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Children of the Stones

88 statements
16 feature instances
6 referencing feature instances

Children of the Stones	type	TVTItem
Children of the Stones	label	Children of the Stones
Children of the Stones	page	ChildrenOfTheStones
Children of the Stones	comment	Children of the Stones was a British children's drama series filmed in 1976 by HTV. It was set in the village of Milbury (filmed at Avebury), which is surrounded by a Stone Circle. It was very dark and sinister for a children's programme, particularly by today's standards. The tone of the series was set by the choral singing used for the opening music.The story centres on Professor Blake... sorry, Brake and his son, Matthew Brake. They arrive in Milbury, where most of the villagers seem to be acting strangely. They call themselves the Happy Ones, greet each other with the phrase "Happy Day!", have an inordinate love of Morris Dancing and in school the children all solve incredibly complex mathematical problems. Apart from the Brakes, only three other families seem to be unaffected. Then, one by one, they also join the ranks of the Happy Ones.The only other people who are unaffected are Dai, a half-crazed poacher, and Rafael Hendrick, the local squire. Towards the end of the series, Dai is killed and his body mysteriously disappears. All that remains are a few fragments of an amulet that match up with some pieces that had been found on that that spot years before under a fallen stone along with the bones of an inhabitant of the village known as the Barber-Surgeon.Eventually it becomes obvious that Hendrick has been using the power of the stone circle to brainwash the villagers. Matthew and his father trick Hendrick into using the power of the circle on himself. They manage to escape, but the force of the circle turns the rest of the villagers to stone. When they wake up the next day, they find that the villagers are back, but are subtly altered. Dai is now a tinker instead of a poacher and Margaret Smythe, the curator of the village museum, and her daughter Sandra are now American instead of British.It is implied that the events in the village repeat in a time loop with similar characters performing the same actions over and over. The link between Dai and the Barber-Surgeon is described above. Also, Matthew has a picture which depicts the end of the sequence (a man and boy escaping the circle while others are turned to stone). The final scene in the drama is the arrival of Joshua Litton at the manor house. He bears a remarkable resemblance to the missing Hendrick...In 2014, Jeremy Burnham wrote Return To The Stones, a sequel novel set in the present day. Matthew takes his son Tom back to visit Milbury. These days, his father Adam is living in the manor house...
Children of the Stones	fetched	2023-08-06T22:14:45Z
Children of the Stones	parsed	2023-08-06T22:14:45Z
Children of the Stones	isPartOf	DBTropes
Children of the Stones / int_37690091	type	Stable Time Loop
Children of the Stones / int_37690091	comment	Stable Time Loop: The village seems to be caught in something between this and a "Groundhog Day" Loop - in every iteration, the priest (Hendrick, this time), gradually turns all the villagers into "happy ones", then the man and the boy (Adam and Matthew Brake this time) somehow escape after discovering what was going on due to the death of the man in the Sanctuary (Dai this time, or the Barber-Surgeon in an earlier iteration), the villagers turn to stone (and the painting might imply the Brakes always fail to save the Smythes), and after preventing the completion of the ritual, they escape. And it all starts over.
Children of the Stones / int_37690091	featureApplicability	1.0
Children of the Stones / int_37690091	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_37690091
Children of the Stones / int_50ca4422	type	Unresolved Sexual Tension
Children of the Stones / int_50ca4422	comment	Unresolved Sexual Tension: Between Adam and Margaret, who bond first over being widowed, and then as the conspiracy starts aiming for them.
Children of the Stones / int_50ca4422	featureApplicability	1.0
Children of the Stones / int_50ca4422	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_50ca4422
Children of the Stones / int_537dd8fe	type	Affably Evil
Children of the Stones / int_537dd8fe	comment	Affably Evil: Rafael Hendrick (played by Iain Cuthbertson) is always polite and friendly as he progresses his plans.
Children of the Stones / int_537dd8fe	featureApplicability	1.0
Children of the Stones / int_537dd8fe	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_537dd8fe
Children of the Stones / int_55afe8af	type	Ley Line
Children of the Stones / int_55afe8af	comment	Ley Line: The Stone Circle harnesses the power of ley lines.
Children of the Stones / int_55afe8af	featureApplicability	1.0
Children of the Stones / int_55afe8af	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_55afe8af
Children of the Stones / int_673999b1	type	Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard
Children of the Stones / int_673999b1	comment	Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: Hendrick needs exact timing to harness the power of the Stone Circle. To that end, his house is filled with clocks all driven from a single atomic clock. Before he brainwashes them, he leaves Matthew and his father locked in a bedroom with the Professor's equipment, This includes an oscilloscope that they use to speed up all the clocks.
Children of the Stones / int_673999b1	featureApplicability	1.0
Children of the Stones / int_673999b1	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_673999b1
Children of the Stones / int_6c0e5342	type	No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine
