Overlooked Cult UK TV - Sky

It’s become abundantly clear to me that the 60s and 70s in particular were a time when TV was allowed to go to some pretty out there places. It was also a time when the writer, once they’d proven themselves somewhere else, could be given free rein to do whatever they wanted (provided of course that they filled the requisite number of weeks and stayed within budget). This brings us nicely back to another offering from Bob Baker and Dave Martin, creators of Doctor Who’s K9 and writers of previously written about serial King Of The Castle.

So What Is It? Sky, a seven episode single serial; aired in April/May 1975

What’s It About? Three rural children are surprised to discover a creepy David Bowie-esque time-travelling alien boy called Sky. In trying to get back to his regular time, Sky is confronted by a manifestation of the Earth’s immune system, Goodchild, determined to fight off this outside “infection”. Odd as that may sound, that really doesn’t do justice to just how strange this story is, especially for a children’s show.

Why’s It Good? Because it is quite frankly bonkers. It’s a weird mix of sci-fi and fantasy (often labelled science fantasy - a term often thrown at Doctor Who given the magical hand-wavey nature of a lot of the “science” on the show) and again, like some of the other shows, throws up some creepy images for the time. Sky’s emergence from and disappearance into the leaves; the hippy family being attacked by nature in their van; the weird man-crow person at the end. It also has a fairly prescient message about the dangers manages poses to the ecology. That said, it’s not necessarily one hundred percent successful in places - the effects are limited by the budget and technology of the time in places (the old Doctor Who problem of ambition outstripping capability)  and it feels a little like a five episode story with a two episode story bolted in the end (another 70s Doctor Who trait). That said, it’s still an engaging watch and definitely up there with the stranger children's TV offerings of the time.

70s Tropes:- Dead/Missing Mothers (yup, Roy’s mother is conspicuously absent - another victim of 70s TV Mother Disease); Creepy Theme Music (check - another one in the weirdo theme tunes box)