Children of Methuselah

Nothing for Garth to sink his teeth into here...they're all kids. He's definitely coming back later though.

Devon (Keir Dullea) thinks he has found the back-up bridge of the Ark and entreats Garth (Robin Ward) & Rachel (Gay Rowan) to help him break through its security as it has been designated a restricted area. But inside they find a bunch of evil brats with telepathic powers and numbers instead of names. They are each over 500 years old but their cells regenerate automatically keeping them eternally young.

Devon tries to tell them that the course of the Ark is headed for the heart of a sun unless they can stop it. He also tells them that there has been extensive damage to the main bridge. The captain of the brats crew insists his bridge is the main bridge, not the back-up bridge and nothing in their instrumentation indicates collision with a sun.

When Devon and Garth persist in trying to persuade the kids of the danger the captain gives them each of them a severe headache transmitted from his mind into theirs. It requires trickery to bring a resolution to the impasse and put things into proper perspective.

The telepathic transmission of pain via 'Hurt Think' was a good plot device as it could be staged easily within the confines of the meagre special effects budget. The actors would just pretend it was happening ("Ohhh...you're hurting me!" grimaces) and mime it which ended up being the most convincing special effects on a show evidently merely aiming to seem less bogus than Lost In Space (1965–1968).

If you are going to shoot a movie or teleplay you should make sure you have enough people beforehand. This happens to have been the first episode of this series where they had enough supporting actors and extras to properly stage the teleplay they had. Background performers and walk-ons are never given proper appreciation until one sees what productions look like without enough of them.

The Ark was said to house a considerable amount of people but we would see maybe twenty an episode. Pockets of between a dozen and twenty people do not adequately communicate the sea of humanity which is supposed to be residing within the domed communities of the Ark. It was evident that they scrimped on everything in this series including extras.

The costuming on this show had its highs and lows. The kids crew uniforms like the uniforms of other Ark crew members throughout the series were quite presentable. The colonial 1800s frontier costumes that Devon, Garth & Rachel wore were also quite presentable. But most of the other costumes were disasters that seemingly happen when a wardrobe mistress has her budget cut and has to improvise.

Out of the kids guest-starring in this episode Gina Dick and Michael Tough would continue to be active in Canada's TV/cinema scene into adulthood.