Children of the Stones / int_6c0e5342	comment	No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Before brainwashing them, Hendrick invites his victims to dinner. This includes Matthew and his father, who already know what he is doing and have tried to escape.
Children of the Stones / int_6c0e5342	featureApplicability	1.0
Children of the Stones / int_6c0e5342	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_6c0e5342
Children of the Stones / int_8bb316cf	type	Video Inside, Film Outside
Children of the Stones / int_8bb316cf	comment	Video Inside, Film Outside: Except for a few interior location shots, and some studio interiors masquerading as exteriors.
Children of the Stones / int_8bb316cf	featureApplicability	1.0
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Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_8bb316cf
Children of the Stones / int_8cb844c6	type	Mr. Exposition
Children of the Stones / int_8cb844c6	comment	Mr. Exposition: A number of scenes involve Prof Brake and Margaret (the curator) in the village museum discussing astronomy, archaeology, geology or ley-lines. Lampshaded by Gareth Thomas in a DVD interview accompanying the series.
Children of the Stones / int_8cb844c6	featureApplicability	1.0
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Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_8cb844c6
Children of the Stones / int_ad1db87c	type	Oh, Crap!
Children of the Stones / int_ad1db87c	comment	Oh, Crap!: Margaret makes the connection that Hendrick's house is like a temple, and his dinner table is being treated like an altar, just as she and her daughter are eating there with Hendrick.
Children of the Stones / int_ad1db87c	featureApplicability	1.0
Children of the Stones / int_ad1db87c	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_ad1db87c
Children of the Stones / int_beb1cc89	type	Computer Equals Tapedrive
Children of the Stones / int_beb1cc89	comment	Computer Equals Tapedrive: Hendrick uses computers to track the black hole with which the stone circle must be aligned when he uses it. The computers are kept in the cellar of a disused church and are shown as typical 1970's tape drive. Matthew first suspects that there's a computer in the church when he sees Hendrick carrying some of the large tape reels out of it.
Children of the Stones / int_beb1cc89	featureApplicability	1.0
Children of the Stones / int_beb1cc89	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_beb1cc89
Children of the Stones / int_c6d11745	type	Telepathy
Children of the Stones / int_c6d11745	comment	Telepathy: Matthew finds that he has a telepathic ability to see what they are experiencing if he is holding one of their possessions. He uses this to experience the brain-washing of Margaret and her daughter Sandra.
Children of the Stones / int_c6d11745	featureApplicability	1.0
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Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_c6d11745
Children of the Stones / int_c9e5a0db	type	Legacy Character
Children of the Stones / int_c9e5a0db	comment	Legacy Character: A creepy in-universe example. The Brakes, Hendrick and Dai all seem to be fulfilling the same roles as their predecessors in the circle's recurring events. And at the end, we see "Sir Joshua Litton" arrive in Milbury... who's identical to Hendrick.
Children of the Stones / int_c9e5a0db	featureApplicability	1.0
Children of the Stones / int_c9e5a0db	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_c9e5a0db
Children of the Stones / int_d08049db	type	Taken for Granite
Children of the Stones / int_d08049db	comment	Taken for Granite: in the final episode, the villagers get turned to stone by the power of the circle.
Children of the Stones / int_d08049db	featureApplicability	1.0
Children of the Stones / int_d08049db	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_d08049db
Children of the Stones / int_dbeee130	type	Pillar of Light
Children of the Stones / int_dbeee130	comment	Pillar of Light: Appears at specified times each night when the roof of Hendrick's attic dining room is opened. It supposedly consists of psychic energy from a network of ley-lines, which brainwashes Hendrick's dinner guests by extracting their sins and beaming them into space. It's implied that the process originally worked in reverse, beaming positive energies into the village from a distant supernova. But then the supernova collapsed into a black hole...
Children of the Stones / int_dbeee130	featureApplicability	1.0
Children of the Stones / int_dbeee130	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_dbeee130
Children of the Stones / int_dfcb2c08	type	The Evils of Free Will
Children of the Stones / int_dfcb2c08	comment	The Evils of Free Will: Hendrick wants to make the villagers perfect by removing their ability to make mistakes.
Children of the Stones / int_dfcb2c08	featureApplicability	1.0
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Children of the Stones / int_name	type	ItemName
Children of the Stones / int_name	comment
Children of the Stones / int_name	featureApplicability	1.0
Children of the Stones / int_name	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Children of the Stones / int_name
Children of the Stones / int_name	itemName	Children of the Stones

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Circle of Standing Stones / int_3a8e862
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Folk Horror / int_3a8e862
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Ley Line / int_3a8e862
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine / int_3a8e862
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	The X of Y / int_3a8e862
Children of the Stones	hasFeature	Video Inside, Film Outside / int_3a8e862

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