing body and no one to make them dinner.
So kids in their early teens have to take on the role of parent to children they hardly know and the children all need to take on adult responsibilities in order to protect the world.
Unlike Survivors the catastrophe is something that most of the children imagine is reversible. There is a mystery to be solved and once it's solved hopefully everything will go back to how it was before. Before then however they have to cope alone.
After the first few episodes the group of children we have been following splits up, one group staying behind in the hotel they have found to live in, one group going off in a camper-van on a quest to bring the adults back.
So we have two story lines each episode. One is about the hotel kids setting up home and a life, the other is about the questers meeting other groups of kids and seeing how children in different areas are adapting.
As such it becomes more like "Madigan's Quest" or "Star Trek" with imaginative one episode story lines about other groups of people. Although it continues very much focusing on how the children are surviving in this new world and tries it's best to stay realistic.
There are some mystical elements with one of the younger children developing psychic powers.
I really did think it was very, very good; very good fun, exciting and intelligent. The one episode story lines were very inventive and all sorts of consequences of the adults disappearing are explored which many viewers, particularly the intended child audience, will probably not think of right away; nuclear power plants going out of control, hospital patients etc.
The characters are all developed rather well considering there are 10-11 main characters and the episodes are only half an hour.
Although it is definitely a children's show, it can definitely be enjoyed by older people. I started watching it with my little brother but I got quite hooked on it myself (I'm 22) and made the effort to watch it even when my brother wasn't around. I think it's a good show particularly to watch as a family as it's a show children will really enjoy, adults will find fun too and a lot of the ideas and scenarios are fun to discuss later and will get children thinking about things.
It's a very positive show. Children everywhere see the need to work in groups and so tribes are formed all over the country. There are some children who react badly to the crisis and misuse their newfound freedom but the majority of the children we see are very concerned with helping each other and particularly looking after younger children or children less able than them. The different tribes are willing to come to each other's aid and most children we see have been very resourceful in adapting to a changed world.
It's about time we had some really good and intelligent kid's dramas again. With "Sarah Jane" still running and "Just William" airing over the holidays and now "The Sparticle Mystery" things are definitely looking up for children's TV!
